From stormy seas to the doldrums: The challenges of navigating towards an ecologically coherent marine protected area network through England's Marine Conservation Zone process

There is an on-going process to establish Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) in England, to form part of a coherent and representative network of marine protected areas under national and EU legislation. From 2009 to 2011, the MCZ process included strong participatory elements. Four regional multi-sector stakeholder groups developed MCZ recommendations collaboratively, in line with ecological guidance provided by the Government's nature conservation advisers. This guidance was based on Government policy principles, including that MCZs should be designated based on ‘best available evidence’. This paper analyses the multi-dimensional conflicts that emerged within the stakeholder group in south-west England, which were magnified by uncertainty about future MCZ management. In September 2011, after working through these conflicts through trade-offs and negotiations, the stakeholder groups jointly recommended 127 MCZs to Government. The process subsequently shifted to a top-down approach, with further stakeholder engagement limited to bilateral consultation. There was a concurrent shift in policy, from a broad-scale network-level focus towards single-feature conservation. A lengthy series of evidence reviews concluded that the existing evidence at the time was insufficient to progress with the designation of most sites, marking a clear departure from the policy principle of proceeding with the designation of a representative network based on ‘best available evidence’, and effectively undermining the work carried out by stakeholder groups. Though MCZ designation was originally timetabled for 2012, in November 2013 just 27 of the recommended 127 MCZs were designated in a first tranche. At the time, no clear timetable was in place for subsequent tranches.     

伊犁一次区域性暴雨分析

利用伊宁新一代天气雷达资料,结合高空和地面观测资料,分析了2010年7月19日伊犁地区一次局地暴雨天气过程。结果表明：此次强对流天气过程的主要影响系统为500 hPa中亚低槽、200hpa高空急流、低层风速辐合和地面雷暴高压。较强的层结不稳定和低层垂直风切变有利于对流的产生;云图和雷达资料分析表明,此次局地暴雨是由中尺度强对流云团产生,具有典型的对流单体形成、发展成回波短带合并形成带状回波,该带状回波最后演变成一个尺度较大的弓形回波。     

Multicollinearity and correlation among local regression coefficients in geographically weighted regression

Present methodological research on geographically weighted regression (GWR) focuses primarily on extensions of the basic GWR model, while ignoring well-established diagnostics tests commonly used in standard global regression analysis. This paper investigates multicollinearity issues surrounding the local GWR coefficients at a single location and the overall correlation between GWR coefficients associated with two different exogenous variables. Results indicate that the local regression coefficients are potentially collinear even if the underlying exogenous variables in the data generating process are uncorrelated. Based on these findings, applied GWR research should practice caution in substantively interpreting the spatial patterns of local GWR coefficients. An empirical disease-mapping example is used to motivate the GWR multicollinearity problem. Controlled experiments are performed to systematically explore coefficient dependency issues in GWR. These experiments specify global models that use eigenvectors from a spatial link matrix as exogenous variables.This study was supported by grant number 1 R1 CA95982-01, Geographic-Based Research in Cancer Control and Epidermiology, from the National Cancer Institute. The author thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful comments.     

公众参与的兴趣点数据有效性效验方法

针对公众参与的兴趣点数据在有效性的处理或评判中的不足,文章以最为常见的LBS签到数据为研究目标,以兴趣点与地图上普通点要素的区别为出发点,从公众的地理空间认知和兴趣点的空间特性两方面分析影响兴趣点数据有效性的因素,由此建立有效性度量模型,最后对实验区签到数据进行了有效性计算。实验结果表明,该模型可剔除原始数据中的大量无效数据,为以公众参与方式收集的兴趣点数据的有效性提供了切实可行的评判方法。     

Participation in higher education: A geodemographic perspective on the potential for further expansion in student numbers

Higher education in England has expanded rapidly in the last ten years with the result that currently more than 30% of young people go on to university. Expansion is likely to continue following the recommendations of a national committee of inquiry (the Dearing Committee). The participation rate is known to vary substantially among social groups and between geographical areas. In this paper the participation rate is calculated using a new measure, the Young Entrants Index (YEI), and the extent of variation by region, gender and residential neighbourhood type established. The Super Profiles geodemographic system is used to facilitate the latter. This is shown to be a powerful discriminator and to offer great potential as an alternative analytical approach to the conventional social class categories, based on parental occupation, that have formed the basis of most participation studies to date. Received: 20 October 1998/Accepted: 5 May 1999     

EXPERIMENTS ON FLOW AROUND A CYLINDER IN A SCOURED CHANNEL BED

The flow pattern around a cylinder, installed in a scoured channel bed, was experimentally investigated. Detailed measurements of the instantaneous 3D velocities were performed by using an Acoustic Doppler Velocity Profiler (ADVP), from which the profiles of the time-averaged velocities and turbulence stresses were obtained. It is shown that the influence of the cylinder and of the scour hole alters the approach flow; this is essentially confined to the vicinity of the cylinder and to the inside of the scour hole. The horseshoe vortex is measured as a flow reversal inside the scour hole, formed by the downward flow along the cylinder face and the reversed flow at the scour bed.     

An evaluation of the Wellington Regional Genuine Progress Index

There is widespread discontent with the gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of progress for society. Alternative measures have been proposed, including the genuine progress indicator (GPI). This paper examines the changing institutional arrangements and attitudinal context in the recently developed Wellington region (New Zealand) GPI. We found an alignment between the GPI framework and the Local Government Act. Despite this fit, we identified challenges, including the need to revitalise public participation through deliberative techniques. It remains too early to judge whether the GPI initiative will launch a viable alternative to the GDP for the Wellington region.     

The irregular galaxy Cassiopeia 1 – a new member of the Local group

A photometry in the V, R, I (Cousins) system has been performed for stars in the galaxy Cassiopeia 1. The resulting colour-agnitude (CM) diagram of Cas 1 reveals the existence of blue stars and the absence of red ones. From an analysis of the CM diagram of the galaxy it is concluded that A_v = 4.0 mag, and the distance modulus (m – M)_o = 24.5 mag, corresponding to a distance of 790 kpc. The visual magnitude of the galaxy is V = 14^m.62 (M_v = −13^m.8) and the colour index (V – R) = 0.89 mag. From the distance determination the galaxy Cassiopeia 1 is a member of the Local group.     

Comparison of Large-Scale Flows on the Sun Measured by Time-Distance Helioseismology and Local Correlation Tracking

We present a direct comparison between two different techniques: time-distance helioseismology and a local correlation tracking method for measuring mass flows in the solar photosphere and in a near-surface layer. We applied both methods to the same dataset (MDI high-cadence Dopplergrams covering almost the entire Carrington rotation 1974) and compared the results. We found that, after necessary corrections, the vector flow fields obtained by these techniques are very similar. The median difference between directions of corresponding vectors is 24°, and the correlation coefficients of the results for mean zonal and meridional flows are 0.98 and 0.88, respectively. The largest discrepancies are found in areas of small velocities where the inaccuracies of the computed vectors play a significant role. The good agreement of these two methods increases confidence in the reliability of large-scale synoptic maps obtained by them.