The Dominican Republic–Central American Free Trade Agreement’s Symbolic Nod to Environmental Protection: Legal Perspectives on the Citizen Submission Process

The Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) contains a chapter on the environment, ostensibly included to mitigate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) environmental oversights. The environment chapter created a citizen submission process designed to foster public participation in supporting each participating nation’s environmental laws. This article examines the outcomes to date of the citizen submission process, based on an analysis of the articles of the agreement and an examination of the rulings made on each case submitted under the citizen submission process. The analysis shows that CAFTA poses significant obstacles to citizen participation and has made minimal, if any, contributions to environmental law enforcement among the Parties to the agreement.     

上海城市功能的转型:从全球生产系统角度的透视

本文首先回顾了价值链与全球生产系统的研究进展，结合跨国公司最新发展趋势对全球生产系统特征进行了总结；其次以改革开放以来上海对外贸易结构的改变，描述了90年代以来上海在全球生产系统分工中的变化，认为出口产品结构的转型并没有真正改变上海在国际劳动分工中处于低端环节的地位；最后就上海建设世界城市的差距与优势进行了总结，提出全球化发展的外部力量和地方化响应的内部力量将是上海发展世界城市的两个重要驱动力。     

Spatial and temporal dynamics of nitrogen exchange in an upwelling reach of a groundwater-fed river and potential response to perturbations changing rainfall patterns under UK climate change scenarios

We report the complex spatial and temporal dynamics of hyporheic exchange flows (HEFs) and nitrogen exchange in an upwelling reach of a 200 m groundwater-fed river. We show how research combining hydrological measurement, geophysics and isotopes, together with nutrient speciation techniques provides insight on nitrogen pathways and transformations that could not have been captured otherwise, including a zone of vertical preferential discharge of nitrate from deeper groundwater, and a zone of rapid denitrification linking the floodplain with the riverbed. Nitrate attenuation in the reach is dominated by denitrification but is spatially highly variable. This variability is driven by groundwater flow pathways and landscape setting, which influences hyporheic flow, residence time and nitrate removal. We observed the spatial connectivity of the river to the riparian zone is important because zones of horizontal preferential discharge supply organic matter from the floodplain and create anoxic riverbed conditions with overlapping zones of nitrification potential and denitrification activity that peaked 10–20 cm below the riverbed. Our data also show that temporal variability in water pathways in the reach is driven by changes in stage of the order of tens of centimetres and by strength of water flux, which may influence the depth of delivery of dissolved organic carbon. The temporal variability is sensitive to changes to river flows under UK climate projections that anticipate a 14%–15% increase in regional median winter rainfall and a 14%–19% reduction in summer rainfall. Superimposed on seasonal projections is more intensive storm activity that will likely lead to a more dynamic and inherently complex (hydrologically and biogeochemically) hyporheic zone. We recorded direct evidence of suppression of upwelling groundwater (flow reversal) during rainfall events. Such flow reversal may fuel riverbed sediments whereby delivery of organic carbon to depth, and higher denitrification rates in HEFs might act in concert to make nitrate removal in the riverbed more efficient.     

国际地磁参考场在我国地磁基础研究中的应用

国际地磁参考场资料在我国得到广泛应用。利用国际地磁参考场资料，我国学者研究了高斯分析、地球磁场模型及其源场可能位置、重磁关系、核幔耦合、地磁场能量、地球非偶极子磁场西向漂移等。在绘制中国地磁等值图中也利用了某些国际地磁参考场资料。     

Robustness and the Paradox of Bridging Organizations: The Exit Problem in Regional Water Governance Networks in Central America

Bridging organizations facilitate a range of governance processes, including cooperation and social learning, and are theorized to be a key component of robust governance systems. In this article, we use node removal simulations to test structural hypotheses of robustness in a regional water governance network in Central America. We investigate the response of network measures supporting core governance processes to the targeted removal of bridging organizations and other actors, which we compare to random and centrality-based simulations. The results indicate removing bridging organizations has a greater impact on the network than any other type of actor, suggesting bridging organizations are critical to the robustness of the governance system. Furthermore, network structures supporting cooperation may be less robust than structures facilitating social learning. We conclude with policy implications of the research findings as they relate to the exit problem in governance systems with a large presence of international development actors.     

Feature based image processing methods applied to bathymetric measurements from airborne remote sensing in fluvial environments

Bathymetric maps produced from remotely sensed imagery are increasingly common. However, when this method is applied to fluvial environments, changing scenes and illumination variations severely hinder the application of well established empirical calibration methods used to obtain predictive depth–colour relationships. In this paper, illumination variations are corrected with feature based image processing, which is used to identify areas in an image with a near‐zero water depth. This information can then be included in the depth–colour calibration process, which results in an improved prediction quality. The end product is an automated bathymetric mapping method capable of a 4 m² spatial resolution with a precision of ±15 cm, which allows for a more widespread application of bathymetric mapping. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Place Matters: Comparative International Perspectives on Feminist Geography*

Feminist geography is now widely practiced internationally, but its development is usually reviewed from a temporal rather than a spatial perspective. This article assesses the varying extent and nature of feminist geography across countries, attempting to interpret differences in terms of cultural contexts and disciplinary trends. It is intended to stimulate reflection and does not claim to offer definitive interpretations.     

中国农业的比较优势和国际竞争力

加入WTO后，中国农业将面临严峻的挑战，为了应对入世的挑战，首先必须朋全球的视角考察我国农业的比较优势和国际竞争力，国际比较分析表明，我国农业并无明显的比较优势，国际竞争力也较弱，为此，必须及早采取措施，提高我国农业的国际竞争力，在分析论证的基础上，本文提出了调整行业结构，给予政策扶持、加大城镇化力度等对策建议。     

绝对重力仪国际比对现状

当前负责重力测量的国际组织CCM-WGG和SGCAG决定今后将举办绝对重力仪区域性国际比对,并开始着手在世界范围内选择区域性国际比对点.CCM-WGG和SGCAG制定了国际比对的技术规范,讨论了绝对重力仪比对申请为关键性国际比对的议案.本文将介绍相关的国际情况以及中国计量科学研究院在这方面所做的工作.本文还将介绍2005年第七次国际绝对重力仪比对的情况和初步结果.     

Monthly suspended sediment load prediction using artificial intelligence: testing of a new random subspace method

ABSTRACT

The predictive capability of a new artificial intelligence method, random subspace (RS), for the prediction of suspended sediment load in rivers was compared with commonly used methods: random forest (RF) and two support vector machine (SVM) models using a radial basis function kernel (SVM-RBF) and a normalized polynomial kernel (SVM-NPK). Using river discharge, rainfall and river stage data from the Haraz River, Iran, the results revealed: (a) the RS model provided a superior predictive accuracy (NSE = 0.83) to SVM-RBF (NSE = 0.80), SVM-NPK (NSE = 0.78) and RF (NSE = 0.68), corresponding to very good, good, satisfactory and unsatisfactory accuracies in load prediction; (b) the RBF kernel outperformed the NPK kernel; (c) the predictive capability was most sensitive to gamma and epsilon in SVM models, maximum depth of a tree and the number of features in RF models, classifier type, number of trees and subspace size in RS models; and (d) suspended sediment loads were most closely correlated with river discharge (PCC = 0.76). Overall, the results show that RS models have great potential in data poor watersheds, such as that studied here, to produce strong predictions of suspended load based on monthly records of river discharge, rainfall depth and river stage alone.