Environmental aspects of child growth and nutrition: A case study from Ibadan,Nigeria     

Christine E. Rossington Dr. 《GeoJournal》1981,5(4):347-356

Protein-energy malnutrition, especially among young children, is a major health problem in many developing areas. Its causes are complex and inadequately understood. The paper outlines a pilot survey designed to investigate the impact of economic, demographic and socio-cultural factors on growth and nutrition among a small group of children aged between one and five years from urban poor families living in Ibadan, Nigeria. Field surveys were undertaken between July 1971 and August 1972 using 51 children from the Oje area of the city who formed part of a larger longitudinal study of child growth and development. Records of child growth patterns were compiled from monthly anthropometric measurements and enquiries made into the socio-economic and demographic status of the sample families.Basic analysis identified periods of growth retardation and seasonal fluctuations in somatic attainments. Multiple correlation analyses attempted to define statistically some of the aspects of the environment which significantly influenced somatic achievements. Relatively low levels of explanation were obtained, emphasising data deficiencies and the complexity of the nutrition problem, but small groups of economic and demographic causative variables were isolated.The research for this paper was funded by the Social Science Research Council, when the author was a postgraduate student, Department of Geography, University of Liverpool.  相似文献   

Public perception of climate engineering and carbon capture and storage in Germany: survey evidence     

Carola Braun  Christine Merk  Gert Pönitzsch  Katrin Rehdanz  Ulrich Schmidt 《Climate Policy》2018,18(4):471-484

Climate engineering (CE) and carbon capture and storage are controversial options for addressing climate change. This study compares public perception in Germany of three specific measures: solar radiation management (SRM) via stratospheric sulphate injection, large-scale afforestation, and carbon capture and storage sub-seabed (CCS-S). In a survey experiment we find that afforestation is most readily accepted as a measure for addressing climate change, followed by CCS-S and lastly SRM, which is widely rejected. Providing additional information decreases acceptance for all measures, but their ranking remains unchanged. The acceptance of all three measures is especially influenced by the perceived seriousness of climate change and by trust in institutions. Also, respondents dislike the measures more if they perceive them as a way of shirking responsibility for emissions or as an unconscionable manipulation of nature. Women react more negatively to information than men, whereas the level of education or the degree of intuitive vs reflective decision making does not influence the reaction to information.

POLICY RELEVANCE

Current projections suggest that the use of climate engineering (CE) technologies or carbon capture and storage (CCS) is necessary if global warming is to be kept well below 2°C. Our article focuses on the perspective of the general public and thus supplements the dialogue between policymakers, interest groups, and scientists on how to address climate change. We show that in Germany public acceptance of potentially effective measures such as SRM or CCS-S is low and decreases even more when additional information is provided. This implies that lack of public acceptance may turn out to be a bottleneck for future implementation. Ongoing research and development in connection with CCS-S and SRM requires continuous communication with, and involvement of, the public in order to obtain feedback and assess the public’s reservations about the measures. The low level of acceptance also implies that emission reduction should remain a priority in climate policy.  相似文献   

Global Trends in Mineral Commodities for Advanced Technologies     

Steven M. Fortier  Christine L. Thomas  Erin A. McCullough  Amy C. Tolcin 《Natural Resources Research》2018,27(2):191-200

The U.S. Geological Survey National Minerals Information Center (NMIC) is the U.S. Government agency tasked with the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information on the production, consumption, import, export, and other measures of the flows of non-fuel mineral commodities of importance to the U.S. economy and national security. The NMIC and its agency predecessors have maintained a database of this information, collected and published annually, dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Time series analysis of annual information from the NMIC provides the opportunity to identify trends in the supply chains of the minerals and metals which are increasingly in demand for advanced technologies. The identification of trends in data for net import reliance, country concentration of production, global demand, price volatility, and other measures, when combined with world governance indicators, can be used to focus attention on individual mineral commodities where supply chain restrictions may develop. Specific examples for U.S. net import reliance, global tantalum primary mining, and mineral criticality screening are presented to illustrate the utility of time series analysis of trends in mineral commodity supply and demand, the types of data required, and the limitations of currently available information.  相似文献   

On Northern Hemisphere Wave Patterns Associated with Winter Rainfall Events in China     

Claudia Christine STEPHAN  Yan Ho NG  Nicholas P.KLINGAMAN 《大气科学进展》2018,35(8):1021-1034

During extended winter(November–April),43% of the intraseasonal rainfall variability in China is explained by three spatial patterns of temporally coherent rainfall.These patterns were identified with empirical orthogonal teleconnection(EOT) analysis of observed 1982–2007 pentad rainfall anomalies and connected to midlatitude disturbances.However,examination of individual strong EOT events shows that there is substantial inter-event variability in their dynamical evolution,which implies that precursor patterns found in regressions cannot serve as useful predictors.To understand the physical nature and origins of the extratropical precursors,the EOT technique is applied to six simulations of the Met Office Unified Model at horizontal resolutions of 200–40 km,with and without air–sea coupling.All simulations reproduce the observed precursor patterns in regressions,indicating robust underlying dynamical processes.Further investigation into the dynamics associated with observed patterns shows that Rossby wave dynamics can explain the large inter-event variability.The results suggest that the apparently slowly evolving or quasi-stationary waves in regression analysis are a statistical amalgamation of more rapidly propagating waves with a variety of origins and properties.  相似文献   

Longitudinal Social Science Research in Natural Resource Communities: Lessons and Considerations     

Melanie Stidham  Christine Olsen  Eric Toman  Stacey Frederick  Sarah McCaffrey  Bruce Shindler 《社会与自然资源》2014,27(10):1104-1108

The majority of social science research is cross-sectional in nature, with data collected at a single point in time. However, social systems are dynamic and many of the variables of interest to social scientists may change over time. Longitudinal research methods enable data collection at two or more points in time among a population of interest to examine change in measured variables and influencing factors. Despite the opportunities it affords, longitudinal research is relatively uncommon in natural-resource-based social science research as compared to other fields (e.g., medical, criminal, education). We feel that the field of natural resource social science is ripe for a proliferation of longitudinal studies, now that a substantial body of cross-sectional data has been built. In the spirit of encouraging more of this type of research, we draw on our collective experiences in longitudinal studies to share lessons learned in research design, sampling, and data management.  相似文献   

Local perceptions in climate change debates: insights from case studies in the Alps and the Andes     

Christine Jurt  Maria Dulce Burga  Luis Vicuña  Christian Huggel  Ben Orlove 《Climatic change》2015,133(3):511-523

  相似文献   

Estimating water fluxes in the critical zone using water stable isotope approaches in the Groundnut and Ferlo basins of Senegal     

Djim M. L. Diongue  Christine Stumpp  Olivier Roupsard  Didier Orange  Frederic C. Do  Serigne Faye 《水文研究》2023,37(1):e14787

Sustainable water management in semi-arid agriculture practices requires quantitative knowledge of water fluxes within the soil-vegetation-atmosphere system. Therefore, we used stable-isotope approaches to evaluate evaporation (E_a), transpiration (T_a), and groundwater recharge (R) at sites in Senegal's Groundnut basin and Ferlo Valley pasture region during the pre-monsoon, monsoon, and post-monsoon seasons of 2021. The approaches were based upon (i) the isothermal evaporation model (for quantifying E_a); (ii) water and isotope mass balances (to partition E_a and T_a for groundnut and pasture); and (iii) the piston displacement method (for estimating R). E_a losses derived from the isothermal evaporation model corresponded primarily to Stage II evaporation, and ranged from 0.02 to 0.09 mm d⁻¹ in the Groundnut basin, versus 0.02–0.11 mm d⁻¹ in Ferlo. At the groundnut site, E_a rates ranged from 0.01 to 0.69 mm d⁻¹; T_a was in the range 0.55–2.29 mm d⁻¹; and the T_a/ET_a ratio was 74%–90%. At the pasture site, the ranges were 0.02–0.39 mm d⁻¹ for E_a; 0.9–1.69 mm d⁻¹ for T_a; and 62–90% for T_a/ET_a. The ET_a value derived for the groundnut site via the isotope approach was similar to those from eddy covariance measurements, and also to the results from the previous validated HYDRUS-1D model. However, the HYDRUS-1D model gave a lower T_a/ET_a ratio (23.2%). The computed groundwater recharge for the groundnut site amounted to less than 2% of the local annual precipitation. Recommendations are made regarding protocols for preventing changes to isotopic compositions of water in samples that are collected in remote arid regions, but must be analysed days later. The article ends with suggestions for studies to follow up on evidence that local aquifers are being recharged via preferential pathways.  相似文献   

Improving the descendant relationship of cluster galaxies at z < 1     

Cleivison Souza de Jesus  Andre Luis Batista Ribeiro  Christine Cordula Dantas 《Astronomische Nachrichten》2024,345(1):e220081

In this work, we study how to improve well-known techniques for detecting progenitors/descendants of galaxies, such as the NDpredict program, when applied to galaxies in clusters. The improvement of this particular method is based on the use of the red sequence of galaxies in those environments. Objects close to the red sequence in the color and magnitude diagram are more likely to belong to the cluster. This defines a probability scale which is then combined with the one generated by NDpredict. This procedure is optimized for the study of galaxies in clusters over different epochs. Our main result is that, for a sample composed of $120$ clusters, with masses greater than ${10}^{13.25}{M}_{\odot }$, selected from the IllustrisTNG simulations (namely, the TNG100 runs). In $99\%$ of the cases (i.e., $119$ systems), we obtain better performance with the red sequence method in comparison to the original NDpredict, and the average gain obtained is $28\%$ in the identification of descendants for this sample of cluster galaxies.  相似文献