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Concluding Discussion (concluding + discussion)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences60%

Selected Abstracts

Voluntary environmental policy instruments: two Irish success stories?

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2002
Brendan Flynn
Voluntary environmental policy instruments have attracted much interest in recent years, yet they remain firmly established only in the industrial setting of the typical environmental policy ,leader' states such as the Netherlands or Germany. This paper examines two Irish examples of innovative voluntary agreements, a farm plastic recycling scheme and a bird conservation project. These both suggest that the voluntary approach can be applied successfully outside the typical industrial sector. Noteworthy in explaining the emergence of the two case studies here was a policy transfer effect from the UK, involving organized Irish farming interests and Irish bird conservationists. A fear of impending state legislation, which is often cited as a vital precondition for successful voluntary approaches, was actually less important than the autonomous initiative of the interest groups themselves. It is suggested that a more important role for the state lies in ensuring good policy co-ordination. A concluding discussion examines the general problems and potential of relying on interest groups to transfer and implement innovative voluntary environmental policy instruments. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment [source]

Ultrathin Films of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes for Electronics and Sensors: A Review of Fundamental and Applied Aspects

ADVANCED MATERIALS, Issue 1 2009
Qing Cao
Abstract Ultrathin films of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) represent an attractive, emerging class of material, with properties that can approach the exceptional electrical, mechanical, and optical characteristics of individual SWNTs, in a format that, unlike isolated tubes, is readily suitable for scalable integration into devices. These features suggest the potential for realistic applications as conducting or semiconducting layers in diverse types of electronic, optoelectronic and sensor systems. This article reviews recent advances in assembly techniques for forming such films, modeling and experimental work that reveals their collective properties, and engineering aspects of implementation in sensors and in electronic devices and circuits with various levels of complexity. A concluding discussion provides some perspectives on possibilities for future work in fundamental and applied aspects. [source]

Elision and the Embellished Final Cadence in J. S. Bach's Preludes

MUSIC ANALYSIS, Issue 3 2007
Mark Anson-cartwright
ABSTRACT In a number of Bach's keyboard preludes, the final cadence is richly decorated by interpolated harmonies and melodic figuration, so that it superficially resembles an interrupted cadence. The present study explores Bach's techniques of embellishing such final cadences. Sometimes, the tonic note is elided and the leading note ,resolves' to the lowered seventh degree of the scale, as in the Prelude in C major from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I. Another technique of embellishment is the interpolation of submediant and/or subdominant harmonies between dominant and tonic. A survey of Bach's oeuvre indicates that he wrote embellished final cadences exclusively in keyboard preludes and chorale-based genres (including chorale preludes). A brief concluding discussion of embellished final cadences in works by later composers provides a broad context in which to appreciate the generic and historical significance of this phenomenon. [source]

Ecotoxicity testing of chemicals with particular reference to pesticides

PEST MANAGEMENT SCIENCE (FORMERLY: PESTICIDE SCIENCE), Issue 7 2006
Colin H Walker
Abstract Ecotoxicity tests are performed on vertebrates and invertebrates for the environmental risk assessment of pesticides and other chemicals and for a variety of ecotoxicological studies in the laboratory and in the field. Existing practices and strategies in ecotoxicity testing are reviewed, including an account of current requirements of the European Commission for the testing of pesticides and the recent REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restrictions of Chemicals) proposals for industrial chemicals. Criticisms of existing practices have been made on both scientific and ethical grounds, and these are considered before dealing with the question of possible alternative methods and strategies both for environmental risk assessment and for ecotoxicological studies more generally. New approaches from an ecological point of view are compared with recent developments in laboratory-based methods such as toxicity tests, biomarker assays and bioassays. With regard to the development of new strategies for risk assessment, it is suggested that full consideration should be given to the findings of earlier long-term studies of pollution, which identified mechanisms of action by which environmental chemicals can cause natural populations to decline. Neurotoxicity and endocrine disruption are two cases in point, and biomarker assays for them could have an important role in testing new chemicals suspected of having these properties. In a concluding discussion, possible ways of improving testing protocols are discussed, having regard for current issues in the field of environmental risk assessment as exemplified by the debate over the REACH proposals. The importance of flexibility and the roles of ecologists and ecotoxicologists are stressed in the context of environmental risk assessment. Copyright © 2006 Society of Chemical Industry [source]

Places of Privileged Consumption Practices: Spatial Capital, the Dot-Com Habitus, and San Francisco's Internet Boom

CITY & COMMUNITY, Issue 3 2008
Ryan Centner
Drawing from interviews and fieldwork with former dot-com workers in San Francisco, this article examines how their spatialized consumption practices formed exclusionary places of privilege during the city's millennial boom of internet companies. I focus especially on the personalized deployment of uneven social power in situations where space is at stake. After considering how this group differed from a history of other urban newcomers, I develop a framework for addressing their spatial effects as gentrification involving privileged consumption practices that surpass residential encroachments. I argue there is an exertion of spatial capital that represents the misrecognition of territorial claims, enabling this cohort to literally take place. I show this through several consumption practices that convert to and from economic, cultural, and social capital. A concluding discussion reflects on the usefulness of this case and framework for reinvigorating key urban-sociological analytics while confronting influential but unsociological characterizations of contemporary city life. [source]