This essay suggests that humanity has experienced several instances where lots of information (‘big data’) had to be accommodated, which led to new structures for channeling the subsequent data flows. These structures, such as articulated speech and writing, would be analogs to the ‘dissipative structures’ that emerge in physical systems characterized by strong energy (i.e. heat) gradients. Additional examples from oceanography, meteorology and ecology are given, with some emphasis on the prescient work of Alexander von Humboldt, whose identification of ecological communities was based on the occurrence records of multiple species. His lead was initially not followed up, but it can be now, as millions of occurrence records are available, along with the technology to manipulate them. The structures that will emerge in the process, however, are as unpredictable as dissipative structures in physical systems.
{"title":"Big data and the emergence of new ‘dissipative’ structures","authors":"D. Pauly","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00178","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00178","url":null,"abstract":"This essay suggests that humanity has experienced several instances where lots of information (‘big data’) had to be accommodated, which led to new structures for channeling the subsequent data flows. These structures, such as articulated speech and writing, would be analogs to the ‘dissipative structures’ that emerge in physical systems characterized by strong energy (i.e. heat) gradients. Additional examples from oceanography, meteorology and ecology are given, with some emphasis on the prescient work of Alexander von Humboldt, whose identification of ecological communities was based on the occurrence records of multiple species. His lead was initially not followed up, but it can be now, as millions of occurrence records are available, along with the technology to manipulate them. The structures that will emerge in the process, however, are as unpredictable as dissipative structures in physical systems.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"17 1","pages":"37-40"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43944945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The efficiency of conservation measures largely depends on our ability to understand numerous biotic and abiotic factors, and the broad array of their interactions and dependencies, which are often scale-sensitive. To generate precise evidence for causes, outputs and processes, and thus to translate knowledge into conservation actions, advanced methods and an unbiased synthesis of data are required. Following scientific advances, along with the support of new technologies, research questions in conservation biology have gradually evolved. To deal with these questions, new methods and approaches have been developed aiming to capture a more holistic picture of the dynamic and multidimensional processes structuring biodiversity patterns. Such modern methodological tools can be satisfied through the use of transparent and credible data, collected over various spatial and temporal scales. Here, the basic concept behind recent methodological advances — viz. (1) decision support tools for spatial conservation planning, (2) cumulative effect assessments and (3) ecological niche models — which offer innovative analyses for conservation of biodiversity, is briefly presented. The need for standardized analytical methodologies seems to be properly acknowledged. Yet, the application, precision and validation of any such modern tool largely depend on the available data. The need for transparent and credible openaccess data is more urgent than ever.
{"title":"Open data and the future of conservation biology","authors":"A. D. Mazaris","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00175","url":null,"abstract":"The efficiency of conservation measures largely depends on our ability to understand numerous biotic and abiotic factors, and the broad array of their interactions and dependencies, which are often scale-sensitive. To generate precise evidence for causes, outputs and processes, and thus to translate knowledge into conservation actions, advanced methods and an unbiased synthesis of data are required. Following scientific advances, along with the support of new technologies, research questions in conservation biology have gradually evolved. To deal with these questions, new methods and approaches have been developed aiming to capture a more holistic picture of the dynamic and multidimensional processes structuring biodiversity patterns. Such modern methodological tools can be satisfied through the use of transparent and credible data, collected over various spatial and temporal scales. Here, the basic concept behind recent methodological advances — viz. (1) decision support tools for spatial conservation planning, (2) cumulative effect assessments and (3) ecological niche models — which offer innovative analyses for conservation of biodiversity, is briefly presented. The need for standardized analytical methodologies seems to be properly acknowledged. Yet, the application, precision and validation of any such modern tool largely depend on the available data. The need for transparent and credible openaccess data is more urgent than ever.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"17 1","pages":"29-35"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46245666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wide-ranging animals often traverse more than one country, making it important toestablish international management co-operations and agreed protocols; however, accessing allavailable information on a given species, or even a population of interest, compiled by local,national and international organisations is often complicated. In the case of sea turtles, this issueis further compounded because different life stages of the same population occupy different typesof habitat; even as adults, while part of the population aggregates to breed at a single site in agiven year, all other adult individuals are dispersed across foraging habitats in distance. Informationon the number of individuals, movement patterns and habitat use are needed to: (1) identify,select and conserve key breeding, foraging and developmental habitat effectively, (2) developrealistic models to predict current and future threat status of animals as accurately as possible, and(3) mitigate pressures operating in distant areas that, otherwise, might not be detected or linkedto the population of interest. Here, I use sea turtles as a case study to show how our current knowledgeon wide-ranging marine species is currently incomplete and, in many cases, disjointed. Inparticular, different techniques are often used to assimilate different types of information in differentsettings for different purposes (e.g. mark-recapture, genetics, strandings and nesting data).Ultimately, opening access to these data sources would facilitate major advances in research, aswell as the transfer of knowledge and information to practitioners, allowing the effective implementationof conservation management.
{"title":"Open Data requirements for applied ecology and conservation: case study of a wide-ranging marine vertebrate","authors":"G. Schofield","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00174","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00174","url":null,"abstract":"Wide-ranging animals often traverse more than one country, making it important toestablish international management co-operations and agreed protocols; however, accessing allavailable information on a given species, or even a population of interest, compiled by local,national and international organisations is often complicated. In the case of sea turtles, this issueis further compounded because different life stages of the same population occupy different typesof habitat; even as adults, while part of the population aggregates to breed at a single site in agiven year, all other adult individuals are dispersed across foraging habitats in distance. Informationon the number of individuals, movement patterns and habitat use are needed to: (1) identify,select and conserve key breeding, foraging and developmental habitat effectively, (2) developrealistic models to predict current and future threat status of animals as accurately as possible, and(3) mitigate pressures operating in distant areas that, otherwise, might not be detected or linkedto the population of interest. Here, I use sea turtles as a case study to show how our current knowledgeon wide-ranging marine species is currently incomplete and, in many cases, disjointed. Inparticular, different techniques are often used to assimilate different types of information in differentsettings for different purposes (e.g. mark-recapture, genetics, strandings and nesting data).Ultimately, opening access to these data sources would facilitate major advances in research, aswell as the transfer of knowledge and information to practitioners, allowing the effective implementationof conservation management.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"17 1","pages":"19-27"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41677027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Despite the historically close connection between humans and fish, the question ‘What is the most famous fish species?’ has never been asked. I used Google Ngram viewer to estimate the frequency of times the common names of 250 fishes appear in the corpus of digitized English books published between 1800 and 2000. I propose the ‘famon’ as a unit of fame, with 1 famon = 10−6 relative % Ngram frequency. Twelve of the 250 common names are words which also have other uses in English and were thus not considered here, and 57 species had 0 famons. For the remaining 181 species, fame increased for 139 (76.8%), during or part of 1800−2000. Goldfish Carassius auratus, the most common laboratory and aquarium fish and the second fish to be domesticated, is the most famous fish, reaching 80 to 117 famons after 1930. It was introduced to Europe from China about 325 to 450 yr ago and then to North America around 1850. Goldfish have penetrated into cultural aspects of human civilization (e.g. stamps, art, music). ‘Goldfish’ also appears in the corpus of simplified Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish books. The results show the universality and dominance of goldfish in the digitized published heritage. This likely indicates that non-consumptive cultural aspects, including aesthetic, spiritual, and recreational components, play a central role in defining the relationship of humans with fish, being equally important as provisioning, re gulating, and supporting services, and thus should be valued accordingly for conservation. However, cultural services have not yet been adequately integrated within the ecosystem service framework and are generally excluded from economic evaluations, a fact raising ethical issues with respect to their relative evaluation.
{"title":"The most famous fish: human relationships with fish as inferred from the corpus of online English books (1800-2000)","authors":"K. Stergiou","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00173","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00173","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the historically close connection between humans and fish, the question ‘What is the most famous fish species?’ has never been asked. I used Google Ngram viewer to estimate the frequency of times the common names of 250 fishes appear in the corpus of digitized English books published between 1800 and 2000. I propose the ‘famon’ as a unit of fame, with 1 famon = 10−6 relative % Ngram frequency. Twelve of the 250 common names are words which also have other uses in English and were thus not considered here, and 57 species had 0 famons. For the remaining 181 species, fame increased for 139 (76.8%), during or part of 1800−2000. Goldfish Carassius auratus, the most common laboratory and aquarium fish and the second fish to be domesticated, is the most famous fish, reaching 80 to 117 famons after 1930. It was introduced to Europe from China about 325 to 450 yr ago and then to North America around 1850. Goldfish have penetrated into cultural aspects of human civilization (e.g. stamps, art, music). ‘Goldfish’ also appears in the corpus of simplified Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish books. The results show the universality and dominance of goldfish in the digitized published heritage. This likely indicates that non-consumptive cultural aspects, including aesthetic, spiritual, and recreational components, play a central role in defining the relationship of humans with fish, being equally important as provisioning, re gulating, and supporting services, and thus should be valued accordingly for conservation. However, cultural services have not yet been adequately integrated within the ecosystem service framework and are generally excluded from economic evaluations, a fact raising ethical issues with respect to their relative evaluation.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"17 1","pages":"9-18"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48437041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anecdotal information provided by local fishers is an invaluable tool in the study of marine mammal−fisheries interactions. This paper summarizes empirical and anecdotal information voluntarily provided by fishers during a survey monitoring the damage to coastal fisheries caused by dolphins. We visited 23 fishing harbours along the northern Aegean Sea coastline and monitored the fishing gear of 113 coastal fishers in order to identify the damage caused by dolphins. While we were monitoring the damage, the fishers voluntarily shared their general views on marine mammals and fisheries interactions, which were recorded and are presented here. The majority of fishers indicated that fishing gear, mesh size, depth and target species were important factors that determine depredation frequency and gear damage, whereas soaking time, time of day and season were not considered crucial. These findings provide useful insight in the study of dolphin−fishery interactions, especially for data-poor areas such as the northeastern Mediterranean Sea. The empirical knowledge of the fishers and their views is also important from an ethical perspective because, historically, dolphins in the Mediterranean had been culled and hunted for bounties for many years; even today, occasional deliberate dolphin killings are still recorded. Such information is required in the design of any management strategy that aims to minimize the conflicts with dolphins, thus preserving the fishers’ livelihood.
{"title":"Anecdotal information on dolphin-fisheries interactions based on empirical knowledge of fishers in the northeastern Mediterranean Sea","authors":"Androniki Pardalou, Athanassios C. Tsikliras","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00179","url":null,"abstract":"Anecdotal information provided by local fishers is an invaluable tool in the study of marine mammal−fisheries interactions. This paper summarizes empirical and anecdotal information voluntarily provided by fishers during a survey monitoring the damage to coastal fisheries caused by dolphins. We visited 23 fishing harbours along the northern Aegean Sea coastline and monitored the fishing gear of 113 coastal fishers in order to identify the damage caused by dolphins. While we were monitoring the damage, the fishers voluntarily shared their general views on marine mammals and fisheries interactions, which were recorded and are presented here. The majority of fishers indicated that fishing gear, mesh size, depth and target species were important factors that determine depredation frequency and gear damage, whereas soaking time, time of day and season were not considered crucial. These findings provide useful insight in the study of dolphin−fishery interactions, especially for data-poor areas such as the northeastern Mediterranean Sea. The empirical knowledge of the fishers and their views is also important from an ethical perspective because, historically, dolphins in the Mediterranean had been culled and hunted for bounties for many years; even today, occasional deliberate dolphin killings are still recorded. Such information is required in the design of any management strategy that aims to minimize the conflicts with dolphins, thus preserving the fishers’ livelihood.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"18 1","pages":"1-8"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69656216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
: The sharing of marine mammal data is a worthwhile practice, but there are caveats. Data interpretation may be difficult, sometimes resulting in misleading information or inappropriate formulation of research questions. Here, we point out some of the challenges when dealing with shared marine mammal datasets. We emphasize the importance of collecting, publishing and sharing data in ways that can produce unbiased and meaningful knowledge, ultimately inspiring and directing management action. Finally, we suggest that bridging the gap between data sharing and data reuse will require enhanced spatially referenced online databases as well as direct collaboration between the data analysts and the field researchers who possess relevant place-based expertise.
{"title":"Searching for meaning in marine mammal shared data","authors":"G. Bearzi, O. Gimenez","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00180","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00180","url":null,"abstract":": The sharing of marine mammal data is a worthwhile practice, but there are caveats. Data interpretation may be difficult, sometimes resulting in misleading information or inappropriate formulation of research questions. Here, we point out some of the challenges when dealing with shared marine mammal datasets. We emphasize the importance of collecting, publishing and sharing data in ways that can produce unbiased and meaningful knowledge, ultimately inspiring and directing management action. Finally, we suggest that bridging the gap between data sharing and data reuse will require enhanced spatially referenced online databases as well as direct collaboration between the data analysts and the field researchers who possess relevant place-based expertise.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"18 1","pages":"9-13"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69656258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Greek economic crisis has attracted much attention during recent years, as its depth and duration have been far greater than in crises experienced elsewhere. Structural similarities and peculiarities between the Greek economy and fishery sector are identified in terms of the large number of small enterprises and artisanal vessels, as well as inefficiencies in data collection and tax compliance (unreported income or landings). These highly differentiate Greece from most of the rest of the developed world. In the absence of domestic reforms geared to the specific case of Greece, policy solutions applied elsewhere are being imported into the country, with little success so far. We argue that structural characteristics should be taken into account in order to facilitate economic recovery and improve the efficiency of fisheries.
{"title":"Greek fisheries and the economic crisis: structural analogies","authors":"A. Machias, K. Tsagarakis, M. Matsaganis","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00170","url":null,"abstract":"The Greek economic crisis has attracted much attention during recent years, as its depth and duration have been far greater than in crises experienced elsewhere. Structural similarities and peculiarities between the Greek economy and fishery sector are identified in terms of the large number of small enterprises and artisanal vessels, as well as inefficiencies in data collection and tax compliance (unreported income or landings). These highly differentiate Greece from most of the rest of the developed world. In the absence of domestic reforms geared to the specific case of Greece, policy solutions applied elsewhere are being imported into the country, with little success so far. We argue that structural characteristics should be taken into account in order to facilitate economic recovery and improve the efficiency of fisheries.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"16 1","pages":"19-23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69656141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The objective of this research is to propose an indicator to assess and rank environmental problems caused by production within the services sector of Thailand. Factors used to calculate real benefit (defined as revenue for a sector, minus the environmental costs) included the costs of (1) natural resources materials, (2) energy and transportation, (3) fertilizer and pesticides, and (4) sanitary and similar services. The highest environmental cost in terms of natural resources materials and energy and transportation was in the service sector — hotels and places of lodging, while the highest environmental cost in terms of fertilizer and pesticides was in the service sector — personal services. The service sector — movie theaters had the highest environmental cost for sanitary and similar services. Overall, the service sector — real estate gained the highest real benefit, while the service sector — repair not classified elsewhere had the lowest real benefit. If Thailand were to use an indicator of environmental harm, especially within the services sector, it could help to formulate efficient policies and strategies for the country in 3 areas of development (social, economic, and environmental development).
{"title":"Modeling environmental impact of service sectors to promote sustainable development of Thailand","authors":"Pruethsan Sutthichaimethee, Y. Sawangdee","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00169","url":null,"abstract":"The objective of this research is to propose an indicator to assess and rank environmental problems caused by production within the services sector of Thailand. Factors used to calculate real benefit (defined as revenue for a sector, minus the environmental costs) included the costs of (1) natural resources materials, (2) energy and transportation, (3) fertilizer and pesticides, and (4) sanitary and similar services. The highest environmental cost in terms of natural resources materials and energy and transportation was in the service sector — hotels and places of lodging, while the highest environmental cost in terms of fertilizer and pesticides was in the service sector — personal services. The service sector — movie theaters had the highest environmental cost for sanitary and similar services. Overall, the service sector — real estate gained the highest real benefit, while the service sector — repair not classified elsewhere had the lowest real benefit. If Thailand were to use an indicator of environmental harm, especially within the services sector, it could help to formulate efficient policies and strategies for the country in 3 areas of development (social, economic, and environmental development).","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"16 1","pages":"11-17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The claims made in a manifesto resulting in the European quantum technologies flagship initiative in quantum technology and similar enterprises are taken as starting point to critically review some potential quantum resources, such as coherent superposition and entanglement, and their potential usefulness for parallelism and communication. Claims of absolute, irreducible (non-epistemic) randomness are argued to be metaphysical. Cryptanalytic man-in-the-middle attacks on quantum cryptography are well known to be feasible, but hardly mentioned. If all of this is taken into account, a more sober perspective on quantum capacities emerges, but one that may be ethically more justified than the “hype and magic” that drives many current initiatives.
{"title":"Quantum Hocus Pocus","authors":"K. Svozil","doi":"10.3354/esep00171","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/esep00171","url":null,"abstract":"The claims made in a manifesto resulting in the European quantum technologies flagship initiative in quantum technology and similar enterprises are taken as starting point to critically review some potential quantum resources, such as coherent superposition and entanglement, and their potential usefulness for parallelism and communication. Claims of absolute, irreducible (non-epistemic) randomness are argued to be metaphysical. Cryptanalytic man-in-the-middle attacks on quantum cryptography are well known to be feasible, but hardly mentioned. If all of this is taken into account, a more sober perspective on quantum capacities emerges, but one that may be ethically more justified than the “hype and magic” that drives many current initiatives.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"16 1","pages":"25-30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69656206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：