Showing papers by "Lancaster University published in 2002"
TL;DR: Future research needs to consider insect herbivore phenotypic and genotypic flexibility, their responses to global change parameters operating in concert, and awareness that some patterns may only become apparent in the longer term.
Abstract: This review examines the direct effects of climate change on insect herbivores. Temperature is identified as the dominant abiotic factor directly affecting herbivorous insects. There is little evidence of any direct effects of CO2 or UVB. Direct impacts of precipitation have been largely neglected in current research on climate change. Temperature directly affects development, survival, range and abundance. Species with a large geographical range will tend to be less affected. The main effect of temperature in temperate regions is to influence winter survival; at more northerly latitudes, higher temperatures extend the summer season, increasing the available thermal budget for growth and reproduction. Photoperiod is the dominant cue for the seasonal synchrony of temperate insects, but their thermal requirements may differ at different times of year. Interactions between photoperiod and temperature determine phenology; the two factors do not necessarily operate in tandem. Insect herbivores show a number of distinct life-history strategies to exploit plants with different growth forms and strategies, which will be differentially affected by climate warming. There are still many challenges facing biologists in predicting and monitoring the impacts of climate change. Future research needs to consider insect herbivore phenotypic and genotypic flexibility, their responses to global change parameters operating in concert, and awareness that some patterns may only become apparent in the longer term.
2,114 citations
TL;DR: The authors discusses the recurrence and the recurrent limitations of liberalism as a general discourse, strategy, and regime, and establishes a continuum of neoliberalism ranging from a project for radical system transformation from state socialism to market capitalism, through a basic regime shift within capitalism, to more limited policy adjustments intended to maintain another type of accumulation regime and its mode of regulation.
Abstract: This paper discusses the recurrence and the recurrent limitations of liberalism as a general discourse, strategy, and regime. It then establishes a continuum of neoliberalism ranging from a project for radical system transformation from state socialism to market capitalism, through a basic regime shift within capitalism, to more limited policy adjustments intended to maintain another type of accumulation regime and its mode of regulation. These last two forms of neoliberalism are then related to a broader typology of approaches to the restructuring, rescaling, and reordering of accumulation and regulation in advanced capitalist societies: neoliberalism, neocorporatism, neostatism, and neocommunitarianism. These arguments are illustrated in the final part of the paper through a critique of the World Report on the Urban Future 21 (World Commission 2000), both as an explicit attempt to promote flanking and supporting measures to sustain the neoliberal project on the urban scale and as an implicit attempt to naturalize that project on a global scale.
1,419 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the curvaton is light during a period of cosmological inflation, when it acquires a perturbation with an almost scale-invariant spectrum.
1,378 citations
TL;DR: It is described how a plant can use the ABA signalling mechanism and other chemical signals to adjust the amount of water that it loses through its stomata in response to changes in both the rhizospheric and the aerial environment.
Abstract: There is now strong evidence that the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays an important role in the regulation of stomatal behaviour and gas exchange of droughted plants. This regulation involves both long-distance transport and modulation of ABA concentration at the guard cells, as well as differential responses of the guard cells to a given dose of the hormone. We will describe how a plant can use the ABA signalling mechanism and other chemical signals to adjust the amount of water that it loses through its stomata in response to changes in both the rhizospheric and the aerial environment. The following components of the signalling process can play an important part in regulation: (a) ABA sequestration in the root; (b) ABA synthesis versus catabolism in the root; (c) the efficiency of ABA transfer across the root and into the xylem; (d) the exchange of ABA between the xylem lumen and the xylem parenchyma in the shoot; (e) the amount of ABA in the leaf symplastic reservoir and the efficiency of ABA sequestration and release from this compartment as regulated by factors such as root and leaf-sourced changes in pH; (f) cleavage of ABA from ABA conjugates in the leaf apoplast; (g) transfer of ABA from the leaf into the phloem; (h) the sensitivity of the guard cells to the [ABA] that finally reaches them; and lastly (i) the possible interaction between nitrate stress and the ABA signal.
965 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss why travel occurs in social networks and examine what kinds of corporeal travel are necessary and appropriate for a rich and densely networked social life across various social groups.
Abstract: In this article I discuss just why travel takes place. Why does travel occur, especially with the development of new communications technologies? I unpack how corporeal proximity in diverse modes appears to make travel necessary and desirable. I examine how aspects of conversational practice and of `meetings' make travel obligatory for sustaining `physical proximity'. I go on to consider the roles that travel plays in social networks, using Putnam's recent analysis of social capital. The implications of different kinds of travel for the distribution of such social capital are spelled out. I examine what kinds of corporeal travel are necessary and appropriate for a rich and densely networked social life across various social groups. And in the light of these analyses of proximity and social capital, virtual travel will not in a simple sense substitute for corporeal travel, since intermittent co-presence appears obligatory for many forms of social life. However, virtual travel does seem to produce a strange...
863 citations
TL;DR: The methodology, principal uncertainties and selected results from an inventory, aiming to quantify the global production and consumption of total PCBs as well as 22 PCB congeners are presented, suggest that almost 97% of the global historical use of PCBs have occurred in the Northern Hemisphere.
807 citations
TL;DR: It is shown that the diversity of historical usage, disposal and accidental release pathways makes it an extremely difficult task to bridge the gap between consumption and emissions, resulting in an equally complex and diverse true emission pattern.
768 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The relevance of recent feminist reconstructions of objectivity for the development of alternative practices of technology production and use is explored and three contrasting positions for design are discussed as alternative bases for a politics of professional design practice.
Abstract: This paper explores the relevance of recent feminist reconstructions of objectivity for the development of alternative practices of technology production and use. I take as my starting place the working relations that make up the design and use of technical systems. Working relations are understood as sociomaterial connections that sustain the visible and invisible work required to construct coherent technologies and put them into use. I outline the boundaries that characterize current relations of development and use, and the boundary crossings required to transform them. Three contrasting positions for design - the view from nowhere, detached intimacy, and located accountability - are discussed as alternative bases for a politics of professional design practice. From the position of located accountability, I close by sketching aspects of what a feminist politics and associated practices of technology production could be.
600 citations
TL;DR: This review examines signaling mechanisms and their interactions with sugar-sensing and hormonal response pathways used by plants as a signal to reprogram plant metabolism and to trigger changes in plant architecture.
Abstract: ▪ Abstract Nitrate is the major source of nitrogen (N) for plants growing in aerobic soils. However, the NO3− ion is also used by plants as a signal to reprogram plant metabolism and to trigger changes in plant architecture. A striking example is the way that a root system can react to a localized source of NO3− by activating the NO3− uptake system and proliferating lateral roots preferentially within the NO3−-rich zone. That roots are able to respond autonomously in this fashion implies the existence of local signaling pathways that are sensitive to local changes in the external NO3− concentration. On the other hand, long-range signaling pathways are also needed to modulate these responses according to the plant's N status and to coordinate the allocation of resources between the root and the shoot. This review examines these signaling mechanisms and their interactions with sugar-sensing and hormonal response pathways.
498 citations
TL;DR: It is shown how an understanding of the drought stress physiology of the whole plant can lead to substantial saving of irrigation water in agriculture.
Abstract: Stomatal behaviour of plants in drying soil can be regulated by (long distance) chemical signals that provide the shoot with some measure of water availability. Although much emphasis has been placed on the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) as a central component of the signalling process, soil drying will modify the delivery to the shoot of a range of potential chemical signals. Here we consider the role that changes in the xylem sap pH might play in determining the access that ABA has to sites of action on the guard cells. We also show how redistribution of inorganic ions between different compartments in the leaf (localized chemical signalling) can provide sensitive control of stomata and water loss in response to potentially damaging changes in leaf temperature. Partial root zone drying is an irrigation technique that has been developed to allow exploitation of the plant's long distance signalling system. When the system is optimized, stomatal behaviour, shoot water status and leaf growth can be regulated such that water use efficiency (fruit yield/water used) can be significantly increased. We show how an understanding of the drought stress physiology of the whole plant can lead to substantial saving of irrigation water in agriculture.
489 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the International Masters Program in Practicing Management (IMPM) has suggested how we might break down the borders of different kinds of management education, and how to break them down.
Abstract: Borders of different kinds get in the way of management education. Six years of experience with the International Masters Program in Practicing Management has suggested how we might break down thes...
TL;DR: In this paper, the Humic Ion-Binding Model VI was used to examine the pH dependence of Al and Fe binding by dissolved organic matter (DOM) in freshwaters, by simulating the titration with Ca(OH)2 of an initially acid solution.
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TL;DR: In this paper, an alternative political ontology is needed which goes beyond the reification of network space in order to give voice to the fluid objects which escape its unidimensional functionality.
Abstract: Law's article begins by restating the classical ANT position that objects do not exist `in themselves' but are the effect of a performative stabilization of relational networks. In addition, these material enactments inevitably have a spatial dimension; they simultaneously establish spatial conditions for objectual identity, continuity, and difference. Space must not be reified as a natural, pre-existing container of the social and the material, but is itself a performance. Moreover, there are multiple forms of spatiality beyond the Euclidean space of regions (e.g. networks and fluids), and objects may exist and achieve homeomorphism within several different spatial systems. Technologies such as the Zimbabwe Bush Pump present a fluid object which is able to exist and cohere without the presence of fixed boundaries or the permanence of a particular functional definition. The network logic, however, which gravitates towards stability and functionality, tends to exclude and silence this spatial Other. An alternative political ontology is needed which goes beyond the reification of network space in order to give voice to the fluid objects which escape its unidimensional functionality.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore how one might approach the language of new capitalism working in a transdisciplinary way, bringing together new sociology of capitalism (Chiapello) and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough).
Abstract: Our aim in this article is to explore how one might approach the language of new capitalism working in a transdisciplinary way, bringing together new sociology of capitalism (Chiapello) and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough). We focus upon 'new management ideology', and in particular on a recent book by a highly influential management 'guru' (Rosabeth Moss Kanter). The article begins with a discussion of new management ideology based particularly upon the work of Boltanski and Chiapello, followed by an outline of the version of critical discourse analysis we draw upon, and an analysis of a number of extracts from the book. In the conclusion we consider the implications of the analysis for transdisciplinary research
TL;DR: The predominant philosophy underlying most environmental modelling is a form of pragmatic realism as discussed by the authors, and the limitations of this approach in practical applications are discussed, in particular, in relation to relati...
Abstract: The predominant philosophy underlying most environmental modelling is a form of pragmatic realism. The limitations of this approach in practical applications are discussed, in particular, in relati...
TL;DR: A critique of the Freeze and Harlan blueprint for a distributed physically based hydrological model leads to the conclusion that it will be abandoned and an alternative blueprint is proposed that explicitly recognises the potential for equifinality in scale-dependent model representations.
Abstract: A critique of the Freeze and Harlan blueprint for a distributed physically based hydrological model leads to the conclusion that it will be abandoned. An alternative blueprint as a modelling methodology is proposed that explicitly recognises the potential for equifinality in scale-dependent model representations. An inductive rather than deductive definition of physically-based is proposed that reflects the important role of observables in constraining the feasible models.
TL;DR: It's flexible and reconfigurable yet simple for programmers to use, notably for building dynamic distributed applications operating on the Net.
Abstract: It's flexible and reconfigurable yet simple for programmers to use, notably for building dynamic distributed applications operating on the Net.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors conducted a detailed study of subsurface flow and water table response coupled with digital terrain analysis (DTA) of surface features at the hillslope scale in Panola Mountain Research Watershed (PMRW), Georgia.
Abstract: We conducted a detailed study of subsurface flow and water table response coupled with digital terrain analysis (DTA) of surface and subsurface features at the hillslope scale in Panola Mountain Research Watershed (PMRW), Georgia. Subsurface storm flow contributions of macropore and matrix flow in different sections along an artificial trench face were highly variable in terms of timing, peak flow, recession characteristics, and total flow volume. The trench flow characteristics showed linkages with the spatial tensiometer response defining water table development upslope. DTA of the ground surface did not capture the observed spatial patterns of trench flow or tensiometric response. However, bedrock surface topographic indices significantly improved the estimation of spatial variation of flow at the trench. Point-scale tensiometric data were also more highly correlated with the bedrock surface-based indices. These relationships were further assessed for temporal changes throughout a rainstorm. Linkages between the bedrock indices and the trench flow and spatial water table responses improved during the wetter periods of the rainstorm, when the hillslope became more hydrologically connected. Our results clearly demonstrate that in developing a conceptual framework for understanding the mechanisms of runoff generation, local bedrock topography may be highly significant at the hillslope scale in some catchments where the bedrock surface acts as a relatively impermeable boundary.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors disturbed assumptions that policy for secondary school teachers' continuing professional development should be dominated by courses, workshops and suchlike events, and suggested that subject departments are prime sites of non-predictable professional learning.
TL;DR: The results suggest that specific chemisorption, and possibly metal diffusion into oxide particles could also be the mechanisms responsible for the fixation of metals by red mud.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used cross-borehole radar and resistivity measurements collected during a controlled vadose zone tracer test, performed at a field site in the UK Sherwood Sandstone.
TL;DR: In this paper, the pull-off forces between flat glass or silicon surfaces and silicon AFM tips or glass microspheres of different sizes have been extensively studied as a function of relative humidity (RH) in the range 5−90%, as model systems for the behavior of cohesive powders.
Abstract: Using the atomic force microscope (AFM), the pull-off forces between flat glass or silicon surfaces and silicon AFM tips or glass microspheres of different sizes have been extensively studied as a function of relative humidity (RH) in the range 5−90%, as model systems for the behavior of cohesive powders. The glass and silicon substrates were treated to render them either hydrophobic or hydrophilic. All the hydrophilic surfaces gave simple force curves and pull-off forces increasing uniformly with RH. Small contacts (R ∼ 20 nm) gave pull-off forces close to values predicted by simple Laplace−Kelvin theory (∼20 nN), but the values with microspheres (R ∼ 20 μm) fell well below predictions for sphere−flat or sphere−sphere geometry, due to roughness and asperity contacts. The hydrophobic silicon surfaces also exhibited simple behavior, with no significant RH dependence. The pull-off force again fell well below predicted values (Johnson−Kendall−Roberts contact mechanics theory) for the larger contacts. Hydroph...
TL;DR: This article used the concept of teaching and learning regimes (TLRs) to explore a set of questions about why some academic staff in universities thrive on and benefit from accredited programs designed to improve HE learning and teaching practices ("educational development programmes") whilst others experience periods of resistance or some drop out altogether.
Abstract: This paper uses the concept of teaching and learning regimes (TLRs) to help explore a set of questions about why some academic staff in universities thrive on and benefit from accredited programmes designed to improve HE learning and teaching practices ("educational development programmes") whilst others experience periods of resistance or some drop out altogether. "TLR" is a shorthand term for a constellation of rules, assumptions, practices and relationships related to teaching and learning issues in higher education. These include aspects of the following salient to teaching and learning, each of which we elaborate and illustrate in the paper: identities in interaction, power relations, codes of signification, tacit assumptions, rules of appropriateness, recurrent practices, discursive repertoires, implicit theories of learning and of teaching. The argument presented here is that academic staff on educational development programmes ("participants") bring to programmes sets of assumptions and practices ...
TL;DR: It is concluded that it will often be impossible to deduce the extent of underlying conflict by establishing the amount of parental investment given relative to the ideal optimum for the parent.
Abstract: We outline and develop current theory on how inherent genetic conflicts of interest between the various family members can affect the flow of parental investment from parents to offspring, and discuss the problems for empirical testing that this generates. The parental investment pattern realized in nature reflects the simultaneous resolution of all the conflicts between the family players. This depends on the genetic mechanism, the mating system and reproductive constraints, on whether extra demand by progeny affects current or future sibs, and particularly on the behavioural mechanisms underlying demand (begging or solicitation) and supply (provision of parental investment by parents). The direction of deviation from the optimal parental investment for the parent(s) depends on the slope of what we term the 'effect of supply on demand', the mechanism that determines how changes in food supply affect begging levels. If increasing food increases begging (positive slope), less parental investment is supplied than the parental optimum and if increasing food decreases begging (negative slope), more parental investment is supplied. The magnitude of deviation depends on both the 'effect of supply on demand' and on the 'effect of demand on supply' (the mechanism determining how changes in begging affect food supply, which always has a positive slope). We conclude that it will often be impossible to deduce the extent of underlying conflict by establishing the amount of parental investment given relative to the ideal optimum for the parent. Some possible directions for future research are discussed.
TL;DR: Although primary biliary cirrhosis is often now diagnosed at an early stage, the diagnosis still carries important prognostic implications, and a significant proportion of patients develop liver failure, require transplantation, or die prematurely after this diagnosis.
TL;DR: The authors explored the social category relations among those present in the context of physical violence and found that bystanders are more likely to help victims who are described as in-group as opposed to out-group members.
Abstract: This paper outlines a new approach to the study of bystander intervention. Using insights derived from self-categorization theory (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987), we explore the social category relations among those present in the context of physical violence. The paper describes two experiments that manipulate the social category relations between (a) bystander and fellow bystanders, and (b) bystander and victim. Analysis indicates that fellow bystanders are only influential when they are in-group rather than out-group members. Furthermore, bystanders are more likely to help victims who are described as in-group as opposed to out-group members. Overall, the findings suggest an important role for a self-categorization perspective in developing strategies to promote bystander intervention.
TL;DR: In this paper, a class of Langevin diffusions with state-dependent volatility is considered, where the volatility of the diffusion is chosen so as to make the stationary distribution with respect to its natural clock, a heated version of the stationary density of interest.
Abstract: We consider a class of Langevin diffusions with state-dependent volatility. The volatility of the diffusion is chosen so as to make the stationary distribution of the diffusion with respect to its natural clock, a heated version of the stationary density of interest. The motivation behind this construction is the desire to construct uniformly ergodic diffusions with required stationary densities. Discrete time algorithms constructed by Hastings accept reject mechanisms are constructed from discretisations of the algorithms, and the properties of these algorithms are investigated.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop certain theoretical components of such a culture and consider ongoing research concerned with belongingness to different geographical entities including the world as a whole, and present their own empirical research findings.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with whether a culture of cosmopolitanism is currently emerging out of massively wide-ranging global processes. The authors develop certain theoretical components of such a culture they consider ongoing research concerned with belongingness to different geographical entities including the world as a whole, and they present their own empirical research findings. From their media research they show that there is something that could be called a banal globalism. From focus group research they show that there is a wide awareness of the global but they this is combined in complex ways with notions of the local and grounded and from media interviews they demonstrate that there is a reflexive awareness of a cultures of the cosmopolitan. On the basis of their data from the UK, they conclude that a publicly screened cosmopolitan culture is emergent and likely to orehestrate much of social and political life in future decades.
Natural Environment Research Council1, Cardiff University2, Lancaster University3, Scottish Crop Research Institute4, Technische Universität Darmstadt5, Aberystwyth University6, Royal Holloway, University of London7, Macaulay Institute8, University of Hohenheim9, University of Aberdeen10, University of Helsinki11, University of York12
TL;DR: It is hypothesize that positive and negative faunal-mediated effects in soil communities cancel each other out, causing no net ecosystem effects.
Abstract: Human impacts, including global change, may alter the composition of soil faunal communities, but consequences for ecosystem functioning are poorly understood. We constructed model grassland systems in the Ecotron controlled environment facility and manipulated soil community composition through assemblages of different animal body sizes. Plant community composition, microbial and root biomass, decomposition rate, and mycorrhizal colonization were all markedly affected. However, two key ecosystem processes, aboveground net primary productivity and net ecosystem productivity, were surprisingly resistant to these changes. We hypothesize that positive and negative faunal-mediated effects in soil communities cancel each other out, causing no net ecosystem effects.
TL;DR: McSweeney's critique of Hofstede's model is examined in this paper, for its useful warnings to those who follow Hofstadede's research and for its logical consistency, which indicates that both functionalist and other paradigms are needed for future research into national culture and for understanding social behaviour in different national cultures.
Abstract: McSweeney’s critique (2002) rejects Hofstede’s model and finds national culture implausible as a systematically causal factor of behaviour. His critique is examined for its useful warnings to those who follow Hofstede’s research and for its logical consistency. A paradigmatic perspective identifies where McSweeney argues against Hofstede’s logic and where he rejects Hofstede’s paradigm and premises. This indicates that both the functionalist and other paradigms are needed for future research into national culture and for understanding social behaviour in different national cultures.