Ecocycles最新文献

{"title":"Mapping the ‘presency’ of women in cities","authors":"May East","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v5i2.144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v5i2.144","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores how innovative ways of mapping both the presence and the agency of contemporary women in cities may support the emergence of emancipatory placemaking perspectives and previously unrecorded narratives. It starts by proposing ‘presency’ as a new concept, merging the meaning of presence, as a mindful way of paying attention to life; and agency, as critical awareness of the context and capacity to act. It examines the pace of urbanisation of the world and the revisited role of women in their mediation of space and making of place including efforts to forge a new framework of regenerative urban development. It proposes different mapping approaches to capture a mosaic of regenerative practices led by women addressing how cities of present and future can be green and inclusive. It concludes by suggesting that the act of mapping spatially and ‘from within’ the way women experience and act in the city may unleash women’s emancipatory place-making skills, moving cities systems up to higher orders of integrated expression.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45892152","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}

{"title":"Assessment of the risks associated with the invasive weed Ambrosia artemisiifolia in urban environments in Romania","authors":"P. Leru, Ana-Maria Eftimie, V. Anton, M. Thibaudon","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v5i1.142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v5i1.142","url":null,"abstract":"Ambrosia artemisiifolia (ragweed) is an invasive weed with rapid spread during the last decades in many European countries, representing an important problem for environment and for public health, due to its highly allergenic pollen. Data from the European Aeroallergen Network (EAN) confirm the continuous increase of infested areas and of the amospheric ragweed pollen load. Ambrosia is responsible for significant health and economic impact in the most infested areas from Central Europe, mainly Hungary and neighbouring countries, including Romania. Despite generally occurring in dry and abandoned fields, along railways and roadsides, Ambrosia is now recognized as part of urban vegetation in some big cities, contributing to increase risk of air pollution and of respiratory diseases. The aim of our paper is to review the data regarding spread and problematic of Ambrosia in some big cities of Romania, mainly the capital and the actual public activities undertaken to reduce its consequences. Our data showed that Ambrosia is a real and increasing danger for human health in Romania, mainly due to its rapid spread in urban environment and increasing number of affected persons. There is an urgent need for more coordinated efforts and sustainable management of this problem, to reduce impact of Ambrosia in urban environment, to establish a national aerobiology network and to continue collaboration with European institutions and specialists in this field.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45726337","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}

{"title":"The sustainability of woody biomass feedstock production and landscape management: land use, phytoremediation, biodiversity, and wildlife habitats","authors":"S. Némethy, L. Szemethy","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v5i1.141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v5i1.141","url":null,"abstract":"Woody biomass feedstock is suitable for direct combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, ethanol or methanol production yielding heat, charcoal, pyrolysis oil, green electricity and bio-propellants. There are several issues concerning the environmental, socio-cultural and economic sustainability of woody biomass production connected to land use, protection and/or creation of wildlife habitats, conservation and remediation of wastelands and derelict cultural landscapes. Establishing energy plantations on arable lands or on grasslands is against nature conservation, while setting up them in depleted agricultural lands of inferior quality, polluted areas or wastelands could be advantageous for land reclamation and wildlife, because of  \u0000- root filtration, phytoremediation, less chemicals and improved soils; \u0000- possibilities to establish organic production by combining irrigation with biologically cleaned, pathogen-free wastewater, - application of biosolids for fertilization connected to short rotation forestry (SRF) or short rotation coppicing (SRC), agroforestry (AF) or polycyclic arboriculture; \u0000- more permanent cover that provides shelter and biomass for feeding, which is especially important in winter; \u0000- higher architectural complexity of vegetation provides more place for nesting and feeding; \u0000- forbs in the undergrowth and young shots could provide better quality food for wildlife than the intensive monocultures. \u0000Biomass production is very complex and includes a vast variety of feedstocks suitable for a range of energy production technologies and many other products depending on the species and the conditions of cultivation. Therefore, the solution is a complex management system, including land use, phytoremediation, solid waste and wastewater management and ecosystem-based planning combined with other renewable energy sources such as geothermal energy, solar cells, wind turbines, hydroelectric power plants and non-polluting high-tech waste incinerators in one dynamic system.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47736710","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}

{"title":"Food counterfeiting in general; counterfeiting of milk and dairy products","authors":"J. Csapó, S. Némethy, C. Albert","doi":"10.19040/ECOCYCLES.V5I1.138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ECOCYCLES.V5I1.138","url":null,"abstract":"After giving a general description and historic perspective of food counterfeiting, the questions regarding food counterfeiting today, the nature of food counterfeiting, detection and combating food counterfeiting, and possible legal sanctions against food counterfeiting will be answered. Then the establishment and role of national anti-counterfeit organizations, the national anti-counterfeiting strategy, the expected benefits of actions against counterfeiting, the punishment of counterfeiting, and some cases regarding the counterfeiting of food are discussed. \u0000In the case of counterfeiting of milk and dairy products, the milk of various animal species, buffalo, goat and sheep, as well as cows' milk is being falsified by mixing soymilk with cow's milk. Hereinafter, the detection of whey and the buttermilk from milk, the determination of whey protein from dairy products, the analysis of milk produced from milk powder and other options for milk and milk product counterfeiting are discussed. Finally, questions regarding the detection of other fats in milk, butter and ghee, the dilution of milk, determination of the heat treatment of milk and dairy products, the detection of the amount of spoiled milk unfit for consumption are answered. Analytical methods that can be used to detect counterfeits are always referred to.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47919209","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}

{"title":"Environmental attitudes of Hungarian students and the prospects for environmental education","authors":"Z. Alfőldi, Peter Alfoldi","doi":"10.19040/ECOCYCLES.V5I1.134","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ECOCYCLES.V5I1.134","url":null,"abstract":"The efficiency of primary education is of fundamental importance in environmental education. The aim of this survey was to evaluate the environmental attitudes of young teenagers in Hungary, learning their preferences regarding plants and animals, their reasoning, and opinions about conservation. Therefore, a complex questionnaire containing 11 open questions and 5 closed questions were completed in 2016 for students between the age of 13 and 14 years. This age group was selected based on the curriculum suited the best to this type of investigation and the already advanced level of knowledge for the student. Printed questionnaires were provided to the student attending to primary schools personally, and they were asked to fill them in their class supervised by their teachers to minimalize external influences. There were 744 students living in 92 settlements of different sizes who have filled the questionnaires in 2017. These questionnaires were grouped according to the student’ gender, settlement sizes (six categories), and type of home (detached house, apartment building, or prefabricated panel building). Here we report the first results after assessing the questionnaires. According to their preferences toward plants or animals, the great majority of the responders (91.3%) favored animals, and there was no difference between boys and girls in this respect. The size of the settlements and the type of the students’ home did not influence animal preference. These results suggest that teachers should particularly focus on plants in their biology and environmental education programs. When students were asked about their favorite plants, almost 80 percent of them gave priority to local plant species, especially flowers (73.1%). More than three-quarters (77%) of the families of the students asked have at least one pet or domestic animal, and almost two-thirds (64.4%) of them wish to have even more - although 71.1% of them live in apartment buildings or prefabricated panel buildings. Students meet animals most often (52.8%) locally, and domestic mammals are those animals that the highest proportion (41.8%) of them encounter. More than half (54%) of the children go outdoors/make an excursion at least once in a month, but 11 percent of them have no such experiences. When asked about conservation, 77.7% of the children stated that they would save all of the living creatures, and 12.1% chose to save only the useful ones. This information may help in focusing on special areas for environmental education or developing new strategies and tools for it.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43322647","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}

{"title":"Key pillars of the facile cooperation between environmental and cultural education in Poland","authors":"T. Pasierbek","doi":"10.19040/ECOCYCLES.V5I1.128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ECOCYCLES.V5I1.128","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary education presumes a practical approach to teaching. For a long time, now it is not sufficient to simply memorize dry definitions – that is both inefficient and meaningless. Society expects of a young man that is leaving the walls of a high school or a university not only knowledge but first and foremost specific abilities and skills. It should be said plainly, however, that those can be nurtured through the education led in a practical way which allows the student to discover something autonomously basing on the theoretical knowledge received before. This kind of quality change in the education system should be particularly distinct regarding environmental education and science which should be, as a principle, taught possibly in the most practical way. Frequent access to the school laboratory will however not be enough.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45605640","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}

{"title":"Effects of initiatives related to the sharing economy on the ecological security of urban residents - Polish experiences","authors":"Michal Czuba","doi":"10.19040/ECOCYCLES.V5I1.127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ECOCYCLES.V5I1.127","url":null,"abstract":"The sharing economy connects the human and material resources available to private individuals, companies and city organizational units in a coherent way. The aim of this article is to present a theoretical and practical approach to sharing economy in the context of using this approach to increasing the ecological security of cities. \u0000In the article, the method of literature studies in the field of sharing economy and ecological security was used as the method of gathering knowledge, and the case study method was used to verify the theoretical assumptions of this concept on the example of specific projects implemented by Polish cities in this area. Taking into account the social perspective and the possibilities of using modern information technologies, thinking about the future of cities should be related to the creation of new community strategies, in which the sharing economy can be helpful. The sharing economy offers a number of solutions that are already visible in the development strategy of Polish cities, which contributes to the improvement of the quality of life of their residents in the field ecological security. Their selected examples are presented in this article.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49372791","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}

{"title":"A review of the book 'Aquaponics Food Production Systems' (Editors S. Goddek, A. Joyce, B. Kotzen, G. M. Burnell)","authors":"L. Stündl","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v5i1.143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v5i1.143","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68242842","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}

{"title":"Policy instruments and barriers to rural tourism development – a case study of cluster in the Liptov touristic region in Slovakia","authors":"Katarína Melichová, Ľubica Majstríková, M. Valach, Michal Strnal","doi":"10.19040/ECOCYCLES.V4I2.126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ECOCYCLES.V4I2.126","url":null,"abstract":"Tourism industry, in general, and rural tourism specifically is often promoted as a go-to solution to the various problems that rural regions and communities are currently facing. In Slovakia, several policies have been formulated and implemented in order to harness this potential in reality. The main aim of this contribution is to (via an in-depth case study of a tourism cluster in Liptov region in Slovakia) find out the current state of the policy instruments being implemented to promote the development of rural tourism as well as barriers that hinder the effectiveness of said instruments. By means of questionnaire survey and interviews with relevant stakeholders (accommodation providers, representatives of local self-government and support organizations at the local and regional level) we identified both financial and institutional hurdles, but also a difference in opinions of different actors concerned.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43512104","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}

{"title":"Normalized difference vegetation index as a tool for the evaluation of agricultural drought in Slovakia","authors":"Veronika Zuzulová, J. Vido","doi":"10.19040/ecocycles.v4i1.124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v4i1.124","url":null,"abstract":"The paper deals with the evaluation of agricultural drought in Slovakia by remote sensing data. For this purpose, monthly normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values were derived from MODIS spectroradiometer at district level during the time period of 2000 to 2014. Verification was based on correlations with the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) for twelve sites selected according to limited climatic parameters. Correlations showed a strong relationship (α ≤ 0.1) between NDVI and PDSI values, mainly in the middle of the growing season (June to September). The aim of the paper is testing NDVI as a suitable tool for drought assessment in an agricultural land in Slovakia.","PeriodicalId":31709,"journal":{"name":"Ecocycles","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45016035","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}