Towards an integrated understanding of green space in the European built environment

In recent years social, economic and environmental considerations have led to a reevaluation of the factors that contribute to sustainable urban environments. Increasingly, urban green space is seen as an integral part of cities providing a range of services to both the people and the wildlife living in urban areas. With this recognition and resulting from the simultaneous provision of different services, there is a real need to identify a research framework in which to develop multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research on urban green space. In order to address these needs, an iterative process based on the delphi technique was developed, which comprised email-mediated discussions and a two-day symposium involving experts from various disciplines. The two outputs of this iterative process were (i) an integrated framework for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research and (ii) a catalogue of key research questions in urban green space research. The integrated framework presented here includes relevant research areas (i.e. ecosystem services, drivers of change, pressures on urban green space, human processes and goals of provision of urban green space) and emergent research themes in urban green space studies (i.e. physicality, experience, valuation, management and governance). Collectively these two outputs have the potential to establish an international research agenda for urban green space, which can contribute to the better understanding of people's relationship with cities.     

Local autonomy,national policy and global imperatives: sex work and HIV/AIDS in Cebu City,Philippines

This paper contributes to cultural critiques of AIDS prevention policies through examining debates about mandatory HIV blood screening for women in Cebu City’s sex industry during 1993. These debates were inspired by the Department of Health’s national policy to eliminate mandatory blood screening on the grounds that it was expensive and ineffectual in slowing the spread of HIV. While the rhetoric of the debate was influenced by the emerging ‘global discourse’ on HIV/AIDS and human rights, the debate itself was always about local perceptions of women in the sex industry and Cebu’s administrative autonomy. This paper highlights how various socio-spatial scales helped to constitute Cebu’s response to mandatory testing, while at the same time reproducing an exclusionary discourse which silenced the voices of women in Cebu’s sex industry.     

Effects of deep tillage and fertilization on soya yields in a compacted Ustochrept during seven cropping seasons, Santa Cruz, Bolivia

A study was carried out in tropical eastern Bolivia to determine the profitability of deep tillage practices and fertilization on soya in a compacted sandy loam Ustochrept. The experimental site is characterized by summer and winter cropping seasons with average rainfalls of 807 and 235 mm respectively.

A field trial was conducted over four summer and three winter cropping seasons (1985–1989) using a randomized complete block design with four tillage treatments and four replicates which was converted into a split-plot design by with- and without-fertilizer subtreatments in the second year. The tillage treatments (and mean tillage depth) were:

1. (1) Conventional — generally two passes of a heavy disc harrow (0.15 m) followed by two passes of a light disc harrow.

2. (2) Disc ploughing in 1985 — one pass of a disc plough (0.30 m) in 1985 only, followed by conventional tillage.

3. (3) Subsoiling in 1985 — two overlapping passes of a subsoiler (0.40 m) to give 0.37 m tine separation distances in 1985 only, followed by conventional tillage.

4. (4) Annual subsoiling — as for subsoiling in 1985 but with subsoiling every year.

For the seven cropping seasons, 1985–1989, the percentage yield increases from subsoiling in 1985, disc ploughing in 1985 and annual subsoiling compared with yields from conventionally tilled (compacted) plots were 14%, 19% and 25% respectively, equivalent to partial gross margins of US$ 230, 306 and 378 ha⁻¹. Significant differences were found between both the disc ploughing in 1985 and annual subsoiling treatments compared with conventional tillage; the residual effects of disc ploughing annual subsoiling in 1985 were observed to last 3 and at least 4 years respectively.

Significant fertilizer responses were obtained in 2 of the 3 years but were not economic owing to high fertilizer costs. No significant tillage×fertilizer interaction effect was found.

Soya responses due to annual subsoiling varied from 0 to 90% and were shown to be significantly and inversely related to seasonal rainfall when the latter was <760 mm, and to be approximately zero at higher seasonal rainfalls, provided that yields were not influenced by population differences. The higher responses of subsoiling at low seasonal rainfalls were attributed to increased rooting depth and hence to increased moisture supply. It was estimated that the minimum soya yield responses expected 7 years in 10 would be 0% in summer and 56% in winter, equivalent to a partial gross margin of US$ 98 ha⁻¹ for the first year.     

Campylobacter

Species within the genus, Campylobacter, have emerged over the last three decades as significant clinical pathogens, particularly of human public health concern, where the majority of acute bacterial enteritis in the Western world is due to these organisms. Of particular concern are the species, C. jejuni and C. coli, which are responsible for most of these gastrointestinal-related infections. Although these organisms have already emerged as causative agents of zoonoses, several aspects of their epidemiology and pathophysiology are only beginning to emerge. Trends in increasing antibiotic resistance are beginning to emerge with oral antibiotics, which may be the drug of choice for when it is necessary to intervene chemotherapeutically. This review wishes to examine (i) emerging clinical aspects of the disease, such as Guillain Barre syndrome (GBS), (ii) the association between these organisms and poultry as a natural host, (iii) environmental aspects of Campylobacter epidemiology, (iv) the emergence of atypical campylobacters (v) emerging trends in antibiotic resistance, (vi) adoption of modern methods for the detection of campylobacters.     

Seroprevalence of antibodies to Neospora caninum in Belgian dogs

Sera from 300 dogs from Ghent and Antwerp were tested for antibodies to Neospora caninurn using an Indirect fluorescent antibody test. Overall, 11 per cent (995 to 13 per cent; confidence interval of 95 per cent) of dogs were seropositive, at titres of 1:50 to 1:800. No sex or breed differences were detected, but there was an Increase In seropositivity with age.     

The effect of excess dietary iodine on pregnant mares and foals.

On a thoroughbred stud four foals were born with greatly enlarged thyroids and leg weakness. Two foals died within 18 hours of birth, the others subsequently recovered. An enlarged thyroid was also evident in one of the resident mares. The thyroids from the dead foals were hyperplastic. Feed analyses showed that the mares had an iodine intake of about 83 mg daily, 8-8 ppm of the dietary dry matter, due almost entirely to the high iodine content of a proprietary compound horse nut which had been fed at the daily rate of 12 lb per head. It was concluded from the histology of the thyroids, the high intake of iodine, the lack of response to treatment with potassium iodide and the elevated levels of serum protein bound iodine that the condition of the foals on the stud was caused by an excess of iodine fed to the mares during pregnancy.     

The comparative serum disposition kinetics of subcutaneous administration of doramectin, ivermectin and moxidectin in the Australian Merino sheep

This study evaluates the comparative serum disposition kinetics of injectable formulations of doramectin (DRM), ivermectin (IVM) and moxidectin (MXD) in Australian Merino sheep. Thirty-six, 2-year-old sheep were allocated by weight into six groups of six animals. Animals in each group received 200 microg/kg of DRM, MXD, IVM or a combination of two of these drugs by subcutaneous (s.c.) injection. Blood was collected at designated intervals (between 1 h and 40 days after treatment) and the serum analysed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) using fluorescence detection. The results indicated that MXD administration produced a significantly higher maximum serum concentration and a more rapid absorption as compared with DRM and IVM. MXD and DRM had a significantly larger area under the concentration vs. time curve (AUC) than IVM, suggesting a more persistent effect for the former two products in sheep. The AUC for DRM was significantly higher when administered alone as compared with that observed when given in combination with MXD or IVM, suggesting preferential elimination of DRM compared with IVM and MXD from concurrent s.c. administration.     

Salinity Effects on Early Life Stages of Southern Flounder Paralichthys lethostigma

Abstract.— In South Carolina, studies have been conducted to develop rearing techniques for southern flounder Paralichthys lethostigma a candidate for aquaculture development and stock enhancement programs. To help define environmental tolerances, a variety of salinity studies were conducted with the early life stages of this species. Eggs were buoyant at 32 ppt and sank at 29 ppt with salinities of 30–31 ppt providing varying levels of suspension in the water column. Eggs incubated at 0 and 5 ppt all died, whereas 82.5% hatched at 10 ppt but larvae died shortly thereafter. At 63 h post-fertilization, there were no differences in hatch level for eggs incubated at salinities of 15 to 35 ppt (mean hatch level 98.5%). In a 72-h study, fish 3 wk post-metamorphosis (13.7 mm TL, 50-d-old) were acclimated to seven salinities ranging from 0–30 ppt. Fish held at 0 ppt salinity exhibited a statistically (P < 0.05) lower survival (20.0%) than those exposed to 5–30 ppt salinity concentrations. No differences were detected in survival (mean 99.1%) among fish held in the higher salinities. A second study examined the tolerance of older juveniles to lower salinities. Juvenile flounder (95.2 mm TL, 220-d-old) were acclimated to 0, 1,5 and 10 ppt salinities and reared for 2 wk. Results showed that fish could tolerate salinities of 0–10 ppt (100% survival). These data indicate that salinity tolerance of southern flounder increases with age. In addition to the short duration studies, a replicated 11-mo duration tank grow-out study was conducted at mean salinity 5.4 ppt and mean temperahue 22.6 C with an all male population. Flounder grew from a mean length of 100 mm to 213 mm TL and weight from 8.9 to 104.3 g. Growth of the cultured fish approximated that observed among male flounders in the wild.     

Hydromorphological rehabilitation improves channel morphology,instream biotopes,and macroinvertebrate communities,and thus enhances the conservation of an urban river

1. Many river rehabilitation projects have been criticized for failing to meet their goals or for being insufficiently monitored. There is, therefore, an urgent need to develop robust approaches for assessing treatment efficacy and thus guide the increasing investment in rehabilitation.
2. Instream biotopes (formerly called ‘functional habitats’ or ‘mesohabitats’ by different authors) and their macroinvertebrate assemblages were used to assess the effectiveness of entire-channel hydromorphological rehabilitation of a 1.8-km stretch of a lowland stream through the town of Market Harborough, Leicestershire, UK.
3. The project successfully enhanced the physical diversity, measured in the rehabilitated reach as the coefficients of variability for channel water depth and width, wet surface area, number of instream biotopes, and biotope diversity.
4. The project also enhanced the biodiversity conservation value, measured as macroinvertebrate total density, total biomass, richness, diversity, Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) richness, EPT diversity, EPT count%, and EPT biomass%, all of which significantly increased following rehabilitation. Chironomidae count% and biomass% significantly decreased following rehabilitation. Rehabilitation was also successful in significantly increasing macroinvertebrate shredder, scraper, and filter-feeder group density.
5. Changes in the macroinvertebrate community metrics in the rehabilitated reach were related significantly to changes in the percentages of cover of instream biotopes and increases in biotope diversity in the rehabilitated reach.
6. Macroinvertebrate structural and functional metrics can provide quantitative data for assessing reach-level rehabilitation outcomes, if samples are collected in a pre-defined sampling protocol stratified at the instream biotope level.
7. The practical implications of this work are that the design of rehabilitation projects, if based upon the recreation of biotope heterogeneity, will succeed in improving biological value and restoring the area to near naturalness if a suitable upstream source of macroinvertebrates for natural recolonization is available. The study shows that the concept of biotopes has an important role to play in river conservation management.