Wildlife Logging Interactions in Tropical Forests Summary Statement of a Workshop Hosted by Wcs and Bolfor in Santa Cruz,Bolivia 13-15 November, 1996

Protected areas in the tropics are currently inadequate toprotect the biological diversity characterking this region, owingto their limited size, number, distribution, and composition.Within forested landscapes, production forests may containsignificant biodiversity not found within totally protected areas.In many countries, the large size and varied habitats of theseforests can complement the existing system of reserves, and taken as part of the landscape, can make significant contributions to biodiversity conservation. Current exploitation trends and practices within production forests however, have direct and indirect positive and negative impacts on many plant and animal species. Steps must be taken to improve our understanding of the effects of management practices on biological diversity, ways to mitigate negative aspects associated with them, and where our efforts should focus in the future to achieve ecological and economic sustainability of our natural resources

Flexibilités et systèmes d'information

Face à la croissance combinée de l'incertitude et de la réactivité requise, les dirigeants attendent de leurs dispositifs opérationnels qu'ils se révèlent capables de flexibilité. Après avoir proposé plusieurs clarifications sur ce concept, nous analysons son application au champ des systèmes d'information (SI). Une analyse ontologique et téléologique de celui-ci nous permet de tester les effets de plusieurs types de variations des conditions opérationnelles sur le SI singulier de telle ou telle entreprise. Ces variations peuvent trouver leur origine au sein de l'entreprise elle-même ou dans son environnement, et elles peuvent être de diverses natures (éco-industrielles, technologiques, ...). L'identification des choix d'architecture ( infrastructures, applications, bases de données,...) et de gouvernance (internalisée, externalisée, mixte) met en évidence le rôle central des compétences et des capacités d'apprentissage des acteurs, notamment celles des directions générales et des directions des systèmes d'information, mais également celles de l'organisation en tant que telle.Flexibilité;système d'information;variation des conditions opérationnelles;architectures;gouvernance

Wildlife Logging Interactions in Tropical Forests Summary Statement of a Workshop Hosted by Wcs and Bolfor in Santa Cruz,Bolivia 13-15 November, 1996

Protected areas in the tropics are currently inadequate toprotect the biological diversity characterking this region, owingto their limited size, number, distribution, and composition.Within forested landscapes, production forests may containsignificant biodiversity not found within totally protected areas.In many countries, the large size and varied habitats of theseforests can complement the existing system of reserves, and taken as part of the landscape, can make significant contributions to biodiversity conservation. Current exploitation trends and practices within production forests however, have direct and indirect positive and negative impacts on many plant and animal species. Steps must be taken to improve our understanding of the effects of management practices on biological diversity, ways to mitigate negative aspects associated with them, and where our efforts should focus in the future to achieve ecological and economic sustainability of our natural resources

Reconciling timber extraction with biodiversity conservation in tropical forests using reduced-impact logging

Over 20% of the world's tropical forests have been selectively logged, and large expanses are allocated for future timber extraction. Reduced-impact logging (RIL) is being promoted as best practice forestry that increases sustainability and lowers CO2 emissions from logging, by reducing collateral damage associated with timber extraction. RIL is also expected to minimize the impacts of selective logging on biodiversity, although this is yet to be thoroughly tested. We undertake the most comprehensive study to date to investigate the biodiversity impacts of RIL across multiple taxonomic groups. We quantified birds, bats and large mammal assemblage structures, using a before-after control-impact (BACI) design across 20 sample sites over a 5-year period. Faunal surveys utilized point counts, mist nets and line transects and yielded >250 species. We examined assemblage responses to logging, as well as partitions of feeding guild and strata (understorey vs. canopy), and then tested for relationships with logging intensity to assess the primary determinants of community composition. Community analysis revealed little effect of RIL on overall assemblages, as structure and composition were similar before and after logging, and between logging and control sites. Variation in bird assemblages was explained by natural rates of change over time, and not logging intensity. However, when partitioned by feeding guild and strata, the frugivorous and canopy bird ensembles changed as a result of RIL, although the latter was also associated with change over time. Bats exhibited variable changes post-logging that were not related to logging, whereas large mammals showed no change at all. Indicator species analysis and correlations with logging intensities revealed that some species exhibited idiosyncratic responses to RIL, whilst abundance change of most others was associated with time. Synthesis and applications. Our study demonstrates the relatively benign effect of reduced-impact logging (RIL) on birds, bats and large mammals in a neotropical forest context, and therefore, we propose that forest managers should improve timber extraction techniques more widely. If RIL is extensively adopted, forestry concessions could represent sizeable and important additions to the global conservation estate – over 4 million km2

Wood Specific Gravity Variability in Ceiba Pentandra

We examined the wood specific gravity variability in Ceiba pentandra trees from four Costa Rican life-zones and a moist tropical forest in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Trees from the African site averaged higher wood specific gravity than those occurring at two high-rainfall sites in Costa Rica. However, the high degree of variability within sites reduced our capacity to detect environmental and/or genetic differences among the sites. Higher intensity field samples, and/or provenance testing under specific environmental conditions, are recommended to help clarify the sources of this variation

Performance of Humans vs. Exploration Algorithms on the Tower of London Test

The Tower of London Test (TOL) used to assess executive functions was inspired in Artificial Intelligence tasks used to test problem-solving algorithms. In this study, we compare the performance of humans and of exploration algorithms. Instead of absolute execution times, we focus on how the execution time varies with the tasks and/or the number of moves. This approach used in Algorithmic Complexity provides a fair comparison between humans and computers, although humans are several orders of magnitude slower. On easy tasks (1 to 5 moves), healthy elderly persons performed like exploration algorithms using bounded memory resources, i.e., the execution time grew exponentially with the number of moves. This result was replicated with a group of healthy young participants. However, for difficult tasks (5 to 8 moves) the execution time of young participants did not increase significantly, whereas for exploration algorithms, the execution time keeps on increasing exponentially. A pre-and post-test control task showed a 25% improvement of visuo-motor skills but this was insufficient to explain this result. The findings suggest that naive participants used systematic exploration to solve the problem but under the effect of practice, they developed markedly more efficient strategies using the information acquired during the test

Certainty in Categorical Judgment of Size

The certainty of judgment (or self-confidence) has been traditionally studied in relation with the accuracy. However, from an observer's viewpoint, certainty may be more closely related to the consistency of judgment than to its accuracy: consistent judgments are objectively certain in the sense that any external observer can rely on these judgments to happen. The regions of certain vs. uncertain judgment were determined in a categorical rating experiment. The participants rated the size of visual objects on a 5-point scale. There was no feedback so that there were no constraints of accuracy. Individual data was examined, and the ratings were characterized by their frequency distributions (or categories). The main result was that the individual categories always presented a core of certainty where judgment was totally consistent, and large peripheries where judgment was inconsistent. In addition, the geometry of cores and boundaries exhibited several phenomena compatible with the literature on visual categorical judgment. The ubiquitous presence of cores in absence of accuracy constraints provided insights about objective certainty that may complement the literature on subjective certainty (self-confidence) and the accuracy of judgment

Reduced impact logging guidelines for lowland and hill dipterocarp forest in Indonesia

U ovom radu opisana je tehnologija mehaničke obrade, sa svim operacijama koje su specifične za proizvodnju cijevi oružja. U uvodnom dijelu definiran je pojam streljačkog oružja sa tehnološkom problematikom u izradi i specifičnostima u eksploataciji cijevi. Kroz pojašnjenja namjene, materijala i konstrukcije cijevi, spomenute su tehnologije obrade koje su nužne za kvalitetnu izradu cijevi streljačkog naoružanja. Na kraju je opisan tehnološki postupak izrade cijevi u standardnom NATO kalibru 5,56x45 mm, zajedno sa ključnim točkama u kojima je potrebna posebna pozornost, kako bi se izbjegle greške.This paper describes the mechanical processing technology with all operations that are specific to the production of gun barrels. The introductory section defines the concept of infantry weapon with the technological issues in manufacturing and specificity of barrel exploitation. Through the clarification of the purpose, materials and construction of the barrel, the processing technologies are mentioned which are necessary factor in producing a barrel for infantry weapon. At the end, a technological process of a weapon barrel manufacturing in the standard NATO 5.56x45 mm caliber is described, along with key points where special attention is needed to avoid mistakes

Wildlife Logging Interactions in Tropical Forests Summary Statement of a Workshop Hosted by Wcs and Bolfor in Santa Cruz,Bolivia 13-15 November, 1996

Protected areas in the tropics are currently inadequate toprotect the biological diversity characterking this region, owingto their limited size, number, distribution, and composition.Within forested landscapes, production forests may containsignificant biodiversity not found within totally protected areas.In many countries, the large size and varied habitats of theseforests can complement the existing system of reserves, and taken as part of the landscape, can make significant contributions to biodiversity conservation. Current exploitation trends and practices within production forests however, have direct and indirect positive and negative impacts on many plant and animal species. Steps must be taken to improve our understanding of the effects of management practices on biological diversity, ways to mitigate negative aspects associated with them, and where our efforts should focus in the future to achieve ecological and economic sustainability of our natural resources