New NATO: Special Features and Impact on European Security

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) has made two major strate-gic readjustments in the post-Cold War years to shake off the awkward posi-tion when its raison d’etre was called into doubt. At the 1991 Rome Summit, an"All-dimensional defense strategy" was put forth with conflict prevention andcrisis management as its core mission. Preparations for the second strategic read-justment began in 1997 and the concept of a 21st century-oriented new strategywas declared at the Washington Summit last April.

JBE Won the Prize of Journal with Special Features

The Journal of Bionic Engineering (JBE) was awarded the Prize of Journal with Special Features in 2006 assessment of university journals. The assessment is organized in every four

SPECIAL FEATURES OF BUSINESS ENGLISH

Business English is an important tool used by importers and exporters innegotiating business with their customers abroad and drafting letters and commercialdocuments.Just like literary or scientific Engliush,it has its own characteristics.In thisarticle,owing to the limited space,I shall discuss only some of its special points inlanguage and euphemistic expressions.

On the Special Features of a City

1 .The Aesthetie Charaeteris-ties of a City Eaeh entity Possesses its unique eharae-teristies,and its Peeuliarities in its aPPear-anee whieh can easily lead to its reeognitionand dil’f七rentiation from others;the term,’featurel’ 15 frequently used to refer to suchpercePtible

Evolution and future of urban ecological science:ecology in,of,and for the city

The contrast between ecology in cities and ecology of cities has emphasized the increasing scope of urban ecosystem research.Ecology in focuses on terrestrial and aquatic patches within cities,suburbs,and exurbs as analogs of non-urban habitats.Urban fabric outside analog patches is considered to be inhospi-table matrix.Ecology of the city differs from ecology in by treating entire urban mosaics as social-ecolog-ical systems.Ecology of urban ecosystems incorporates biological,social,and built components.Originally posed as a metaphor to visualize disciplinary evolution,this paper suggests that the contrast has conceptual,empirical,and methodological contents.That is,the contrast constitutes a disciplinary or“local”paradigm shift.The paradigm change between ecology in and ecology of represents increased complexity,moving from focus on biotic communities to holistic social-ecological systems.A third paradigm,ecology for the city,has emerged due to concern for urban sustainability.While ecology for includes the knowledge generated by both ecology in and ecology of,it considers researchers as a part of the system,and acknowledges that they may help envision and advance the social goals of urban sustainability.Using urban heterogeneity as a key urban feature,the three paradigms are shown to contrast in five important ways:disciplinary focus,the relevant theory of spatial heterogeneity,the technology for representing spatial structure,the resulting classification of urban mosaics,and the nature of application to sustainability.Ecology for the city encourages ecologists to engage with other specialists and urban dwellers to shape a more sustainable urban future.

Impacts of climate change on mangrove ecosystems:a region by region overview

Inter-related and spatially variable climate change factors including sea level rise,increased storminess,altered precipitation regime and increasing temperature are impacting mangroves at re-gional scales.This review highlights extreme regional variation in climate change threats and impacts,and how these factors impact the structure of mangrove communities,their biodiversity and geo-morphological setting.All these factors interplay to determine spatially variable resiliency to climate change impacts,and because mangroves are varied in type and geographical location,these systems are good models for understanding such interactions at different scales.Sea level rise is likely to in-fluence mangroves in all regions although local impacts are likely to be more varied.Changes in the frequency and intensity of storminess are likely to have a greater impact on N and Central America,Asia,Australia,and East Africa than West Africa and S.America.This review also highlights the nu-merous geographical knowledge gaps of climate change impacts,with some regions particularly understudied(e.g.,Africa and the Middle East).While there has been a recent drive to address these knowledge gaps especially in South America and Asia,further research is required to allow research-ers to tease apart the processes that influence both vulnerability and resilience to climate change.A more globally representative view of mangroves would allow us to better understand the importance of mangrove type and landscape setting in determining system resiliency to future climate change.

Socioecological drivers facilitating biodiversity conservation in traditional farming landscapes

Traditional farming landscapes have evolved as tightly coupled socioecological systems that support high biodiversity.However,land-use change severely threatens the high biodiversity of these landscapes.Navigating nature conservation in such landscapes requires a thorough understanding of the key drivers underpinning biodiversity.Through empirical research on mammals,birds,butterflies,and plants in a traditional cultural landscape in Romania,we revealed seven hypothesized drivers facilitating biodiversity conservation.Similar proportions of three main land-use types support the landscape species pool,most likely through habitat connectivity and frequent spillover between land-use types.Landscape complementation and supplementation provide additional habitat for species outside their core habitats.Gradients of woody vegetation cover and gradients in land-cover heterogeneity provide mosaic landscapes with wide ranges of resources.Traditional land-use practices underpin landscape heterogeneity,traditional land-use elements such as wood pastures,and human-carnivore coexistence.Top-down predator control may limit herbivore populations.Lastly,cultural ties between humans and nature have a central influence on people’s values and sustainable use of natural resources.Conservation approaches should aim to maintain or restore these socioecological drivers by targeting the heterogeneous character of the forest-farmland mosaic at large scales through"broad and shallow"conservation measures.These large-scale measures should be complemented with"deep and narrow"conservation measures addressing specific land-use types,threats,or species.In both cases,conservation measures should integrate the entire socioecological system,by recognizing and strengthening important links between people and the environment.

Sustainability policy considerations for ecosystem management in Central and Eastern Europe

Here I discuss Central and Eastern European(CEE)countries as a region undergoing rapid change,resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union and admission of some of the states into the European Union.These events brought changes in governance and ecosystem management,triggering impacts on land use and biodiversity.What are some of the policy options toward sustainability in the face of these political,governance,and socioeconomic changes?Some policy considerations for ecosystem management and sustainability include taking a social-ecological systems approach to integrate biophysical subsystems and social subsystems;paying attention to institutions relevant to shared resources(commons)management;and using resilience theory to study change and guidance for governance.Documented experience in CEE seems to indicate shortcomings for both the centralized state management option and the purely market-driven option for ecosystem management.If so,a“smart mix”of state regulations,market incentives,and self-governance using local commons institutions may be the most promising policy option to foster ecosystem stewardship at multiple levels from local to international.

Future wet grasslands:ecological implications of climate change

Wet grasslands are threatened by future climate change,yet these are vital ecosystems for both conservation and agriculture,providing livelihoods for millions of people.These biologically diverse,transitional wetlands are defined by an abundance of grasses and periodic flooding,and maintained by regular disturbances such as grazing or cutting.This study summarizes relevant climate change scenarios projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and identifies implications for wet grasslands globally and regionally.Climate change is predicted to alter wet grassland hydrology,especially through warming,seasonal precipitation variability,and the severity of extreme events such as droughts and floods.Changes in the diversity,composition,and productivity of vegetation will affect functional and competitive relations between species.Extreme storm or flood events will favor ruderal plant species able to respond rapidly to environmental change.In some regions,wet grasslands may dry out during heatwaves and drought.C4 grasses and invasive species could benefit from warming scenarios,the latter facilitated by disturbances such as droughts,floods,and possibly wildfires.Agriculture will be affected as forage available for livestock will likely become less reliable,necessitating adaptations to cutting and grazing regimes by farmers and conservation managers,and possibly leading to land abandonment.It is recommended that agri-environment schemes,and other policies and practices,are adapted to mitigate climate change,with greater emphasis on water maintenance,flexible management,monitoring,and restoration of resilient wet grasslands.

Assessing impact of land use and climate change on regulating ecosystem services in the Czech Republic

Ecosystem services,defined as benefits provided by ecosystem functioning to society,are essential to human well-being.Due to global environmental change and related anthropogenic drivers,ecosystems are often degraded,which hinders the delivery of ecosystem services.This study aims to quantify the impacts of land use and climate change on two regulating ecosystem services-carbon sequestration and water purification in terms of nitrogen retention in the Czech Republic.While employing approaches of scenarios and modeling,we illustrate current and potential future status of these ecosystem services.Our results show that among the ecosystem change drivers,one of the dominant domestic land-use change of ALARM BAMBU(Business-As Might Be Usual)scenario is change of arable land and grassland to forest area that increases by 4.5%in 2080 compared to 2000.The results of ecosystem service modeling based on BAMBU scenario for the years 2050 and 2080 indicate that the highest yearly carbon sequestration rate occurred in 2000-2050,reaching 640 GgC·yr^(−1),2000-2080 shows decline in this regulating service by 16%.Average nitro-gen leaching to water streams reached 0.75 kgN·ha^(−1)·yr^(−1)for BAMBU in 2050 scenario and 0.80 kgN·ha^(−1)·yr^(−1)for BAMBU in 2080 scenario as a result of decreasing nitrogen load,which suggested a decrease in nitrogen pollution compared to 2000.Since ecosystem services have not been extensively mainstreamed into research and policies in eastern European countries,we aim to contribute to improvement of knowledge on current status and potential future pathways of the provision of regulating ecosystem services in the Czech Republic.

Abandonment of croplands: problem or chance for grassland restoration? Case studies from Hungary

In Central-and Eastern Europe,the collapse of socialist regimes resulted in a transformation of state-owned agricultural cooperatives to privately owned lands from the early 1990s onwards.These socioeconomic processes resulted in landscape-scale changes in biodiversity,ecosystem services and agricultural production.In parallel,large-scale abandonment of croplands,especially on sandy,salty or fre-quently inundated areas,became common.Abandoned croplands are usually sensitive to species invasions,and are hotspots of noxious weeds,posing threats both to agriculture and nature conservation.Grassland restoration on former croplands can be an effective strategy for suppressing these species.Thus,a common goal of nature conservation and agriculture can be the restoration of grasslands on former croplands to(1)suppress weed and/or invasive species in line with the EU policy“Good Farming Practices”,(2)support animal husbandry by creating meadows or pastures,and to(3)recover biodiversity and ecosystem services.In the present paper we report“best practices”of grassland restoration projects from Hungary.Our aim was to compare the effectiveness of spontaneous grassland recovery vs.active grassland restoration by seed sowing in terms of the recovery of biodiversity and ecosystem services,such as weed control and biomass production.Our results showed that grassland restoration on abandoned fields offers a viable solution for restoring biodiversity and ecosystem services.Seed sowing ensures higher weed control and biomass pro-duction,but results in lower biodiversity compared to spontaneous recovery.Both restoration methods can be cost-effective,or even profitable even within a relatively short period of a nature conservation project.

Linking science and decision making to promote an ecology for the city:practices and opportunities

To promote urban sustainability and resilience,there is an increasing demand for actionable science that links science and decision making based on social-ecological knowledge.Approaches,frameworks,and practices for such actionable science are needed and have only begun to emerge.We propose that approaches based on the co-design and co-production of knowledge can play an essential role to meet this demand.Although the antecedents for approaches to the co-design and co-production of knowledge are decades old,the integration of science and practice to advance urban sustainability and resilience that we present is different in several ways.These differences include the disciplines needed,diversity and number of actors involved,and the technological infrastructures that facilitate local-to global connections.In this article,we discuss how the new requirements and possibilities for co-design,co-production,and practical use of social-ecological research can be used as an ecology for the city to promote urban sustainability and resilience.While new technologies are part of the solution,traditional approaches also remain important.Using our urban experiences with long-term,place-based research from several U.S.Long-Term Ecological Research sites and U.S.Department of Agriculture,Forest Service Urban Field Stations,we describe a dynamic framework for linking research with decisions.We posit that this framework,coupled with a user-defined,theory-based approach to science,is instrumental to advance both practice and science.Ultimately,cities are ideal places for integrating basic science and decision making,facilitating flows of information through networks,and developing sustainable and resilient solutions and futures.

Rural social-ecological systems navigating institutional transitions: case study from Transylvania (Romania)

Traditional rural social-ecological systems(SES)share many features which are crucial for sus-tainable development.Eastern European countries such as Romania,are still rich in traditional cultural landscapes.However,these landscapes are increasingly under internal(e.g.,people’s aspirations toward western socioeconomic ideals)and external(institutional changes,globalization of the commodity market,connectivity with other cultures)pressures.Therefore,understanding the ways how traditional SES navi-gated past and more recent changes is of crucial importance in getting insights about the future trajectory of these systems.Here,we present the rural SES from the Saxon region of Transylvania through the lens of institutional transitions which happened in the past century in this region.We show that the rural SES went through episodic collapses and renewals,their cyclic dynamic being related to the episodic chang-es of the higher level formal institutions.These episodic collapses and renewals created a social-ecolog-ical momentum for the sustainability of these SES.While we recognize that policy effectiveness depends on institutional stability(and institutions are unstable and prone to collapses),maintaining those social-ecological system properties which can assure navigation of societies through the challenges imposed by global changes should be in the heart of every governance system.Such properties includes wide extent of native vegetation,fertile soils,wide range of provisioning ecosystem services,genuine links between people and landscapes and knowledge about the social-ecological systems.These features could provide important capitals and memory elements for the(re)emergence of social-ecological systems(old or new).

Common and conflicting objectives and practices of herders and conservation managers:the need for a conservation herder

The mutual dependence of extensive land-use and conservation management has become appar-ent in Europe in the last 20-30 yr.Extensive land-use often survives in protected areas only,in the form of conservation management.Knowledge of extensive herding and that of conservation management are parts of two knowledge systems(traditional and scientific)which often leads to conflicts between locals and con-servationists.We studied two herding/conservation systems(salt steppes and wood-pastures),and devel-oped an inventory on the common/similar and conflicting/different objectives and pasture management practices of herders and conservationists.Data were collected by participatory knowledge co-production in teamwork of the co-authors(herders,conservation managers,and scientists).Data were analyzed and discussed in teamwork too.Herders and conservationists identified 23 objectives and 29 management prac-tices.We found a number of common interests with respect to herding,the ideal state of pastures,legal provisions,and communication.Conflict resolution recommendations(e.g.,on time and place of grazing,pasture improvements)were also developed.We argue that by co-production of knowledge,and establish-ment of a herder“school”the mitigation of the existing conflicts would be more effective.Our conclusion is that a new profession is needed:that of the conservation herder.The conservation herder shall be an indi-vidual knowledgeable about herding and pasture management,trained in conservation and ecology,able to design management experiments,and develop novel but tradition-based management practices.As such,he/she could facilitate adaptation of extensive herding in the changing socio-economic environment.

It is time to change land use and landscape management in the Czech Republic

The identity of man-made landscapes is based on the balance among their ecological,cultural,and economic dimensions.Since the 1950s,short-term economic benefits have globally often outweighed long-term interests.This results in decreased landscape quality manifested as increased erosion of agricultural land,decreased water retention capacity,increased landscape uniformity,and loss of biodiversity.A new phenomenon influencing the condition of man-made landscapes is climate change.Extreme fluctuations of temperature and precipitation have been causing repeated floods and also periods of drought in Europe.Landscapes damaged by inappropriate management are unable to offset these impacts.It is necessary to stop this development by changing land use and management methods to restore the balance among landscape functions.For the Czech Republic,we propose to develop a long-term landscape vision and to formulate a responsible landscape policy with regional strategic goals,including subsidies and penalties(carrots and sticks),based on the principles of the European Landscape Convention.To promote ecological stability,we recommend allocating funds from the Common Agricultural Policy to both the restoration and maintenance of valuable habitats.Landscape research and management(based on habitat/species monitoring in cooperation with stakeholders)must be strengthened in order to play a proper role in the transformation.It is time for clear communication with the public and the training of state officials and land users in spatial and landscape planning.To fill this gap in interdisciplinary cooperation,we call for the establishment of a platform on sustainable landscape management in the Czech Republic.

Chinese Semantic Parsing Based on Feature Structure with Recursive Directed Graph

It is difficult to analyze semantic relations automatically, especially the semantic relations of Chinese special sentence patterns. In this paper, we apply a novel model feature structure to represent Chinese semantic relations, which is formalized as ＂recursive directed graph＂. We focus on Chinese special sentence patterns, including the complex noun phrase, verb-complement structure, pivotal sentences, serial verb sentence and subject-predicate predicate sentence. Feature structure facilitates a richer Chinese semantic information extraction when compared with dependency structure. The results show that using recursive directed graph is more suitable for extracting Chinese complex semantic relations.