Forest use suitability:Towards decision-making-oriented sustainable management of forest ecosystem services

Management of forest lands considering multi-functional approaches is the basis to sustain or enhance the provi-sion of specific benefits,while minimizing negative impacts to the environment.Defining a desired management itinerary to a forest depends on a variety of factors,including the forest type,its ecological characteristics,and the social and economic needs of local communities.A strategic assessment of the forest use suitability(FUS)(namely productive,protective,conservation-oriented,social and multi-functional)at regional level,based on the provision of forest ecosystem services and trade-offs between FUS alternatives,can be used to develop management strategies that are tailored to the specific needs and conditions of the forest.The present study assesses the provision of multiple forest ecosystem services and employs a decision model to identify the FUS that sup-ports the most present and productive ecosystem services in each stand in Catalonia.For this purpose,we apply the latest version of the Ecosystem Management Decision Support(EMDS)system,a spatially oriented decision support system that provides accurate results for multi-criteria management.We evaluate 32 metrics and 12 as-sociated ecosystem services indicators to represent the spatial reality of the region.According to the results,the dominant primary use suitability is social,followed by protective and productive.Nevertheless,final assignment of uses is not straightforward and requires an exhaustive analysis of trade-offs between all alternative options,in many cases identifying flexible outcomes,and increasing the representativeness of multi-functional use.The assignment of forest use suitability aims to significantly improve the definition of the most adequate management strategy to be applied.

Testing of Decision Making Tools for Village Land Use Planning and Natural Resources Management in Kilimanjaro Region

This paper focuses on participatory testing of decision making tools (DMTs) at village level to assist in development of land use plans (LUPs) for sustainable land management (SLM) in Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania. Data were collected using conditional surveys through key informant interviews with the project’s district stakeholders in each district, focused group discussions with selected villagers and participatory mapping of natural resources. Soil health, land degradation, carbon stock, and hydrological conditions were assessed in the seven pilot villages in all seven districts using DMTs as part of testing and validation. Results indicated soils of poor to medium health, and land degradation as portrayed by gullies and wind erosion in lowlands and better in uplands. Carbon and forest disturbance status could not be assessed using one-year data but hydrological analysis revealed that water resources were relatively good in uplands and poor in the lowlands. Challenges with regard to land use include increased gully erosion, decreased stream flow, reduced vegetation cover due to shifting from coffee with tree sheds to annual crops farming, cultivation near water sources, and overgrazing. Empowering the community with decision making tools at village level is essential to ensure that village land uses are planned in a participatory manner for sustainable land and natural resources management in Kilimanjaro and other regions in Tanzania.

On the direct use of recovered scrap copper and saving copper with aluminum in the Chinese cable industry

The copper consumption by the Chinese cable industry amounted to 354×104 t in 2006, taking over 70 % of the total copper consumption in China in that year. At present, making copper rod directly from recovered scrap copper and saving copper with aluminum have become topics of general interests in the Chinese cable industry. The quality of the copper conductors in the industry is declining, resulting in sharp decrease in the rate of qualified wire and cable products. More and more copper wires are drawn from the rods made directly from scrap copper. The manufacturers know well some of the wires or rods are unqualified products though, they continue to use or produce products not complying with standards in order to make profits. Now the consumption of copper-clad-aluminum and copper-clad-steel is growing gradually. In 2006, the consumption of copper-clad-aluminum in China amounted to ca. 5×104 t. But in some applications, neither the common understanding between buyer and supplier nor the results of feasibility study are achieved in the product orientation and technical/economic feasibility in terms of saving copper with aluminum. This paper presents the status-quo, problems arisen and suggestions in terms of making copper rod directly from recovered scrap copper and saving copper with aluminum, in a view to promote these two topics of general interests to go toward a virtuous circle.

Opinion: the use of natural hazard modeling for decision making under uncertainty

Decision making to mitigate the effects of natural hazards is a complex undertaking fraught with uncertainty. Models to describe risks associated with natural hazards have proliferated in recent years. Concurrently, there is a growing body of work focused on developing best practices for natural hazard modeling and to create structured evaluation criteria for complex environmental models. However, to our knowledge there has been less focus on the conditions where decision makers can confidently rely on results from these models. In this review we propose a preliminary set of conditions necessary for the appropriate application of modeled results to natural hazard decision making and provide relevant examples within US wildfire management programs.

Enterprises in Fuzhou—Making Good Use of Foreign Funds

In developing an export-oriented economy, Fuzhou city has negotiated for and made use of foreign investment funds to improve old enterprises. Forty six percent of the city’s enterprises in industry and communications have set up 68 joint or cooperative ventures through various forms of negotiation. These enterprises have improved production and operation and have had a higher

Speeding Up Tianjin's Municipal Highway Construction By Making Full Use of Foreign Capital

To introduce foreign capital for the municipal highway construction is a great measure to meet the development of the socialist market economy and to reform the investment system for the municipal highway construction. The aim of the reform lies in taking the construction and management of the municipal highway facilities as an industry to operate, widening the investment channel of the municipal highway construction and gradually forming a benign cycle of investment-construc-

CHINA'S SERVICE TRADE MAKING USE OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT

At the initial stage of the economic reform and opening drive, the Chinese government encouraged foreign businessmen to invest in the industrial field, strictly confining foreign investment to the service trade. For a long period of time, China’s service trade has lagged far behind other developed countries, with such long existing problems

Beijing Makes Breakthroughs in Using Foreign Capital

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A study of making use of computer-aided projection fringe system to measure breast dimension

To measure breast basic dimension by using computer-aided projection fringe system.Methods A system has been developed for measuring breast basic dimension based on computer-aided projection fringe measurement and programming software.Plastic manikins breast’s SN-N (sternal notch to nipple distance),N-ML (nipple to midline distance),N-N (internipple distance),MBW (base width of breast) and N-IMF (nipple to inframammary fold distance) are measured with this system.At the same time,these items are also measured with routine ruler.Results This study indicate that the system has some merits:① non-touching measurement;② it is very rapid,the patient measured need hold his breath only 0.5 second,and all the time it takes is about 2.5 minutes;③ the measurement’s sensitivity is as high as to 0.6 mm,which meets the clinic requirement entirely;④ the measurement’s accuracy of the system is not significantly when comparing to the routine ruler’s.Conclusion Computer-adided projection fringe system for measuring breast basic dimension is feasible and advanced.14 refs,1 fig.

高压氧设备日常使用常见问题浅谈

高压氧舱工作时是一个密闭的载人压力容器,安全使用是头等重要的问题,本文结合本人十余年来在(高压氧岗位培训中心)(上海),及(医用高压氧舱维护管理人员培训中心)(上海)的授课经历,和两个培训班诸多学员的双向交互中得到的信息,对高压氧舱设备日常使用中存在的一些常见问题作一探讨。

Decision Making in Sustainable Development: Some Methods to Evaluate Energy and Nonrenewable Resources Waste When Using Some Plastics

This paper explores a decision making model for a multidisciplinary problem in nature. This problem considers the role of energy use in sustainable development and the potential sources to increase energy efficiency during its whole life cycle;it also deals with multicriteria decision making of plastic materials used in a day to day basis. Exergy analysis of plastic materials used to the manufacture of disposable polyethylene bags comparing them with other materials that can be used for substitution will be important to take decisions. We are also interested in plastic poly (ethylene Terephthalate or PET) bottles. The calculation of the incoming and outgoing Exergy flows during the production processes are carried out. The Exergy loss considering the sustainability concept, Green House Gases emissions, real energy flows needed to the chain of processes, material balances in the productions chains and value added, are presented as a set of criteria to make decisions of alternative materials including the actual ones. A case study for Mexico’s market will be developed in order to prove the methodology. It offers some interesting data about consumption and production of bags and bottles.

抓住机会 适时写作——浅谈小学作文教学

小学写作教学中,部分学生存在怕写作文现象,其原因是无东西可写。教师应从五个方面抓住写作教学的适当时机,即阅读之时,学科交叉之时,游戏之时,偶发事件之时,活动之时,以有效启发学生,解决写作时"无话可说"的困境。

HOW TO MAKE USE OF ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES AROUND US IN THE EXTENSIVE READING CLASSROOM

What can be conveniently and effectively used as readingmaterials in our extensive reading classroom(ERC)?Now thatthey are living in an information era,students need to absorb allsorts of knowledge and information within the shortest possibletime.Compared with other reading materials,newspapers andmagazines published in China have their own unique advantagesto be recommended as a main reading source.This paperillustrates this idea in four parts:introduction,merits ofemploying English newspapers and magazines in the ERC,waysof making use of English newspapers and magazines at hand toorganize communicative activities,conclusion.

Land Suitability Evaluation to Determine the Appropriate Areas of Development: A Case Study of Hormuz Island

One of the basic prerequisites for the development of spatial programs and policies is evaluating the land suitability for future land uses based on the principals of ecological sustainability. This analysis is critical in islands due to special characteristics such as limited natural resources, interdependent and more complex ecosystems, high vulnerability to natural hazards, climate change and economic vulnerability. Accordingly, this paper based on the ecological approach and using Geographic Information System software package and Analytic Hierarchy Process and developing appropriate criteria has analyzed the land suitability of Hormuz Island. The findings clearly show the land suitability to develop industrial, agriculture, tourism land uses and can be the basis for planning the future development of the island based on the ecological sustainability.

Identifying stakeholders’roles and relevant project documents for 4D-based collaborative decision making

To fully understand and effectively implement 4D building information modelling(BIM)models and methods,we need to develop a precise knowledge of which project digital documents should be used and how they influence the decision-making(DM)process.This article studies the convergence between uses of 4D BIM and digital project documents.We hypothesize that a clear visualization of the construction simulation through a 4D model is a useful source of information and a support for DM at collaborative meetings.Through this research,we continue to progress toward a new 4D-based collective decision device,so these elements will contribute to propose 4D BIM as DM support on architecture engineering construction(AEC)projects.Further,the present research will be complemented by results from questionnaires given at a later research stage.The article presents a brief review of BIM context to consider ways of fostering the implementation of all 4D BIM uses(not only visualization).It then introduces a proposition for 4D BIM uses implementation by the project development phase.It concludes by summarizing stakeholders’roles and documents relevant to 4D BIM uses.

Appraisal of the Production-Oriented Approach： An Introduction

The production-oriented approach （POA） has been developed over a decade. It is driven by the need to improve English classroom instruction for university students in China （Wen, 2016）. It is also motivated by the aspiration to enhance the quality of foreign language education in other similar pedagogical contexts outside China. A volume of research has been done by Wen Qiufang and her research team, to formulate the theory of POA and to test its effectiveness in classroom pedagogy （e.g. Wen, 2016, 2015; Yang, 2015; Zhang, 2015）. At the moment, the POA is still at an early stage of theory building and almost all empirical research is done in the Chinese context. In order to improve the quality of this theory and to make it intelligible to the international academic community, a one-day symposium was held in Beijing Foreign Studies University on May 15, 2017. The symposium was entitled ＇The first international forum on innovative foreign language education in China： Appraisal of the POA＇. In the forum, leading experts in applied linguistics were invited to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the POA and the directions for its future development. The symposium was the first attempt for the POA research team to discuss its latest work with international scholars. This Viewpoint section collects the responses of four experts who participated in the symposium, listed in alphabetical order. The collection of articles covers three topics related to the POA： its pedagogical application, its use for teacher training, and its research. Alister Cumming is Professor Emeritus and the former Head of the Centre for Educational Research on Languages and Literacies, University of Toronto, Canada. His article focuses primarily on POA research as an exemplary case of design-based research. Rod Ellis is Research Professor in the School of Education at Curtin University, Australia. He discusses POA in terms of pedagogy, teacher training and research, with both critiques and constructive suggestions. Paul Kei Matsuda is Professor of English and Director of Second Language Writing at Arizona State University, the writed states. He responds to POA from the perspective of an expert researcher and teacher of L2 writing. Charlene Polio is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Linguistics ＆ Germanic, Slavic, Asian ＆ African Languages atMichigan State University, the writed states. She conceptualises POA as a useful method to address some issues in pre-service teacher development. Overall, the articles in this section are insightful and reader-friendly. They are not only useful for the development of POA in particular, but may also be valuable to a broad range of researchers as they touch upon pertaining issues, as well as emerging topics, in the field of applied linguistics. We therefore find it necessary to make them accessible to a wide readership.