Hotspots

In Kinshasa's phonie houses, radio communication with distant regions within the country is made possible. The article provides an ethnographic description of social life in and around these contemporary phonie houses. An analysis of the management of phonie conversations, which usually take place in the presence of the radio operator and customers, who themselves often participate actively in the radio conversations, provides a deeper insight into how urban residents literally live with the village. This leads to an exploration of different "agents of interference" in Kinshasa's social landscape. These are social roles that bridge between different worlds, but often embody risk and danger. As a result, the emphasis in the analysis is primarily on interference, a technical and social experience familiar to many, not only in Kinshasa, but anywhere long-range connectivity is lived.

Although trauma is usually examined as an individual experience, it is a collective dynamic. Whole communities are traumatized and dynamics of trauma involve all of us and affect the course of history. An orientation to understanding trauma is needed that is at once personal, communal and political. This paper discusses why understanding the dynamics of trauma is essential for facilitators of conflict resolution in zones of conflict and for post-war reconciliation and community building. It also considers that, in addition to international tribunals and truth commissions, there is a need for community forums throughout society to work with issues of accountability and collective trauma concerning past and current conflicts. Trauma is also relevant to such issues as understanding dynamics of revenge, the silence accompanying atrocity, and historical revisionism. Copyright © 2004 Whurr Publishers Ltd.

(By Artemieva I.M.)

Lithosphere thermal structure in Greenland is poorly known and models based on seismic and magnetic data are inconsistent, while growing awareness in the fate of the ice sheet in Greenland requires reliable constraints on geothermal heat flux (GHF) from the Earth's interior in the region where conventional heat flux measurements are nearly absent. The lithosphere structure of Greenland remains controversial, while its geological evolution is constrained by direct observations in the narrow ice-free zone along the coasts. The effect of the Iceland hotspot on the lithosphere structure is also debated. Here I describe a new thermal isostasy method which I use to calculate upper mantle temperature anomalies, lithosphere thickness, and GHF in Greenland from seismic data on the Moho depth, topography and ice thickness. To verify the model results, the predicted GHF values are compared to available measurements and show a good agreement. Thick (200-270 km) cratonic lithosphere of SW Greenland with GHF of ca. 40 mW/m 2 thins to 180-190 km towards central Greenland without a clear boundary between the Archean and Proterozoic blocks, and the deepest lithosphere keel is observed beneath the largest kimberlite province in West Greenland. The NW-SE belt with an anomalously thin (100-120 km) lithosphere and GHF of 60-70 mW/m 2 crosses north-central Greenland from coast to coast and it may mark the Iceland hotspot track. In East Greenland this anomalous belt merges with a strong GHF anomaly of > 100 mW/m 2 in the Fjordland region. The anomaly is associated with a strong lithosphere thinning, possibly to the Moho, that requires advective heat transfer such as above active magma chambers, which would accelerate ice basal melting. The anomaly may extend 500 km inland with possibly a significant contribution of ice melt to the ice-drainage system of Greenland.

The expected upward shift of trees due to climate warming is supposed to be a major threat to range-restricted high-altitude species by shrinking the area of their suitable habitats. Our projections show that areas of endemism of five taxonomic groups (vascular plants, snails, spiders, butterflies, and beetles) in the Austrian Alps will, on average, experience a 77% habitat loss even under the weakest climate change scenario (+1.8 °C by 2100). The amount of habitat loss is positively related with the pooled endemic species richness (species from all five taxonomic groups) and with the richness of endemic vascular plants, snails, and beetles. Owing to limited postglacial migration, hotspots of high-altitude endemics are situated in rather low peripheral mountain chains of the Alps, which have not been glaciated during the Pleistocene. There, tree line expansion disproportionally reduces habitats of high-altitude species. Such legacies of climate history, which may aggravate extinction risks under future climate change have to be expected for many temperate mountain ranges.

The marine environment provides significant benefits to many local communities. Pressure to develop coastal waterways worldwide creates an urgent need for tools to locate marine spaces that have important social or ecological values, and to quantify their relative importance. The primary objective of this study was to develop, apply and critically assess a tool to identify important social-ecological hotspots in the marine environment. The study was conducted in a typical coastal community in northern British Columbia, Canada. This expert-informed GIS, or xGIS, tool used a survey instrument to draw on the knowledge of local experts from a range of backgrounds with respect to a series of 12 social-ecological value attributes, such as biodiversity, cultural and economic values. We identified approximately 1500 polygons on marine maps and assigned relative values to them using a token distribution exercise. A series of spatial statistical analyses were performed to locate and quantify ...

To describe spatial and temporal profiles of Road Traffic Injuries (RTIs) on different road networks in Vellore district of southern India. Using the information in the police maintained First Information Reports (FIRs), daily time series of RTI counts were created and temporal characteristics were analysed with respect to the vehicle, road types and time of the day for the period January 2005 to May 2007. Daily incidence and trend of RTIs were estimated using a Poisson regression analysis. Of the reported 3262 RTIs, 52% had occurred on the National Highway (NH). The overall RTI rate on the NH was 8.8/100 000 vehicles per day with significantly higher pedestrian involvement. The mean numbers of RTIs were significantly higher on weekends. Thirteen percentage of all RTIs were associated with fatalities. Hotspots are major town junctions, and RTI rates differ over different stretches of the NH. In India, FIRs form a valuable source of RTI information. Information on different vehicle p...

“Hotspots” refer to memories of detailed moments of peak emotional distress during a traumatic event. This study investigates hotspot frequency, and the emotions and cognitions contained in hotspots of memory for trauma, to replicate a previous study in this area (Holmes, Grey, & Young, 2005). Participants were patients receiving treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at a specialist outpatient clinic after experiencing a range of traumatic events. The main finding was that, after fear, the most common emotions reported were anger and sadness. Cognitions related to psychological threat to the self were more common than those related to physical threat.

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) was established by the Conference of Parties in 2002 to decrease the loss of plant diversity, reduce poverty and contribute to sustainable development. To achieve this overarching goal, the GSPC has established a series of targets, one of which is to ensure that plant diversity is well understood, so that it can be effectively conserved and used in a sustainable manner. Brazil hosts more than 46,000 species of plants, algae and fungi, representing one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth, and playing a key role in the SPC. To meet the GSPC goals of Target 1 and facilitate access to plant diversity, Brazil committed to preparing the List of Species of the Brazilian Flora (2008–2015) and the Brazilian Flora 2020 (2016–present). Managing all the information associated with such great biodiversity has proven to be an extremely challenging task. Here, we synthesize the history of these projects, focusing on the multidisciplinary and collaborative approach adopted to develop and manage the inclusion of all the knowledge generated though digital information systems. We further describe the methods used, challenges faced, and strategies adopted, as well as summarize advances to date and prospects for completing the Brazilian flora in 2020.

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) was established by the Conference of Parties in 2002 to decrease the loss of plant diversity, reduce poverty and contribute to sustainable development. To achieve this overarching goal, the GSPC has established a series of targets, one of which is to ensure that plant diversity is well understood, so that it can be effectively conserved and used in a sustainable manner. Brazil hosts more than 46,000 species of plants, algae and fungi, representing one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth, and playing a key role in the GSPC. To meet the GSPC goals of Target 1 and facilitate access to plant diversity, Brazil committed to preparing the List of Species of the Brazilian Flora (2008–2015) and the Brazilian Flora 2020 (2016–present). Managing all the information associated with such great biodiversity has proven to be an extremely challenging task. Here, we synthesize the history of these projects, focusing on the multidisciplinary and collaborative approach adopted to develop and manage the inclusion of all the knowledge generated though digital information systems. We further describe the methods used, challenges faced, and strategies adopted, as well as summarize advances to date and prospects for completing the Brazilian flora in 2020.

Investigating spatio-temporal trends in soil vulnerability to degradation based on the diachronic analysis of selected biophysical and socioeconomic drivers is a key issue for the identification of prone areas. The working hypothesis of the present study is that a given territorial system may undergo different (and sometimes contrasting) patterns of soil vulnerability (improvement, worsening or stability) in the long term, thus creating (or amplifying) spatial heterogeneity in land resource distribution. Areas classified as “critical” are regarded as soil vulnerability hotspots that require dedicated mitigation policies. The correct identification of “critical” areas to soil degradation is particularly important for the natural areas and, more generally, for the agro-forest systems preserved under various land protection regimes. Based on these premises, the objectives of this study are (i) to assess the spatial distribution of soil vulnerability in Italy over a long enough time interval (1990–2010), (ii) to provide an operational tool to identify soil degradation hotspots according to the observed vulnerability trend and, finally, (iii) to analyze hotspot spatial distribution
in relation with natural protected areas and the Natura2000 network. The results of this study provide a useful tool for environmental monitoring and are discussed in the light of sustainable agro-forest managementand preservation of natural areas.