The Ethics of Ecological Field Experimentation

Teaching & Learning Guide for: The Aesthetics of Nature

The novelty of the proposed research lies in its focus on developing and refining MCDM methods to address the complex and multifaceted nature of sustainability challenges, and evaluating the effectiveness and practicality of these methods in real-world decision-making contexts. While previous research has explored the application of MCDM methods to sustainability decision-making, this study aims to advance the field by addressing the following novel aspects: Comprehensive evaluation of MCDM methods: The study aims to comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness and practicality of various MCDM methods in addressing sustainability challenges, including climate change, resource management, and social justice. This evaluation will consider the strengths and limitations of each method, and identify opportunities for improvement. Incorporation of stakeholder values: The study will incorporate stakeholder values into the decision-making process, ensuring that the resulting decisions reflect the diverse perspectives and priorities of all stakeholders. This approach differs from traditional decision-making methods, which often prioritize the perspectives of a select few. Real-world decision-making contexts: The study will evaluate the effectiveness and practicality of MCDM methods in real-world decision-making contexts, providing insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with the implementation of these methods. This will help decision-makers to better understand how to apply MCDM methods to real-world sustainability challenges. The proposed research offers a novel and comprehensive approach to addressing sustainability challenges through the development and application of MCDM methods. By evaluating the effectiveness and practicality of these methods in real-world decision-making contexts, this study aims to provide decision-makers with a more comprehensive and informed approach to sustainability decision-making that reflects the diverse perspectives and priorities of all stakeholders. Future research in the area of MCDM methods to address sustainability challenges could focus on several areas, including: Cross-disciplinary collaborations: Given the complex and multifaceted nature of sustainability challenges, there is a need for cross-disciplinary collaborations between decision-makers, scientists, and stakeholders to develop and implement effective sustainability strategies. Future research could explore how MCDM methods can facilitate these collaborations and promote interdisciplinary dialogue and knowledge sharing. Evaluation of long-term sustainability outcomes: While MCDM methods can help decision-makers to evaluate alternatives based on multiple criteria and stakeholder values, it may be challenging to evaluate the long-term sustainability outcomes of these decisions. Future research could explore how MCDM methods can be used to evaluate the long-term sustainability outcomes of decisions, and how the effectiveness of these methods can be measured over time. Incorporation of ethical considerations: Sustainability decision-making involves ethical considerations related to distributive justice, procedural justice, and environmental ethics. Future research could explore how MCDM methods can incorporate these ethical considerations into the decision-making process to ensure that sustainability decisions are not only efficient and effective but also ethically justifiable. Evaluation of MCDM methods in different decision-making contexts: MCDM methods may be more suitable for certain decision-making contexts than others. Future research could evaluate the effectiveness and practicality of MCDM methods in different decision-making contexts, such as public sector decision-making, corporate decision-making, or community-based decision-making. Development of user-friendly decision support tools: While MCDM methods can be effective in addressing sustainability challenges, they may be challenging to implement in practice. Future research could focus on the development of user-friendly decision support tools that can help decision-makers to implement MCDM methods more easily and effectively. Overall, future research in the area of MCDM methods to address sustainability challenges should focus on advancing the understanding and application of these methods in real-world decision-making contexts. By addressing the challenges and limitations of these methods and developing new approaches to address emerging sustainability challenges, researchers can help decision-makers to make more informed and sustainable decisions for the benefit of society and the environment.

Subject area Niche products and environmental ethics. Study level/applicability The case is suitable for undergraduate students who have some understanding of competitive advantage in emerging economies, of niche products, the resource-based perspective and environmental ethics. Case overview The case concerns the Indonesian coffee industry, specifically the production of Kopi Luwak, a coffee that involves a type of local wild animal as an essential part of the process. The case outlines a typical problem for a new leader who has to start his tenure with a creditable performance. The company is a resource-based one that has to manage a potential risk of violating environmental ethics. Expected learning outcomes The case reveals the value of the international value chain for a cup of coffee. Through investigating the intersection between business feasibility and conservation issues, students should be able to understand what are appropriate business opportunities with environmental ethics considerations. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available; consult the librarian for access.

We have explored the extent to which faculty use various web sources of scientific literature. The findings were analyzed in relation to four variables: age and gender of study participants; field of science in which they work; their practices of exchanging scientific literature. The questionnaire was sent to employees at the Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as to the employees of various science faculties in Croatian cities Split and Rijeka. It was found out that there are significant differences in use of web portals. More than half of participants from the fields of social sciences and humanities use very frequently Croatian portal Hrcak, in relation to only 4% of participants from the field of natural sciences. For participants in humanities the Croatian portals are most important. Scientists from the field of social sciences mostly use foreign portals. Scientists from the field of natural sciences are the most frequent users of pirate portals. It was established that older participants use most frequently Croatian portals. Younger participants most frequently use foreign and pirate portals. Croatian and foreign web portals are most frequently used by female participants, while male participants are most frequent users of pirate portals.

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A field experiment was carried out during Kharif, 2020 at Crop Research Farm, Department of Agronomy, Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, Prayagraj (U.P) on sandy loam soil to assess the effect of biofertilizers and phosphorus on growth parameters and yield of Cowpea. The design of field experiment was Randomized block design consisting of ten treatments each replicated thrice. Experimental results showed significant increase in growth parameter viz., Plant height (81.09 cm), number of branches (4.87), number of nodules (53.27), plant dry weight (30.43 g/plant), crop growth rate (12.59 g/m2/plant) and yield attributing parameters viz., pods/plant (14.73), seeds/ pod (8.85), 100-seed weight (8.02 g), seed yield (2.62 t/ha) and biological yield (9.07 t/ha) were recorded with dual inoculation of Phosphate Solubilizing Bacteria and Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhiza along with 55 kg phosphorus per hectare.

<p>The French academic sector in the field of environment sciences, including meteorology and climate, is organized through a cooperation among several national organizations and universities. National organizations and universities operating in the field of environmental sciences belong to a federation called AllEnvi, initiated in 2010. Météo-France, the French national eather service, is a founding member of AllEnvi, among 11 other organizations such as CNRS, BRGM, CEA, Ifremer, IRD, INRAE etc. 15 further associate members contribute to AllEnvi activities. AllEnvi brings together their top executives through regular meetings, and discusses and implements joint strategies through topical groups involving relevant experts. This enables regular discussions between key players in the field of environmental sciences at the national scale. One of the mandates of AllEnvi is to develop research agenda covering its various domains, and provide guidance for strategic priorities to its members and the national research funding agency ANR.</p><p>In the field of meteorology and climate, a key long lasting collaboration has developed between Météo-France and CNRS, the national research council. In particular, Météo-France and CNRS jointly run several research entities, in particular the Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM) based in Toulouse, Grenoble and Lannion and the Laboratoire de l’Atmosphère et des Cyclones (LACy) on Réunion Island also affiliated with Université de la Réunion. These laboratories bring together scientific, technical and administrative staff from these organizations around common goals and projects. Météo-France, CNRS and CNES, the national space agency, operate research aircrafts through the SAFIRE fleet. Other key long-lasting collaborations include CERFACS and Mercator Ocean International. </p><p>CNRS, Météo-France and other research organizations, provide funding to national programmes in the field of meteorology and climate under a common scientific committee. Scientists from virtually any laboratory can apply for seed funding from these programmes, which also contribute to developing and maintain strong ties among the scientific community, including on emerging topics.  </p><p>This manifold collaboration at the national level is also reflected at the European level, through research infrastructures, European partnerships (including ECMWF and the consortium for numerical weather prediction ACCORD), and contributions to research and innovations calls from the Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe programmes.</p><p>These daily interactions between Météo-France and its academic partners, implemented in particular through its research laboratories CNRM and LACy, are mutually beneficial to improving weather forecasting and climate modelling tools and their operational uses for meteorological and climate services, as well as using these tools for addressing new or persistent scientific challenges. This close cooperation also contributes to maintaining research and development activities at Météo-France as close as possible to the highest scientific standards. This contribution will summarize the implementation research cooperation in particular between Météo-France and the academic sector, its successes, challenges, lessons learnt and perspectives.</p>

Upon the enactment of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, published ethical norms will for the first time give explicit consideration to the lawyer's behavior in the process of negotiation. Rules 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 deal with negotiation. Although the Canons, the interpretations of the Canons, and the Disciplinary Rules and Ethical Considerations gave tangential consideration to negotiating, none of the Disciplinary Rules or Ethical Considerations explicitly considered negotiation apart from the process of litigation or counseling. The mere recognition of negotiation as a separate process worthy of unique rules is a large step. The purpose of this paper is to address the general question of truthfulness as that question is faced in Rule 4.2.

Decentralized desalination systems driven by renewable energy sources have surfaced as a feasible way to alleviate water scarcity in arid and rural areas. This bibliometric study aims to clarify the research trends, conceptual frameworks, and cooperative dynamics in the scientific literature on decentralized renewable-powered desalination techniques. Using a thorough search approach, 1354 papers were found. Duplicates, thematically unrelated works, and entries with poor information were removed using the PRISMA 2020 framework. A selected 832 relevant papers from a filtered dataset were chosen for in-depth analysis. Quantitative measures were obtained by means of Bibliometrix; network visualisation was obtained by means of VOSviewer (version 1.6.19) and covered co-authorship, keyword co-occurrence, and citation structures. Over the previous 20 years, the data show a steady rise in academic production, especially in the fields of environmental science, renewable energy engineering, and water treatment technologies. Author keyword co-occurrence mapping revealed strong theme clusters centred on solar stills, thermoelectric modules, reverse osmosis, and off-grid systems. Emphasizing current research paths and emerging subject borders, this paper clarifies the intellectual and social structure of the field. The outcomes are expected to help policy creation, cooperative projects, and strategic planning meant to hasten innovation in sustainable and decentralized water desalination.

Over the last 40 years, a growing number of restoration projects have been implemented to improve the ecological conditions of highly degraded rivers and their floodplains. Despite considerable investment in these projects, information is still limited about the effectiveness and the success of such river restoration measures, mainly due to a lack of standardised and interdisciplinary assessment approaches. During the project ‘Wilde Mulde—Restoration of a dynamic riverine landscape in Central Germany’, we implemented hydromorphological restoration measures (installation of large wood, removal of rip‐rap, reconnection of a former river side‐arm) along a lowland river in Central Germany. We carried out intensive scientific monitoring of biodiversity, hydromorphology, ecosystem functions and services, as well as socio‐economic aspects. A Before/After‐Control/Impact (BACI) design was used to identify the spatial and temporal effects of the restoration measures and to distinguish them from changes caused by background variation. For this, we used a comprehensive set of indicators, including abiotic (flow velocity, diversity of riverbed topography, and flow resistance), biological (ecosystem respiration, macroinvertebrates, fish, carabids, vegetation, and birds) and socio‐economic (acceptance and public awareness) indicators as well as the ecosystem service indicator aesthetic quality of the landscape. To meet the inherent challenges of such a large‐scale field experiment, like unpredictable environmental conditions, we used an experimental approach that allowed us to demonstrate a measurable success of the implemented restoration measures. The majority of the abiotic and some of the biological and socio‐economic indicators at the restored sites approached values of a natural reference site while already deviating from values of a nonnatural reference site two years after restoration. In addition to the applied interdisciplinary approach, multiple scales of field investigations and data analyses are essential as key components for evaluating successful river and floodplain restoration projects.

The use of genetically modified plants in agriculture (GM crops) is controversially discussed in academic publications. Important issues are whether the release of GM crops is beneficial or harmful for the environment and therefore acceptable, and whether the modification of plants is ethically permissible per se. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the moral reasoning on the use of GM crops expressed in academic publications from 1975 to 2008. Environmental ethical aspects in the publications were investigated. Overall, 113 articles from 15 ecology, environmental ethics, and multidisciplinary science journals were systematically reviewed. Three types of moral concerns were used to structure the normative statements, moral notions, and moral issues found in the articles: concerns addressing consequences of the use of GM crops, concerns addressing the act (the technique itself), and concerns addressing the virtues of an actor. Articles addressing consequences (84%) dealt with general ecological and risk concerns or discussed specific ecological issues about the use of GM crops. Articles addressing the act (57%) dealt with the value of naturalness, the value of biotic entities, and conceptual reductionism, whereas articles addressing the actor (43%) dealt with virtues related to the handling of risks and the application of GM crops. The results of this study may help to structure the academic debate and contribute to a better understanding of moral concerns that are associated with the key aspects of the ethical theories of consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics.

Purpose – The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate how opportunity for control and firm capability interact to moderate the amount of risk that managers associate with various international entry‐mode strategies. A secondary goal is to investigate how managers perceive the need to retain control over three core functional areas (marketing, production, and R&D) when making entry‐mode decisions.Design/methodology/approach – A field experiment design was implemented in a sample of US business owner/executives. Using an online data collection method, the study asked a sample of small‐business owners and managers to assess the amount of risk they associated with three modes of entering the Japanese market: non‐ownership (export), equal partnership (50/50 joint‐venture), and sole‐ownership. They were also asked how much control they needed to retain over R&D, production, and marketing for the venture to be successful.Findings – Ownership‐provided control interacts with capability to influence manager...

Synchrotron based μ-XRF, μ-XAS and μ-XRD have made a major impact in the field of environmental science in the last ten years. One of the first seven ‘day one’ beamlines on the Diamond Light Source is a microfocus spectroscopy beamline, beamline I18. Here the current status of the beamline and the opportunities it presents in the field of environmental science are described, with results from two of the first experiments also included. The first is based on the use of bonemeal to remediate soil. We used Zn K-edge and Pb L3-edge spectroscopy to characterize the speciation of these two elements on a soil after bonemeal treatment. The results are compared with bulk measurements taken on the whole soil and standard materials. The second experiment described here is a study of the speciation and association of Ni in a laterite from Moa Bay, Cuba. Here the differences in the Ni speciation associated with Mn oxides are examined and compared with Fe oxides phases.

Corruption is a phenomenon characterized by the use of public resources for private gain. Studying this phenomenon with traditional methods (observational methods) presents many methodological difficulties (spurious results, for example). In order to address this situation, since the early 2000s studies have been developing and using experimental designs that have a set of advantages over traditional designs. In the literature, we find that there are three main experimental designs used in the study of this phenomenon: (i) laboratory experimental design (laboratory experiment); (ii) field experimental design (field experiment); and (iii) survey experimental design (survey experiment). This article aims to describe each of these experimental designs used in the study of corruption, their utility according to the research questions, and along with this we describe the main studies developed by leading researchers in this field.

Supplementary irrigation is one of the most effective field management practices to improve water productivity and crop yield in rainfed conditions. Time of supplementary irrigation is another important parameter affecting the enhancement of yield. In order to study the effect of supplementary irrigation time as well as planting date, two factors, namely: 1) supplementary irrigation (No irrigation as control (T1), single irrigation at grain filling stage (T2), and single irrigation at pod filling stage (T3)); 2) Planting date (planting on April 4 (D1) vs. 14 (D2)) were considered and a field experiment carried out at the Research and Training Farm of Imam Khomeini International University, Qazvin, Iran in spring 2011. The field experimental design was a factorial one based upon RCBD of six treatments and three replications. Treatments consisted of: D1T1 (Planting date on 4th April – without irrigation as control), D1T2 (Planting date on 4th April – single irrigation at grain filling stage), D1T3 (Planting date on 4th April – single irrigation at pod filling stage), D2T1 (Planting date on 14th April – non-irrigated), D2T2 (Planting date on 14th April – single irrigation at grain filling stage), D2T3 (Planting date on 14th April – single irrigation at pod filling stage). The effect of single irrigation time on yield, biomass and number of grains in unit area was significant as planting on 4th April and single irrigation at grain filling stage resulted 280 and 210 percent increase in yield and in biomass respectively, as compared to single irrigation at pod filling stage. The planting date factor showed a significant effect on yield and yield components as the yield decreased from 1057.6 (kg/ha) for a single irrigation at grain filling stage and planting on 4th April to 190.93 (kg/ha) for a single irrigation at the same stage and planting on 14th April. This means that the delay in planting date caused a reduction of 82 percent in yield for a single irrigation at grain filling stage. This reduction for single irrigation at pod filling was equal to 82 percent and the amount of yield decreased from 371.6 (Kg/ha) for planting on 4th April to 68.2 (Kg/ha) for planting date of 14th April.