The 2018 student debates of the Entomological Society of America were held at the Joint Annual Meeting for the Entomological Societies of America, Canada, and British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. Three unbiased introductory speakers and six debate teams discussed and debated topics under the theme ‘Entomology in the 21st Century: Tackling Insect Invasions, Promoting Advancements in Technology, and Using Effective Science Communication’. This year’s debate topics included: 1) What is the most harmful invasive insect species in the world? 2) How can scientists diffuse the stigma or scare factor surrounding issues that become controversial such as genetically modified organisms, agricultural biotechnological developments, or pesticide chemicals? 3) What new/emerging technologies have the potential to revolutionize entomology (other than Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats)? Introductory speakers and debate teams spent approximately 9 mo preparing their statements and arguments and had the opportunity to share this at the Joint Annual Meeting with an engaged audience.
The densely populated Emscher basin (~ 800 km2) is embedded between the Ruhr and Lippe rivers in the North-West Germany. The sewerage from 2.5 million inhabitants, from a diversity of industrial plants and storm water is conveyed by a combined open sewer system to a central sewage treatment plant located at the mouth of the Emscher. The use of the natural drainage system as an open sewer was due to severe land subsidence caused by underground hard coal mining, which had a most deteriorating influence on flow conditions. After closing down most mines, land subsidence has been greatly reduced: consequently the open sewer concept can be abandoned and a general rehabilitation of the Emscher system is now in progress. The rehabilitation concept is based on the separation of natural river flow and sewage, which will be conveyed via modified combined systems to decentralized treatment plants. A step-wise programme is necessary to complete the basic system rehabilitation through “learning by doing”. The realization period is expected to be 25-30 years. For the construction of sewer systems and plants, including stormwater treatment facilities, and for the reconstruction of the surface drainage system in a natural form, including flood retention measures, the expected investment cost amounts to about 8 billion DM (~ 4.7 billion US $).
The Emscher system, with its open wastewater drains, has been undergoing reconstruction since 1990. The watercourses, now relieved of the burden of wastewater, are being reconstituted as close to nature as possible. An important precondition, for which naturally orientated rainwater management concepts must be implemented in this densely populated region, is a homogenized run-off. Emschergenossenschaft has in recent years provided financial and conceptual support for the implementation of such changes. Present-day experience demonstrates that disconnection of 10% of impervious areas within the next fifteen years is a realistic target and consequently the aim for next year's work. As detailed studies using precipitation run-off models document, this will decisively improve the flood and minimum water situations of the small tributary watercourses in particular, which is important regarding the aims of the EU WFD.
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A major problem in assessing the ecclesiastical policies of the government of Louis XIII is the equivocal reputation of its chief ministers as a churchman. Cardinal Richelieu enjoys an uncertain reputation as churchman in large measure because of the inherent ambiguities of his position as both prince of the church and chief minister of the king of France. Further compounding this ambiguous position was Gallicanism, the peculiar stance of the French church on matters of church-state and Franco-papal relations. A classic example of how Gallicanism could introduce complex and independently derived factors into Richelieu's policies was the decennial meeting of the Assembly of the Clergy of 1625. At that meeting, early in Richelieu's tenure as chief minister, the French clergy demonstrated with great vigor that Gallicanism was not a doctrine of the past and that it had wellsprings quite independent of the crown and Richelieu. Even in 1625 most people, including the papal curia, found it difficult to believe that the behavior of the Assembly of the Clergy was not dictated by Richelieu. We shall see, however, that the Assembly adopted measures well calculated to irritate the Holy See at a time when Cardinal Richelieu had every desire to placate Urban VIII. In 1625 Richelieu was negotiating feverishly to extricate Louis XIII from war in the Valtellina without losing the fruits of his aggressive action there. Richelieu's plan called for a papal garrison to be placed in the valley to keep it neutral and closed to Spain. Necessarily, the pope's cooperation was vital, which meant that it was not the moment to offend Urban VIII by attacking papal authority at home.
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