Former NFL coach Jack Del Rio will part ways with the University of Wisconsin's football team after he was arrested last week on a drunk driving charge.

Berlin's city government launched an official bid campaign on Tuesday to host NFL games over a five-year period from next year.

The Pittsburgh Steelers will head into their AFC North showdown with rival Baltimore without outside linebacker Alex Highsmith.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Infowars broadcasts could end next week as he faces a court-ordered auction of his company's assets to help pay the more than $1 billion defamation judgment he owes families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Bam Adebayo scored 20 of his 32 points in the first half and the Miami Heat beat the Washington Wizards 118-98 on Saturday night in the 14th NBA regular-season game in Mexico.

Denver Nuggets power forward Aaron Gordon is expected to miss multiple weeks with a strained right calf, two people familiar with the injury told The Associated Press.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar has won a fourth term, defeating anti-establishment Republican and former NBA player Royce White in Minnesota's top election matchup.

Joel Embiid is expected to play this week for the Philadelphia 76ers - barring another setback, and there is always that chance with the 7-footer - after he won Olympic gold, signed a contract extension, slogged through a knee injury, was the root of two NBA investigations, scuffled with a columnist and was hit with a technical foul for waving a towel from the bench.

Fernando Valenzuela, the Los Angeles Dodgers pitching ace who helped the team win the 1981 World Series, died of septic shock last month, according to his death certificate.

At least 11 employees were taken to hospitals and residents were urged to shelter in place after an apparent explosion at a Louisville, Kentucky, business on Tuesday.

The final season is now streaming on Paramount+, reuniting the beloved cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation

The post Star Trek: Picard Celebrates The Next Generation With Its Final Season first appeared on SciFi Stream.

Huge data encompassed into a unique georeferenced macrobenthic assemblages database

A new peer-reviewed data paper offers a comprehensive, open-access collection of georeferenced biological information about the Antarctic macrobenthic communities. The term macrobenthic refers to the visible-for-the-eye organisms that live near or on the sea bottom such as echinoderms, sponges, ascidians, crustaceans. The paper will help in coordinating biodiversity research and conservation activities on species living near the ocean bottom of the Antarctic.
The data paper "Antarctic macrobenthic communities: A compilation of circumpolar information", published in the open access journal Nature Conservation, describes data from approximately 90 different expeditions in the region since 1956 that have now been made openly available under a CC-By license. The paper provides unique georeferenced biological basic information for the planning of future coordinated research activities, for example those under the umbrella of the biology program Antarctic Thresholds – Ecosystem Resilience and Adaptation (AnT-ERA) of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). The information collected could be also beneficial for current conservation priorities such as the planning of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).
The expeditions were organised by several famous explorers of the Antarctic. The area covered by the paper consists of almost the entire Southern Ocean, including sites covered by a single ice-shelf. The vast majority of information is from shelf areas around the continent at water depth shallower than 800m. The information from the different sources is then attributed to the classified macrobenthic assemblages. The results are made publicly available via the "Antarctic Biodiversity Facility" (data.biodiversity.aq).
A specific feature of this paper is that the manuscript was automatically generated from the Integrated Publishing Toolkit of the Antarctic Node of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (AntaBIF IPT) and then submitted to the journal Nature Conservation through a novel workflow developed by GBIF and Pensoft Publishers. (see previous press release). Data are made freely available through the AntaBIF IPT, and sea-bed images of 214 localities through the data repository for geoscience and environmental data, PANGAEA- Data Publisher for Earth and Environmental Science (sample: http://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.198682).

The "Environmental research: Experiences on best practices towards Horizon 2020" conference will be held the 30th of May 2013 in Brussels at the Museum of Natural Sciences.  Organizers of the event are the APRE (Agency for the Promotion of European Research), and the ENVIMPACT consortium.

The event will gather European Commission representatives,  researchers, FP7 project's participants, governmental, academic and industrial stakeholders of the Central East European countries with the aim of presenting the current and future tools and trends for dissemination and exploitation of R&D results with a special focus on the thematic areas of research in air pollution, chemical pollution and environmental technologies, especially in the Central-Eastern European (CEE) countries.

The agenda of the conference and the press release are downloadable at the link: http://download.apre.it/envimpact_presskit1.zip

The registration is free, please register at http://www.envimpact.eu/index.cfm?action=article&publication_id=922

ENVIMPACT project has been launched on 1st January 2011. This initiative is funded by the European Commission under FP7, DG Research and Innovation, with the objectives to improve the current communication  and dissemination of environmental research results deriving from Central-Eastern European (CEE) countries.

Science for Environment Policy features a policy brief explaining the biases around biodiversity databases in their latest issue 331, from 6 June 2013. "Biodiversity databases: language and location help explain biases" features a new study arguing that low numbers of English speakers, large distances from the database host and low security acting as key barriers to data collection and among the main reasons for the underrepresentation of some countries in biodiversity databases.

Source: Amano T., Sutherland W.J. (2013) Four barriers to the global understanding of biodiversity conservation: wealth, language, geographical location and security. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 280: 20122649. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2649

The Brazilian initiative PPBio (The Program for Research on Biodiversity) launches a new book based on over a decade of experience in implementing the biodiversity monitoring system RAPELD in the Brazilian Amazon. Richly illustrated and written in simple language, the book "Biodiversity and Integrated Environmental Monitoring" addresses the issues that led to the system development, covering topics such as the spatial organization and representation of biological diversity, environmental monitoring, and data management.

Monitoring of biodiversity is not merely an academic endeavor. Although scientific aspects such as representation of biodiversity and biodiversity data integration, management and preservation are of a great importance, it is also essential to think about the political context in which decisions will be made and how to incorporate political stakeholders and decision makers.

"As this important book makes clear questions about biodiversity are far from purely scientific. Biodiversity matters. Our needs to assess it embed in a complex of questions posed by managers, policy makers and those who live in or otherwise benefit from biodiversity.",  explains Dr Stuart L. Pimm in the preface of the book. "So how do we ensure that data collected now will be useful for purposes we cannot yet imagine at some unexpected time in the future? Or provide comparison to some other place that we might survey some day?"

Those and many more questions regarding biodiversity data management and policy involvement are discussed in the new book "Biodiversity and Integrated Environmental Monitoring".

The latest issue of ZooKeys - no. 346 - has been automatically registered in ZooBank on its day of publication last Friday. This marks the successful deployment of an automated registration-to-publication pipeline for taxonomic names for animals. The innovative workflow was jointly funded by the EU FP7 funded project pro-iBiosphere and a U.S. National Science Foundation project to develop the Global Names Architecture (DBI-1062441).

The process of post-publication recording and indexing of species names has a long tradition, in some cases dating as far back as the middle of 19th century. But now in the 21st century with the advance of modern technologies and the opportunity to publish taxonomic novelties online, the process of post-publication recording brought into focus the concept of automated pre-publication registration.

Why is this important? The proportion of 'turbo-taxonomic' papers describing hundreds of new species increases. Registration of hundreds of new species is an issue, however it is even more important that the final publication data of the pre-registered names are reported back to ZooBank on the day of publication.

Launched as an open access peer reviewed journal in 2008, to coincide and adopt from inception the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature changes for electronic publications, ZooKeys was the first journal to provide a mandatory in-house registration in ZooBank. Since 2008, it has contributed about one third of all names currently registered in ZooBank. With the adoption of the automated ZooBank registration, ZooKeys continues its mission to set novel trends in biodiversity publishing.

Implementation of automated workflows and invention of XML-based tools will facilitate the process of publication and dissemination of biodiversity information. It will pave the way for unification and streamlining the registration process, even more to building the next-generation e-infrastructure for a common global taxon names registry. Within the pro-iBiosphere project and in cooperation with Plazi that have created the TaxPub XML schema, an automated registration workflow for plants has already been established between the International Plant Names Index (IPNI) and the PhytoKeys journal, to be applied soon also for fungi between Index Fungorum and the journal MycoKeys.

The Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg offers in cooperation with GEO BON and iDiv the position of Executive Director for the duration of 30 months (initially limited till September 30th, 2016 with possibility of extension). The Executive Director will work in close collaboration with the incoming Chair of the GEO BON Steering Committee, Prof. Henrique M. Pereira (iDiv) and the incoming vice-chair, Dr. Mike Gill (Environment Canada), thematic workgroup coordinators, regional BON coordinators, the GEO BON Steering Committee and the GEO secretariat.

Requirements:
• Ph.D. in ecology or related field
• excellent diploma or master degree in a relevant field
• demonstrable experience in project management with executive leadership in organizations a plus
• excellent communication skills, fluency in English, knowledge of other languages being a plus
• willingness to travel abroad frequently, outgoing and at ease in multicultural backgrounds

Topic/job description:
• Providing visible leadership for GEO BON and representing GEO BON at scientific and policy meetings
• Creating funding opportunities through engagement with potential donors
• Coordinating activities of GEO BON Working Groups and Regional Observation Networks
• Liaising with national and regional organizations involved in biodiversity monitoring and reporting
• Organize the Steering Committee, All-hands and other meetings of GEO BON and manage the communication activities of GEO BON, including a regular newsletter and a website
• Manage, as and when required, activities and inputs requested by the GEO secretariat

Applications should be directed to emily.keller@idiv.de and addressed to Henrique M. Pereira, Professor of Biodiversity Conservation, iDiv. Applications should be in a single PDF file with reference file number (D 189/2013). Applications are accepted until January 6th, 2014.

For more information see attached the full text of the job offer.

The second plenary of the Platform met in December 2013 and agreed an ambitious work programme for 2014-2018: Details of the agreed work programme are available in the advanced meeting report of the Plenary.

The IPBES Secretariat have now issued a call for experts to help scope, advise on and deliver the work programme. Governments and relevant stakeholders can put forward nominations, from which the Multidisciplinary Expert Panel of IPBES will select a maximum of 20% of experts from the stakeholder nominations, and the rest from the government nominations.

The UK expects IPBES to make use of the best scientists/experts from all relevant disciplines - natural science, social science, economics, data and modelling and traditional knowledge, and to achieve a geographical and gender balance among those experts in the delivery of the IPBES work programme.

More information of the required topics to be covered by experts, alongside the nomination forms and how to nominate can be found in the attachments below.

Fauna Europaea started in 2000 as an EC-FP5 four-year project, delivering its first release in 2004. After 14 years of steady progress and successful participations in several EC projects, as a part of the EC-FP7 European Biodiversity Observation Network project (EU BON), to increase the general awareness of the work done by the contributors and to extend the general dissemination of the Fauna Europaea results, the Biodiversity Data Journal has applied its novel e-Publishing tools to prepare data papers for all 56 major taxonomic groups.

Fauna Europaea provides a public web-service with an index of scientific names (including important synonyms) of all living European land and freshwater animals, their geographical distribution at country level, and some additional information. The Fauna Europaea project covers about 230,000 taxonomic names, including 130,000 species name. This represents a huge effort by more than 400 contributing specialists throughout Europe and is a unique (standard) reference suitable for many users in science, government, industry, nature conservation and education.

'Contributions on Fauna Europaea' is the second series launched by the Biodiversity Data Journal after the Checklist of British and Irish Hymenoptera and the first one that embraces thematic data-papers structured in a common pattern extracted from a large database. This novel publication model will assemble in a single-issue 56 data-papers on different taxonomic groups covered by the Fauna Europaea project in the period 2000-2014 and a range of accompanying papers highlighting various aspects of this project (gap-analysis, software design, taxonomic assessments, etc.).

This is the first collection of data-papers of this scale. It will formalise and effectively publish the results of nearly 500 contributors building the largest European animal (taxonomic) database. The new publication model provides a reliable mechanism for citation and bibliographic indexing of large and uniformly structured databases.

"The publication of Fauna Europaea data papers brings a number of benefits for science, for example it stimulates experts to hand-over descriptive details on their groups, triggers new ways of community networking and participation, motivates experts to update their data, supports a better documentation of their achievements, including issues like 'micro-publications', and increase an ownership feeling with the associated effort" said Dr Yde de Jong, coordinator of the Fauna Europaea and Pan-European Species directories Infrastructure (PESI) projects.

The launch of this large collection of data papers coincides with one more cutting-edge innovation of the Biodiversity Data Journal, the publication of an API, a first of its kind, to import complex and data-rich manuscripts, which include text, data, images, in-text citations, references, in fact anything that a manuscript may contain.

"I am happy that these exciting innovations coincided with the first birthday of the Biodiversity Data Journal. Just a year ago we launched this new concept with the motto: Making your data count! These novel approaches and tools are an excellent example how our concept evolved!" comments Prof. Lyubomir Penev, Managing Director of Pensoft Publishers.

Original Sources:

de Jong Y, Verbeek M, Michelsen V, Bjørn P, Los W, Steeman F, Bailly N, Basire C, Chylarecki P, Stloukal E, Hagedorn G, Wetzel F, Glöckler F, Kroupa A, Korb G, Hoffmann A, Häuser C, Kohlbecker A, Müller A, Güntsch A, Stoev P, Penev L (2014) Fauna Europaea – all European animal species on the web. Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e4034. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.2.e4034

Gibson D, Bray R, Hunt D, Georgiev B, Scholz T, Harris P, Bakke T, Pojmanska T, Niewiadomska K, Kostadinova A, Tkach V, Bain O, Durette-Desset M, Gibbons L, Moravec F, Petter A, Dimitrova Z, Buchmann K, Valtonen E, de Jong Y (2014) Fauna Europaea: Helminths (Animal Parasitic). Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e1060. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.2.e1060

Context:

The Earth's rapidly changing environment is putting critical ecosystem services at risk. There are many challenges involved in understanding global environmental changes, and in providing societies with the policy-relevant knowledge base to deal with them. These challenges will reach across many aspects of scientific endeavour. Indeed, the research community requires state-of-the-art research infrastructures (RIs) to have the capability to explain and predict global environmental changes. In this context the Experimentation in Ecosystem Research conference will provide a platform for discussions on cutting-edge technological tools, large-scale integrative experimental design, technical constraints, data access and last but not least ecosystem modelling. The conference will attract speakers and delegates from around the world and will offer opportunities to reinforce global cooperation.  

Main topics:

• Grand challenges: With the current set of Experimental Research infrastructures in ecosystem science, do we have the capacity to tackle the grand challenges of today and tomorrow?
• In vitro and in natura : How realistic are they, and how they can be better linked?
• Technologies: Which emerging technologies could enhance (or are needed for) the performance and services offered by our RIs?
• Data: Towards an e-infrastructure for ecosystem research - challenges and opportunities
• Modelling:  How accurate is our capacity to forecast and upscale, and what is missing? How can we communicate uncertainty? How do we strike the right balance between modelling and experiments?

The conference is organized under the framework of the European FP7 project ExpeER ( www.expeeronline.eu )

Find out more in the flyer attached below or on the event's website: https://colloque6.inra.fr/expeer-conference

A new aticle published in Ecology Letters  looks into the indirect interactions among tropical tree species through shared rodent seed predators. The reasearch is part of the work of EU BON postdoc Carol X. Garzon-Lopez.

Abstract: The coexistence of numerous tree species in tropical forests is commonly explained by negative dependence of recruitment on the conspecific seed and tree density due to specialist natural enemies that attack seeds and seedlings (‘Janzen–Connell’ effects). Less known is whether guilds of shared seed predators can induce a negative dependence of recruitment on the density of different species of the same plant functional group. We studied 54 plots in tropical forest on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, with contrasting mature tree densities of three coexisting large seeded tree species with shared seed predators. Levels of seed predation were far better explained by incorporating seed densities of all three focal species than by conspecific seed density alone. Both positive and negative density dependencies were observed for different species combinations. Thus, indirect interactions via shared seed predators can either promote or reduce the coexistence of different plant functional groups in tropical forest.

Carol X. Garzon-Lopez et. al. (2015) Indirect interactions among tropical tree species through shared rodent seed predators: a novel mechanism of tree species coexistence. Ecology Letters. doi: 10.1111/ele.12452

It has been recognized that issues regarding the sustainability and interoperability of data collected by citizens hinder the re-usability and integration of these data across borders. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), is following up on these findings with a detailed study of interoperability arrangements, hosting and data management practices of Citizen Science projects. These activities include a survey designed to capture the state of play with regard to data management practices on the local, national and continental scales. The questions are especially inspired by the recently proposed data management principles of the Group on Earth Observations and those of the Belmont Forum.

Beyond the pure stocktaking and awareness raising, the results should establish a base line for prioritizing follow-up activities and measuring progress. The results will also inform the discussion on the potential roles of the European Commission – and especially the JRC – in Citizen Science.

After discussions with members of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) and the international Citizen Science Association (CSA), it was decided to open the scope of the questionnaire to the international community, so that non-EU and globally acting organizations could also benefit from the outcomes.

The survey will be open until 31 August 2015, and the results of the subsequent analysis will be available by the end of September.  We invite all those involved in Citizen Science projects to take the survey in order to provide us with invaluable information and insight into Citizen Science projects and best practice.

Take the Survey! >> https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/CSDataManagement

What are the threats for biodiversity from global to local spatial scales? How might human beings succeed in fighting biodiversity loss?

EU BON partners, Annapaola Rizzoli and Duccio Rocchini give a TEDx talk on extreme biodiversity in space and time at 2200 metres in the Pale di San Martino on September 6, organized by TEDxTrento (soon will be also available with English subtitles).

Learn more here.

The 1st GLOBAQUA International Conference will be held on 11-12 January 2016 in Freising, Germany. The interdisciplinary conference will go under the motto "Managing The Effects Of Multiple Stressors On Aquatic Ecosystems Under Water Scarcity".

The conference will serve as a platform for exchange and discus­sion of innovative scientific findings and methods in aquatic ecosys­tems research. It will focus on novel methods of environmental monitor­ing and modeling of various scopes, scales and structural complexity to improve process understanding the interconnectivity and feedback mechanisms of climate (regional), land use (regional), economy, hydrol­ogy and hydraulics (catchment and river), water quality (river), biology and aquatic ecosystems (reach scale). Further, the conference builds the bridge to the scientific assessment of implications on policy and management.

The deadine for submitting an abstract for the conference has been now extended until 7 Nov 2015.

More information on the conference, registration, abstract submitting is available on the GLOBAQUA website.

The GEO-XII Plenary and Ministerial Summit, as well as many associated meetings and events were hosted by the Mexican Government and took place in Mexico City from 9 to 13 November 2015.

The five-day event brought together GEO member countries and organizations, as well as scientists and stakeholders from across the world to debate the next decade for GEO, and to discuss the latest developments in Earth Observation technologies and applications. The GEO-XII Plenary approved the GEO Strategic Plan 2016-2025, and the Summit endorsed a Mexico City Declaration (see: http://www.earthobservations.org/geo12.php).

Mexican music and folklore performances at the hosted conference dinner at GEO-XII; Credit: Hannu Saarenmaa

EU BON participated at GEO-XII and was represented at the European Commission Stand "Europe for GEOSS" with a poster and a short video clip. A real highlight was the visit by the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas. During his short visit, the Commissioner took specific interest in the project and spent some time discussing EU BON's relevance with the coordinator and his staff.

   
The EC stand "Europe for GEOSS" at GEO-XII, and discussions on EU BON with Commissioner Carlos Moedas; Credits:  Jose Miguel Rubio Iglesias (left), Helmut Staudenrausch (right)

EU BON was also presented during a dedicated side event entitled "The GEO Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON): Enhancing Biodiversity Observations and Products for User Needs". The project’s key products were introduced by the project coordinator Christoph Häuser and the workpackage 2 leader Hannu Saarenmaa.

A new paper "Combining internal and external motivations in multi-actor governance arrangements for biodiversity and ecosystem services" published in the journal Environmental Science & Policy looks at ways to motivate actions for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services provision. The paper is a result of the EU FP7 funded project BIOMOT.

Abstract: 

This paper analyses the possibility of building a mutually supportive dynamics between internally and externally motivated behaviour for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services provision. To this purpose a face to face survey amongst 169 key actors of 34 highly successful and prominent biodiversity arrangements in seven EU countries was conducted. The main finding of the paper is the feasibility of combining inherently intrinsically motivated behaviours (providing enjoyment, pleasure from experimentation and learning, aesthetic satisfaction) and internalized extrinsic motivations (related to the identification with the collective goals of conservation policy) through a common set of governance features. Successful initiatives that combine internal and external motivations share the following features: inclusive decision making processes, a broad monitoring by "peers" beyond the core staff of the initiatives, and a context that is supportive for the building of autonomous actor competences. These findings are in line with the psycho-sociological theory of motivation, which shows the importance of a psycho-social context leading to a subjective perception of autonomy and a sense of competence of the actors.

Original Source: 

Tom Dedeurwaerdere, Jeroen Admiraal, Almut Beringer, Flavia Bonaiuto, Lavinia Cicero, Paula Fernandez-Wulff, Janneke Hagens, Juha Hiedanpää, Paul Knights, Erica Molinario, Paolo Melindi-Ghidi, Florin Popa, Urban Šilc, Nathalie Soethe, Tiina Soininen, Jose Luis Vivero, Combining internal and external motivations in multi-actor governance arrangements for biodiversity and ecosystem services, Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 58, April 2016, Pages 1-10, ISSN 1462-9011, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2015.12.003

Key in ensuring the effectiveness of conservation efforts and maintaining ecosystem health, measuring biodiversity can benefit greatly when remote sensing data comes into the equation. A new EU BON related paper, published in the journal Ecological Indicators, proposes open source solutions for measuring the important Rao's Q index, when it comes to remote sensing data.

Abstract: 

Measuring biodiversity is a key issue in ecology to guarantee effective indicators of ecosystem health at different spatial and time scales. However, estimating biodiversity from field observations might present difficulties related to costs and time needed. Moreover, a continuous data update for biodiversity monitoring purposes might be prohibitive. From this point of view, remote sensing represents a powerful tool since it allows to cover wide areas in a relatively low amount of time. One of the most common indicators of biodiversity is Shannon's entropy H′, which is strictly related to environmental heterogeneity, and thus to species diversity. However, Shannon's entropy might show drawbacks once applied to remote sensing data, since it considers relative abundances but it does not explicitly account for distances among pixels’ numerical values. In this paper we propose the use of Rao's Q applied to remotely sensed data, providing a straightforward R-package function to calculate it in 2D systems. We will introduce the theoretical rationale behind Rao's index and then provide applied examples based on the proposed R function.

Original Source: 

Rocchini, D., Marcantonio, M., Ricotta, C. (2017). Measuring Rao's Q diversity index rom remote sensing: an open source solution. Ecological Indicators, 72: 234-238. [5years-IF: 3.649] DOI:10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.07.039

The FP7 projects BioFresh and WaterDiss2.0 are pleased to announce the E-seminar "Data Exchange for Biodiversity Conservation in Freshwater Ecosystems: Introducing the BioFresh Platform and Data Portal". The E-seminar will take place on Thursday, November 28 from 14:00 to 15:00 CET.

It will be hosted on the seminar website (http://waterdiss.eu/eseminar-biofresh) where a link will be available for it.

The E-seminar will introduce the audience to the usage of the BioFresh Platform and Data Portal, in order to ensure a better understanding of the different components. Aaike De Wever, Science Officer of BioFresh, will explain which data and information are integrated and for which contributions BioFresh is looking. Participants are encouraged to join in for a live discussion via "Citrix go to Webinar".

If you want to participate in the e-seminar, you only need to send an email to evelyn.lukat@ecologic.eu. You will receive further information via mail. If you decide on participating later, you can also simply join the seminar by following the link provided on November 28^th on this website.

A few important notes:

• The e-seminar will be conducted in English
• The video and the questions asked during the session will be available on the websites of the BioFresh data portal and this website.

Technical details on the E-seminar:

• When clicking on the link, the application Citrix Go To Webinar will be downloaded. Nothing will be installed on your computer. However, please make sure that your computer is able to run java applications.
• Please make sure that the sound system on your computer works. If your sound system does not work properly, you can also dial in via phone. Please check the dial-in number for your country on this website by November 28^th.

The "International Conference on Experimentation in Ecosystem Research in a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities" will take place on the 24th and 25th of September at the National Museum of Natural History (auditorium de la Grande Galerie de l'Evolution), Paris, France.

Context:

The Earth's rapidly changing environment is putting critical ecosystem services at risk. There are many challenges involved in understanding global environmental changes, and in providing societies with the policy-relevant knowledge base to deal with them. These challenges will reach across many aspects of scientific endeavour. Indeed, the research community requires state-of-the-art research infrastructures (RIs) to have the capability to explain and predict global environmental changes. In this context the Experimentation in Ecosystem Research conference will provide a platform for discussions on cutting-edge technological tools, large-scale integrative experimental design, technical constraints, data access and last but not least ecosystem modelling. The conference will attract speakers and delegates from around the world and will offer opportunities to reinforce global cooperation.  

Main topics:

• Grand challenges: With the current set of Experimental Research infrastructures in ecosystem science, do we have the capacity to tackle the grand challenges of today and tomorrow?
• In vitro and in natura : How realistic are they, and how they can be better linked?
• Technologies: Which emerging technologies could enhance (or are needed for) the performance and services offered by our RIs?
• Data: Towards an e-infrastructure for ecosystem research - challenges and opportunities
• Modelling:  How accurate is our capacity to forecast and upscale, and what is missing? How can we communicate uncertainty? How do we strike the right balance between modelling and experiments?

The conference is organized under the framework of the European FP7 project ExpeER ( www.expeeronline.eu )

Find out more in the flyer attached below or on the event's website: https://colloque6.inra.fr/expeer-conference

The GEO-XII Plenary and the Ministerial Summit, as well as all the associated meetings and events will be hosted by the Mexican Government and will take place at the Hotel Hilton Reforma and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Mexico City from 9 to 13 November 2015.

The Twelfth Plenary Session of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO-XII), hosted by Mexico, will take place in Mexico City, from 11 to 12 November 2015. The GEO 2015 Mexico City Ministerial Summit will take place on 13 November 2015.

The GEO-XII Plenary will take place at the Hilton Reforma, Mexico City, on its first meeting day, Nov 11th 2015.

On November 12th 2015, the second day of GEO-XII Plenary, the meeting will be held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores - SRE), Plaza Juárez #20, located a few steps away from the Hilton Reforma.

Caucus Meetings and the Executive Committee Meeting, will take place from 9th-12th November, 2015, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

GEO Side Events will take place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Hotel Hilton.

The GEO exhibit will be held at the Hilton Reforma Mexico City, from November, 10th–12th, in conjunction with the LAGF 2015 exhibits, and will be open exclusively for Ministers on Thursday afternoon  12th November, 2015.

Call for side events is also open now, all submissions should be sent by 12 June 2015.

More information is available on the offical event website: http://www.earthobservations.org/geo12.php

The 2016 IndexMed Seminar will be held from 6 to 8 June 2016, in Marseille, France.

Following the successful workshops (2014 and 2015), this 3rd seminar will highlight the contribution of recent developments in data-mining using graphs approach for environmental research questions and new hypotheses. It will promote exchanges between participants, the acquisition of practical methods and will explore new ways to organize data.

The aims, after sharing scientific evidences and confronting experiences, are to develop collaborations using/based on graph approaches and new researches around the Mediterranean Sea and across Europe, and to respond to a European H2020 Call next year. The 3-days program (6 to 8 June 2016) will be extensive, including 3 plenary sessions with keynote speakers (international level), social events, a posters session and a 2-days workshop (about 20 places), during which participants will build their first data graphs with their own datasets and learn how to generate metadata and to write data papers.

The 2016 IndexMed Seminar welcomes abstracts for original oral and poster contributions until 15th May 2016. The online submission process will be opened soon (1st April) on http://indexmed2016.sciencesconf.org.

Registration is free and open to any researcher. PhD and Master students are welcome.

Follow the latest news and register for the event here.

Edgar Award© Mystery Writers of America. DB here: Some good news for Perplexing Plots. It’s gotten positive reviews in various places; they’re sampled on its Amazon page. Most recently, Geoffrey O’Brien has written a very generous review for the New York Review of Books (February 8, 2024). He has, needless to say, kind words for […]

Back on February 10, less than three weeks before his death, David blogged about the positive reception that Perplexing Plots had had including a nomination for an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He didn’t live to learn the result, but it didn’t win. Now, however, comes news that the International Crime Fiction […]

The 44-year-old supermodel is expecting with her boyfriend, Joaquim Valente, according to reports.

The post Gisele Bündchen is reportedly pregnant, expecting first child since her divorce from Tom Brady appeared first on Boston.com.

"Theeeee Yankees lose!"

The post David Ortiz still loves watching the Red Sox’ historic comeback vs. the Yankees 20 years later, especially alongside Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter appeared first on Boston.com.

International observers will determine if the right to defense and impartial trial are respected

VILAWEB

18-12-2018

A group of judicial and human rights experts, as well as professors throughout Spain, have set up a platform called ‘International Trial Watch – Catalan Referendum case’ to supervise the trial against independence leaders, presented on Monday.

At the event, criminal law professor Iñaki Rivera stated that they are creating reports to determine if the “right to defense, the existence and duration of pre-trial incarceration, and impartial trial, balance between parties, and the taking of evidence” are respected, along with the competency of the Supreme Court in the trial.

Interview: Imprisoned politician Josep Rull awaits trial for rebellion

THE IRISH TIMES

By GUY HEDGECOE

Decembre 20, 2018

In early November 2017, Josep Rull, the former Catalan minister for territory and sustainability, posted the following on his Twitter account: “If you see this tweet then I’ve been jailed for being loyal to the ballot box.”

More than 13 months later, Rull (50) is still in prison, although he was released on bail for several weeks earlier this year. He and 17 other pro-independence leaders are awaiting trial for their alleged role in Catalonia’s failed bid for independence last year and nine of them are in custody. At the beginning of December, Rull and three others – Jordi Sànchez, Jordi Turull and Joaquim Forn – began a hunger strike at Lledoners prison where they are being held.

Their protest is driven by the fact that they remain in jail even though their trial has no scheduled date. They also argue that the Spanish judiciary has deliberately blocked appeals they have made in order to prevent their complaints from reaching the European Court of Human Rights.

“I want my case – and those of my colleagues – to reach the European courts,” Rull told The Irish Times, in a written interview carried out via email. “But the Spanish courts put up obstacles because they fear being undermined by a truly impartial and independent judiciary.”

The Catalan government says Rull has lost 7kg since beginning the strike. Yet the quartet who are carrying out the action appear to have embarked on it with caution. Jordi Sànchez told a radio interviewer recently: “I don’t want to be the Catalan Bobby Sands.” He added: “We haven’t gone crazy. We’re not going to immolate ourselves.”

Reoffending

The supreme court says it was keeping Rull and the other prisoners in custody in order to prevent them from reoffending and from fleeing the country, as former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and several others did.

The independence movement has sought to place the nine imprisoned leaders, who also include former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras, at the centre of Spain’s ongoing territorial crisis. It argues they are political prisoners being punished for their views, not their actions.

Rull says that he is “in jail for fulfilling the mandate expressed by Catalan society in democratic elections: calling a referendum and applying its result”, a reference to the outlawed independence vote held in October 2017, during which police attacked many Catalans as they attempted to cast their vote.

As for the upcoming trial, Rull says that the guilt of the defendants is a foregone conclusion. If he is found guilty, he could face a jail sentence of up to 16 years for rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds. Junqueras faces a possible 25-year sentence.

“Our trial does not have the objective conditions necessary to make it trustworthy,” Rull says, adding that after the verdict he will appeal to the European judiciary. “I want to take the opportunity to show how this trial is designed [by Spain] to serve as a lesson to those who want independence, with the aim of making them give up their desire for freedom.”

Recent controversies

A string of recent controversies within the Spanish judiciary – including some affecting the supreme court – has helped fuel such criticism, despite the insistence of the central government and others that the trial will be fair.

Yet while the hunger strike seeks to draw international attention to the Catalan issue, it also seems to have underlined divisions within the independence movement. The four prisoners carrying out the protest are all members of the Together for Catalonia (JxCat) parliamentary group, whose relationship with the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), which represents four of the other prisoners, has been deteriorating.

On Wednesday, five former Catalan presidents, including Carles Puigdemont, were among those who appealed to the hunger strikers to call off their action in order to safeguard their health.

Rull, however, denies that the strike could make relationships within the independence movement worse.

“The movement is broad and diverse,” he says. “It’s not necessary for us all to do the same thing because we all respect the peaceful actions of others.”  

Yet the movement’s unity is clearly under pressure and the Catalan president, Quim Torra of JxCat, is struggling to balance the political demands of his post with the need to remain popular among grassroots activists. His recent praise for the Slovenian route to independence, which saw dozens of people killed in 1991, has been seen as a mistake by many, including some allies.

Unimpressed

But Rull insists that blame for the lack of improvement in relations between Madrid and Catalonia lies squarely with Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. His efforts to reduce tensions by taking a series of measures aimed at normalising the relationship with the region have left pro-independence Catalans unimpressed.

“[The] Spanish government should take much bolder steps in order to be able to embark on an effective process of political dialogue, which is the only way of finding solutions to the conflict,” Rull says.

Yet it is the political right that appears to have been emboldened, demanding that Sánchez reintroduce direct rule in Catalonia. Meanwhile, the leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), Pablo Casado, has dismissed the hunger strike as a “high-protein diet”.

Reckless response

There is speculation in many quarters that if Spain’s political turmoil continues, resulting in a reckless response to the Catalan crisis by Madrid, it could benefit the independence movement, which already casts itself as the victim of an undemocratic state.

“There are, without a doubt, pro-independence Catalans who think like that, but I’m not one of them,” says Rull.

“Anyway, the ones who benefit most from the tensions between Catalonia and Madrid are not the Catalan [pro-independence] parties but rather the Spanish parties which share the vision of Spain that the Franco regime had.”

© 2018 irishtimes.com

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