scholarly journals Ecosystem Services at the Landscape Scale: the Need for Integrative Approaches

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Müller ◽  
Rudolf De Groot ◽  
Louise Willemen

During the symposium "Ecosystem Services at the Landscape Scale" from the EU-IALE conference 2009, several challenges for future research on approaches to use the concept of ecosystem services at the landscape scale were identified, focussing on the need for integration. Three main research directions were discussed, (i) the definition of the potentials and limitations of the ecosystem service approach for landscape analysis, (ii) the identification of suitable methods and tools to apply the ecosystem service approach at the landscape scale and (iii) the demand of incorporating ecosystem and landscape services in decision making and management. This paper briefly addresses and discusses some of these topics and puts them into a broader perspective. From this viewpoint it becomes obvious that many high-quality sectoral studies are carried out, e.g. concentrating on specific services or specific linkages within the "ecosystem service cascade" which describes the relation between biophysical characteristics of the landscape, their functions, services, benefits and values for society. In order to provide useful information for decision makers, ecosystem services studies should be supplemented by investigations of the whole systems of interactions between ecological processes and societal valuations.

Author(s):  
Fred Luthans ◽  
Carolyn M. Youssef

Over the years, both management practitioners and academics have generally assumed that positive workplaces lead to desired outcomes. Unlike psychology, considerable attention has also been devoted to the study of positive topics such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. However, to place a scientifically based focus on the role that positivity may play in the development and performance of human resources, and largely stimulated by the positive psychology initiative, positive organizational behavior (POB) and psychological capital (PsyCap) have recently been introduced into the management literature. This chapter first provides an overview of both the historical and contemporary positive approaches to the workplace. Then, more specific attention is given to the meaning and domain of POB and PsyCap. Our definition of POB includes positive psychological capacities or resources that can be validly measured, developed, and have performance impact. The constructs that have been determined so far to best meet these criteria are efficacy, hope, optimism, and resiliency. When combined, they have been demonstrated to form the core construct of what we term psychological capital (PsyCap). A measure of PsyCap is being validated and this chapter references the increasing number of studies indicating that PsyCap can be developed and have performance impact. The chapter concludes with important future research directions that can help better understand and build positive workplaces to meet current and looming challenges.


Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 540
Author(s):  
Chaya Sarathchandra ◽  
Yirga Alemu Abebe ◽  
Iresha Lakmali Wijerathne ◽  
Sasith Tharanga Aluthwattha ◽  
Sriyani Wickramasinghe ◽  
...  

Tropical island countries are often highly populated and deliver immense ecosystem service benefits. As human wellbeing depends on these ecosystems, proper management is crucial in the resource-rich tropical lands where there is less related research. Though ecosystem service and biodiversity studies are a promising path to inform the ecosystem management for these mostly developing countries, published evidence of using ecosystem service studies in decision making is lacking. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of ecosystem services and related research in Sri Lanka, examining trends and gaps in how these studies are conceptualized. Out of the considered 220 peer-reviewed articles, the majority of articles (48.2%) were terrestrial and forest related while coastal ecosystems were considered in 33.2% of studies. In most studies, the ecosystem service category studied was provisioning (31.5%) followed by regulatory service (28.7%). Studies investigating and quantifying ecosystem services, pressures on ecosystems, and their management were fewer compared to studies related to biodiversity or species introduction. Moreover, studies investigating the value of ecosystem services and biodiversity to the communities or involvement of stakeholders in the development of management actions regarding the ecosystem services were rare in Sri Lanka, and an intense focus from future studies in these aspects is timely and necessary.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 268-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Barger ◽  
James W. Peltier ◽  
Don E. Schultz

Purpose In “Social media’s slippery slope: challenges, opportunities and future research directions”, Schultz and Peltier (2013) asked “whether or how social media can be used to leverage consumer engagement into highly profitable relationships for both parties”. The purpose of this article is to continue this discussion by reviewing recent literature on consumer engagement and proposing a framework for future research. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviews the marketing literature on social media, paying particular attention to consumer engagement, which was identified as a primary area of concern in Schultz and Peltier (2013). Findings A significant amount of research has been conducted on consumer engagement since 2010. Lack of consensus on the definition of the construct has led to fragmentation in the discipline, however. As a result, research related to consumer engagement is often not identified as such, making it difficult for academics and practitioners to stay abreast of developments in this area. Originality/value This critical review provides marketing academics and practitioners insights into the antecedents and consequences of consumer engagement and offers a conceptual framework for future research.


Author(s):  
David W. Rosen

Abstract Features are meaningful abstractions of geometry that engineers use to reason about components, products, and processes. For design activity, features are design primitives, serve as the basis for product representations, and can incorporate information relevant to life-cycle activities such as manufacturing. Research on feature-based design has matured to the point that results are being incorporated into commercial CAD systems. The intent here is to classify feature-based design literature to provide a solid historical basis for present research and to identify promising research directions that will affect computer-based design tools within the next few years. Applications of feature-based design and technologies of feature representations are reviewed. Open research issues are identified and put in the context of past and current work. Four hypotheses are proposed as challenges for future research: two on the existence of fundamental sub-feature elements and relationships for features, one that presents a new definition of design features, and one that argues for the successful development of concurrent engineering languages. Evidence for these hypotheses is provided from recent research results and from speculation about the future of feature-based design.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaojie Guo ◽  
Liang Zhao

Graphs are important data representations for describing objects and their relationships, which appear in a wide diversity of real-world scenarios. As one of a critical problem in this area, graph generation considers learning the distributions of given graphs and generating more novel graphs. Owing to its wide range of applications, generative models for graphs have a rich history, which, however, are traditionally hand-crafted and only capable of modeling a few statistical properties of graphs. Recent advances in deep generative models for graph generation is an important step towards improving the fidelity of generated graphs and paves the way for new kinds of applications. This article provides an extensive overview of the literature in the field of deep generative models for graph generation. Firstly, the formal definition of deep generative models for the graph generation as well as preliminary knowledge is provided. Secondly, two taxonomies of deep generative models for unconditional, and conditional graph generation respectively are proposed; the existing works of each are compared and analyzed. After that, an overview of the evaluation metrics in this specific domain is provided. Finally, the applications that deep graph generation enables are summarized and five promising future research directions are highlighted.


Author(s):  
Cathie Marache-Francisco ◽  
Eric Brangier

Through this chapter, the authors aim at describing Gamification—the use of game elements in non-ludic environments—to identify its limits and lacks as well as its assets. Indeed, it has been developed to answer a need that arouses out of the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) field evolutions, and it could be valuable in that scope. The authors propose a definition of Gamification according to several different dimensions that are part of the HCI design field. They suggest it as a first step towards a guiding design framework aimed at designers. They mention future research directions that would help in going further and enriching the framework, leading to the creation of a design model for user experience design through Gamification. The authors finally raise some ethical concerns about the meaning of Gamification itself.


Author(s):  
Suzanne Roff-Wexler

Following a brief review of literature on big data as well as wisdom, this chapter provides a definition of data-based wisdom in the context of healthcare organizations and their visions. The author addresses barriers and ways to overcome barriers to data-based wisdom. Insights from interviews with leading healthcare professionals add practical meaning to the discussion. Finally, future research directions and questions are suggested, including the role of synchronicity and serendipity in data-based wisdom. In this chapter, developing data-based wisdom systems that flourish Wisdom, Virtue, Intellect, and Knowledge are encouraged.


2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (7) ◽  
pp. 2121-2138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luyao Wang ◽  
Jianying Feng ◽  
Xiaojie Sui ◽  
Xiaoquan Chu ◽  
Weisong Mu

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide reference for researchers by reviewing the research advances and trend of agricultural product price forecasting methods in recent years.Design/methodology/approachThis paper reviews the main research methods and their application of forecasting of agricultural product prices, summarizes the application examples of common forecasting methods, and prospects the future research directions.Findings1) It is the trend to use hybrid models to predict agricultural products prices in the future research; 2) the application of the prediction model based on price influencing factors should be further expanded in the future research; 3) the performance of the model should be evaluated based on DS rather than just error-based metrics in the future research; 4) seasonal adjustment models can be applied to the difficult seasonal forecasting tasks in the agriculture product prices in the future research; 5) hybrid optimization algorithm can be used to improve the prediction performance of the model in the future research.Originality/valueThe methods from this paper can provide reference for researchers, and the research trends proposed at the end of this paper can provide solutions or new research directions for relevant researchers.


Author(s):  
JC Noble

Semi-arid woodlands are an important part of the Australian landscape and they have been the focus for scientific research by CSIRO since the 1960s. This book reviews that research and sets it in a historical perspective. It examines the development of pastoral science, with particular reference to the farming frontier in western New South Wales, as well as research conducted by CSIRO over the past thirty years aimed at helping manage increasing shrub densities while improving productivity. The author discusses past, current and future research directions and looks at how management perceptions and approaches continue to change as understanding of ecological processes and new strategies evolve.


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