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While coastal tourism has been treated from many perspectives, this book offers the first substantial examination of the environmental basis of coastal tourism. The first part of the book examines some of the basic aspects and various methodologies of the coastal environment for tourism. Drawing from a wide range of case studies, the second part of the book discusses various tourism--environment relationships of different coastal environments. The examples include atolls and enclave tourism, island tourism and tourism development at various stages, barrier coasts and tourism development at different stages, and complex coastal environments and more mature tourism development. The writers have adopted one or a combination of approaches -- empirical, methodological or conceptual -- in their contributions. The volume should stimulate awareness and further research on the coastal environment for tourism

Liberal peacebuilding has received a considerable amount of criticism in the recent peacebuilding and state building literature. Critics of the liberal approach argue that electoral democracy is a foreign-imposed institution, which often does not enjoy public acceptance and legitimacy as local institutions do. Post-conflict Sierra Leone has undergone a similar struggle when the Local Government Act was introduced in 2004. Under the new law, much power enjoyed by chiefs was transferred to the elected local councillors. While traditional chiefdom governance was blamed to be one of the institutional drivers of the civil war, this customary authority is highly respected and the reform was resisted by many local people. Nevertheless, the new system produces some positive development outcomes and the country has remained largely peaceful. Against this backdrop, this paper investigates the channels through which trust in a poorly trusted government body can be developed. Based on survey data from Sierra Leone, my statistical analysis examines three mechanisms through which political trust can be built: improved public services, clean administration, and responsive governance. It is found that local governments which are willing to listen and respond to their people are more likely to be trusted by the public.

Recent studies in general are positive regarding the effectiveness of US counterinsurgency programs in Iraq. The right mix of coercion, ethnic strategy, and public goods provision, it is argued, makes Iraqis less likely to rebel against the US army and the Iraqi government, thus reducing insurgent violence. In fact, the number of insurgent attacks dramatically declined shortly after the change in the counterinsurgency strategy in 2007. How robust is the positive finding? A common assumption behind previous analyses is that insurgent attacks have a strong local root and is unlikely to be reproduced in other areas. Violation of this spatial independence assumption, however, can potentially bias towards the positive result. Based on the novel spatial dynamic panel data (SDPD) model, my analysis shows that spatial dependence should be addressed and cannot be assumed away. Results based on the new model also reveal that, conditional upon other strategies, the effects of a counterinsurgency strategy vary considerably both in magnitude and direction, suggesting that some policy mixes could be counterproductive. Policy makers seeking to adopt similar strategies in Afghanistan should take the relocation into account in their policy evaluations.

We examined the relationships between abundance of 16 species of waterbirds
and the rainfall in eastern Australia, the rainfall west of this region, the
annual Southern Oscillation index (SOI), the wetland area, and hunting in
eastern Australia for the period 1983–92. Data were collected during
aerial surveys of eastern Australia. For most explanatory variables, lags of
up to five years before aerial surveys were also investigated during these
analyses. The analyses covered all nine game species (plumed whistling-duck,
Australian shelduck, Australian wood duck, pink-eared duck, grey teal,
chestnut teal, Pacific black duck, Australasian shoveler, hardhead) and seven
non-game species (Australian pelican, white-faced heron, yellow-billed
spoonbill, freckled duck, black swan, black-winged stilt, red-necked avocet).
Regression models were developed for all species apart from Australian
pelicans. Rainfall and climate indices generally were most correlated with the
species' abundance. Bonferroni adjustments to significance levels meant
that there were significant variables in regression models for seven of the 16
species. Abundance indices for plumed whistling-duck, chestnut teal, hardhead,
black swan and black-winged stilt were related to the climate variables
(rainfall, SOI) and wetland area, whereas abundance of pink-eared duck and
red-necked avocets were negatively related. Abundance of chestnut teal was
positively related to numbers of hunting licences sold. The results are
equivocal about the role of hunting in determining waterfowl abundance, which
is probably a reflection of few data points and numbers of variables included.
In general, abundance indices of waterbirds appear to have decreased between
1983 and 1992, which may correspond to other factors not modelled

Novel species of fungi described in the present study include the following from Malaysia: Castanediella eucalypti from Eucalyptus pellita, Codinaea acacia from Acacia mangium, Emarcea eucalyptigena from Eucalyptus brassiana, Myrtapenidiella eucalyptorum from Eucalyptus pellita, Pilidiella eucalyptigena from Eucalyptus brassiana and Strelitziana malaysiana from Acacia mangium. Furthermore, Stachybotrys sansevieriicola is described from Sansevieria ehrenbergii (Tanzania), Phacidium grevilleae from Grevillea robusta (Uganda), Graphium jumulu from Adansonia gregorii and Ophiostoma eucalyptigena from Eucalyptus marginata (Australia), Pleurophoma ossicola from bone and Plectosphaerella populi from Populus nigra (Germany), Colletotrichum neosansevieriae from Sansevieria trifasciata, Elsinoë othonnae from Othonna quinquedentata and Zeloasperisporium cliviae (Zeloasperisporiaceae fam. nov.) from Clivia sp. (South Africa), Neodevriesia pakbiae, Phaeophleospora hymenocallidis and Phaeophleospora hymenocallidicola on leaves of a fern (Thailand), Melanconium elaeidicola from Elaeis guineensis (Indonesia), Hormonema viticola from Vitis vinifera (Canary Islands), Chlorophyllum pseudoglobossum from a grassland (India), Triadelphia disseminata from an immunocompromised patient (Saudi Arabia), Colletotrichum abscissum from Citrus (Brazil), Polyschema sclerotigenum and Phialemonium limoniforme from human patients (USA), Cadophora vitícola from Vitis vinifera (Spain), Entoloma flavovelutinum and Bolbitius aurantiorugosus from soil (Vietnam), Rhizopogon granuloflavus from soil (Cape Verde Islands), Tulasnella eremophila from Euphorbia officinarum subsp. echinus (Morocco), Verrucostoma martinicensis from Danaea elliptica (French West Indies), Metschnikowia colchici from Colchicum autumnale (Bulgaria), Thelebolus microcarpus from soil (Argentina) and Ceratocystis adelpha from Theobroma cacao (Ecuador). Myrmecridium iridis (Myrmecridiales ord. nov., Myrmecridiaceae fam. nov.) is also described from Iris sp. (The Netherlands). Novel genera include (Ascomycetes): Budhanggurabania from Cynodon dactylon (Australia), Soloacrosporiella, Xenocamarosporium, Neostrelitziana and Castanediella from Acacia mangium and Sabahriopsis from Eucalyptus brassiana (Malaysia), Readerielliopsis from basidiomata of Fuscoporia wahlbergii (French Guyana), Neoplatysporoides from Aloe ferox (Tanzania), Wojnowiciella, Chrysofolia and Neoeriomycopsis from Eucalyptus (Colombia), Neophaeomoniella from Eucalyptus globulus (USA), Pseudophaeomoniella from Olea europaea (Italy), Paraphaeomoniella from Encephalartos altensteinii, Aequabiliella, Celerioriella and Minutiella from Prunus (South Africa). Tephrocybella (Basidiomycetes) represents a novel genus from wood (Italy). Morphological and culture characteristics along with ITS DNA barcodes are provided for all taxa. ; Christian Lechat gratefully acknowledges Cesar Delnatte (DEAL, Martinique) fro the identification of the horst of Verrucostoma martinicensis. Alfredo Vizzini thanks Edmondo Grilli (Pescara, Italy), for comments on the text of Tephrocybella griseonigrescens. Dilnora Gouliamova was supported by a grant (D002-TK-176) from the Bulgarian Science Fund, EU F6 Synthesis program. She is grateful to K. Metodiev for permission to use the picture of Colchicum autumnale (http://www.bgflora. net/). Olga V. Morozova, Eugene S. Popov and Xiao-Lan He are grateful to V. Trunov, T.H. Li, C.Y. Deng, H. Huang and Y.W. Xia for valuable Entoloma collections. Alina V. Alexandrova was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project N 14-50-00029). Ekaterina F. Malysheva, Olga V. Morozova, Alexander E. Kovalenko and Eugene S. Popov acknowledge financial support from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project 13-04-00838a and 15-04-04645a). Margarita Dueñas, María P. Martín and M. Teresa Telleria acknowledge financial support from the Plan Nacional I+D+I projects No. CGL2009-07231 and CGL2012-3559. They are also thankful to Marian Gleen (Seton Hall University, USA) for commenting on the text. Cony Decock gratefully acknowledges the financial support received from the FNRS / FRFC (convention FRFC 2.4544.10), the CNRS-French Guiana and the Nouragues staff, which enabled fieldwork in French Guiana, and the Belgian State – Belgian Federal Science Policy through the BCCMTM research programme. We also thank the CBS technical staff, A. van Iperen (cultures), M. Vermaas (photographic plates) and M. Starink-Willemse (DNA isolation, amplification and sequencing) for their invaluable assistance. ; Peer reviewed

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted routine hospital services globally. This study estimated the total number of adult elective operations that would be cancelled worldwide during the 12 weeks of peak disruption due to COVID-19. Methods: A global expert response study was conducted to elicit projections for the proportion of elective surgery that would be cancelled or postponed during the 12 weeks of peak disruption. A Bayesian β-regression model was used to estimate 12-week cancellation rates for 190 countries. Elective surgical case-mix data, stratified by specialty and indication (surgery for cancer versus benign disease), were determined. This case mix was applied to country-level surgical volumes. The 12-week cancellation rates were then applied to these figures to calculate the total number of cancelled operations. Results: The best estimate was that 28 404 603 operations would be cancelled or postponed during the peak 12 weeks of disruption due to COVID-19 (2 367 050 operations per week). Most would be operations for benign disease (90·2 per cent, 25 638 922 of 28 404 603). The overall 12-week cancellation rate would be 72·3 per cent. Globally, 81·7 per cent of operations for benign conditions (25 638 922 of 31 378 062), 37·7 per cent of cancer operations (2 324 070 of 6 162 311) and 25·4 per cent of elective caesarean sections (441 611 of 1 735 483) would be cancelled or postponed. If countries increased their normal surgical volume by 20 per cent after the pandemic, it would take a median of 45 weeks to clear the backlog of operations resulting from COVID-19 disruption. Conclusion: A very large number of operations will be cancelled or postponed owing to disruption caused by COVID-19. Governments should mitigate against this major burden on patients by developing recovery plans and implementing strategies to restore surgical activity safely.