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Marine environments are visual domains restricted regarding light characteristics. Overall, blue monochromatic spectrum prevails in offshore areas especially below 15m depth, since long wavelengths are quickly attenuated. Light intensity is even more constrained in coastal waters, particularly those of tropical estuaries and bays, because further scattering through dissolved and suspended materials. Biofluorescence, which is the ability of organisms to absorb light and reflect it in a different wavelength, has been reported for many marine fish. In this paper, biofluorescence was recorded for the first time for the longsnout seahorse Hippocampus reidi, under natural conditions at Ilha Grande bay, Brazil, and both adult, juvenile and fry individuals kept in captivity. Although displaying the same colour emissions, seahorses differed in relation to body lighting, colour patterns, and age wherein fluorescence occurs. Newborn seahorses exhibit green biofluorescence only in the eyes and stomach. Further experiments are necessary to address whether H. reidi can change the patterns of biofluorescence emission for sensorial and social purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Excess emissions are pollutant releases that occur during periods of startups, shutdowns or malfunctions and are considered violations of the U.S. Clean Air Act. They are an important, but understudied and under-regulated, category of pollution releases given their frequency and magnitude. In this paper, we examine the demographic correlates of excess emissions, using data from industrial sources in Texas. Methods: We conduct two complementary sets of analyses: one at the census tract level and one at the facility level. At the census tract level, we use a multinomial logit model to examine the relationships between racial, ethnic, and income characteristics and the incidence of excess emissions. At the facility level, we first estimate a logit model to examine whether these characteristics are associated with facilities that emit excess emissions, and then, conditional on the presence of excess emissions, we use ordinary least square regression to estimate their correlation with the magnitude of releases. Results: Across our analyses, we find that the percentage of Black population and median household income are positively associated with excess emissions; percentage of college graduate, population density, median housing value, and percentage of owner-occupied housing unit are negatively associated with excess emissions. We, however, have not found a clear and significant relationship between the percentage of Hispanic population and excess emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When many events contributed to an outcome, people consistently judge some more causal than others, based in part on the prior probabilities of those events. For instance, when a tree bursts into flames, people judge the lightning strike more of a cause than the presence of oxygen in the air—in part because oxygen is so common, and lightning strikes are so rare. These effects, which play a major role in several prominent theories of token causation, have largely been studied through qualitative manipulations of the prior probabilities. Yet, there is good reason to think that people’s causal judgments are on a continuum—and relatively little is known about how these judgments vary quantitatively as the prior probabilities change. In this paper, we measure people’s causal judgment across parametric manipulations of the prior probabilities of antecedent events. Our experiments replicate previous qualitative findings, and also reveal several novel patterns that are not well-described by existing theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk-based approaches have been increasingly accepted and operationalized in flood risk management during recent decades. For instance, commercial flood risk models are used by the insurance industry to assess potential losses, establish the pricing of policies and determine reinsurance needs. Despite considerable progress in the development of loss estimation tools since the 1980s, loss estimates still reflect high uncertainties and disparities that often lead to questioning their quality. This requires an assessment of the validity and robustness of loss models as it affects prioritization and investment decision in flood risk management as well as regulatory requirements and business decisions in the insurance industry. Hence, more effort is needed to quantify uncertainties and undertake validations. Due to a lack of detailed and reliable flood loss data, first order validations are difficult to accomplish, so that model comparisons in terms of benchmarking are essential. It is checked if the models are informed by existing data and knowledge and if the assumptions made in the models are aligned with the existing knowledge. When this alignment is confirmed through validation or benchmarking exercises, the user gains confidence in the models. Before these benchmarking exercises are feasible, however, a cohesive survey of existing knowledge needs to be undertaken. With that aim, this work presents a review of flood loss–or flood vulnerability–relationships collected from the public domain and some professional sources. Our survey analyses 61 sources consisting of publications or software packages, of which 47 are reviewed in detail. This exercise results in probably the most complete review of flood loss models to date containing nearly a thousand vulnerability functions. These functions are highly heterogeneous and only about half of the loss models are found to be accompanied by explicit validation at the time of their proposal. This paper exemplarily presents an approach for a quantitative comparison of disparate models via the reduction to the joint input variables of all models. Harmonization of models for benchmarking and comparison requires profound insight into the model structures, mechanisms and underlying assumptions. Possibilities and challenges are discussed that exist in model harmonization and the application of the inventory in a benchmarking framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has demonstrated that characteristic gene selection based on gene expression data remains faced with considerable challenges. This is primarily because gene expression data are typically high dimensional, negative, non-sparse and noisy. However, existing methods for data analysis are able to cope with only some of these challenges. In this paper, we address all of these challenges with a unified method: nonnegative matrix factorization via the L2,1-norm (NMF-L2,1). While L2,1-norm minimization is applied to both the error function and the regularization term, our method is robust to outliers and noise in the data and generates sparse results. The application of our method to plant and tumor gene expression data demonstrates that NMF-L2,1 can extract more characteristic genes than other existing state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce the R package gendist that computes the probability density function, the cumulative distribution function, the quantile function and generates random values for several generated probability distribution models including the mixture model, the composite model, the folded model, the skewed symmetric model and the arc tan model. These models are extensively used in the literature and the R functions provided here are flexible enough to accommodate various univariate distributions found in other R packages. We also show its applications in graphing, estimation, simulation and risk measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban road congestions change both temporally and spatially. They are essentially caused by network bottlenecks. Therefore, understanding bottleneck dynamics is critical in the goal of reasonably allocating transportation resources. In general, a typical bottleneck experiences the stages of formation, propagation and dispersion. In order to understand the three stages of a bottle neck and how the bottleneck moves on a road network, traffic flow data can be used to reconstruct these dynamics. However, raw traffic flow data is usually flawed in many ways. For instance some portion of data may be missing due to the failure of data collection devices, or some random factors in the data make it hard to identify real bottlenecks. In this paper a “user voting method” is proposed to deal with such raw-data-related issues. In this method, road links are ranked according to the weighed sum of certain performance measures and the links that are ranked relatively high are regarded as recurrent bottlenecks in a network, and several bottlenecks form a bottleneck area. A series of bottleneck parameters can be defined based on the identified bottleneck areas, such as bottleneck coverage, bottleneck link length, etc. Identifying bottleneck areas and calculating the bottleneck parameters for each time interval can reflect the evolution of the bottlenecks and also help trace how the bottlenecks move. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent PLOS ONE paper, we conducted an evidence-based analysis of current versus historical fire regimes and concluded that traditionally defined reference conditions of low-severity fire regimes for ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and mixed-conifer forests were incomplete, missing considerable variability in forest structure and fire regimes. Stevens et al. (this issue) agree that high-severity fire was a component of these forests, but disagree that one of the several sources of evidence, stand age from a large number of forest inventory and analysis (FIA) plots across the western USA, support our findings that severe fire played more than a minor role ecologically in these forests. Here we highlight areas of agreement and disagreement about past fire, and analyze the methods Stevens et al. used to assess the FIA stand-age data. We found a major problem with a calculation they used to conclude that the FIA data were not useful for evaluating fire regimes. Their calculation, as well as a narrowing of the definition of high-severity fire from the one we used, leads to a large underestimate of conditions consistent with historical high-severity fire. The FIA stand age data do have limitations but they are consistent with other landscape-inference data sources in supporting a broader paradigm about historical variability of fire in ponderosa and mixed-conifer forests than had been traditionally recognized, as described in our previous PLOS paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of finding an optimum within a set of possibilities that represent the varying successfulness of numerous subjects competing with one another is highly relevant in the field of ecosystem interactions. We propose a method for solving this problem by the application of the Nash equilibrium concept, which is frequently used in ecology. The proposed model is based on the transformation of the initial payoff vectors of subjects that interact in different situations into a statistical set of symmetrical game matrices that consist of permutations of payoff values. The equilibrium solution is expressed as values of the probability of Nash equilibrium occurrence with uniform distribution over all possible permutations based on uncertainty of positions of payoff values in the matrix. We assume that this equilibrium solution provides information on the distribution of the degree of stability among individual situations and interacting subjects. In this paper, we validate this assumption and demonstrate its application to a dataset that represents interspecies interactions in plant ecology. We propose that the use of the Nash equilibrium in the analysis of datasets formalized according to the Pareto optimality scheme is applicable in numerous other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims at conducting the first science mapping analysis of the Mediterranean forest research in order to elucidate its research structure and evolution. We applied a science mapping approach based on co-term and citation analyses to a set of scientific publications retrieved from the Elsevier’s Scopus database over the period 1980–2014. The Scopus search retrieved 2,698 research papers and reviews published by 159 peer-reviewed journals. The total number of publications was around 1% (N = 17) during the period 1980–1989 and they reached 3% (N = 69) in the time slice 1990–1994. Since 1995, the number of publications increased exponentially, thus reaching 55% (N = 1,476) during the period 2010–2014. Within the thirty-four years considered, the retrieved publications were published by 88 countries. Among them, Spain was the most productive country, publishing 44% (N = 1,178) of total publications followed by Italy (18%, N = 482) and France (12%, N = 336). These countries also host the ten most productive scientific institutions in terms of number of publications in Mediterranean forest subjects. Forest Ecology and Management and Annals of Forest Science were the most active journals in publishing research in Mediterranean forest. During the period 1980–1994, the research topics were poorly characterized, but they become better defined during the time slice 1995–1999. Since 2000s, the clusters become well defined by research topics. Current status of Mediterranean forest research (20092014) was represented by four clusters, in which different research topics such as biodiversity and conservation, land-use and degradation, climate change effects on ecophysiological responses and soil were identified. Basic research in Mediterranean forest ecosystems is mainly conducted by ecophysiological research. Applied research was mainly represented by land-use and degradation, biodiversity and conservation and fire research topics. The citation analyses revealed highly cited terms in the Mediterranean forest research as they were represented by fire, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, climate change and global warming. Finally, our analysis also revealed the multidisciplinary role of climate change research. This study provides a first holistic view of the Mediterranean forest research that could be useful for researchers and policy makers as they may evaluate and analyze its historical evolution, as well as its structure and scientific production. We concluded that Mediterranean forest research represents an active scientific field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constrained ordination methods aims at finding an environmental gradient along which the species abundances are maximally separated. The species response functions, which describe the expected abundance as a function of the environmental score, are according to the ecological fundamental niche theory only meaningful if they are bell-shaped. Many classical model-based ordination methods, however, use quadratic regression models without imposing the bell-shape and thus allowing for meaningless U-shaped response functions. The analysis output (e.g. a biplot) may therefore be potentially misleading and the conclusions are prone to errors. In this paper we present a log-likelihood ratio criterion with a penalisation term to enforce more bell-shaped response shapes. We report the results of a simulation study and apply our method to metagenomics data from microbial ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the degree to which exposure to natural disasters and poor governance (quality of governance) is associated with absolute child poverty in sixty-seven middle- and low-income countries. The data is representative for about 2.8 billion of the world´s population. Institutionalist tend to argue that many of society’s ills, including poverty, derive from fragile or inefficient institutions. However, our findings show that although increasing quality of government tends to be associated with less poverty, the negative effects of natural disasters on child poverty are independent of a country´s institutional efficiency. Increasing disaster victims (killed and affected) is associated with higher rates of child poverty. A child´s estimated odds ratio to be in a state of absolute poverty increases by about a factor of 5.7 [95% CI: 1.7 to 18.7] when the average yearly toll of disasters in the child´s country increases by one on a log-10 scale. Better governance correlates with less child poverty, but it does not modify the correlation between child poverty and natural disasters. The results are based on hierarchical regression models that partition the variance into three parts: child, household, and country. The models were cross-sectional and based on observational data from the Demographic Health Survey and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, which were collected at the beginning of the twenty-first millennium. The Sustainable Development Goals are a principle declaration to halt climate change, but they lack a clear plan on how the burden of this change should be shared by the global community. Based on our results, we suggest that the development agencies should take this into account and to articulate more equitable global policies to protect the most vulnerable, specifically children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government based Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) have been criticized for not maximizing environmental effectiveness through appropriate targeting, while instead prioritizing social side-objectives. In Mexico, existing literature on how the Payments for Ecosystem Services-Hydrological program (PSA-H) has targeted deforestation and forest degradation shows that both the process of identifying the eligible areas and the choice of the selection criteria for enrolling forest parcels have been under the influence of competing agendas. In the present paper we study the influence of the PSA-H multi-level governance on the environmental effectiveness of the program–the degree to which forest at high risk of deforestation is enrolled- building from a “policyscape” framework. In particular, we combine governance analysis with two distinct applications of the policyscape framework: First, at national level we assess the functional overlap between the PSA-H and other environmental and rural programs with regard to the risk of deforestation. Second, at regional level in the states of Chiapas and Yucatan, we describe the changing policy agenda and the role of technical intermediaries in defining the temporal spatialization of the PSA-H eligible and enrolled areas with regard to key socio-economic criteria. We find that, although at national level the PSA-H program has been described as coping with both social and environmental indicators thanks to successful adaptive management, our analysis show that PSA-H is mainly found in communities where deforestation risk is low and in combination with other environmental programs (protected areas and forest management programs). Such inertia is reinforced at regional level as a result of the eligible areas’ characteristics and the behaviour of technical intermediaries, which seek to minimise transaction costs and sources of uncertainty. Our project-specific analysis shows the importance of integrating the governance of a program in the policyscape framework as a way to better systematize complex interactions at different spatial and institutional scales between policies and landscape characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deconstruction of the cellulose in plant cell walls is critical for carbon flow through ecosystems and for the production of sustainable cellulosic biofuels. Our understanding of cellulose deconstruction is largely limited to the study of microbes in isolation, but in nature, this process is driven by microbes within complex communities. In Neotropical forests, microbes in leaf-cutter ant refuse dumps are important for carbon turnover. These dumps consist of decaying plant material and a diverse bacterial community, as shown here by electron microscopy. To study the portion of the community capable of cellulose degradation, we performed enrichments on cellulose using material from five Atta colombica refuse dumps. The ability of enriched communities to degrade cellulose varied significantly across refuse dumps. 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing of enriched samples identified that the community structure correlated with refuse dump and with degradation ability. Overall, samples were dominated by Bacteroidetes, Gammaproteobacteria, and Betaproteobacteria. Half of abundant operational taxonomic units (OTUs) across samples were classified within genera containing known cellulose degraders, including Acidovorax, the most abundant OTU detected across samples, which was positively correlated with cellulolytic ability. A representative Acidovorax strain was isolated, but did not grow on cellulose alone. Phenotypic and compositional analyses of enrichment cultures, such as those presented here, help link community composition with cellulolytic ability and provide insight into the complexity of community-based cellulose degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are now many methods available to assess the relative citation performance of peer-reviewed journals. Regardless of their individual faults and advantages, citation-based metrics are used by researchers to maximize the citation potential of their articles, and by employers to rank academic track records. The absolute value of any particular index is arguably meaningless unless compared to other journals, and different metrics result in divergent rankings. To provide a simple yet more objective way to rank journals within and among disciplines, we developed a κ-resampled composite journal rank incorporating five popular citation indices: Impact Factor, Immediacy Index, Source-Normalized Impact Per Paper, SCImago Journal Rank and Google 5-year h-index; this approach provides an index of relative rank uncertainty. We applied the approach to six sample sets of scientific journals from Ecology (n = 100 journals), Medicine (n = 100), Multidisciplinary (n = 50); Ecology + Multidisciplinary (n = 25), Obstetrics & Gynaecology (n = 25) and Marine Biology & Fisheries (n = 25). We then cross-compared the κ-resampled ranking for the Ecology + Multidisciplinary journal set to the results of a survey of 188 publishing ecologists who were asked to rank the same journals, and found a 0.68–0.84 Spearman’s ρ correlation between the two rankings datasets. Our composite index approach therefore approximates relative journal reputation, at least for that discipline. Agglomerative and divisive clustering and multi-dimensional scaling techniques applied to the Ecology + Multidisciplinary journal set identified specific clusters of similarly ranked journals, with only Nature & Science separating out from the others. When comparing a selection of journals within or among disciplines, we recommend collecting multiple citation-based metrics for a sample of relevant and realistic journals to calculate the composite rankings and their relative uncertainty windows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time delay due to maturation time, capturing time or other reasons widely exists in biological systems. In this paper, a predator-prey system of Leslie type with diffusion and time delay is studied based on mathematical analysis and numerical simulations. Conditions for both delay induced and diffusion induced Turing instability are obtained by using bifurcation theory. Furthermore, a series of numerical simulations are performed to illustrate the spatial patterns, which reveal the information of density changes of both prey and predator populations. The obtained results show that the interaction between diffusion and time delay may give rise to rich dynamics in ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fungal laccases are enzymes that have been studied because of their ability to decolorize and detoxify effluents; they are also used in paper bleaching, synthesis of polymers, bioremediation, etc. In this work we were able to express a laccase from Trametes (Pycnoporus) sanguineus in the filamentous fungus Trichoderma atroviride. For this purpose, a transformation vector was designed to integrate the gene of interest in an intergenic locus near the blu17 terminator region. Although monosporic selection was still necessary, stable integration at the desired locus was achieved. The native signal peptide from T. sanguineus laccase was successful to secrete the recombinant protein into the culture medium. The purified, heterologously expressed laccase maintained similar properties to those observed in the native enzyme (Km and kcat and kcat/km values for ABTS, thermostability, substrate range, pH optimum, etc). To determine the bioremediation potential of this modified strain, the laccase-overexpressing Trichoderma strain was used to remove xenobiotic compounds. Phenolic compounds present in industrial wastewater and bisphenol A (an endocrine disruptor) from the culture medium were more efficiently removed by this modified strain than with the wild type. In addition, the heterologously expressed laccase was able to decolorize different dyes as well as remove benzo[α]pyrene and phenanthrene in vitro, showing its potential for xenobiotic compound degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant cell walls development is an integrated process during which several components are deposited successively. In the cell walls in grass, the accessibility of structural polysaccharides is limited by the cell walls structure and composition mainly as a result of phenolic compounds. Here, we studied the patterns of cell walls establishment in the internode supporting the ear in three distinct maize genotypes. The developmental patterns observed in the internode cell walls in terms of its composition are reported with an emphasis on lignification, p-coumaroylation and feruloylation. We combined biochemical and histological approaches and revealed that internode cell walls development in maize before flowering is characterized by the rapid deposition of secondary cell walls components and robust lignification in both the pith and the rind. After flowering and until silage maturity, the slow deposition of secondary walls components occurs in the cortical region, and the deposited lignins are rich in β-O-4 bonds and are highly p-coumaroylated. We conclude the paper by proposing a revised spatiotemporal model based on that proposed by Terashima et al. (1993) for cell walls development in grass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how former hunter-gatherers living along the southern North Sea coast in NW Europe adapted to long-term and short-term climatic and environmental changes at the beginning of the Holocene. It is argued that contemporaneous hunter-gatherers repeatedly changed their hunting equipment in response to changing climate and environment, not just for functional reasons but mainly driven by socio-territorial considerations. Based on a Bayesian analysis of 122 critically selected radiocarbon dates a broad chronological correlation is demonstrated between rapid changes in the design and technology of stone projectiles and short but abrupt cooling events, occurring at 10.3, 9.3 and 8.2 ka cal BP. Combined with the rapid sea level rises and increased wildfires these climatic events probably impacted the lifeways of hunter-gatherers in such a way that they increasingly faced resource stress and competition, forcing them to invest in the symbolic defense of their social territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bornean orangutan is critically endangered and monitoring its population is needed to inform effective conservation management. In this paper, we present results of 2014–17 aerial nest surveys of the major orangutan populations in Sabah and compare them with baseline data produced during surveys conducted in 2002–03 using similar methods. Our results show three important points: a) by increasing the survey effort (estimated at 15–25% cover), sparsely scattered orangutan sub-populations not recorded in the previous aerial surveys were located and the accuracy of the nest count estimates is expected to improve; b) large populations in the interior forests of Sabah, occupying sustainably managed logged and unlogged forests, have been stable over 15 years and are of vital importance for the species’ conservation; c) fragmented populations located in eastern Sabah, that are surrounded by extensive oil palm plantations, have declined at varying rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of the human species out of Africa in the Pleistocene, and the subsequent development of agriculture in the Holocene, resulted in waves of linguistic diversification and replacement across the planet. Analogous to the growth of populations or the speciation of biological organisms, languages diversify over time to form phylogenies of language families. However, the dynamics of this diversification process are unclear. Bayesian methods applied to lexical and phonetic data have created dated linguistic phylogenies for 18 language families encompassing ~3,000 of the world’s ~7,000 extant languages. In this paper we use these phylogenies to quantify how fast languages expand and diversify through time both within and across language families. The overall diversification rate of languages in our sample is ~0.001 yr-1 (or a doubling time of ~700 yr) over the last 6,000 years with evidence for nonlinear dynamics in language diversification rates over time, where both within and across language families, diversity initially increases rapidly and then slows. The expansion, evolution, and diversification of languages as they spread around the planet was a non-constant process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution inhaled dose is the product of pollutant concentration and minute ventilation (). Previous studies have parameterized the relationship between and variables such as heart rate (HR) and have observed substantial inter-subject variability. In this paper, we evaluate a method to estimate with easy-to-measure variables in an analysis of pooled-data from eight independent studies. We compiled a large diverse data set that is balanced with respect to age, sex and fitness level. We used linear mixed models to estimate with HR, breath frequency (fB), age, sex, height, and forced vital capacity (FVC) as predictors. FVC was estimated using the Global Lung Function Initiative method. We log-transformed the dependent and independent variables to produce a model in the form of a power function and assessed model performance using a ten-fold cross-validation procedure. The best performing model using HR as the only field-measured parameter was = e-9.59HR2.39age0.274sex-0.204FVC0.520 with HR in beats per minute, age in years, sex is 1 for males and 2 for females, FVC in liters, and a median(IQR) cross-validated percent error of 0.664(45.4)%. The best performing model overall was = e-8.57HR1.72fB0.611age0.298sex-0.206FVC0.614, where fB is breaths per minute, and a median(IQR) percent error of 1.20(37.9)%. The performance of these models is substantially better than any previously-published model when evaluated using this large pooled-data set. We did not observe an independent effect of height on , nor an effect of race, though this may have been due to insufficient numbers of non-white participants. We did observe an effect of FVC such that these models over- or under-predict in persons whose measured FVC was substantially lower or higher than estimated FVC, respectively. Although additional measurements are necessary to confirm this finding regarding FVC, we recommend using measured FVC when possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructed wetlands are sustainable technologies for the treatment of wastewater. These biological systems have been widely studied throughout the world for more than 30 years; however, most studies have focused on the effects of design and engineering on pollutant removal from wastewater. Undoubtedly, agro-technical aspects have been given too little consideration by research. This paper reports the main results of a set of experiments carried out on two pilot horizontal subsurface flow systems in Sicily (Italy). Festuca, Lolium and Pennisetum spp. in combination and three emergent macrophytes–Arundo donax L., Cyperus alternifolius L. and Typha latifolia L.–alone, were assessed. The aim of the study was to demonstrate that, under predetermined hydraulic and design conditions, the choice of plant species and the management of the vegetation can significantly affect the pollutant removal performance of constructed wetlands. In addition, wastewater (after treatment) can also be used for agricultural purposes leading to increased sustainability in agricultural systems. Arundo and Typha-planted units performed better than Cyperus-planted units in terms of chemical, physical and microbiological contaminant removal. All the species adapted extremely well to wetland conditions. Polyculture systems were found to be more efficient than monocultures in the removal of dissolved organic compounds. The reuse of treated wastewater for the irrigation of open fields and horticultural crops led to significant savings in the use of freshwater and fertilizers. The results of physical-energy characterization of A. donax above-ground plant residues and pellets highlighted the fact that a constructed wetland could also be a potential source of bioenergy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sediment flushing can tackle reservoirs siltation and improve sediment flux through dammed rivers. However, the increase of the sediment loading below the dam can trigger a suite of undesired ecological effects in the downstream river reaches. To limit these drawbacks, sediment flushing can be controlled, by jointly regulating the sediment concentration of the evacuated water and the streamflow in the downstream channel. In this paper, we report on ten controlled sediment flushing operations (CSFOs), carried out between 2006 and 2012 in the central Italian Alps, at four hydropower reservoirs. These CSFOs displayed specific common traits: (i) Limits were set by the local environmental authorities concerning the allowable suspended sediment concentration. (ii) Reservoirs were fully drawn-down, earth-moving equipment was used to dislodge sediment, and the downstream water discharge was increased, compared to baseflow, by operating upstream intakes. (iii) Abiotic and biotic measurements in selected downstream reaches (before, during, and after the CSFOs) represented an integral part of the operations. In contrast, significant differences characterize the hydropower facilities (elevation and storage of reservoirs, in particular) as well as the basic CSFOs parameters (i.e., season, duration, mass and grain-size of the evacuated sediment, suspended sediment concentration). The macroinvertebrate assemblages resulted noticeably impacted by the CSFOs. In the short term, a significant density drop was observed, slightly influenced by the extent of the perturbation. In contrast, the latter appeared to control the assemblages contraction in terms of richness, according to the different sensitivity to sediment stress of the different taxa. The time employed to recover pre-CSFO standard ranged from few months to just under one year, and the related patterns would seem mostly correlated to the flushing season and to further site specificities. The density of trout populations was impacted as well, thus suggesting the adoption of mitigating strategies as removal by electrofishing before, and repopulation after the CSFO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with the idealized isotropic coal seam, the effectively cracking distances of deep-hole pre-splitting blasting in different directions have significant difference in the structural anisotropy of coal seam. In this paper, based on the test results of coal mechanical parameters in different coring directions, the blasting crack distances in these coring directions of coal seam are theoretically calculated and analyzed, and then a new method of blasthole layout in coal seam is designed and the blasting crack effect is investigated according to the test data of gas drainage. The research results show that both compressive strength and tensile strength of the direction of perpendicular to bedding are larger than that in other directions, especially parallel to bedding. The blasting crack distances of calculation results are in great agreement with that of underground in-situ measurement, so the blasting crack zone caused by the differences of mechanical properties in different directions can be approximately treated as an ellipse. Comparing the conventional method of blasthole layout, the blasting crack effect with new method has greatly enhanced the methane concentration and gas drainage quantity. Pure methane quantities with the new method and conventional method are about 2.8 times and 1.67 times as large as that before blasting, and pure methane quantity with the new method is about 1.46 times that with the conventional method. Therefore, considering the anisotropic characteristics of coal seams, the reasonable blasthole layout plays an important role for enhancing gas drainage in low permeability and outburst working face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freely-available satellite data streams and the ability to process these data on cloud-computing platforms such as Google Earth Engine have made frequent, large-scale landcover mapping at high resolution a real possibility. In this paper we apply these technologies, along with machine learning, to the mapping of peatlands–a landcover class that is critical for preserving biodiversity, helping to address climate change impacts, and providing ecosystem services, e.g., carbon storage–in the Boreal Forest Natural Region of Alberta, Canada. We outline a data-driven, scientific framework that: compiles large amounts of Earth observation data sets (radar, optical, and LiDAR); examines the extracted variables for suitability in peatland modelling; optimizes model parameterization; and finally, predicts peatland occurrence across a large boreal area (397, 958 km2) of Alberta at 10 m spatial resolution (equalling 3.9 billion pixels across Alberta). The resulting peatland occurrence model shows an accuracy of 87% and a kappa statistic of 0.57 when compared to our validation data set. Differentiating peatlands from mineral wetlands achieved an accuracy of 69% and kappa statistic of 0.37. This data-driven approach is applicable at large geopolitical scales (e.g., provincial, national) for wetland and landcover inventories that support long-term, responsible resource management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioural innovation, the use of new behaviours or existing ones in novel contexts, can have important ecological and evolutionary consequences for animals. An understanding of these consequences would be incomplete without considering the traits that predispose certain individuals to exhibit innovative behaviour. Several individual and ecological variables are hypothesized to affect innovativeness, but empirical studies show mixed results. We examined the effects of dominance rank, exploratory personality, and urbanisation on the innovativeness of wild-caught black-capped chickadees using a survival analysis of their performance in two problem-solving tasks. Additionally, we provide one of the first investigations of the predictors of persistence in a problem-solving context. For lever pulling, we found a trend for dominants to outperform subordinates, particularly in rural birds, which did not align with predictions from the necessity drives innovation hypothesis. When examining possible explanations for this trend we found that older chickadees outperformed younger birds. This follow-up analysis also revealed a positive effect of exploratory personality on the lever-pulling performance of chickadees. Our results suggest that experience may foster innovation in certain circumstances, for instance via the application of previously-acquired information or skills to a novel problem. As we found different predictors for both tasks, this suggests that task characteristics influence the innovative propensity of individuals, and that their effects should be investigated experimentally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mountains play a key role in the provision of nature’s contributions to people (NCP) worldwide that support societies’ quality of life. Simultaneously, mountains are threatened by multiple drivers of change. Due to the complex interlinkages between biodiversity, quality of life and drivers of change, research on NCP in mountains requires interdisciplinary approaches. In this study, we used the conceptual framework of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the notion of NCP to determine to what extent previous research on ecosystem services in mountains has explored the different components of the IPBES conceptual framework. We conducted a systematic review of articles on ecosystem services in mountains published up to 2016 using the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Descriptive statistical and network analyses were conducted to explore the level of research on the components of the IPBES framework and their interactions. Our results show that research has gradually become more interdisciplinary by studying higher number of NCP, dimensions of quality of life, and indirect drivers of change. Yet, research focusing on biodiversity, regulating NCP and direct drivers has decreased over time. Furthermore, despite the fact that research on NCP in mountains becoming more policy-oriented over time, mainly in relation to payments for ecosystem services, institutional responses remained underexplored in the reviewed studies. Finally, we discuss the relevant knowledge gaps that should be addressed in future research in order to contribute to IPBES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deterioration of water quality has become a primary environmental concern worldwide. Understanding the status of water quality and identifying the influencing factors are important for water resources management. However, reported analyses have mostly been conducted in small and focused areas. It is still unclear if factors driving spatial variation in water quality would be different in extended spatial scales. In this paper, we analyzed spatial pattern of inland surface water quality in China using a dataset with four water quality parameters (i.e., pH, DO, NH4+-N and CODMn) and the water quality level. We tested the effects of anthropogenic (i.e., land use and socio-economic) and natural (i.e., climatic and topographic) factors on spatial variation in water quality. The study concluded that the overall inland surface water quality in China was at level III (fair). Water quality level was strongly correlated with CODMn and NH4+-N concentration. In contrast to reported studies that suggested land use patterns were the determinants of inland surface water quality, this study revealed that both anthropogenic and natural factors played important roles in explaining spatial variation of inland surface water quality in China. Among the tested explanatory variables, mean elevation within watershed appeared as the best predictor for pH, while annual precipitation and mean air temperature were the most important explanatory variables for CODMn and DO, respectively. NH4+-N concentration and water quality level were most strongly correlated with the percent of forest cover in watershed. Compared to studies at smaller spatial scales, this study found different influencing factors of surface water quality, suggesting that factors may play different roles at different spatial scales of consideration. Therefore management policies and measures in water quality control must be established and implemented accordingly. Since currently adopted parameters for monitoring of inland surface water quality in China are largely influenced by natural variables, additional physicochemical and biological indicators are needed for a robust assessment of human impacts on water quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of urban ecosystems and climate change, both outcomes of massive lifestyle changes, contribute to a series of side effects such as environmental deterioration, spread of diseases, increased greenhouse gas emissions and introduction of invasive species. In the case of the Athens metropolitan area, an invasive mosquito species—the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus)–has spread widely in the last decade. This spread is favoured within urban environments and is also affected by changing climatic trends. The Asian tiger mosquito is accompanied by risks of mosquito-borne diseases, greater nuisance levels, and increased expenses incurring for its confrontation. The main aims of this paper are (i) to estimate the various costs associated with their control of this invasive species, as well as its health and nuisance impacts, (ii) to evaluate the level of citizens’ well-being from averting these impacts and (iii) to record citizens’ and experts’ perceptions regarding alternative control measures. Evidence shows that experts tend to place a high value on mosquito control when associated with serious health risks, while citizens are more sensitive and concerned about the environmental impacts of control methods. The synthesis of results produced by the current study could act as a preliminary guide for the estimation of societal welfare from the confrontation of similar problems in the context of a complex ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sudangrass, Sorghum sudanense (Piper) Stapf, is a vigorous forage crop that has also been used for biogas, paper, and electricity production. Due to the large biomass yields achieved by sudangrass and the large area of potential growth in Argentina seven sudangrass accessions from a collection of S. sudanense were analyzed to evaluate their potential as feedstocks for lignocellulosic bioethanol production, and to assess whether there is an association between the response to biotic and abiotic stresses and the composition of the biomass. The biomass composition was analyzed for major cell wall polymers, monosaccharides, and elemental composition. On average, 68% of stem lignocellulosic biomass was comprised of matrix polysaccharides and crystalline cellulose, representing a potential source of sugars for bioethanol production. Xylose was the predominant matrix polysaccharide monosaccharide comprising, on average, 45% of the total sugars, followed by arabinose, glucose, galactose, galacturonic acid, mannose, glucuronic acid, and fucose. Rhamnose was not detected in any of the biomasses analyzed. Silica was the most abundant element in sudangrass stem, followed by chloride, calcium, phosphorus and sulfur. We performed saccharification analyses after pretreatments. Alkaline pretreatment was more effective than water pretreatment. Sodium hydroxide pretreatment exposed different levels of recalcitrance among sudangrass accessions, whereas the water pretreatment did not. Phenological traits were also evaluated, showing significant variability among accessions. The comparison of major cell wall polymers and monosaccharide composition between tolerant and susceptible accessions to abiotic and biotic stresses suggests an association between the composition of the biomass and the response to stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the causality between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth is helpful for policymakers to formulate energy, environmental and economic policies. For the first time, based on nonlinear dynamics, this paper employs multispatial convergent cross mapping (CCM) to revisit the energy-carbon-economy causation for China, India and the G7 countries using both aggregate data and per capita data. The findings indicate that there are significant differences between developing countries and developed countries. A bidirectional nexus between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth is found in China and India, but various causal relationships are identified in the G7 countries, including bidirectional, unidirectional and neutral nexus. The results confirm that the decoupling phenomenon is common in most G7 countries. By leveraging a variety of samples and a new approach, this study provides new evidence for policy authorities to formulate country-specific policies to obtain better environmental quality while achieving sustainable economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diaphorina citri is a vector of ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus,’ (CLas), associated with Huanglongbing, (HLB, or citrus greening) disease in citrus. D. citri exhibits three different color morph variants, blue, gray and yellow. Blue morphs have a greater capacity for long-distance flight as compared to non-blue morphs, but little else is known about how color morphology influences vector characteristics. In this study, we show that the color morphology of the insect is derived from pigmented cells of the fat body. Blue morphs acquire a lower level of CLas in their bodies from infected trees as compared to their gray and yellow conspecifics, referred to in this paper collectively as non-blue morphs. Accordingly, CLas titer in citrus leaves inoculated by non-blue insects was 6-fold higher than in leaves inoculated by blue insects. Blue color morphs harbored lower titers of Wolbachia and ‘Candidatus Profftella armatura,’ two of the D. citri bacterial endosymbionts. Expression of hemocyanin, a copper-binding oxygen transport protein responsible for the blue coloration of hemolymph of other arthropods and mollusks, was previously correlated with blue color morphology and is highly up-regulated in insects continuously reared on CLas infected citrus trees. Based on our results, we hypothesized that a reduction of hemocyanin expression would reduce the D. citri immune response and an increase in the titer of CLas would be observed. Surprisingly, a specific 3-fold reduction of hemocyanin-1 transcript levels using RNA silencing in blue adult D. citri morphs had an approximately 2-fold reduction on the titer of CLas. These results suggest that hemocyanin signaling from the fat body may have multiple functions in the regulation of bacterial titers in D. citri, and that hemocyanin is one of multiple psyllid genes involved in regulating CLas titer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to develop a novel computational technique for the detection of the transit through the anaerobic threshold. This technique uses only cardiac intervals derived from the electrocardiogram and is based on algebraic relationships between RR and QRS intervals. Electrocardiograms are measured during the load and the recovery processes. Algebraic relationships between cardiac intervals are used not only to identify the anaerobic threshold but also to characterise individual features of the person during the transit through the threshold. The ratio between carbon dioxide and oxygen in the exhaled air is used to validate the results. The algebraic relationship between cardiac intervals serves as a stand-alone indicator for both the determination of the anaerobic threshold and the characterization of the performance of the person during the load and the recovery processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Enhanced Biological Phosphorus Removal (EBPR) is a technology widely used in wastewater treatment to remove phosphorus (P) and prevent eutrophication. Establishing its operating efficiency and stability is an active research field that has generated almost 3000 publications in the last 40 years. Due to its size, including over 119 review articles, it is an example of a field where it becomes increasingly difficult to manually recognize its key research contributions, especially for non-experts or newcomers. Therefore, this work included two distinct but complementary objectives. First, to assemble for the first time a collection of bibliometric techniques into a framework for automating the article selection process when preparing a literature review (section 2). Second, to demonstrate it by applying it to the field of EBPR, producing a bibliometric analysis and a review of the key findings of EBPR research over time (section 3). Findings: The joint analysis of citation networks, keywords, citation profiles, as well as of specific benchmarks for the identification of highly-cited publications revealed 12 research topics. Their content and evolution could be manually reviewed using a selection of articles consisting of approximately only 5% of the original set of publications. The largest topics addressed the identification of relevant microorganisms, the characterization of their metabolism, including denitrification and the competition between them (Clusters A-D). Emerging and influential topics, as determined by different citation indicators and temporal analysis, were related to volatile fatty acid production, P-recovery from waste activated sludge and aerobic granules for better process efficiency and stability (Clusters F-H). Conclusions: The framework enabled key contributions in each of the constituent topics to be highlighted in a way that may have otherwise been biased by conventional citation-based ranking. Further, it reduced the need for manual input and a priori expertise compared to a traditional literature review. Hence, in an era of accelerated production of information and publications, this work contributed to the way that we are able to use computer-aided approaches to curate information and manage knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human populations show rich cultural diversity. Underpinning this diversity of tools, rituals, and cultural norms are complex interactions between cultural evolutionary and demographic processes. Most models of cultural change assume that individuals use the same learning modes and methods throughout their lives. However, empirical data on ‘learning life histories’—the balance of dominant modes of learning (for example, learning from parents, peers, or unrelated elders) throughout an individual’s lifetime—suggest that age structure may play a crucial role in determining learning modes and cultural evolutionary trajectories. Thus, studied in isolation, demographic and cultural evolutionary models show only part of the picture. This paper describes a mathematical and computational framework that combines demographic and cultural evolutionary methods. Using this general framework, we examine interactions between the ways in which culture is spread throughout an individual’s lifetime and cultural change across generations. We show that including demographic structure alongside cultural dynamics can help to explain domain-specific patterns of cultural evolution that are a persistent feature of cultural data, and can shed new light on rare but significant demographic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persulfate (PSF) is a strong oxidant that has been used extensively in the In-Situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO) technology. The geoenvironmental impact of PSF treatment is barely investigated. This situation should be carefully considered as it may affect the reutilization of contaminated soil as engineering materials. This paper studied the removal of bisphenol A (BPA) by PSF with Nano Zero-Valent Iron (nZVI) and percarbonate (SPC) activated/enhanced and their subsequent impacts on the engineering properties of soil. The physicochemical and geotechnical properties of soils before and after treatment were evaluated using batch experiments. The results indicate that the introduced pristine PSF can be activated by some naturally occurring matters and subsequently lead to the mineralization of BPA. Both non-activated PSF and activated/enhanced PSF treatment led to the soil improvement in the undrained shear strength at different degrees. The primary mechanism of soil improvement is ascribed to the heterogeneous sulfate and/or carbonate precipitation. Meanwhile, Ca2+ in the pore fluid played a significant role in the enhancement of the soil strength. A conclusion was drawn that the treatment of both non-activated PSF, nZVI- and SPC-activated PSF treatment can achieve removal of BPA and soil improvement in the short-term simultaneously. This study can improve the PSF-involved remediation of brownfields and dredged sediments for a sustainable and low-carbon society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of concrete for construction purposes is a major source of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. One promising avenue towards a more sustainable construction industry is to make use of naturally occurring mineral-microbe interactions, such as microbial-induced carbonate precipitation (MICP), to produce solid materials. In this paper, we present a new process where calcium carbonate in the form of powdered limestone is transformed to a binder material (termed BioZEment) through microbial dissolution and recrystallization. For the dissolution step, a suitable bacterial strain, closely related to Bacillus pumilus, was isolated from soil near a limestone quarry. We show that this strain produces organic acids from glucose, inducing the dissolution of calcium carbonate in an aqueous slurry of powdered limestone. In the second step, the dissolved limestone solution is used as the calcium source for MICP in sand packed syringe moulds. The amounts of acid produced and calcium carbonate dissolved are shown to depend on the amount of available oxygen as well as the degree of mixing. Precipitation is induced through the pH increase caused by the hydrolysis of urea, mediated by the enzyme urease, which is produced in situ by the bacterium Sporosarcina pasteurii DSM33. The degree of successful consolidation of sand by BioZEment was found to depend on both the amount of urea and the amount of glucose available in the dissolution reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fragile ecological environment near mines provide advantageous conditions for the development of landslides. Mine landslide susceptibility mapping is of great importance for mine geo-environment control and restoration planning. In this paper, a total of 493 landslides in Shangli County, China were collected through historical landslide inventory. 16 spectral, geomorphic and hydrological predictive factors, mainly derived from Landsat 8 imagery and Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM), were prepared initially for landslide susceptibility assessment. Predictive capability of these factors was evaluated by using the value of variance inflation factor and information gain ratio. Three models, namely artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machine (SVM) and information value model (IVM), were applied to assess the mine landslide sensitivity. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) and rank probability score were used to validate and compare the comprehensive predictive capabilities of three models involving uncertainty. Results showed that ANN model achieved higher prediction capability, proving its advantage of solve nonlinear and complex problems. Comparing the estimated landslide susceptibility map with the ground-truth one, the high-prone area tends to be located in the middle area with multiple fault distributions and the steeply sloped hill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High dimensional biomedical data contain tens of thousands of features, accurate and effective identification of the core features in these data can be used to assist diagnose related diseases. However, there are often a large number of irrelevant or redundant features in biomedical data, which seriously affect subsequent classification accuracy and machine learning efficiency. To solve this problem, a novel filter feature selection algorithm based on redundant removal (FSBRR) is proposed to classify high dimensional biomedical data in this paper. First of all, two redundant criteria are determined by vertical relevance (the relationship between feature and class attribute) and horizontal relevance (the relationship between feature and feature). Secondly, to quantify redundant criteria, an approximate redundancy feature framework based on mutual information (MI) is defined to remove redundant and irrelevant features. To evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm, controlled trials based on typical feature selection algorithm are conducted using three different classifiers, and the experimental results indicate that the FSBRR algorithm can effectively reduce the feature dimension and improve the classification accuracy. In addition, an experiment of small sample dataset is designed and conducted in the section of discussion and analysis to clarify the specific implementation process of FSBRR algorithm more clearly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data management plans (DMPs) are documents accompanying research proposals and project outputs. DMPs are created as free-form text and describe the data and tools employed in scientific investigations. They are often seen as an administrative exercise and not as an integral part of research practice. There is now widespread recognition that the DMP can have more thematic, machine-actionable richness with added value for all stakeholders: researchers, funders, repository managers, research administrators, data librarians, and others. The research community is moving toward a shared goal of making DMPs machine-actionable to improve the experience for all involved by exchanging information across research tools and systems and embedding DMPs in existing workflows. This will enable parts of the DMP to be automatically generated and shared, thus reducing administrative burdens and improving the quality of information within a DMP. This paper presents 10 principles to put machine-actionable DMPs (maDMPs) into practice and realize their benefits. The principles contain specific actions that various stakeholders are already undertaking or should undertake in order to work together across research communities to achieve the larger aims of the principles themselves. We describe existing initiatives to highlight how much progress has already been made toward achieving the goals of maDMPs as well as a call to action for those who wish to get involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of online data aggregator infrastructures has facilitated the accumulation of Digital Accessible Knowledge (DAK) about biodiversity. Despite the vast amount of freely available data records, their usefulness for research depends on completeness of each body of data regarding their spatial, temporal and taxonomic coverage. In this paper, we assess the completeness of DAK about terrestrial mammals distributed across the Iberian Peninsula. We compiled a dataset with all records about mammals occurring in the Iberian Peninsula available in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and in the national atlases from Portugal and Spain. After cleaning the dataset of errors as well as records lacking collection dates or not determined to species level, we assigned all occurrences to a 10-km grid. We assessed inventory completeness by calculating the ratio between observed and expected richness (based on the Chao2 richness index) in each grid cell and classified cells as well-sampled or under-sampled. We evaluated survey coverage of well-sampled cells along four environmental gradients and temporal coverage. Out of 796,283 retrieved records, quality issues led us to remove 616,141 records unfit for this use. The main reason for discarding records was missing collection dates. Only 25.95% cells contained enough records to robustly estimate completeness. The DAK about terrestrial mammals from the Iberian Peninsula was low, and spatially and temporally biased. Out of 5,874 cells holding data, only 620 (9.95%) were classified as well-sampled. Moreover, well-sampled cells were geographically aggregated and reached inventory completeness over the same temporal range. Despite the increasing availability of DAK, its usefulness is still compromised by quality issues and gaps in data. Future work should therefore focus on increasing data quality, in addition to mobilizing unpublished data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban change (urbanization) has dominated land change science for several decades. However, few studies have focused on what many scholars call the urban densification process (i.e., urban intensity expansion) despite its importance to both planning and subsequent impacts to the environment and local economies. This paper documents past urban densification patterns and uses this information to predict future densification trends in southeastern Wisconsin (SEWI) by using a rich dataset from the United States and by adapting the well-known Land Transformation Model (LTM) for this purpose. Urban densification is a significant and progressive process that often accompanies urbanization more generally. The increasing proportion of lower density areas, rather than higher density areas, was the main characteristic of the urban densification in SEWI from 2001 to 2011. We believe that improving urban land use efficiency to maintain rational densification are effective means toward a sustainable urban landscape. Multiple goodness-of-fit metrics demonstrated that the reconfigured LTM performed relatively well to simulate urban densification patterns in 2006 and 2011, enabling us to forecast densification to 2016 and 2021. The predicted future urban densification patterns are likely to be characterized by higher densities continue to increase at the expense of lower densities. We argue that detailed categories of urban density and specific relevant predictor variables are indispensable for densification prediction. Our study provides researchers working in land change science with important insights into urban densification process modeling. The outcome of this model can help planners to identify the current trajectory of urban development, enabling them to take informed action to promote planning objectives, which could benefit sustainable urbanization definitely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When assessing the short-term effect of air pollution on health outcomes, it is common practice to consider one pollutant at a time, due to their high correlation. Multi pollutant methods have been recently proposed, mainly consisting of collapsing the different pollutants into air quality indexes or clustering the pollutants and then evaluating the effect of each cluster on the health outcome. A major drawback of such approaches is that it is not possible to evaluate the health impact of each pollutant. In this paper we propose the use of the Bayesian hierarchical framework to deal with multi pollutant concentrations in a two-component model: a pollutant model is specified to estimate the ‘true’ concentration values for each pollutant and then such concentration is linked to the health outcomes in a time-series perspective. Through a simulation study we evaluate the model performance and we apply the modelling framework to investigate the effect of six pollutants on cardiovascular mortality in Greater London in 2011-2012. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthworms are primary candidates for national soil health monitoring as they are ecosystem engineers that benefit both food production and ecosystem services associated with soil security. Supporting farmers to monitor soil health could help to achieve the policy aspiration of sustainable soils by 2030 in England; however, little is known about how to overcome participation barriers, appropriate methodologies (practical, cost-effective, usefulness) or training needs. This paper presents the results from a pilot #60minworms study which mobilised farmers to assess over >1300 ha farmland soils in spring 2018. The results interpretation framework is based on the presence of earthworms from each of the three ecological groups at each observation (20 x 20 cm x 20 cm pit) and spatially across a field (10 soil pits). Results showed that most fields have basic earthworm presence and abundance, but 42% fields may be over-worked as indicated by absence/rarity of epigeic and/or anecic earthworms. Tillage had a negative impact (p < 0.05) on earthworm populations and organic matter management did not mitigate tillage impacts. In terms of farmer participation, Twitter and Farmers Weekly magazine were highly effective channels for recruitment. Direct feedback from participants included excellent scores in trust, value and satisfaction of the protocol (e.g. 100% would do the test again) and 57% would use their worm survey results to change their soil management practices. A key training need in terms of earthworm identification skills was reported. The trade-off between data quality, participation rates and fieldwork costs suggests there is potential to streamline the protocol further to #30minworms (5 pits), incurring farmer fieldwork costs of approximately £1.48 ha-1. At national scales, £14 million pounds across 4.7 M ha-1 in fieldwork costs per survey could be saved by farmer participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data collected by mobile methane (CH4) sensors can be used to find natural gas (NG) leaks in urban distribution systems. Extracting actionable insights from the large volumes of data collected by these sensors requires several data processing steps. While these survey platforms are commercially available, the associated data processing software largely constitute a black box due to their proprietary nature. In this paper we describe a step-by-step algorithm for developing leak indications using data from mobile CH4 surveys, providing an under-the-hood look at the choices and challenges associated with data analysis. We also describe how our algorithm has evolved over time, and the data-driven insights that have prompted these changes. Applying our algorithm to data collected in 15 cities produced more than 6100 leak indications and estimates of the leaks’ size. We use these results to characterize the distribution of leak sizes in local NG distribution systems. Mobile surveys are already an effective and necessary tool for managing NG distribution systems, but improvements in the technology and software will continue to increase its value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents global research trends involving highly cited articles on ecosystem services from 1981 to 2017 based on a bibliometric analysis of such articles from the SCI-E and SSCI databases of the Web of Science. The analysis revealed that there were 132 highly cited articles, most of which were published between 2005 and 2014. Based on author keywords, the term ecosystem services was strongly linked to biodiversity. The top three journals in terms of total number of highly cited articles published were Ecological Economics, PNAS, and Ecological Indicators. Despite ranking sixth overall, Science ranked first in both impact factor and total citations per article. The US, UK, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden were the top five most productive and cooperative countries in the world based on total number of highly cited articles and co-authorship network, respectively. The US was highly connected to Canada, the Netherlands, China and the UK. Stockholm University and Stanford University were the most productive institutions in Europe and North America, respectively. Stanford University is associated with many scholars in the field of ecosystem services research because of the InVEST model. Robert Costanza was the most prolific and highly cited author, the latter being largely due to the first valuation of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital, he and his co-authors published in 1997 in Nature. Terrestrial, urban, and forest ecosystems were the top types of ecosystems assessed. Regulating and provisioning services were the major ecosystem services studied. Quantitative and qualitative assessments were the main research focus. Most of these highly cited studies on ecosystem services are done on areas geographically located in North America and Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient ventilation in hospital airborne isolation rooms is important vis-à-vis decreasing the risk of cross infection and reducing energy consumption. This paper analyses the suitability of using a displacement ventilation strategy in airborne infection isolation rooms, focusing on health care worker exposure to pathogens exhaled by infected patients. The analysis is mainly based on numerical simulation results obtained with the support of a 3-D transient numerical model validated using experimental data. A thermal breathing manikin lying on a bed represents the source patient and another thermal breathing manikin represents the exposed individual standing beside the bed and facing the patient. A radiant wall represents an external wall exposed to solar radiation. The air change efficiency index and contaminant removal effectiveness indices and inhalation by the health care worker of contaminants exhaled by the patient are considered in a typical airborne infection isolation room set up with three air renewal rates (6 h-1, 9 h-1 and 12 h-1), two exhaust opening positions and two health care worker positions. Results show that the radiant wall significantly affects the air flow pattern and contaminant dispersion. The lockup phenomenon occurs at the inhalation height of the standing manikin. Displacement ventilation renews the air of the airborne isolation room and eliminates the exhaled pollutants efficiently, but is at a disadvantage compared to other ventilation strategies when the risk of exposure is taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a statistical methodology for quantifying causality in complex dynamical systems, based on analysis of multidimensional time series data of the state variables. The methodology integrates Granger’s causality analysis based on the log-likelihood function expansion (Partial pair-wise causality), and Akaike’s power contribution approach over the whole frequency domain (Total causality). The proposed methodology addresses a major drawback of existing methodologies namely, their inability to use time series observation of state variables to quantify causality in complex systems. We first perform a simulation study to verify the efficacy of the methodology using data generated by several multivariate autoregressive processes, and its sensitivity to data sample size. We demonstrate application of the methodology to real data by deriving inter-species relationships that define key food web drivers of the Barents Sea ecosystem. Our results show that the proposed methodology is a useful tool in early stage causality analysis of complex feedback systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adequate provision of safe water, basic sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities and behavior change can reduce pupil absence and infectious disease. Increased drinking water quantity may also improve educational outcomes through the effect of hydration on attention, concentration, and short-term memory. A pilot study was conducted to adapt field measures of short-term cognitive performance and hydration, to evaluate levels of hydration, and to investigate the impact of providing supplementary drinking water on the cognitive performance of pupils attending water-scarce schools in rural Mali. Using a cross-over trial design, data were collected under normal school conditions (control condition) on one visit day; on the other, participants were given a bottle of water that was refilled throughout the day (water condition). Morning and afternoon hydration was assessed using specific gravity and urine color. Cognitive performance was evaluated using six paper-based tests. Three percent of pupils were dehydrated on the morning of each visit. The prevalence of dehydration increased in the afternoon, but was lower under the water condition. Although there was a trend indicating drinking water may improve cognitive test performance, as has been shown in studies in other settings, results were not statistically significant and were masked by a “practice effect.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]