Inferring the transcriptional landscape of bovine skeletal muscle by integrating co-expression networks.

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Nicholas J Hudson

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Despite modern technologies and novel computational approaches, decoding causal transcriptional regulation remains challenging. This is particularly true for less well studied organisms and when only gene expression data is available. In muscle a small number of well characterised transcription factors are proposed to regulate development. Therefore, muscle appears to be a tractable system for proposing new computational approaches. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we report a simple algorithm that asks "which transcriptional regulator has the highest average absolute co-expression correlation to the genes in a co-expression module?" It correctly infers a number of known causal regulators of fundamental biological processes, including cell cycle activity (E2F1, glycolysis (HLF, mitochondrial transcription (TFB2M, adipogenesis (PIAS1, neuronal development (TLX3, immune function (IRF1 and vasculogenesis (SOX17, within a skeletal muscle context. However, none of the canonical pro-myogenic transcription factors (MYOD1, MYOG, MYF5, MYF6 and MEF2C were linked to muscle structural gene expression modules. Co-expression values were computed using developing bovine muscle from 60 days post conception (early foetal to 30 months post natal (adulthood for two breeds of cattle, in addition to a nutritional comparison with a third breed. A number of transcriptional landscapes were constructed and integrated into an always correlated landscape. One notable feature was a 'metabolic axis' formed from glycolysis genes at one end, nuclear-encoded mitochondrial protein genes at the other, and centrally tethered by mitochondrially-encoded mitochondrial protein genes. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The new module-to-regulator algorithm complements our recently described Regulatory Impact Factor analysis. Together with a simple examination of a co-expression module's contents, these three gene expression approaches are starting to illuminate the in vivo

Geomorpho-Landscapes

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Farabollini, Piero; Lugeri, Francesca; Amadio, Vittorio

2014-05-01

value -referring to biodiversity, geodiversity, culture- which can be considered as a special heritage. Starting from the concept of Geomorphosite, a geomorphologic landform with a scientific, cultural and socio-economical value (Panizza 2001), we propose a further definition, useful in the preliminary steps of the landscape analysis: "geomorpho-landscape" as a spatial object or component of a geological landscape, whose geo-morphological evolution, linked to the geological setting, are elements of aesthetical, semiological as well as historical and cultural value. The structure of the landscape is represented by the physical shape and spatial organization, in dynamic way: it is necessary to provide a readout of the landscape components that supplements the geo-morphological, lithological, geodiversity data (Lugeri et alii, 2012). The concept of "geomorpho-landscape" is conceived to address the need to describe by a synthetic approach the geological processes emerging at the landscape scale, allowing to link spatial patterns to geological processes Each geo-form has in itself geological, geo-morphological, landmark, historical and cultural features, of such special relevance, that they can be defined in terms of scientific quality, rarity, aesthetic appeal and educational and cultural value. Reference List AMADIO V. (2003). Analisi di sistemi e progetti di paesaggio. Franco Angeli, Milano, pp 236 AMADIO V, AMADEI M, BAGNAIA R, DI BUCCI D, LAURETI L, LISI A, LUGERI FR, LUGERI N. (2002). The role of Geomorphology in Landscape Ecology: The Landscape Unit Map of Italy', Scale 1: 250,000 ("Carta della Natura" Project). In: Allison RJ (ed) Applied Geomorphology: theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons, London, pp 265-282 APAT (2003). Carta della natura alla scala 1:250,000: metodologie di realizzazione. APAT, Manuali e linee guida 17/2003, Roma, pp 103 LUGERI F.R., FARABOLLINI P., GRAVIANO G. & AMADIO V. (2012). Geoheritage: Nature and culture in a landscape approach. European

The relationships within the Chaitophorinae and Drepanosiphinae (Hemiptera, Aphididae) inferred from molecular-based phylogeny and comprehensive morphological data

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Wieczorek, Karina; Lachowska-Cierlik, Dorota; Kajtoch, Łukasz; Kanturski, Mariusz

2017-01-01

The Chaitophorinae is a bionomically diverse Holarctic subfamily of Aphididae. The current classification includes two tribes: the Chaitophorini associated with deciduous trees and shrubs, and Siphini that feed on monocotyledonous plants. We present the first phylogenetic hypothesis for the subfamily, based on molecular and morphological datasets. Molecular analyses were based on the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) and the nuclear gene elongation factor-1α (EF-1α). Phylogenetic inferences were obtained individually on each of genes and joined alignments using Bayesian inference (BI) and Maximum likelihood (ML). In phylogenetic trees reconstructed on the basis of nuclear and mitochondrial genes as well as a morphological dataset, the monophyly of Siphini and the genus Chaitophorus was supported. Periphyllus forms independent lineages from Chaitophorus and Siphini. Within this genus two clades comprising European and Asiatic species, respectively, were indicated. Concerning relationships within the subfamily, EF-1α and joined COI and EF-1α genes analysis strongly supports the hypothesis that Chaitophorini do not form a monophyletic clade. Periphyllus is a sister group to a clade containing Chaitophorus and Siphini. The Asiatic unit of Periphyllus also includes Trichaitophorus koyaensis. The analysis of morphological dataset under equally weighted parsimony also supports the view that Chaitophorini is an artificial taxon, as Lambersaphis pruinosae and Pseudopterocomma hughi, both traditionally included in the Chaitophorini, formed independent lineages. COI analyses support consistent groups within the subfamily, but relationships between groups are poorly resolved. These analyses were extended to include the species of closely related and phylogenetically unstudied subfamily Drepanosiphinae, which produced congruent results. Genera Drepanosiphum and Depanaphis are monophyletic and sister. The position of Yamatocallis tokyoensis differs in the

Eocene to mid-Pliocene landscape evolution in Scandinavia inferred from offshore sediment volumes and pre-glacial topography using inverse modelling

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Pedersen, Vivi K.; Braun, Jean; Huismans, Ritske S.

2018-02-01

.1 km) at 54 Ma and minor continued rock uplift (model for Eocene to mid-Pliocene landscape evolution in Scandinavia is therefore one where high topography ( 2 km) has existed throughout the time interval from 54 to 4 Ma. We do not find several phases of peneplain surface uplift necessary to explain offshore sediment volumes and large-scale topographic patterns. On the contrary, extensive peneplain dissection seems inconsistent with the low rates of erosion we infer based on the offshore sediment volumes.

Phylogeny of Celastraceae tribe Euonymeae inferred from morphological characters and nuclear and plastid genes.

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Simmons, Mark P; McKenna, Miles J; Bacon, Christine D; Yakobson, Kendra; Cappa, Jennifer J; Archer, Robert H; Ford, Andrew J

2012-01-01

The phylogeny of Celastraceae tribe Euonymeae (≈ 230 species in eight genera in both the Old and New Worlds) was inferred using morphological characters together with plastid (matK, trnL-F) and nuclear (ITS and 26S rDNA) genes. Tribe Euonymeae has been defined as those genera of Celastraceae with generally opposite leaves, isomerous carpels, loculicidally dehiscent capsules, and arillate seeds (except Microtropis). Euonymus is the most diverse (129 species) and widely cultivated genus in the tribe. We infer that tribe Euonymeae consists of at least six separate lineages within Celastraceae and that a revised natural classification of the family is needed. Microtropis and Quetzalia are inferred to be distinct sister groups that together are sister to Zinowiewia. The endangered Monimopetalum chinense is an isolated and early derived lineage of Celastraceae that represents an important component of phylogenetic diversity within the family. Hedraianthera is sister to Brassiantha, and we describe a second species (Brassiantha hedraiantheroides A.J. Ford) that represents the first reported occurrence of this genus in Australia. Euonymus globularis, from eastern Australia, is sister to Menepetalum, which is endemic to New Caledonia, and we erect a new genus (Dinghoua R.H. Archer) for it. The Madagascan species of Euonymus are sister to Pleurostylia and recognized as a distinct genus (Astrocassine ined.). Glyptopetalum, Torralbasia, and Xylonymus are all closely related to Euonymus sensu stricto and are questionably distinct from it. Current intrageneric classifications of Euonymus are not completely natural and require revision. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Modeling Relationships between Surface Water Quality and Landscape Metrics Using the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System, A Case Study in Mazandaran Province

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mohsen Mirzayi

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Landscape indices can be used as an approach for predicting water quality changes to monitor non-point source pollution. In the present study, the data collected over the period from 2012 to 2013 from 81 water quality stations along the rivers flowing in Mazandaran Province were analyzed. Upstream boundries were drawn and landscape metrics were extracted for each of the sub-watersheds at class and landscape levels. Principal component analysis was used to single out the relevant water quality parameters and forward linear regression was employed to determine the optimal metrics for the description of each parameter. The first five components were able to describe 96.61% of the variation in water quality in Mazandaran Province. Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS and multiple linear regression were used to model the relationship between landscape metrics and water quality parameters. The results indicate that multiple regression was able to predict SAR, TDS, pH, NO3‒, and PO43‒ in the test step, with R2 values equal to 0.81, 0.56, 0.73, 0.44. and 0.63, respectively. The corresponding R2 value of ANFIS in the test step were 0.82, 0.79, 0.82, 0.31, and 0.36, respectively. Clearly, ANFIS exhibited a better performance in each case than did the linear regression model. This indicates a nonlinear relationship between the water quality parameters and landscape metrics. Since different land cover/uses have considerable impacts on both the outflow water quality and the available and dissolved pollutants in rivers, the method can be reasonably used for regional planning and environmental impact assessment in development projects in the region.

The Recombination Landscape in Wild House Mice Inferred Using Population Genomic Data.

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Booker, Tom R; Ness, Rob W; Keightley, Peter D

2017-09-01

Characterizing variation in the rate of recombination across the genome is important for understanding several evolutionary processes. Previous analysis of the recombination landscape in laboratory mice has revealed that the different subspecies have different suites of recombination hotspots. It is unknown, however, whether hotspots identified in laboratory strains reflect the hotspot diversity of natural populations or whether broad-scale variation in the rate of recombination is conserved between subspecies. In this study, we constructed fine-scale recombination rate maps for a natural population of the Eastern house mouse, Mus musculus castaneus We performed simulations to assess the accuracy of recombination rate inference in the presence of phase errors, and we used a novel approach to quantify phase error. The spatial distribution of recombination events is strongly positively correlated between our castaneus map, and a map constructed using inbred lines derived predominantly from M. m. domesticus Recombination hotspots in wild castaneus show little overlap, however, with the locations of double-strand breaks in wild-derived house mouse strains. Finally, we also find that genetic diversity in M. m. castaneus is positively correlated with the rate of recombination, consistent with pervasive natural selection operating in the genome. Our study suggests that recombination rate variation is conserved at broad scales between house mouse subspecies, but it is not strongly conserved at fine scales. Copyright © 2017 by the Genetics Society of America.

Energy landscape Allgaeu; Energielandschaft Allgaeu

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2013-04-01

In tandems with questions on the energy policy turnaround, the topics cultural landscape history, morphology, actual land use, tourism, settlement development or infrastructure are summarized in regional concepts and designs to a consistent landscape. Thus, a true integration of renewable energies in the landscape enhances existing or creates completely new landscape qualities. Energy supply shall be understood as a component of the every day life world. The energy supply shall not be hidden any more, but it rather should be communicated as the brand 'Allgaeu'.

Genetic and morphological contrasts between wild and anthropogenic populations of Agave parryi var. huachucensis in south-eastern Arizona.

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Parker, Kathleen C; Trapnell, Dorset W; Hamrick, J L; Hodgson, Wendy C

2014-05-01

At least seven species of Agave, including A. parryi, were cultivated prehistorically in Arizona, serving as important sources of food and fibre. Many relict populations from ancient cultivation remain in the modern landscape, offering a unique opportunity to study pre-Columbian plant manipulation practices. This study examined genetic and morphological variation in six A. p. var. huachucensis populations of unknown origin to compare them with previous work on A. parryi populations of known origin, to infer their cultivation history and to determine whether artificial selection is evident in populations potentially managed by early agriculturalists. Six A. p. var. huachucensis and 17 A. parryi populations were sampled, and morphometric, allozyme and microsatellite data were used to compare morphology and genetic structure in purportedly anthropogenic and wild populations, as well as in the two taxa. Analysis of molecular variance and Bayesian clustering were performed to partition variation associated with taxonomic identity and hypothesized evolutionary history, to highlight patterns of similarity among populations and to identify potential wild sources for the planting stock. A p. var. huachucensis and A. parryi populations differed significantly both morphologically and genetically. Like A. parryi, wild A. p. var. huachucensis populations were more genetically diverse than the inferred anthropogenic populations, with greater expected heterozygosity, percentage of polymorphic loci and number of alleles. Inferred anthropogenic populations exhibited many traits indicative of past active cultivation: greater morphological uniformity, fixed heterozygosity for several loci (non-existent in wild populations), fewer multilocus genotypes and strong differentiation among populations. Where archaeological information is lacking, the genetic signature of many Agave populations in Arizona can be used to infer their evolutionary history and to identify potentially fruitful

Exploring Energy Landscapes

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Wales, David J.

2018-04-01

Recent advances in the potential energy landscapes approach are highlighted, including both theoretical and computational contributions. Treating the high dimensionality of molecular and condensed matter systems of contemporary interest is important for understanding how emergent properties are encoded in the landscape and for calculating these properties while faithfully representing barriers between different morphologies. The pathways characterized in full dimensionality, which are used to construct kinetic transition networks, may prove useful in guiding such calculations. The energy landscape perspective has also produced new procedures for structure prediction and analysis of thermodynamic properties. Basin-hopping global optimization, with alternative acceptance criteria and generalizations to multiple metric spaces, has been used to treat systems ranging from biomolecules to nanoalloy clusters and condensed matter. This review also illustrates how all this methodology, developed in the context of chemical physics, can be transferred to landscapes defined by cost functions associated with machine learning.

Novel Approaches for Phylogenetic Inference from Morphological Data and Total-Evidence Dating in Squamate Reptiles (Lizards, Snakes, and Amphisbaenians).

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Pyron, R Alexander

2017-01-01

Here, I combine previously underutilized models and priors to perform more biologically realistic phylogenetic inference from morphological data, with an example from squamate reptiles. When coding morphological characters, it is often possible to denote ordered states with explicit reference to observed or hypothetical ancestral conditions. Using this logic, we can integrate across character-state labels and estimate meaningful rates of forward and backward transitions from plesiomorphy to apomorphy. I refer to this approach as MkA, for “asymmetric.” The MkA model incorporates the biological reality of limited reversal for many phylogenetically informative characters, and significantly increases likelihoods in the empirical data sets. Despite this, the phylogeny of Squamata remains contentious. Total-evidence analyses using combined morphological and molecular data and the MkA approach tend toward recent consensus estimates supporting a nested Iguania. However, support for this topology is not unambiguous across data sets or analyses, and no mechanism has been proposed to explain the widespread incongruence between partitions, or the hidden support for various topologies in those partitions. Furthermore, different morphological data sets produced by different authors contain both different characters and different states for the same or similar characters, resulting in drastically different placements for many important fossil lineages. Effort is needed to standardize ontology for morphology, resolve incongruence, and estimate a robust phylogeny. The MkA approach provides a preliminary avenue for investigating morphological evolution while accounting for temporal evidence and asymmetry in character-state changes.

Insights on landscape evolution and climatic forcing on Titan

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Lucas, A.; Daudon, C.; Rodriguez, S.; Cornet, T.; Perron, J. T.

2017-12-01

The landscapes of Titan were observed for nearly 13 years by the Cassini spacecraft and Huygens probe. With dunes, mountains, seas, lakes, rivers..., the great morphological variety observed testifies to the geological richness that Titan shares with the Earth. In this study, we combine analysis of radar and hyperspectral data provided by the Cassini-Huygens mission, with models of valley and river network evolution to better understand the processes at work that sculpt these familiar landscapes. We develop quantitative criteria for comparing 3D morphologies obtained by numerical simulation with those derived for Titan by photogrammetry. These criteria are validated on Earth's landscapes. We simulate morphologies similar to those observed and show that landscapes at the equator and poles are mainly controlled by river incision and mass wasting such as landslides for which we quantify their respective contribution. Subsequently, we relate modeling to precipitation rates of methane and show values that are to be compared with general circulation model predictions (GCM). Our results also show a very young age of formation of the observed morphologies, less than a few million years. Finally, we provide new constraints on current amplitude of the tidal effects and organic precipitation rates from atmosphere chemistry.

The Value of Landscape Essence

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Maria da Conceição Marques Freire

2014-08-01

Full Text Available A new approach to interpreting the landscape is examined by accepting its complexity through inductive reasoning. While attempting to identify the essence of the landscape in the city and municipality of Óbidos, Portugal, several architectural recommendations of Venturi (2004 have been adapted as a framework for understanding this landscape. These will then guide the process of landscape transformation through:•••using the concepts of closed and contained spaces and the concept of fluid space;•recognising the existence of interstitial open spaces;•using those elements which are common to the distinct typologies of space;•defining the components that should be respected and those that can be respected;•observing landscape as a whole , while emphasising the relationship between the parts and the whole; and•rejecting simplification in the landscape transformation process.valuing the ambiguity incorporating the complexity Underlying this approach is the belief that the process of transformation must be based on the essence of each landscape. This implies the use of elements and structures of the landscape which are related to ecological, morphological and cultural systems. These elements and structures represent points of reference which should be considered in the process of landscape transformation.

Navigating the Interface Between Landscape Genetics and Landscape Genomics

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Andrew Storfer

2018-03-01

Full Text Available As next-generation sequencing data become increasingly available for non-model organisms, a shift has occurred in the focus of studies of the geographic distribution of genetic variation. Whereas landscape genetics studies primarily focus on testing the effects of landscape variables on gene flow and genetic population structure, landscape genomics studies focus on detecting candidate genes under selection that indicate possible local adaptation. Navigating the transition between landscape genomics and landscape genetics can be challenging. The number of molecular markers analyzed has shifted from what used to be a few dozen loci to thousands of loci and even full genomes. Although genome scale data can be separated into sets of neutral loci for analyses of gene flow and population structure and putative loci under selection for inference of local adaptation, there are inherent differences in the questions that are addressed in the two study frameworks. We discuss these differences and their implications for study design, marker choice and downstream analysis methods. Similar to the rapid proliferation of analysis methods in the early development of landscape genetics, new analytical methods for detection of selection in landscape genomics studies are burgeoning. We focus on genome scan methods for detection of selection, and in particular, outlier differentiation methods and genetic-environment association tests because they are the most widely used. Use of genome scan methods requires an understanding of the potential mismatches between the biology of a species and assumptions inherent in analytical methods used, which can lead to high false positive rates of detected loci under selection. Key to choosing appropriate genome scan methods is an understanding of the underlying demographic structure of study populations, and such data can be obtained using neutral loci from the generated genome-wide data or prior knowledge of a species

DINÂMICA DA PAISAGEM NA PRAIA DE VALHA-ME DEUS, CURURUPU-MA / LANDSCAPE DYNAMICS OF THE BEACH OF VALHA-ME DEUS IN CURURUPU – MA

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Francisco Wendell Dias Costa

2017-08-01

Full Text Available The landscape dynamics in Valha-me Deus beach, located in the county of Cururupu, in the state of Maranhão, Brazil. The study was carried out based on the geosystemic theory and considering the following methodological procedures: bibliographical and cartographic research and analysis of the area of study, field search intended to measure the climatic parameters and the observations according to the dynamics integrated in the landscape, involving the behavior of the morphogenetic agents of climatic, oceanographic, biotic and anthropic origin. The results show that the area is formed an unconsolidated sedimentary formation, constituted of quartz-like sand with fine and very fine size, submitted to climatic and oceanographic agents and processes which determine intense alterations of the morphology, allowing it to infer a high degree of vulnerability of the natural landscape, despite the low interference from men as the morphogenetic agent. The thermo averages and the wind speed are higher in the dry season if compared to the rain season, and the action of the waves and the ocean currents determines the morphodymanic pattern of the beach.

Strengthening the morphological study of informal settlements

NARCIS (Netherlands)

McCartney, S.; Krishnamurthy, S.

Methods of articulating the morphological structure of slums can have considerable potential in better planning for site-specific design or policy responses for these areas in the contemporary city. Although urban morphology traditionally studies landscapes as stratified residues with distinct

Urban landscape as palimpsest

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Daniel-Gabriel Vâlceanu

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The current urban morphology and the identity building of the city construction can be designed as a palimpsest; the spatial development stages of urban systems represent the result of their evolution over time. The characteristics of urban palimpsest depend mainly on the emergent factors that influenced the territorial dynamics and the configuration of urban bodies. Urban life and its quality are directly influenced by spatial and temporal factors of the city evolution. For this reason the study aims to achieve a research to explain the concept of urban palimpsest and the current morphology of urban tissue because they are products of landscape transformations along the history. The current knowledge on urban palimpsest characteristics is very important and useful to plan the current and future evolution of urban systems. The case study presents a vast view on the history of spatial development and urban system as well as a dynamics of the landscape interconditioned by the elements of such development in the context of reference historical eras

Phylogeny of the Celastreae (Celastraceae) and the relationships of Catha edulis (qat) inferred from morphological characters and nuclear and plastid genes.

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Simmons, Mark P; Cappa, Jennifer J; Archer, Robert H; Ford, Andrew J; Eichstedt, Dedra; Clevinger, Curtis C

2008-08-01

The phylogeny of Celastraceae tribe Celastreae, which includes about 350 species of trees and shrubs in 15 genera, was inferred in a simultaneous analysis of morphological characters together with nuclear (ITS and 26S rDNA) and plastid (matK, trnL-F) genes. A strong correlation was found between the geography of the species sampled and their inferred relationships. Species of Maytenus and Gymnosporia from different regions were resolved as polyphyletic groups. Maytenus was resolved in three lineages (New World, African, and Austral-Pacific), while Gymnosporia was resolved in two lineages (New World and Old World). Putterlickia was resolved as nested within the Old World Gymnosporia. Catha edulis (qat, khat) was resolved as sister to the clade of Allocassine, Cassine, Lauridia, and Maurocenia. Gymnosporia cassinoides, which is reportedly chewed as a stimulant in the Canary Islands, was resolved as a derived member of Gymnosporia and is more closely related to Lydenburgia and Putterlickia than it is to Catha. Therefore, all eight of these genera are candidates for containing cathinone- and/or cathine-related alkaloids.

Morphology-diet relationships in four killifishes (Teleostei, Cyprinodontidae, Orestias) from Lake Titicaca.

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Maldonado, E; Hubert, N; Sagnes, P; De Mérona, B

2009-02-01

This study explores the relationship between morphology and diet in four Andean killifishes (Orestias) from Lake Titicaca that are known to differ in habitat use. Species that fed preferentially on amphipods (Orestias albus) or molluscs (Orestias luteus) separated in multivariate space from other species that feed on cladocera and algae (Orestias agassii and Orestias jussiei). Generally, specimens feeding on cladocera were characterized by a short, blunt nose with a small mouth; whereas, specimens feeding on amphipods exhibited a long snout with a large mouth. Specimens including molluscs in their diet tended to have a larger posterior part of the head and the larger opercles than others; while the occurrence of substratum in gut content was generally related to a short but deep head. The present analysis suggests that the littoral O. jussiei has an intermediate phenotype and diet between the pelagic (O. agassii) and benthic (O. albus and O. luteus) species. Results suggest that resource partitioning was occurring and that several morphological traits relate to characteristics of the diet, and it is inferred that the benthic, the pelagic and the littoral zones in the lake host different prey communities constituting distinct adaptive landscapes.

Predictors of breeding site occupancy by amphibians in montane landscapes

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Groff, Luke A.; Loftin, Cynthia S.; Calhoun, Aram J.K.

2017-01-01

Ecological relationships and processes vary across species’ geographic distributions, life stages and spatial, and temporal scales. Montane landscapes are characterized by low wetland densities, rugged topographies, and cold climates. Consequently, aquatic-dependent and low-vagility ectothermic species (e.g., pool-breeding amphibians) may exhibit unique ecological associations in montane landscapes. We evaluated the relative importance of breeding- and landscape-scale features associated with spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) and wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) wetland occupancy in Maine's Upper Montane-Alpine Zone ecoregion, and we determined whether models performed better when the inclusive landscape-scale covariates were estimated with topography-weighted or circular buffers. We surveyed 135 potential breeding sites during May 2013–June 2014 and evaluated environmental relationships with multi-season implicit dynamics occupancy models. Breeding site occupancy by both species was influenced solely by breeding-scale habitat features. Spotted salamander occupancy probabilities increased with previous or current beaver (Castor canadensis) presence, and models generally were better supported when the inclusive landscape-scale covariates were estimated with topography-weighted rather than circular buffers. Wood frog occupancy probabilities increased with site area and percent shallows, but neither buffer type was better supported than the other. Model rank order and support varied between buffer types, but model inferences did not. Our results suggest pool-breeding amphibian conservation in montane Maine include measures to maintain beaver populations and large wetlands with proportionally large areas of shallows ≤1-m deep. Inconsistencies between our study and previous studies substantiate the value of region-specific research for augmenting species’ conservation management plans and suggest the application of out-of-region inferences may promote

Planetary Landscape Geography

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Hargitai, H.

INTRODUCTION Landscape is one of the most often used category in physical ge- ography. The term "landshap" was introduced by Dutch painters in the 15-16th cen- tury. [1] The elements that build up a landscape (or environment) on Earth consists of natural (biogenic and abiogenic - lithologic, atmospheric, hydrologic) and artificial (antropogenic) factors. Landscape is a complex system of these different elements. The same lithology makes different landscapes under different climatic conditions. If the same conditions are present, the same landscape type will appear. Landscapes build up a hierarchic system and cover the whole surface. On Earth, landscapes can be classified and qualified according to their characteristics: relief forms (morphology), and its potential economic value. Aesthetic and subjective parameters can also be considered. Using the data from landers and data from orbiters we can now classify planetary landscapes (these can be used as geologic mapping units as well). By looking at a unknown landscape, we can determine the processes that created it and its development history. This was the case in the Pathfinder/Sojourner panoramas. [2]. DISCUSSION Planetary landscape evolution. We can draw a raw landscape develop- ment history by adding the different landscape building elements to each other. This has a strong connection with the planet's thermal evolution (age of the planet or the present surface materials) and with orbital parameters (distance from the central star, orbit excentricity etc). This way we can build a complex system in which we use differ- ent evolutional stages of lithologic, atmospheric, hydrologic and biogenic conditions which determine the given - Solar System or exoplanetary - landscape. Landscape elements. "Simple" landscapes can be found on asteroids: no linear horizon is present (not differentiated body, only impact structures), no atmosphere (therefore no atmospheric scattering - black sky as part of the landscape) and no

Increasing connectivity between metapopulation ecology and landscape ecology.

Science.gov (United States)

Howell, Paige E; Muths, Erin; Hossack, Blake R; Sigafus, Brent H; Chandler, Richard B

2018-05-01

Metapopulation ecology and landscape ecology aim to understand how spatial structure influences ecological processes, yet these disciplines address the problem using fundamentally different modeling approaches. Metapopulation models describe how the spatial distribution of patches affects colonization and extinction, but often do not account for the heterogeneity in the landscape between patches. Models in landscape ecology use detailed descriptions of landscape structure, but often without considering colonization and extinction dynamics. We present a novel spatially explicit modeling framework for narrowing the divide between these disciplines to advance understanding of the effects of landscape structure on metapopulation dynamics. Unlike previous efforts, this framework allows for statistical inference on landscape resistance to colonization using empirical data. We demonstrate the approach using 11 yr of data on a threatened amphibian in a desert ecosystem. Occupancy data for Lithobates chiricahuensis (Chiricahua leopard frog) were collected on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (BANWR), Arizona, USA from 2007 to 2017 following a reintroduction in 2003. Results indicated that colonization dynamics were influenced by both patch characteristics and landscape structure. Landscape resistance increased with increasing elevation and distance to the nearest streambed. Colonization rate was also influenced by patch quality, with semi-permanent and permanent ponds contributing substantially more to the colonization of neighboring ponds relative to intermittent ponds. Ponds that only hold water intermittently also had the highest extinction rate. Our modeling framework can be widely applied to understand metapopulation dynamics in complex landscapes, particularly in systems in which the environment between habitat patches influences the colonization process. © 2018 by the Ecological Society of America.

Phylogeny and Divergence Times of Lemurs Inferred with Recent and Ancient Fossils in the Tree.

Science.gov (United States)

Herrera, James P; Dávalos, Liliana M

2016-09-01

Paleontological and neontological systematics seek to answer evolutionary questions with different data sets. Phylogenies inferred for combined extant and extinct taxa provide novel insights into the evolutionary history of life. Primates have an extensive, diverse fossil record and molecular data for living and extinct taxa are rapidly becoming available. We used two models to infer the phylogeny and divergence times for living and fossil primates, the tip-dating (TD) and fossilized birth-death process (FBD). We collected new morphological data, especially on the living and extinct endemic lemurs of Madagascar. We combined the morphological data with published DNA sequences to infer near-complete (88% of lemurs) time-calibrated phylogenies. The results suggest that primates originated around the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, slightly earlier than indicated by the fossil record and later than previously inferred from molecular data alone. We infer novel relationships among extinct lemurs, and strong support for relationships that were previously unresolved. Dates inferred with TD were significantly older than those inferred with FBD, most likely related to an assumption of a uniform branching process in the TD compared with a birth-death process assumed in the FBD. This is the first study to combine morphological and DNA sequence data from extinct and extant primates to infer evolutionary relationships and divergence times, and our results shed new light on the tempo of lemur evolution and the efficacy of combined phylogenetic analyses. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Society of Systematic Biologists. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Why is a landscape perspective important in studies of primates?

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Arroyo-Rodríguez, Víctor; Fahrig, Lenore

2014-10-01

With accelerated deforestation and fragmentation through the tropics, assessing the impact that landscape spatial changes may have on biodiversity is paramount, as this information is required to design and implement effective management and conservation plans. Primates are expected to be particularly dependent on the landscape context; yet, our understanding on this topic is limited as the majority of primate studies are at the local scale, meaning that landscape-scale inferences are not possible. To encourage primatologists to assess the impact of landscape changes on primates, and help future studies on the topic, we describe the meaning of a "landscape perspective" and evaluate important assumptions of using such a methodological approach. We also summarize a number of important, but unanswered, questions that can be addressed using a landscape-scale study design. For example, it is still unclear if habitat loss has larger consistent negative effects on primates than habitat fragmentation per se. Furthermore, interaction effects between habitat area and other landscape effects (e.g., fragmentation) are unknown for primates. We also do not know if primates are affected by synergistic interactions among factors at the landscape scale (e.g., habitat loss and diseases, habitat loss and climate change, hunting, and land-use change), or whether landscape complexity (or landscape heterogeneity) is important for primate conservation. Testing for patterns in the responses of primates to landscape change will facilitate the development of new guidelines and principles for improving primate conservation. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A General Model for Estimating Macroevolutionary Landscapes.

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Boucher, Florian C; Démery, Vincent; Conti, Elena; Harmon, Luke J; Uyeda, Josef

2018-03-01

The evolution of quantitative characters over long timescales is often studied using stochastic diffusion models. The current toolbox available to students of macroevolution is however limited to two main models: Brownian motion and the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, plus some of their extensions. Here, we present a very general model for inferring the dynamics of quantitative characters evolving under both random diffusion and deterministic forces of any possible shape and strength, which can accommodate interesting evolutionary scenarios like directional trends, disruptive selection, or macroevolutionary landscapes with multiple peaks. This model is based on a general partial differential equation widely used in statistical mechanics: the Fokker-Planck equation, also known in population genetics as the Kolmogorov forward equation. We thus call the model FPK, for Fokker-Planck-Kolmogorov. We first explain how this model can be used to describe macroevolutionary landscapes over which quantitative traits evolve and, more importantly, we detail how it can be fitted to empirical data. Using simulations, we show that the model has good behavior both in terms of discrimination from alternative models and in terms of parameter inference. We provide R code to fit the model to empirical data using either maximum-likelihood or Bayesian estimation, and illustrate the use of this code with two empirical examples of body mass evolution in mammals. FPK should greatly expand the set of macroevolutionary scenarios that can be studied since it opens the way to estimating macroevolutionary landscapes of any conceivable shape. [Adaptation; bounds; diffusion; FPK model; macroevolution; maximum-likelihood estimation; MCMC methods; phylogenetic comparative data; selection.].

Inferring genetic interactions from comparative fitness data.

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Crona, Kristina; Gavryushkin, Alex; Greene, Devin; Beerenwinkel, Niko

2017-12-20

Darwinian fitness is a central concept in evolutionary biology. In practice, however, it is hardly possible to measure fitness for all genotypes in a natural population. Here, we present quantitative tools to make inferences about epistatic gene interactions when the fitness landscape is only incompletely determined due to imprecise measurements or missing observations. We demonstrate that genetic interactions can often be inferred from fitness rank orders, where all genotypes are ordered according to fitness, and even from partial fitness orders. We provide a complete characterization of rank orders that imply higher order epistasis. Our theory applies to all common types of gene interactions and facilitates comprehensive investigations of diverse genetic interactions. We analyzed various genetic systems comprising HIV-1, the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium vivax , the fungus Aspergillus niger , and the TEM-family of β-lactamase associated with antibiotic resistance. For all systems, our approach revealed higher order interactions among mutations.

Morphological patterns of urban sprawl territories

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Angelica I. Stan

2013-12-01

Full Text Available In the context of global criticism on urban sprawl, the questions which arises are: what can we do with the expansion forms already occurred in most part of our cities; can they be fully or partially integrated into the city? But first, which exactly are the common morphological features of urban expansion areas in large European cities, and (by comparison in Romania? The urban form correlated to these „sparwl patterns” and „sprawl mechanisms” shows more then the lack of planning, but a social input in occuping the territory, related with a specific meaning of the landscape. The paper explores the relationship between the five distinct morphological patterns ways of forming in relation to spatial and landscape shapes which they generate, in the territories of sprawl, all illustrated through case studies of Bucharest.

System-morphological approach: Another look at morphology research and geomorphological mapping

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Lastochkin, Alexander N.; Zhirov, Andrey I.; Boltramovich, Sergei F.

2018-02-01

A large number of studies require a clear and unambiguous morphological basis. For over thirty years, Russian scientists have been applying a system-morphological approach for the Arctic and Antarctic research, ocean floor investigation, for various infrastructure construction projects (oil and gas, sports, etc.), in landscape and environmental studies. This article is a review aimed to introduce this methodological approach to the international scientific community. The details of the methods and techniques can be found in a series of earlier papers published in the Russian language in 1987-2016. The proposed system-morphological approach includes: 1) partitioning of the Earth surface, i.e. precise identification of linear, point, and areal elements of topography considered as a two-dimensional surface without any geological substance; 2) further identification of larger formations: geomorphological systems and regions; 3) analysis of structural relations and symmetry of topography; and 4) various dynamic (litho- and glaciodynamic, tectonic, etc.) interpretations of the observed morphology. This method can be used to study the morphology of the surface topography as well as less accessible interfaces such as submarine and subglacial ones.

Classification of Farmland Landscape Structure in Multiple Scales

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Jiang, P.; Cheng, Q.; Li, M.

2017-12-01

Farmland is one of the basic terrestrial resources that support the development and survival of human beings and thus plays a crucial role in the national security of every country. Pattern change is the intuitively spatial representation of the scale and quality variation of farmland. Through the characteristic development of spatial shapes as well as through changes in system structures, functions and so on, farmland landscape patterns may indicate the landscape health level. Currently, it is still difficult to perform positioning analyses of landscape pattern changes that reflect the landscape structure variations of farmland with an index model. Depending on a number of spatial properties such as locations and adjacency relations, distance decay, fringe effect, and on the model of patch-corridor-matrix that is applied, this study defines a type system of farmland landscape structure on the national, provincial, and city levels. According to such a definition, the classification model of farmland landscape-structure type at the pixel scale is developed and validated based on mathematical-morphology concepts and on spatial-analysis methods. Then, the laws that govern farmland landscape-pattern change in multiple scales are analyzed from the perspectives of spatial heterogeneity, spatio-temporal evolution, and function transformation. The result shows that the classification model of farmland landscape-structure type can reflect farmland landscape-pattern change and its effects on farmland production function. Moreover, farmland landscape change in different scales displayed significant disparity in zonality, both within specific regions and in urban-rural areas.

An Outline of the Evolution of Rural Cultural Landscapes in Poland

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KRZYSZTOF KORELESKI

2007-01-01

Full Text Available The paper outlines the evolution of rural cultural landscapes in Poland against the background of landscape classification. It defines cultural landscape types and subtypes, based on several criteria of landscape classification, such as: genetic, morphological, functional, and economic. A review of rural landscapes, based on genetic criteria, considers the following historical periods: the primeval community, the feudalism, the manorial system, the industrial revolution, the interwar period of 1918 – 1939, the period of socialist economy, and market economy. The processes that most significantly influenced the contemporary shape of the rural landscape occurred just after the Second World War: urbanization and industrialization, settlement in western and northern territories, as well as structural and spatial transformations that took place after the year 1989 related to the promotion of sustainable and multifunctional development of rural areas.

Fitness landscape of the human immunodeficiency virus envelope protein that is targeted by antibodies

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Louie, Raymond H. Y.; Kaczorowski, Kevin J.; Chakraborty, Arup K.; McKay, Matthew R.

2018-01-01

HIV is a highly mutable virus, and over 30 years after its discovery, a vaccine or cure is still not available. The isolation of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) from HIV-infected patients has led to renewed hope for a prophylactic vaccine capable of combating the scourge of HIV. A major challenge is the design of immunogens and vaccination protocols that can elicit bnAbs that target regions of the virus’s spike proteins where the likelihood of mutational escape is low due to the high fitness cost of mutations. Related challenges include the choice of combinations of bnAbs for therapy. An accurate representation of viral fitness as a function of its protein sequences (a fitness landscape), with explicit accounting of the effects of coupling between mutations, could help address these challenges. We describe a computational approach that has allowed us to infer a fitness landscape for gp160, the HIV polyprotein that comprises the viral spike that is targeted by antibodies. We validate the inferred landscape through comparisons with experimental fitness measurements, and various other metrics. We show that an effective antibody that prevents immune escape must selectively bind to high escape cost residues that are surrounded by those where mutations incur a low fitness cost, motivating future applications of our landscape for immunogen design. PMID:29311326

Comparative mtDNA phylogeography of neotropical freshwater fishes: testing shared history to infer the evolutionary landscape of lower Central America.

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Bermingham, E; Martin, A P

1998-04-01

Historical biogeography seeks to explain contemporary distributions of taxa in the context of intrinsic biological and extrinsic geological and climatic factors. To decipher the relative importance of biological characteristics vs. environmental conditions, it is necessary to ask whether groups of taxa with similar distributions share the same history of diversification. Because all of the taxa will have shared the same climatic and geological history, evidence of shared history across multiple species provides an estimate of the role of extrinsic factors in shaping contemporary biogeographic patterns. Similarly, differences in the records of evolutionary history across species will probably be signatures of biological differences. In this study, we focus on inferring the evolutionary history for geographical populations and closely related species representing three genera of primary freshwater fishes that are widely distributed in lower Central America (LCA) and northwestern Colombia. Analysis of mitochondrial gene trees provides the opportunity for robust tests of shared history across taxa. Moreover, because mtDNA permits inference of the temporal scale of diversification we can test hypotheses regarding the chronological development of the Isthmian corridor linking North and South America. We have focused attention on two issues. First, we show that many of the distinct populations of LCA fishes diverged in a relatively brief period of time thus limiting the phylogenetic signal available for tests of shared history. Second, our results provide reduced evidence of shared history when all drainages are included in the analysis because of inferred dispersion events that obscure the evolutionary history among drainage basins. When we restrict the analysis to areas that harbour endemic mitochondrial lineages, there is evidence of shared history across taxa. We hypothesize that there were two to three distinct waves of invasion into LCA from putative source

Landscape evaluation of heterogeneous areas using fuzzy sets

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Ralf-Uwe Syrbe

1998-02-01

Full Text Available Landscape evaluation is an interesting field for fuzzy approaches, because it happens on the transition line between natural and social systems. Both are very complex. Therefore, transformation of scientific results to politically significant statements on environmental problems demands intelligent support. Particularly landscape planners need methods to gather natural facts of an area and assess them in consideration of its meaning to society as a whole. Since each land unit is heterogeneous, a special methodology is necessary. Such an evaluation technique was developed within a Geographical Information System (ARC/INFO. The methodology combines several known methods with fuzzy approaches to catch the intrinsic fuzziness of ecological systems as well as the heterogeneity of landscape. Additionally, a way will be discussed to vary the fuzzy inference in order to consider spatial relations of various landscape elements. Fuzzy logic is used to process the data uncertainty, to simulate the vagueness of knowledge about ecological functionality, and to model the spatial structure of landscape. Fuzzy sets describe the attributes of thematically defined land units and their assessment results. In this way, the available information will be preserved in their full diversity. The fuzzy operations are executed by AML-programs (ARC/INFO Macro Language. With such a tight coupling, it is possible to use the geographical functions (neighbourhoods, distances, etc. of GIS within the fuzzy system directly.

HIERARCHICAL PROBABILISTIC INFERENCE OF COSMIC SHEAR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schneider, Michael D.; Dawson, William A.; Hogg, David W.; Marshall, Philip J.; Bard, Deborah J.; Meyers, Joshua; Lang, Dustin

2015-01-01

Point estimators for the shearing of galaxy images induced by gravitational lensing involve a complex inverse problem in the presence of noise, pixelization, and model uncertainties. We present a probabilistic forward modeling approach to gravitational lensing inference that has the potential to mitigate the biased inferences in most common point estimators and is practical for upcoming lensing surveys. The first part of our statistical framework requires specification of a likelihood function for the pixel data in an imaging survey given parameterized models for the galaxies in the images. We derive the lensing shear posterior by marginalizing over all intrinsic galaxy properties that contribute to the pixel data (i.e., not limited to galaxy ellipticities) and learn the distributions for the intrinsic galaxy properties via hierarchical inference with a suitably flexible conditional probabilitiy distribution specification. We use importance sampling to separate the modeling of small imaging areas from the global shear inference, thereby rendering our algorithm computationally tractable for large surveys. With simple numerical examples we demonstrate the improvements in accuracy from our importance sampling approach, as well as the significance of the conditional distribution specification for the intrinsic galaxy properties when the data are generated from an unknown number of distinct galaxy populations with different morphological characteristics

Scaling laws for coastal overwash morphology

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Lazarus, Eli D.

2016-12-01

Overwash is a physical process of coastal sediment transport driven by storm events and is essential to landscape resilience in low-lying barrier environments. This work establishes a comprehensive set of scaling laws for overwash morphology: unifying quantitative descriptions with which to compare overwash features by their morphological attributes across case examples. Such scaling laws also help relate overwash features to other morphodynamic phenomena. Here morphometric data from a physical experiment are compared with data from natural examples of overwash features. The resulting scaling relationships indicate scale invariance spanning several orders of magnitude. Furthermore, these new relationships for overwash morphology align with classic scaling laws for fluvial drainages and alluvial fans.

Tropical Peatland Geomorphology and Hydrology

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Cobb, A.; Harvey, C. F.

2017-12-01

Tropical peatlands cover many low-lying areas in the tropics. In tropical peatlands, a feedback between hydrology, landscape morphology, and carbon storage causes waterlogged organic matter to accumulate into gently mounded land forms called peat domes over thousands of years. Peat domes have a stable morphology in which peat production is balanced by loss and net precipitation is balanced by lateral flow, creating a link between peatland morphology, rainfall patterns and drainage networks. We show how landscape morphology can be used to make inferences about hydrologic processes in tropical peatlands. In particular, we show that approaches using simple storage-discharge relationships for catchments are especially well suited to tropical peatlands, allowing river forecasting based on peatland morphology in catchments with tropical peatland subcatchments.

An inventory of continental U.S. terrestrial candidate ecological restoration areas based on landscape context

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James Wickham; Kurt Riitters; Peter Vogt; Jennifer Costanza; Anne Neale

2017-01-01

Landscape context is an important factor in restoration ecology, but the use of landscape context for site prioritization has not been as fully developed.We used morphological image processing to identify candidate ecological restoration areas based on their proximity to existing natural vegetation. We identified 1,102,720 candidate ecological restoration areas across...

The Influence of Stratigraphic History on Landscape Evolution

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Forte, A. M.; Yanites, B.; Whipple, K. X.

2016-12-01

Variation in rock erodibility can play a significant role in landscape evolution. Using a version of the CHILD landscape evolution model that allows for variations in rock erodibility, we found surprisingly complex landscape evolution in simulations with simple, two unit stratigraphies with contrasting erodibility. This work indicated that the stratigraphic order of units in terms of erodibility, the orientation of the contact with respect to the main drainage direction, and the contact dip angle all have pronounced effects on landscape evolution. Here we expand that work to explore the implications of more complicated stratigraphies on landscape evolution. Introducing multiple units adds additional controls on landscape evolution, namely the thicknesses and relative erodibility of rock layers. In models with a sequence of five alternating hard and soft units embedded within arbitrarily thick over- and underlying units, the number of individual layers that noticeably influence landscape morphology decreases as the thickness of individual layers reduces. Contacts with soft rocks over hard produce the most noticeable effect in model output such as erosion rate and channel steepness. For large contrasts in erodibility of 25 m thick layers, only one soft over hard contact is clearly manifest in the landscape. Between 50 and 75 m, two such contacts are manifest, and by 100 m thickness, all three of these contacts are manifest. However, for a given thickness of layers, more units are manifest in the landscape as the erodibility contrast between units decreases. This is true even though the magnitude of landscape effects away from steady-state erosion rates or channel steepness also decrease with decreasing erodibility contrast. Finally, we explore suites of models with alternating layers reflecting either `hardening-' or `softening-upwards' stratigraphies and find that the two scenarios result in decidedly different landscape forms. Hardening-upwards sections produce a

The landscape genetics of infectious disease emergence and spread.

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Biek, Roman; Real, Leslie A

2010-09-01

The spread of parasites is inherently a spatial process often embedded in physically complex landscapes. It is therefore not surprising that infectious disease researchers are increasingly taking a landscape genetics perspective to elucidate mechanisms underlying basic ecological processes driving infectious disease dynamics and to understand the linkage between spatially dependent population processes and the geographic distribution of genetic variation within both hosts and parasites. The increasing availability of genetic information on hosts and parasites when coupled to their ecological interactions can lead to insights for predicting patterns of disease emergence, spread and control. Here, we review research progress in this area based on four different motivations for the application of landscape genetics approaches: (i) assessing the spatial organization of genetic variation in parasites as a function of environmental variability, (ii) using host population genetic structure as a means to parameterize ecological dynamics that indirectly influence parasite populations, for example, gene flow and movement pathways across heterogeneous landscapes and the concurrent transport of infectious agents, (iii) elucidating the temporal and spatial scales of disease processes and (iv) reconstructing and understanding infectious disease invasion. Throughout this review, we emphasize that landscape genetic principles are relevant to infection dynamics across a range of scales from within host dynamics to global geographic patterns and that they can also be applied to unconventional 'landscapes' such as heterogeneous contact networks underlying the spread of human and livestock diseases. We conclude by discussing some general considerations and problems for inferring epidemiological processes from genetic data and try to identify possible future directions and applications for this rapidly expanding field.

Visualizing phylogenetic tree landscapes.

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Wilgenbusch, James C; Huang, Wen; Gallivan, Kyle A

2017-02-02

Genomic-scale sequence alignments are increasingly used to infer phylogenies in order to better understand the processes and patterns of evolution. Different partitions within these new alignments (e.g., genes, codon positions, and structural features) often favor hundreds if not thousands of competing phylogenies. Summarizing and comparing phylogenies obtained from multi-source data sets using current consensus tree methods discards valuable information and can disguise potential methodological problems. Discovery of efficient and accurate dimensionality reduction methods used to display at once in 2- or 3- dimensions the relationship among these competing phylogenies will help practitioners diagnose the limits of current evolutionary models and potential problems with phylogenetic reconstruction methods when analyzing large multi-source data sets. We introduce several dimensionality reduction methods to visualize in 2- and 3-dimensions the relationship among competing phylogenies obtained from gene partitions found in three mid- to large-size mitochondrial genome alignments. We test the performance of these dimensionality reduction methods by applying several goodness-of-fit measures. The intrinsic dimensionality of each data set is also estimated to determine whether projections in 2- and 3-dimensions can be expected to reveal meaningful relationships among trees from different data partitions. Several new approaches to aid in the comparison of different phylogenetic landscapes are presented. Curvilinear Components Analysis (CCA) and a stochastic gradient decent (SGD) optimization method give the best representation of the original tree-to-tree distance matrix for each of the three- mitochondrial genome alignments and greatly outperformed the method currently used to visualize tree landscapes. The CCA + SGD method converged at least as fast as previously applied methods for visualizing tree landscapes. We demonstrate for all three mtDNA alignments that 3D

Tangible Landscape: Cognitively Grasping the Flow of Water

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Harmon, B. A.; Petrasova, A.; Petras, V.; Mitasova, H.; Meentemeyer, R. K.

2016-06-01

Complex spatial forms like topography can be challenging to understand, much less intentionally shape, given the heavy cognitive load of visualizing and manipulating 3D form. Spatiotemporal processes like the flow of water over a landscape are even more challenging to understand and intentionally direct as they are dependent upon their context and require the simulation of forces like gravity and momentum. This cognitive work can be offloaded onto computers through 3D geospatial modeling, analysis, and simulation. Interacting with computers, however, can also be challenging, often requiring training and highly abstract thinking. Tangible computing - an emerging paradigm of human-computer interaction in which data is physically manifested so that users can feel it and directly manipulate it - aims to offload this added cognitive work onto the body. We have designed Tangible Landscape, a tangible interface powered by an open source geographic information system (GRASS GIS), so that users can naturally shape topography and interact with simulated processes with their hands in order to make observations, generate and test hypotheses, and make inferences about scientific phenomena in a rapid, iterative process. Conceptually Tangible Landscape couples a malleable physical model with a digital model of a landscape through a continuous cycle of 3D scanning, geospatial modeling, and projection. We ran a flow modeling experiment to test whether tangible interfaces like this can effectively enhance spatial performance by offloading cognitive processes onto computers and our bodies. We used hydrological simulations and statistics to quantitatively assess spatial performance. We found that Tangible Landscape enhanced 3D spatial performance and helped users understand water flow.

The landscape of chromosomal aberrations in breast cancer mouse models reveals driver-specific routes to tumorigenesis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ben-David, Uri; Ha, Gavin; Khadka, Prasidda; Jin, Xin; Wong, Bang; Franke, Lude; Golub, Todd R.

Aneuploidy and copy-number alterations (CNAs) are a hallmark of human cancer. Although genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs) are commonly used to model human cancer, their chromosomal landscapes remain underexplored. Here we use gene expression profiles to infer CNAs in 3,108 samples from 45

Why replication is important in landscape genetics: American black bear in the Rocky Mountains

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Short, Bull R.A.; Cushman, S.A.; MacE, R.; Chilton, T.; Kendall, K.C.; Landguth, E.L.; Schwartz, Maurice L.; McKelvey, K.; Allendorf, F.W.; Luikart, G.

2011-01-01

We investigated how landscape features influence gene flow of black bears by testing the relative support for 36 alternative landscape resistance hypotheses, including isolation by distance (IBD) in each of 12 study areas in the north central U.S. Rocky Mountains. The study areas all contained the same basic elements, but differed in extent of forest fragmentation, altitude, variation in elevation and road coverage. In all but one of the study areas, isolation by landscape resistance was more supported than IBD suggesting gene flow is likely influenced by elevation, forest cover, and roads. However, the landscape features influencing gene flow varied among study areas. Using subsets of loci usually gave models with the very similar landscape features influencing gene flow as with all loci, suggesting the landscape features influencing gene flow were correctly identified. To test if the cause of the variability of supported landscape features in study areas resulted from landscape differences among study areas, we conducted a limiting factor analysis. We found that features were supported in landscape models only when the features were highly variable. This is perhaps not surprising but suggests an important cautionary note – that if landscape features are not found to influence gene flow, researchers should not automatically conclude that the features are unimportant to the species’ movement and gene flow. Failure to investigate multiple study areas that have a range of variability in landscape features could cause misleading inferences about which landscape features generally limit gene flow. This could lead to potentially erroneous identification of corridors and barriers if models are transferred between areas with different landscape characteristics.

Quantitative assessment of the relationships among ecological, morphological and aesthetic values in a river rehabilitation initiative.

Science.gov (United States)

McCormick, Ashlee; Fisher, Karen; Brierley, Gary

2015-04-15

Promoting community support in rehabilitation efforts through incorporation of aesthetic considerations is an important component of environmental management. This research utilised a small-scale survey methodology to explore relationships among the ecological and morphological goals of scientists and the aesthetic goals of the public using the Twin Streams Catchment, Auckland, New Zealand, as a case study. Analyses using a linear model and a generalised linear mixed model showed statistically significant relationships between perceived naturalness of landscapes and their aesthetic ratings, and among ratings of perceived naturalness and ecological integrity and morphological condition. Expert measures of health and the aesthetic evaluations of the public were well aligned, indicating public preferences for landscapes of high ecological integrity with good morphological condition. Further analysis revealed participants used 'cues to care' to rate naturalness. This suggests that environmental education endeavours could further align values with these cues in efforts to enhance approaches to landscape sustainability. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Landscape attributes and life history variability shape genetic structure of trout populations in a stream network

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Neville, H.M.; Dunham, J.B.; Peacock, M.M.

2006-01-01

Spatial and temporal landscape patterns have long been recognized to influence biological processes, but these processes often operate at scales that are difficult to study by conventional means. Inferences from genetic markers can overcome some of these limitations. We used a landscape genetics approach to test hypotheses concerning landscape processes influencing the demography of Lahontan cutthroat trout in a complex stream network in the Great Basin desert of the western US. Predictions were tested with population- and individual-based analyses of microsatellite DNA variation, reflecting patterns of dispersal, population stability, and local effective population sizes. Complementary genetic inferences suggested samples from migratory corridors housed a mixture of fish from tributaries, as predicted based on assumed migratory life histories in those habitats. Also as predicted, populations presumed to have greater proportions of migratory fish or from physically connected, large, or high quality habitats had higher genetic variability and reduced genetic differentiation from other populations. Populations thought to contain largely non-migratory individuals generally showed the opposite pattern, suggesting behavioral isolation. Estimated effective sizes were small, and we identified significant and severe genetic bottlenecks in several populations that were isolated, recently founded, or that inhabit streams that desiccate frequently. Overall, this work suggested that Lahontan cutthroat trout populations in stream networks are affected by a combination of landscape and metapopulation processes. Results also demonstrated that genetic patterns can reveal unexpected processes, even within a system that is well studied from a conventional ecological perspective. ?? Springer 2006.

Genotype to phenotype mapping and the fitness landscape of the E. coli lac promoter.

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Jakub Otwinowski

Full Text Available Genotype-to-phenotype maps and the related fitness landscapes that include epistatic interactions are difficult to measure because of their high dimensional structure. Here we construct such a map using the recently collected corpora of high-throughput sequence data from the 75 base pairs long mutagenized E. coli lac promoter region, where each sequence is associated with its phenotype, the induced transcriptional activity measured by a fluorescent reporter. We find that the additive (non-epistatic contributions of individual mutations account for about two-thirds of the explainable phenotype variance, while pairwise epistasis explains about 7% of the variance for the full mutagenized sequence and about 15% for the subsequence associated with protein binding sites. Surprisingly, there is no evidence for third order epistatic contributions, and our inferred fitness landscape is essentially single peaked, with a small amount of antagonistic epistasis. There is a significant selective pressure on the wild type, which we deduce to be multi-objective optimal for gene expression in environments with different nutrient sources. We identify transcription factor (CRP and RNA polymerase binding sites in the promotor region and their interactions without difficult optimization steps. In particular, we observe evidence for previously unexplored genetic regulatory mechanisms, possibly kinetic in nature. We conclude with a cautionary note that inferred properties of fitness landscapes may be severely influenced by biases in the sequence data.

Measurement and inference of profile soil-water dynamics at different hillslope positions in a semiarid agricultural watershed

Science.gov (United States)

Green, Timothy R.; Erskine, Robert H.

2011-12-01

Dynamics of profile soil water vary with terrain, soil, and plant characteristics. The objectives addressed here are to quantify dynamic soil water content over a range of slope positions, infer soil profile water fluxes, and identify locations most likely influenced by multidimensional flow. The instrumented 56 ha watershed lies mostly within a dryland (rainfed) wheat field in semiarid eastern Colorado. Dielectric capacitance sensors were used to infer hourly soil water content for approximately 8 years (minus missing data) at 18 hillslope positions and four or more depths. Based on previous research and a new algorithm, sensor measurements (resonant frequency) were rescaled to estimate soil permittivity, then corrected for temperature effects on bulk electrical conductivity before inferring soil water content. Using a mass-conservation method, we analyzed multitemporal changes in soil water content at each sensor to infer the dynamics of water flux at different depths and landscape positions. At summit positions vertical processes appear to control profile soil water dynamics. At downslope positions infrequent overland flow and unsaturated subsurface lateral flow appear to influence soil water dynamics. Crop water use accounts for much of the variability in soil water between transects that are either cropped or fallow in alternating years, while soil hydraulic properties and near-surface hydrology affect soil water variability across landscape positions within each management zone. The observed spatiotemporal patterns exhibit the joint effects of short-term hydrology and long-term soil development. Quantitative methods of analyzing soil water patterns in space and time improve our understanding of dominant soil hydrological processes and provide alternative measures of model performance.

Phylogeny of the Celastraceae inferred from 26S nuclear ribosomal DNA, phytochrome B, rbcL, atpB, and morphology.

Science.gov (United States)

Simmons, M P; Savolainen, V; Clevinger, C C; Archer, R H; Davis, J I

2001-06-01

Phylogenetic relationships within Celastraceae (spindle-tree family) were inferred from nucleotide sequence characters from the 5' end of 26S nuclear ribosomal DNA (including expansion segments D1-D3; 84 species sampled), phytochrome B (58 species), rbcL (31 species), atpB (23 species), and morphology (94 species). Among taxa of questionable affinity, Forsellesia is a member of Crossosomataceae, and Goupia is excluded from Celastraceae. However, Brexia, Canotia, Lepuropetalon, Parnassia, Siphonodon, and Stackhousiaceae are supported as members of Celastraceae. Gymnosporia and Tricerma are distinct from Maytenus, Cassine is supported as distinct from Elaeodendron, and Dicarpellum is distinct from Salacia. Catha, Maytenus, and Pristimera are not resolved as natural genera. Hippocrateaceae (including Plagiopteron and Lophopetalum) are a clade nested within a paraphyletic Celastraceae. These data also suggest that the Loesener's classification of Celastraceae sensu stricto and Hallé's classification of Hippocrateaceae are artificial. The diversification of the fruit and aril within Celastraceae appears to be complex, with multiple origins of most fruit and aril forms. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.

Inferring speciation modes in a clade of Iberian chafers from rates of morphological evolution in different character systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahrens Dirk

2009-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Studies of speciation mode based on phylogenies usually test the predicted effect on diversification patterns or on geographical distribution of closely related species. Here we outline an approach to infer the prevalent speciation mode in Iberian Hymenoplia chafers through the comparison of the evolutionary rates of morphological character systems likely to be related to sexual or ecological selection. Assuming that mitochondrial evolution is neutral and not related to measured phenotypic differences among the species, we contrast hypothetic outcomes of three speciation modes: 1 geographic isolation with subsequent random morphological divergence, resulting in overall change proportional to the mtDNA rate; 2 sexual selection on size and shape of the male intromittent organs, resulting in an evolutionary rate decoupled to that of the mtDNA; and 3 ecological segregation, reflected in character systems presumably related to ecological or biological adaptations, with rates decoupled from that of the mtDNA. Results The evolutionary rate of qualitative external body characters was significantly correlated to that of the mtDNA both for the overall root-to-tip patristic distances and the individual inter-node branches, as measured with standard statistics and the randomization of a global comparison metric (the z-score. The rate of the body morphospace was significantly correlated to that of the mtDNA only for the individual branches, but not for the patristic distances, while that of the paramere outline was significantly correlated with mtDNA rates only for the patristic distances but not for the individual branches. Conclusion Structural morphological characters, often used for species recognition, have evolved at a rate proportional to that of the mtDNA, with no evidence of directional or stabilising selection according to our measures. The change in body morphospace seems to have evolved randomly at short term, but the overall

Cross-Lingual Morphological Tagging for Low-Resource Languages

OpenAIRE

Buys, Jan; Botha, Jan A.

2016-01-01

Morphologically rich languages often lack the annotated linguistic resources required to develop accurate natural language processing tools. We propose models suitable for training morphological taggers with rich tagsets for low-resource languages without using direct supervision. Our approach extends existing approaches of projecting part-of-speech tags across languages, using bitext to infer constraints on the possible tags for a given word type or token. We propose a tagging model using Ws...

Quaternary tectonic control on channel morphology over sedimentary low land: A case study in the Ajay-Damodar interfluve of Eastern India

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suvendu Roy

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The style of active tectonic on the deformation and characterization of fluvial landscape has been investigated on three typical skrike-slip fault zones of the Ajay-Damodar Interfluve (ADI in Eastern India through field mapping, structural analysis and examination of digital topography (ASTER-30 m, multi-spectral imageries, and Google Earth images. Channel morphology in Quaternary sediment is more deformed than Cenozoic lateritic tract and igneous rock system by the neotectonic activities. The structural and lithological controls on the river system in ADI region are reflected by distinct drainage patterns, abrupt change in flow direction, offset river channels, straight river lines, ponded river channel, marshy lands, sag ponds, palaeo-channels, alluvial fans, meander cutoffs, multi-terrace river valley, incised compressed meander, convexity of channel bed slope and knick points in longitudinal profile. Seven morphotectonic indices have been used to infer the role of neotectonic on the modification of channel morphology. A tectonic index map for the ADI region has been prepared by the integration of used morphotectonic indices, which is also calibrated by Bouguer gravity anomaly data and field investigation.

Adaptive landscape and functional diversity of Neotropical cichlids: implications for the ecology and evolution of Cichlinae (Cichlidae; Cichliformes).

Science.gov (United States)

Arbour, J H; López-Fernández, H

2014-11-01

Morphological, lineage and ecological diversity can vary substantially even among closely related lineages. Factors that influence morphological diversification, especially in functionally relevant traits, can help to explain the modern distribution of disparity across phylogenies and communities. Multivariate axes of feeding functional morphology from 75 species of Neotropical cichlid and a stepwise-AIC algorithm were used to estimate the adaptive landscape of functional morphospace in Cichlinae. Adaptive landscape complexity and convergence, as well as the functional diversity of Cichlinae, were compared with expectations under null evolutionary models. Neotropical cichlid feeding function varied primarily between traits associated with ram feeding vs. suction feeding/biting and secondarily with oral jaw muscle size and pharyngeal crushing capacity. The number of changes in selective regimes and the amount of convergence between lineages was higher than expected under a null model of evolution, but convergence was not higher than expected under a similarly complex adaptive landscape. Functional disparity was compatible with an adaptive landscape model, whereas the distribution of evolutionary change through morphospace corresponded with a process of evolution towards a single adaptive peak. The continentally distributed Neotropical cichlids have evolved relatively rapidly towards a number of adaptive peaks in functional trait space. Selection in Cichlinae functional morphospace is more complex than expected under null evolutionary models. The complexity of selective constraints in feeding morphology has likely been a significant contributor to the diversity of feeding ecology in this clade. © 2014 European Society For Evolutionary Biology. Journal of Evolutionary Biology © 2014 European Society For Evolutionary Biology.

Flowscapes : Infrastructure as landscape, landscape as infrastructure. Graduation Lab Landscape Architecture 2012/2013

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijhuis, S.; Jauslin, D.; De Vries, C.

2012-01-01

Flowscapes explores infrastructure as a type of landscape and landscape as a type of infrastructure, and is focused on landscape architectonic design of transportation-, green- and water infrastructures. These landscape infrastructures are considered armatures for urban and rural development. With

Segmentation, Inference and Classification of Partially Overlapping Nanoparticles

KAUST Repository

Chiwoo Park,

2013-03-01

This paper presents a method that enables automated morphology analysis of partially overlapping nanoparticles in electron micrographs. In the undertaking of morphology analysis, three tasks appear necessary: separate individual particles from an agglomerate of overlapping nano-objects; infer the particle\\'s missing contours; and ultimately, classify the particles by shape based on their complete contours. Our specific method adopts a two-stage approach: the first stage executes the task of particle separation, and the second stage conducts simultaneously the tasks of contour inference and shape classification. For the first stage, a modified ultimate erosion process is developed for decomposing a mixture of particles into markers, and then, an edge-to-marker association method is proposed to identify the set of evidences that eventually delineate individual objects. We also provided theoretical justification regarding the separation capability of the first stage. In the second stage, the set of evidences become inputs to a Gaussian mixture model on B-splines, the solution of which leads to the joint learning of the missing contour and the particle shape. Using twelve real electron micrographs of overlapping nanoparticles, we compare the proposed method with seven state-of-the-art methods. The results show the superiority of the proposed method in terms of particle recognition rate.

Changes in the geodiversity of Dutch peatlands inferred from 19th and 20th century landscape paintings

Science.gov (United States)

Jungerius, Pieter Dirk; van den Ancker, Hanneke; Wevers, Nina

2013-04-01

Geodiversity is the natural and cultural range of geological, geomorphological and soil features. We analysed the large database of 19th and early 20th century paintings of Simonis and Buunk (www.Simonis-Buunk.com) to track changes in the geodiversity of Dutch peatlands since pre-photographic times. Peat dominated in two of the eight main landscapes of the Netherlands: the Lowland peats in the Holocene west and the Highland peats in the sandy Pleistocene eastern parts. Painters were mainly attracted by the lowland peats. Since more than thousand years, peat plays a major role in Dutch military security, economy, ecology and cultural life. Natural variety and cultural use resulted in a geodiversity that is unique in Europe. There are more than 100 place names with 'veen' (= peat), and surnames with 'veen' are common. Proof of the exploitation of peat for salt and fuel exists from the Roman times onwards. In the 9th century, peatlands were drained and reclaimed for growing wheat. Already in the 11th century, it was necessary to build dikes to prevent flooding, to control waterlevels to avoid further oxidation, and to convert landuse to grassland. But subsidence continued, and in the 14th century windmills were needed to drain the lands and pump the water out. In the 16th century industrial peat exploitation fuelled the rise of industries and cities. All this draining and digging caused the peat surface to shrink. The few remaining living peats are conserved by nature organisations. Geodiversity and landscape paintings In the peat landscapes, popular painting motives were high water levels, the grasslands of the 'Green Heart', the winding streams and remaining lakes. The paintings of landscapes where peat had been removed, show watermanagement adaptations: wind mills, different water levels, canals made for the transport of fuel, bridges, tow paths and the 'plassen', i.e. the lakes left after peat exploitation. The droogmakerijen (reclaimed lakes), now 2 to 5 m below

The Mathematical Morpho-Logical View on Reasoning about Space

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Aiello, Marco; Ottens, Brammert; Veloso, MM

2007-01-01

Qualitative reasoning about mereotopological relations has been extensively investigated, while more recently geometrical and spatio-temporal reasoning are gaining increasing attention. We propose to consider mathematical morphology operators as the inspiration for a new language and inference

Landscape metrics application in ecological and visual landscape assessment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gavrilović Suzana

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The development of landscape-ecological approach application in spatial planning provides exact theoretical and empirical evidence for monitoring ecological consequences of natural and/or anthropogenic factors, particularly changes in spatial structures caused by them. Landscape pattern which feature diverse landscape values is the holder of the unique landscape character at different spatial levels and represents a perceptual domain for its users. Using the landscape metrics, the parameters of landscape composition and configuration are mathematical algorithms that quantify the specific spatial characteristics used for interpretation of landscape features and processes (physical and ecological aspect, as well as forms (visual aspect and the meaning (cognitive aspect of the landscape. Landscape metrics has been applied mostly in the ecological and biodiversity assessments as well as in the determination of the level of structural change of landscape, but more and more applied in the assessment of the visual character of the landscape. Based on a review of relevant literature, the aim of this work is to show the main trends of landscape metrics within the aspect of ecological and visual assessments. The research methodology is based on the analysis, classification and systematization of the research studies published from 2000 to 2016, where the landscape metrics is applied: (1 the analysis of landscape pattern and its changes, (2 the analysis of biodiversity and habitat function and (3 a visual landscape assessment. By selecting representative metric parameters for the landscape composition and configuration, for each category is formed the basis for further landscape metrics research and application for the integrated ecological and visual assessment of the landscape values. Contemporary conceptualization of the landscape is seen holistically, and the future research should be directed towards the development of integrated landscape assessment

Genetic Variation in Past and Current Landscapes: Conservation Implications Based on Six Endemic Florida Scrub Plants

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Eric S. Menges

2010-01-01

Full Text Available If genetic variation is often positively correlated with population sizes and the presence of nearby populations and suitable habitats, landscape proxies could inform conservation decisions without genetic analyses. For six Florida scrub endemic plants (Dicerandra frutescens, Eryngium cuneifolium, Hypericum cumulicola, Liatris ohlingerae, Nolina brittoniana, and Warea carteri, we relate two measures of genetic variation, expected heterozygosity and alleles per polymorphic locus (APL, to population size and landscape variables. Presettlement areas were estimated based on soil preferences and GIS soils maps. Four species showed no genetic patterns related to population or landscape factors. The other two species showed significant but inconsistent patterns. For Liatris ohlingerae, APL was negatively related to population density and weakly, positively related to remaining presettlement habitat within 32 km. For Nolina brittoniana, APL increased with population size. The rather weak effects of population area/size and both past and current landscape structures suggest that genetic variation needs to be directly measured and not inferred for conservation planning.

Genetic Variation in Past and Current Landscapes: Conservation Implications Based on Six Endemic Florida Scrub Plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Menges, E.S.; Pickert, R.; Dolan, R.W.; Yahr, R.; Gordon, D.R.

2010-01-01

If genetic variation is often positively correlated with population sizes and the presence of nearby populations and suitable habitats, landscape proxies could inform conservation decisions without genetic analyses. For six Florida scrub endemic plants (Dicerandra frutescens, Eryngium cuneifolium, Hypericum cumulicola, Liatris ohlingerae, Nolina brittoniana, and Warea carteri), we relate two measures of genetic variation, expected heterozygosity and alleles per polymorphic locus (APL), to population size and landscape variables. Presettlement areas were estimated based on soil preferences and GIS soils maps. Four species showed no genetic patterns related to population or landscape factors. The other two species showed significant but inconsistent patterns. For Liatris ohlingerae, APL was negatively related to population density and weakly, positively related to remaining presettlement habitat within 32 km. For Nolina brittoniana, APL increased with population size. The rather weak effects of population area/size and both past and current landscape structures suggest that genetic variation needs to be directly measured and not inferred for conservation planning.

Habitable periglacial landscapes in martian mid-latitudes

Science.gov (United States)

Ulrich, M.; Wagner, D.; Hauber, E.; de Vera, J.-P.; Schirrmeister, L.

2012-05-01

Subsurface permafrost environments on Mars are considered to be zones where extant life could have survived. For the identification of possible habitats it is important to understand periglacial landscape evolution and related subsurface and environmental conditions. Many landforms that are interpreted to be related to ground ice are located in the martian mid-latitudinal belts. This paper summarizes the insights gained from studies of terrestrial analogs to permafrost landforms on Mars. The potential habitability of martian mid-latitude periglacial landscapes is exemplarily deduced for one such landscape, that of Utopia Planitia, by a review and discussion of environmental conditions influencing periglacial landscape evolution. Based on recent calculations of the astronomical forcing of climate changes, specific climate periods are identified within the last 10 Ma when thaw processes and liquid water were probably important for the development of permafrost geomorphology. No periods could be identified within the last 4 Ma which met the suggested threshold criteria for liquid water and habitable conditions. Implications of past and present environmental conditions such as temperature variations, ground-ice conditions, and liquid water activity are discussed with respect to the potential survival of highly-specialized microorganisms known from terrestrial permafrost. We conclude that possible habitable subsurface niches might have been developed in close relation to specific permafrost landform morphology on Mars. These would have probably been dominated by lithoautotrophic microorganisms (i.e. methanogenic archaea).

Constructing Palaeo-DEMs in landscape evolution: example of the Geren catchment, Turkey

Science.gov (United States)

van Gorp, Wouter; Schoorl, Jeroen M.; Veldkamp, Tom; Maddy, Darrel; Demir, Tuncer; Aytac, Serdar

2017-04-01

How to reconstruct the past landscape and how does this influence your modelling results? This is an important paradigma in the soilscape and landscape evolution modelling community. Here an example of Turkey will be presented where a 300 ka LEM simulation requested to the thoroughly think about the initial landscape as an important input. What information can be used to know the morphology of a landscape 300 ka ago? The Geren catchment, a tributary of the upstream Gediz river near Kula, Turkey, has been influenced by base level changes during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. Different lavaflows have blocked the Gediz and Geren river several times over in the timespan of the last 300 ka -200 Ka and in the recent Holocene. The heavily dissected Geren catchment shows a landscape evolution which is more complex than just a reaction on these base level changes. The steps and inputs of the palaeo DEM reconstruction will be presented and the modelling results will be presented. Keywords: Digital Elevation Model, Palaeo DEMs, Numerical modelling

A model of late quaternary landscape development in the Delaware Valley, New Jersey and Pennsylvania

Science.gov (United States)

Ridge, J.C.; Evenson, E.B.; Sevon, W.D.

1992-01-01

In the Delaware Valley of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania the late Quaternary history of colluviation, fluvial adjustment, and soil formation is based on the ages of pre-Wisconsinan soils and glacial deposits which are indicated by feld relationships and inferred from mid-latitude climate changes indicated by marine oxygen-isotope records. The area is divided into four terranes characterized by sandstone, gneiss, slate and carbonate rocks. Since the last pre-Wisconsinan glaciation (> 130 ka, inferred to be late Illinoian), each terrane responded differently to chemical and mechanical weathering. During the Sangamon interglacial stage (??? 130-75 ka) in situ weathering is inferred to have occurred at rates greater than transportation of material which resulted in the formation of deep, highly weathered soil and saprolite, and dissolution of carbonate rocks. Cold climatic conditions during the Wisconsinan, on the other hand, induced erosion of the landscape at rates faster than soil development. Upland erosion during the Wisconsinan removed pre-Wisconsinan soil and glacial sediment and bedrock to produce muddy to blocky colluvium, gre??zes lite??es, and alluvial fans on footslopes. Fluvial gravel and overlying colluvium in the Delaware Valley, both buried by late Wisconsinan outwash, are inferred to represent episodes of early and middle Wisconsinan (??? 75-25 ka) upland erosion and river aggradiation followed by river degradation and colluvium deposition. Early-middle Wisconsinan colluvium is more voluminous than later colluvium despite colder, possibly permafrost conditions during the late Wisconsinan ??? 25-10 ka). Extensive colluviation during the early and middle Wisconsinan resulted from a longer (50 kyr), generally cold interval of erosion with a greater availability of easily eroded pre-Wisconsinan surficial materials on uplands than during the late Wisconsinan. After recession of late Wisconsinan ice from its terminal position, soil formation and

Phylogeny of Selaginellaceae: There is value in morphology after all!

Science.gov (United States)

Weststrand, Stina; Korall, Petra

2016-12-01

The cosmopolitan lycophyte family Selaginellaceae, dating back to the Late Devonian-Early Carboniferous, is notorious for its many species with a seemingly undifferentiated gross morphology. This morphological stasis has for a long time hampered our understanding of the evolutionary history of the single genus Selaginella. Here we present a large-scale phylogenetic analysis of Selaginella, and based on the resulting phylogeny, we discuss morphological evolution in the group. We sampled about one-third of the approximately 750 recognized Selaginella species. Evolutionary relationships were inferred from both chloroplast (rbcL) and single-copy nuclear gene data (pgiC and SQD1) using a Bayesian inference approach. The morphology of the group was studied and important features mapped onto the phylogeny. We present an overall well-supported phylogeny of Selaginella, and the phylogenetic positions of some previously problematic taxa (i.e., S. sinensis and allies) are now resolved with strong support. We show that even though the evolution of most morphological characters involves reversals and/or parallelisms, several characters are phylogenetically informative. Seven major clades are identified, which each can be uniquely diagnosed by a suite of morphological features. There is value in morphology after all! Our hypothesis of the evolutionary relationships of Selaginella is well founded based on DNA sequence data, as well as morphology, and is in line with previous findings. It will serve as a firm basis for further studies on Selaginella with respect to, e.g., the poorly known alpha taxonomy, as well as evolutionary questions such as historical biogeographic reconstructions. © 2016 Weststrand and Korall. Published by the Botanical Society of America. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0).

Landscape Studio

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Peter Lundsgaard

2017-01-01

Landscape studio documents is the biography of the method 'design conversation' and contributes to the way we work with landscapes. The blog communicates renewed landscape didactics and leads to the innovation of design practices.......Landscape studio documents is the biography of the method 'design conversation' and contributes to the way we work with landscapes. The blog communicates renewed landscape didactics and leads to the innovation of design practices....

Simulation and validation of concentrated subsurface lateral flow paths in an agricultural landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Q.; Lin, H. S.

2009-08-01

The importance of soil water flow paths to the transport of nutrients and contaminants has long been recognized. However, effective means of detecting concentrated subsurface flow paths in a large landscape are still lacking. The flow direction and accumulation algorithm based on single-direction flow algorithm (D8) in GIS hydrologic modeling is a cost-effective way to simulate potential concentrated flow paths over a large area once relevant data are collected. This study tested the D8 algorithm for simulating concentrated lateral flow paths at three interfaces in soil profiles in a 19.5-ha agricultural landscape in central Pennsylvania, USA. These interfaces were (1) the interface between surface plowed layers of Ap1 and Ap2 horizons, (2) the interface with subsoil water-restricting clay layer where clay content increased to over 40%, and (3) the soil-bedrock interface. The simulated flow paths were validated through soil hydrologic monitoring, geophysical surveys, and observable soil morphological features. The results confirmed that concentrated subsurface lateral flow occurred at the interfaces with the clay layer and the underlying bedrock. At these two interfaces, the soils on the simulated flow paths were closer to saturation and showed more temporally unstable moisture dynamics than those off the simulated flow paths. Apparent electrical conductivity in the soil on the simulated flow paths was elevated and temporally unstable as compared to those outside the simulated paths. The soil cores collected from the simulated flow paths showed significantly higher Mn content at these interfaces than those away from the simulated paths. These results suggest that (1) the D8 algorithm is useful in simulating possible concentrated subsurface lateral flow paths if used with appropriate threshold value of contributing area and sufficiently detailed digital elevation model (DEM); (2) repeated electromagnetic surveys can reflect the temporal change of soil water storage

Differential responses of cryptic bat species to the urban landscape.

Science.gov (United States)

Lintott, Paul R; Barlow, Kate; Bunnefeld, Nils; Briggs, Philip; Gajas Roig, Clara; Park, Kirsty J

2016-04-01

Urbanization is a key global driver in the modification of land use and has been linked to population declines even in widespread and relatively common species. Cities comprise a complex assortment of habitat types yet we know relatively little about the effects of their composition and spatial configuration on species distribution. Although many bat species exploit human resources, the majority of species are negatively impacted by urbanization. Here, we use data from the National Bat Monitoring Programme, a long-running citizen science scheme, to assess how two cryptic European bat species respond to the urban landscape. A total of 124 × 1 km(2) sites throughout Britain were surveyed. The landscape surrounding each site was mapped and classified into discrete biotope types (e.g., woodland). Generalized linear models were used to assess differences in the response to the urban environment between the two species, and which landscape factors were associated with the distributions of P. pipistrellus and P. pygmaeus. The relative prevalence of P. pygmaeus compared to P. pipistrellus was greater in urban landscapes with a higher density of rivers and lakes, whereas P. pipistrellus was frequently detected in landscapes comprising a high proportion of green space (e.g., parklands). Although P. pipistrellus is thought to be well adapted to the urban landscape, we found a strong negative response to urbanization at a relatively local scale (1 km), whilst P. pygmaeus was detected more regularly in wooded urban landscapes containing freshwater. These results show differential habitat use at a landscape scale of two morphologically similar species, indicating that cryptic species may respond differently to anthropogenic disturbance. Even species considered relatively common and well adapted to the urban landscape may respond negatively to the built environment highlighting the future challenges involved in maintaining biodiversity within an increasingly urbanized

Evolution of a Lowland Karst Landscape; A Mass-Balance Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Chamberlin, C.; Heffernan, J. B.; Cohen, M. J.; Quintero, C.; Pain, A.

2016-12-01

Karst landscapes are highly soluble, and are vulnerable to biological acid production as a major driving factor in their evolution. Big Cypress National Park (BICY) is a low-lying karst landscape in southern Florida displaying a distinctive morphology of isolated depressions likely influenced by biology. The goal of this study is to constrain timescales of landform development in BICY. This question was addressed through the construction of landscape-scale elemental budgets for both calcium and phosphorus. Precipitation and export fluxes were calculated using available chemistry and hydrology data, and stocks were calculated from a combination of existing data, field measurements, and laboratory chemical analysis. Estimates of expected mass export given no biological acid production and given an equivalent production of 100% of GPP were compared with observed rates. Current standing stocks of phosphorus are dominated by a large soil pool, and contain 500 Gg P. Inputs are largely dominated by precipitation, and 8000 years are necessary to accumulate standing stocks of phosphorus given modern fluxes. Calcium flux is vastly dominated by dissolution of the limestone bedrock, and though some calcium is retained in the soil, most is exported. Using LiDAR generated estimates of volume loss across the landscape and current export rates, an estimated 15,000 years would be necessary to create the modern landscape. Both of these estimates indicate that the BICY landscape is geologically very young. The different behaviors of these elements (calcium is largely exported, while phosphorus is largely retained) lend additional confidence to estimates of denudation rates of the landscape. These estimates can be even closer reconciled if calcium redistribution over the landscape is allowed for. This estimate is compared to the two bounding conditions for biological weathering to indicate a likely level of biological importance to landscape development in this system.

A landscape genetic analysis of important agricultural pest species in Tunisia: The whitefly Bemisia tabaci.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahmed Ben Abdelkrim

Full Text Available Combining landscape ecology and genetics provides an excellent framework to appreciate pest population dynamics and dispersal. The genetic architectures of many species are always shaped by environmental constraints. Because little is known about the ecological and genetic traits of Tunisian whitefly populations, the main objective of this work is to highlight patterns of biodiversity, genetic structure and migration routes of this pest. We used nuclear microsatellite loci to analyze B. tabaci populations collected from various agricultural areas across the country and we determine their biotype status. Molecular data were subsequently interpreted in an ecological context supplied from a species distribution model to infer habitat suitability and hereafter the potential connection paths between sampling localities. An analysis of landscape resistance to B. tabaci genetic flow was thus applied to take into account habitat suitability, genetic relatedness and functional connectivity of habitats within a varied landscape matrix. We shed light on the occurrence of three geographically delineated genetic groups with high levels of genetic differentiation within each of them. Potential migration corridors of this pest were then established providing significant advances toward the understanding of genetic features and the dynamic dispersal of this pest. This study supports the hypothesis of a long-distance dispersal of B. tabaci followed by infrequent long-term isolations. The Inference of population sources and colonization routes is critical for the design and implementation of accurate management strategies against this pest.

A landscape genetic analysis of important agricultural pest species in Tunisia: The whitefly Bemisia tabaci.

Science.gov (United States)

Ben Abdelkrim, Ahmed; Hattab, Tarek; Fakhfakh, Hatem; Belkadhi, Mohamed Sadok; Gorsane, Faten

2017-01-01

Combining landscape ecology and genetics provides an excellent framework to appreciate pest population dynamics and dispersal. The genetic architectures of many species are always shaped by environmental constraints. Because little is known about the ecological and genetic traits of Tunisian whitefly populations, the main objective of this work is to highlight patterns of biodiversity, genetic structure and migration routes of this pest. We used nuclear microsatellite loci to analyze B. tabaci populations collected from various agricultural areas across the country and we determine their biotype status. Molecular data were subsequently interpreted in an ecological context supplied from a species distribution model to infer habitat suitability and hereafter the potential connection paths between sampling localities. An analysis of landscape resistance to B. tabaci genetic flow was thus applied to take into account habitat suitability, genetic relatedness and functional connectivity of habitats within a varied landscape matrix. We shed light on the occurrence of three geographically delineated genetic groups with high levels of genetic differentiation within each of them. Potential migration corridors of this pest were then established providing significant advances toward the understanding of genetic features and the dynamic dispersal of this pest. This study supports the hypothesis of a long-distance dispersal of B. tabaci followed by infrequent long-term isolations. The Inference of population sources and colonization routes is critical for the design and implementation of accurate management strategies against this pest.

Emergent reorganization of an evolving experimental landscape under changing climatic forcing

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, A.; Tejedor, A.; Zaliapin, I. V.; Reinhardt, L.; Foufoula-Georgiou, E.

2014-12-01

Understanding landscape re-organization under changing climatic forcing is fundamental to advancing our understanding of geomorphic transport laws under transient conditions, developing predictive models of landscape response to external perturbations, and interpreting the stratigraphic record for past climates by incorporating possible regime shifts. Real landscape observations for long-term analysis are limited and to this end a high resolution controlled laboratory experiment was conducted at the St. Anthony Falls laboratory at the University of Minnesota. Elevation data were collected at temporal resolution of 5 mins and spatial resolution of 0.5 mm as the landscape approached steady state (for a constant uplift and precipitation rate) and in the transient state (under the same uplift and 5x precipitation). The results reveal rapid topographic re-organization under a five-fold precipitation increase with the fluvial regime expanding into previously debris dominated regime, accelerated erosion happening at hillslope scales, and rivers shifting from an erosion-limited to a transport-limited regime. By studying the space-time structure of the individual erosional and depositional events in terms of their size, location, clustering, and total volume we report complex space-time patterns of change which are scale-dependent and bounded by the river network topology. At the same time, the river network topology itself adjusts at smaller scales, with new channels added to accommodate increased hillslope erosional transport, further adjusting the landscape. Some new ideas related to landscape variability and entropy evolution at different scales during steady and transient states and the possibility of analyzing the self-organization with Optimal Mass Transport (OMT) metrics to infer possible underlying "optimality" principles governing the re-organization will also be presented.

The impact of fossil data on annelid phylogeny inferred from discrete morphological characters.

Science.gov (United States)

Parry, Luke A; Edgecombe, Gregory D; Eibye-Jacobsen, Danny; Vinther, Jakob

2016-08-31

As a result of their plastic body plan, the relationships of the annelid worms and even the taxonomic makeup of the phylum have long been contentious. Morphological cladistic analyses have typically recovered a monophyletic Polychaeta, with the simple-bodied forms assigned to an early-diverging clade or grade. This is in stark contrast to molecular trees, in which polychaetes are paraphyletic and include clitellates, echiurans and sipunculans. Cambrian stem group annelid body fossils are complex-bodied polychaetes that possess well-developed parapodia and paired head appendages (palps), suggesting that the root of annelids is misplaced in morphological trees. We present a reinvestigation of the morphology of key fossil taxa and include them in a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of annelids. Analyses using probabilistic methods and both equal- and implied-weights parsimony recover paraphyletic polychaetes and support the conclusion that echiurans and clitellates are derived polychaetes. Morphological trees including fossils depict two main clades of crown-group annelids that are similar, but not identical, to Errantia and Sedentaria, the fundamental groupings in transcriptomic analyses. Removing fossils yields trees that are often less resolved and/or root the tree in greater conflict with molecular topologies. While there are many topological similarities between the analyses herein and recent phylogenomic hypotheses, differences include the exclusion of Sipuncula from Annelida and the taxa forming the deepest crown-group divergences. © 2016 The Authors.

Do landscape factors affect brownfield carabid assemblages?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Small, Emma; Sadler, Jon P.; Telfer, Mark

2006-01-01

The carabid fauna of 28 derelict sites in the West Midlands (England) were sampled over the course of one growing season (April-October, 1999). The study aimed to investigate the relationship between carabid assemblages and five measures of landscape structure pertinent to derelict habitat. At each site measurements of landscape features pertinent to derelict habitat were made: (i) the proximity of habitat corridors; (ii) the density of surrounding derelict land; (iii) the distance between the site and the rural fringe; and (iv) the size of the site. Concurrent surveys of the soil characteristics, vegetation type, and land use history were conducted. The data were analysed using a combination of ordination (DCA, RDA), variance partitioning (using pRDA) and binary linear regression. The results suggest that:1.There is very little evidence that the carabid assemblages of derelict sites were affected by landscape structure, with assemblages instead being principally related to within-site habitat variables, such as site age (since last disturbance), substrate type and vegetation community. 2.No evidence was found to support the hypothesis that sites away from railway corridors are more impoverished in their carabid fauna than sites on corridors. 3.There are some suggestions from this study that rarer and non-flying specialist species may be affected by isolation, taking longer to reach sites. We infer from this that older sites with retarded succession, and sites in higher densities of surrounding derelict land may eventually become more species rich and that these sites may be important for maintaining populations of rarer and flightless species. 4.Conservation efforts to maintain populations of these species should focus principally on habitat quality issues, such as maintaining early successional habitats that have a diversity of seed producing annuals and perennial plants and enhancing substrate variability rather than landscape issues

A graph-theory framework for evaluating landscape connectivity and conservation planning.

Science.gov (United States)

Minor, Emily S; Urban, Dean L

2008-04-01

Connectivity of habitat patches is thought to be important for movement of genes, individuals, populations, and species over multiple temporal and spatial scales. We used graph theory to characterize multiple aspects of landscape connectivity in a habitat network in the North Carolina Piedmont (U.S.A). We compared this landscape with simulated networks with known topology, resistance to disturbance, and rate of movement. We introduced graph measures such as compartmentalization and clustering, which can be used to identify locations on the landscape that may be especially resilient to human development or areas that may be most suitable for conservation. Our analyses indicated that for songbirds the Piedmont habitat network was well connected. Furthermore, the habitat network had commonalities with planar networks, which exhibit slow movement, and scale-free networks, which are resistant to random disturbances. These results suggest that connectivity in the habitat network was high enough to prevent the negative consequences of isolation but not so high as to allow rapid spread of disease. Our graph-theory framework provided insight into regional and emergent global network properties in an intuitive and visual way and allowed us to make inferences about rates and paths of species movements and vulnerability to disturbance. This approach can be applied easily to assessing habitat connectivity in any fragmented or patchy landscape.

The lichens in the agricultural landscape of Podlasie, North East Poland

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matwiejuk, A.

2016-01-01

This paper carries information for diagnosis lichenobiota in the agricultural landscape of Poland NE. The research led to a better understanding of the problem of occurrence of lichens in the agricultural landscape. The functional groups of lichens, which were used to characterize lichen biota taking into account the morphological forms, frequency of occurrence and habitat requirements were determined. The basis for the specification of the more interesting taxa in the study area was to analyze the species composition of lichens in relation to the data on their previous records in rural areas, the degree of recognition in Poland NE and conservation status and threats in the country. (author)

THE MORPHOLOGICAL PYRAMID AND ITS APPLICATIONS TO REMOTE SENSING: MULTIRESOLUTION DATA ANALYSIS AND FEATURES EXTRACTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laporterie Florence

2011-05-01

Full Text Available In remote sensing, sensors are more and more numerous, and their spatial resolution is higher and higher. Thus, the availability of a quick and accurate characterisation of the increasing amount of data is now a quite important issue. This paper deals with an approach combining a pyramidal algorithm and mathematical morphology to study the physiographic characteristics of terrestrial ecosystems. Our pyramidal strategy involves first morphological filters, then extraction at each level of resolution of well-known landscapes features. The approach is applied to a digitised aerial photograph representing an heterogeneous landscape of orchards and forests along the Garonne river (France. This example, simulating very high spatial resolution imagery, highlights the influence of the parameters of the pyramid according to the spatial properties of the studied patterns. It is shown that, the morphological pyramid approach is a promising attempt for multi-level features extraction by modelling geometrical relevant parameters.

Discrete kinetic models from funneled energy landscape simulations.

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Nicholas P Schafer

Full Text Available A general method for facilitating the interpretation of computer simulations of protein folding with minimally frustrated energy landscapes is detailed and applied to a designed ankyrin repeat protein (4ANK. In the method, groups of residues are assigned to foldons and these foldons are used to map the conformational space of the protein onto a set of discrete macrobasins. The free energies of the individual macrobasins are then calculated, informing practical kinetic analysis. Two simple assumptions about the universality of the rate for downhill transitions between macrobasins and the natural local connectivity between macrobasins lead to a scheme for predicting overall folding and unfolding rates, generating chevron plots under varying thermodynamic conditions, and inferring dominant kinetic folding pathways. To illustrate the approach, free energies of macrobasins were calculated from biased simulations of a non-additive structure-based model using two structurally motivated foldon definitions at the full and half ankyrin repeat resolutions. The calculated chevrons have features consistent with those measured in stopped flow chemical denaturation experiments. The dominant inferred folding pathway has an "inside-out", nucleation-propagation like character.

Social network models predict movement and connectivity in ecological landscapes

Science.gov (United States)

Fletcher, Robert J.; Acevedo, M.A.; Reichert, Brian E.; Pias, Kyle E.; Kitchens, Wiley M.

2011-01-01

Network analysis is on the rise across scientific disciplines because of its ability to reveal complex, and often emergent, patterns and dynamics. Nonetheless, a growing concern in network analysis is the use of limited data for constructing networks. This concern is strikingly relevant to ecology and conservation biology, where network analysis is used to infer connectivity across landscapes. In this context, movement among patches is the crucial parameter for interpreting connectivity but because of the difficulty of collecting reliable movement data, most network analysis proceeds with only indirect information on movement across landscapes rather than using observed movement to construct networks. Statistical models developed for social networks provide promising alternatives for landscape network construction because they can leverage limited movement information to predict linkages. Using two mark-recapture datasets on individual movement and connectivity across landscapes, we test whether commonly used network constructions for interpreting connectivity can predict actual linkages and network structure, and we contrast these approaches to social network models. We find that currently applied network constructions for assessing connectivity consistently, and substantially, overpredict actual connectivity, resulting in considerable overestimation of metapopulation lifetime. Furthermore, social network models provide accurate predictions of network structure, and can do so with remarkably limited data on movement. Social network models offer a flexible and powerful way for not only understanding the factors influencing connectivity but also for providing more reliable estimates of connectivity and metapopulation persistence in the face of limited data.

Social network models predict movement and connectivity in ecological landscapes.

Science.gov (United States)

Fletcher, Robert J; Acevedo, Miguel A; Reichert, Brian E; Pias, Kyle E; Kitchens, Wiley M

2011-11-29

Network analysis is on the rise across scientific disciplines because of its ability to reveal complex, and often emergent, patterns and dynamics. Nonetheless, a growing concern in network analysis is the use of limited data for constructing networks. This concern is strikingly relevant to ecology and conservation biology, where network analysis is used to infer connectivity across landscapes. In this context, movement among patches is the crucial parameter for interpreting connectivity but because of the difficulty of collecting reliable movement data, most network analysis proceeds with only indirect information on movement across landscapes rather than using observed movement to construct networks. Statistical models developed for social networks provide promising alternatives for landscape network construction because they can leverage limited movement information to predict linkages. Using two mark-recapture datasets on individual movement and connectivity across landscapes, we test whether commonly used network constructions for interpreting connectivity can predict actual linkages and network structure, and we contrast these approaches to social network models. We find that currently applied network constructions for assessing connectivity consistently, and substantially, overpredict actual connectivity, resulting in considerable overestimation of metapopulation lifetime. Furthermore, social network models provide accurate predictions of network structure, and can do so with remarkably limited data on movement. Social network models offer a flexible and powerful way for not only understanding the factors influencing connectivity but also for providing more reliable estimates of connectivity and metapopulation persistence in the face of limited data.

Landscape Ecology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Andreas Aagaard; Brandt, Jesper; Svenningsen, Stig Roar

2017-01-01

Landscape ecology is an interdisciplinary field of research and practice that deals with the mutual association between the spatial configuration and ecological functioning of landscapes, exploring and describing processes involved in the differentiation of spaces within landscapes......, and the ecological significance of the patterns which are generated by such processes. In landscape ecology, perspectives drawn from existing academic disciplines are integrated based on a common, spatially explicit mode of analysis developed from classical holistic geography, emphasizing spatial and landscape...... pattern analysis and ecological interaction of land units. The landscape is seen as a holon: an assemblage of interrelated phenomena, both cultural and biophysical, that together form a complex whole. Enduring challenges to landscape ecology include the need to develop a systematic approach able...

European landscape architecture and territorial strategies for water landscapes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Diedrich, Lisa Babette

2010-01-01

This article sums up the author’s lecture at the 2009 Sydney Resilient Water Landscapes Symposium and presents a series of realized or planned European landscape architectural and urbanistic projects on water landscapes taken from the recently published book On Site/ Landscape Architecture Europe...... and accompanying reflections. The hypothesis is that further scientific research can help defining weaknesses and strengths of the existing water landscape designs in terms of resilience, extract principles and tools, improve the weak ones and communicate the strong ones and develop general quality criteria...... and tools for future resilient water landscapes....

Phylogenetic relationships and timing of diversification in gonorynchiform fishes inferred using nuclear gene DNA sequences (Teleostei: Ostariophysi).

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Near, Thomas J; Dornburg, Alex; Friedman, Matt

2014-11-01

The Gonorynchiformes are the sister lineage of the species-rich Otophysi and provide important insights into the diversification of ostariophysan fishes. Phylogenies of gonorynchiforms inferred using morphological characters and mtDNA gene sequences provide differing resolutions with regard to the sister lineage of all other gonorynchiforms (Chanos vs. Gonorynchus) and support for monophyly of the two miniaturized lineages Cromeria and Grasseichthys. In this study the phylogeny and divergence times of gonorynchiforms are investigated with DNA sequences sampled from nine nuclear genes and a published morphological character matrix. Bayesian phylogenetic analyses reveal substantial congruence among individual gene trees with inferences from eight genes placing Gonorynchus as the sister lineage to all other gonorynchiforms. Seven gene trees resolve Cromeria and Grasseichthys as a clade, supporting previous inferences using morphological characters. Phylogenies resulting from either concatenating the nuclear genes, performing a multispecies coalescent species tree analysis, or combining the morphological and nuclear gene DNA sequences resolve Gonorynchus as the living sister lineage of all other gonorynchiforms, strongly support the monophyly of Cromeria and Grasseichthys, and resolve a clade containing Parakneria, Cromeria, and Grasseichthys. The morphological dataset, which includes 13 gonorynchiform fossil taxa that range in age from Early Cretaceous to Eocene, was analyzed in combination with DNA sequences from the nine nuclear genes and a relaxed molecular clock to estimate times of evolutionary divergence. This "tip dating" strategy accommodates uncertainty in the phylogenetic resolution of fossil taxa that provide calibration information in the relaxed molecular clock analysis. The estimated age of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of living gonorynchiforms is slightly older than estimates from previous node dating efforts, but the molecular tip dating

Grapho-Morphological Awareness in Spanish L2 Reading: How Do Learners Use This Metalinguistic Skill?

Science.gov (United States)

Miguel, Nausica Marcos

2012-01-01

This paper contributes to the literature on the transferability of grapho-morphological awareness (GMA) for second language (L2) learners by analysing L2 learners' knowledge of morphology in reading. GMA helps readers to identify grammatical categories, infer meanings of unfamiliar words, and access stored lexical information. Previous research…

Observations of an aeolian landscape: From surface to orbit in Gale Crater

Science.gov (United States)

Day, Mackenzie; Kocurek, Gary

2016-12-01

Landscapes derived solely from aeolian processes are rare on Earth because of the dominance of subaqueous processes. In contrast, aeolian-derived landscapes should typify Mars because of the absence of liquid water, the long exposure times of surfaces, and the presence of wind as the default geomorphic agent. Using the full range of available orbital and Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity images, wind-formed features in Gale Crater were cataloged and analyzed in order to characterize the aeolian landscape and to derive the evolution of the crater wind regime over time. Inferred wind directions show a dominance of regional northerly winds over geologic time-scales, but a dominance of topography-driven katabatic winds in modern times. Landscapes in Gale Crater show a preponderance of aeolian features at all spatial scales. Interpreted processes forming these features include first-cycle aeolian abrasion of bedrock, pervasive deflation, organization of available sand into bedforms, abundant cratering, and gravity-driven wasting, all of which occur over a background of slow physical weathering. The observed landscapes are proposed to represent a spectrum of progressive surface denudation from fractured bedrock, to retreating bedrock-capped mesas, to remnant hills capped by bedrock rubble, to desert pavement plains. This model of landscape evolution provides the mechanism by which northerly winds acting over ∼3 Ga excavated tens of thousands of cubic kilometers of material from the once sediment-filled crater, thus carving the intra-crater moat and exhuming Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons). The current crater surface is relatively sand-starved, indicating that potential sediment deflation from the crater is greater than sediment production, and that most exhumation of Mount Sharp occurred in the ancient geologic past.

The Conservation of the Landscape in the Perspective of a Public Open Spaces System in Recife

OpenAIRE

Carneiro, Ana Rita Sá; Duarte, Mirela; Marques, Eliábi A.

2009-01-01

This paper presents the relationship between the study of public open spaces and the urban landscape in Recife, according a systemic vision. This relationship is defined with the historical analysis of the natural ecosystems in the site landscape such as rivers, coast vegetation and mangrove, and the atlantic forest, which was occupied by the time. This method was chosen to understand the morphology of open spaces, its typology and which is preserved as natural and cultural heritage. Nowadays...

Recent topographic evolution and erosion of the deglaciated Washington Cascades inferred from a stochastic landscape evolution model

Science.gov (United States)

Moon, Seulgi; Shelef, Eitan; Hilley, George E.

2015-05-01

In this study, we model postglacial surface processes and examine the evolution of the topography and denudation rates within the deglaciated Washington Cascades to understand the controls on and time scales of landscape response to changes in the surface process regime after deglaciation. The postglacial adjustment of this landscape is modeled using a geomorphic-transport-law-based numerical model that includes processes of river incision, hillslope diffusion, and stochastic landslides. The surface lowering due to landslides is parameterized using a physically based slope stability model coupled to a stochastic model of the generation of landslides. The model parameters of river incision and stochastic landslides are calibrated based on the rates and distribution of thousand-year-time scale denudation rates measured from cosmogenic 10Be isotopes. The probability distributions of those model parameters calculated based on a Bayesian inversion scheme show comparable ranges from previous studies in similar rock types and climatic conditions. The magnitude of landslide denudation rates is determined by failure density (similar to landslide frequency), whereas precipitation and slopes affect the spatial variation in landslide denudation rates. Simulation results show that postglacial denudation rates decay over time and take longer than 100 kyr to reach time-invariant rates. Over time, the landslides in the model consume the steep slopes characteristic of deglaciated landscapes. This response time scale is on the order of or longer than glacial/interglacial cycles, suggesting that frequent climatic perturbations during the Quaternary may produce a significant and prolonged impact on denudation and topography.

Subtle changes in myelination due to childhood experiences: label-free microscopy to infer nerve fibers morphology and myelination in brain (Conference Presentation)

Science.gov (United States)

Gasecka, Alicja; Tanti, Arnaud; Lutz, Pierre-Eric; Mechawar, Naguib; Cote, Daniel C.

2017-02-01

Adverse childhood experiences have lasting detrimental effects on mental health and are strongly associated with impaired cognition and increased risk of developing psychopathologies. Preclinical and neuroimaging studies have suggested that traumatic events during brain development can affect cerebral myelination particularly in areas and tracts implicated in mood and emotion. Although current neuroimaging techniques are quite powerful, they lack the resolution to infer myelin integrity at the cellular level. Recently demonstrated coherent Raman microscopy has accomplished cellular level imaging of myelin sheaths in the nervous system. However, a quantitative morphometric analysis of nerve fibers still remains a challenge. In particular, in brain, where fibres exhibit small diameters and varying local orientation. In this work, we developed an automated myelin identification and analysis method that is capable of providing a complete picture of axonal myelination and morphology in brain samples. This method performs three main procedures 1) detects molecular anisotropy of membrane phospholipids based on polarization resolved coherent Raman microscopy, 2) identifies regions of different molecular organization, 3) calculates morphometric features of myelinated axons (e.g. myelin thickness, g-ratio). We applied this method to monitor white matter areas from suicides adults that suffered from early live adversity and depression compared to depressed suicides adults and psychiatrically healthy controls. We demonstrate that our method allows for the rapid acquisition and automated analysis of neuronal networks morphology and myelination. This is especially useful for clinical and comparative studies, and may greatly enhance the understanding of processes underlying the neurobiological and psychopathological consequences of child abuse.

Comparative morphology among northern populations of breeding Cooper's Hawks

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Rosenfield, Robert N.; Rosenfield, Laura J.; Bielefeldt, John; Murphy, Robert K.; Stewart, Andrew C.; Stout, William E.; Driscoll, Timothy G.; Bozek, Michael A.

2010-01-01

Few studies at a broad geographical scale have characterized intraspecific variation in morphology of woodland hawks in the genus Accipiter. From 1999 to 2007 we investigated morphological variation in large samples of live Cooper's Hawks (A. cooperii) nesting in four study areas: coniferous woodland around Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, isolated deciduous woodlands in short-grass prairies of northwestern North Dakota, towns and rural deciduous woodlands along the border of North Dakota and Minnesota, and urban and rural mixed deciduous and coniferous landscapes of Wisconsin. These sites span 2660 km across the northern part of the species' breeding range. We measured body mass (i.e., size), wing chord, tail length, tarsus diameter, hallux length, and culmen length of breeding adults, finding significant and clinal variation in body mass (or size). The smallest and most similar-sized birds occurred in British Columbia and western North Dakota, larger birds along the border between North Dakota and Minnesota, and the largest birds in Wisconsin. Several other characters varied significantly when mass was used as a covariate. Variation by study site in mean indices of sexual size dimorphism was negligible and not significant. We speculate that the morphological differences we found, in part, are the result of geographic isolation, where diets, migratory behavior, and structural characteristics of nesting habitats vary across landscape types.

Generalization of the Ewens sampling formula to arbitrary fitness landscapes.

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Pavel Khromov

Full Text Available In considering evolution of transcribed regions, regulatory sequences, and other genomic loci, we are often faced with a situation in which the number of allelic states greatly exceeds the size of the population. In this limit, the population eventually adopts a steady state characterized by mutation-selection-drift balance. Although new alleles continue to be explored through mutation, the statistics of the population, and in particular the probabilities of seeing specific allelic configurations in samples taken from the population, do not change with time. In the absence of selection, the probabilities of allelic configurations are given by the Ewens sampling formula, widely used in population genetics to detect deviations from neutrality. Here we develop an extension of this formula to arbitrary fitness distributions. Although our approach is general, we focus on the class of fitness landscapes, inspired by recent high-throughput genotype-phenotype maps, in which alleles can be in several distinct phenotypic states. This class of landscapes yields sampling probabilities that are computationally more tractable and can form a basis for inference of selection signatures from genomic data. Using an efficient numerical implementation of the sampling probabilities, we demonstrate that, for a sizable range of mutation rates and selection coefficients, the steady-state allelic diversity is not neutral. Therefore, it may be used to infer selection coefficients, as well as other evolutionary parameters from population data. We also carry out numerical simulations to challenge various approximations involved in deriving our sampling formulas, such as the infinite-allele limit and the "full connectivity" assumption inherent in the Ewens theory, in which each allele can mutate into any other allele. We find that, at least for the specific numerical examples studied, our theory remains sufficiently accurate even if these assumptions are relaxed. Thus our

Landscape services as boundary concept in landscape governance: Building social capital in collaboration and adapting the landscape

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Westerink, Judith; Opdam, Paul; Rooij, Van Sabine; Steingröver, Eveliene

2017-01-01

The landscape services concept provides a lens to study relations within the social-ecological networks that landscapes are, and to identify stakeholders as either providers or beneficiaries. However, landscape services can also be used as a boundary concept in collaborative landscape governance. We

Origin and evolution of Petrocosmea (Gesneriaceae) inferred from both DNA sequence and novel findings in morphology with a test of morphology-based hypotheses.

Science.gov (United States)

Qiu, Zhi-Jing; Lu, Yuan-Xue; Li, Chao-Qun; Dong, Yang; Smith, James F; Wang, Yin-Zheng

2015-07-03

Petrocosmea Oliver (Gesneriaceae) currently comprises 38 species with four non-nominate varieties, nearly all of which have been described solely from herbarium specimens. However, the dried specimens have obscured the full range of extremely diverse morphological variation that exists in the genus and has resulted in a poor subgeneric classification system that does not reflect the evolutionary history of this group. It is important to develop innovative methods to find new morphological traits and reexamine and reevaluate the traditionally used morphological data based on new hypothesis. In addition, Petrocosmea is a mid-sized genus but exhibits extreme diverse floral variants. This makes the genus of particular interest in addressing the question whether there are any key factors that is specifically associated with their evolution and diversification. Here we present the first phylogenetic analyses of the genus based on dense taxonomic sampling and multiple genes combined with a comprehensive morphological investigation. Maximum-parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses of molecular data from two nuclear DNA and six cpDNA regions support the monophyly of Petrocosmea and recover five major clades within the genus, which is strongly corroborated by the reconstruction of ancestral states for twelve new morphological characters directly observed from living material. Ancestral area reconstruction shows that its most common ancestor was likely located east and southeast of the Himalaya-Tibetan plateau. The origin of Petrocosmea from a potentially Raphiocarpus-like ancestor might have involved a series of morphological modifications from caulescent to acaulescent habit as well as from a tetrandrous flower with a long corolla-tube to a diandrous flower with a short corolla-tube, also evident in the vestigial caulescent habit and transitional floral form in clade A that is sister to the remainder of the genus. Among the five clades in Petrocosmea, the

Generation of Emotional Inferences during Text Comprehension: Behavioral Data and Implementation through the Landscape Model (Generación de Inferencias Emocionales durante la Comprensión de Textos: Datos Conductuales e Implementación a través del Modelo Landscape

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juan Pablo Barreyro

2011-04-01

Full Text Available This study investigated the generation of emotional inferences during the reading and recall of narrative texts. Experiment 1 compared the fit of two simulations of text comprehension to the recall data. One simulation examined causal and referential inferences, while the other examined causal, referential and emotional inferences. We found that the simulation that involved emotional inferences provided a better fit to the human data than the other simulation. Experiment 2 tested whether emotional inferences are generated online by recording lexical decision times at pre-inference and inference locations. Lexical decision times were faster at the inference than the pre-inference locations. These findings suggest that emotional inferences play a role in the understanding of natural texts, and that they require the reader to establish connections between text segments.

Landscape morphology metrics for urban areas: analysis of the role of vegetation in the management of the quality of urban environment

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Danilo Marques de Magalhães

2013-05-01

Full Text Available This study has the objective to demonstrate the applicability of landscape metric analysis undertaken in fragments of urban land use. More specifically, it focuses in low vegetation cover, arboreal and shrubbery vegetation and their distribution on land use. Differences of vegetation cover in dense urban areas are explained. It also discusses briefly the state-of-the-art Landscape Ecology and landscape metrics. It develops, as an example, a case study in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. For this study, it selects the use of the area’s metrics, the relation between area, perimeter, core, and circumscribed circle. From this analysis, this paper proposes the definition of priority areas for conservation, urban parks, free spaces of common land, linear parks and green corridors. It is demonstrated that, in order to design urban landscape, studies of two-dimension landscape representations are still interesting, but should consider the systemic relation between different factors related to shape and land use.

Phylogenetic relationships of the genus Phanerochaete inferred from the internal transcribed spacer region

Science.gov (United States)

Theodorus H. de Koker; Karen K. Nakasone; Jacques Haarhof; Harold H. Burdsall; Bernard J.H. Janse

2003-01-01

Phanerochaete is a genus of resupinate homobasidiomycetes that are saprophytic on woody debris and logs. Morphological studies in the past indicated that Phanerochaete is a heterogeneous assemblage of species. In this study the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the nuclear ribosomal DNA was used to test the monophyly of the genus Phanerochaete and to infer...

A Bayesian random effects discrete-choice model for resource selection: Population-level selection inference

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, D.L.; Johnson, D.; Griffith, B.

2006-01-01

Modeling the probability of use of land units characterized by discrete and continuous measures, we present a Bayesian random-effects model to assess resource selection. This model provides simultaneous estimation of both individual- and population-level selection. Deviance information criterion (DIC), a Bayesian alternative to AIC that is sample-size specific, is used for model selection. Aerial radiolocation data from 76 adult female caribou (Rangifer tarandus) and calf pairs during 1 year on an Arctic coastal plain calving ground were used to illustrate models and assess population-level selection of landscape attributes, as well as individual heterogeneity of selection. Landscape attributes included elevation, NDVI (a measure of forage greenness), and land cover-type classification. Results from the first of a 2-stage model-selection procedure indicated that there is substantial heterogeneity among cow-calf pairs with respect to selection of the landscape attributes. In the second stage, selection of models with heterogeneity included indicated that at the population-level, NDVI and land cover class were significant attributes for selection of different landscapes by pairs on the calving ground. Population-level selection coefficients indicate that the pairs generally select landscapes with higher levels of NDVI, but the relationship is quadratic. The highest rate of selection occurs at values of NDVI less than the maximum observed. Results for land cover-class selections coefficients indicate that wet sedge, moist sedge, herbaceous tussock tundra, and shrub tussock tundra are selected at approximately the same rate, while alpine and sparsely vegetated landscapes are selected at a lower rate. Furthermore, the variability in selection by individual caribou for moist sedge and sparsely vegetated landscapes is large relative to the variability in selection of other land cover types. The example analysis illustrates that, while sometimes computationally intense, a

Input data for inferring species distributions in Kyphosidae world-wide

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Steen Wilhelm Knudsen

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Input data files for inferring the relationship among the family Kyphosidae, as presented in (Knudsen and Clements, 2016 [1], is here provided together with resulting topologies, to allow the reader to explore the topologies in detail. The input data files comprise seven nexus-files with sequence alignments of mtDNA and nDNA markers for performing Bayesian analysis. A matrix of recoded character states inferred from the morphology examined in museum specimens representing Dichistiidae, Girellidae, Kyphosidae, Microcanthidae and Scorpididae, is also provided, and can be used for performing a parsimonious analysis to infer the relationship among these perciform families. The nucleotide input data files comprise both multiple and single representatives of the various species to allow for inference of the relationship among the species in Kyphosidae and between the families closely related to Kyphosidae. The ‘.xml’-files with various constrained relationships among the families potentially closely related to Kyphosidae are also provided to allow the reader to rerun and explore the results from the stepping-stone analysis. The resulting topologies are supplied in newick-file formats together with input data files for Bayesian analysis, together with ‘.xml’-files. Re-running the input data files in the appropriate software, will enable the reader to examine log-files and tree-files themselves. Keywords: Sea chub, Drummer, Kyphosus, Scorpis, Girella

Controls on valley spacing in landscapes subject to rapid base-level fall

Science.gov (United States)

McGuire, Luke; Pelletier, John D.

2015-01-01

What controls the architecture of drainage networks is a fundamental question in geomorphology. Recent work has elucidated the mechanisms of drainage network development in steadily uplifting landscapes, but the controls on drainage-network morphology in transient landscapes are relatively unknown. In this paper we exploit natural experiments in drainage network development in incised Plio-Quaternary alluvial fan surfaces in order to understand and quantify drainage network development in highly transient landscapes, i.e. initially unincised low-relief surfaces that experience a pulse of rapid base-level drop followed by relative base-level stasis. Parallel drainage networks formed on incised alluvial-fan surfaces tend to have a drainage spacing that is approximately proportional to the magnitude of the base-level drop. Numerical experiments suggest that this observed relationship between the magnitude of base-level drop and mean drainage spacing is the result of feedbacks among the depth of valley incision, mass wasting and nonlinear increases in the rate of colluvial sediment transport with slope gradient on steep valley side slopes that lead to increasingly wide valleys in cases of larger base-level drop. We identify a threshold magnitude of base-level drop above which side slopes lengthen sufficiently to promote increases in contributing area and fluvial incision rates that lead to branching and encourage drainage networks to transition from systems of first-order valleys to systems of higher-order, branching valleys. The headward growth of these branching tributaries prevents the development of adjacent, ephemeral drainages and promotes a higher mean valley spacing relative to cases in which tributaries do not form. Model results offer additional insights into the response of initially unincised landscapes to rapid base-level drop and provide a preliminary basis for understanding how varying amounts of base-level change influence valley network morphology.

Goethe's Italian Journey and the geological landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Coratza, Paola; Panizza, Mario

2015-04-01

Over 220 years ago Johann Wolfgang von Goethe undertook a nearly two-years long and fascinating journey to Italy, a destination dreamed for a long time by the great German writer. During his journey from Alps to Sicily Goethe reflects on landscape, geology, morphology of "Il Bel Paese", sometimes providing detailed descriptions and acute observations concerning the great and enduring laws by which the earth and all within it are governed. He was an observer, with the eye of the geologist and landscape painter, as he himself stated, and therefore he had a 360 degree focus on all parts of the territory. From the Brenner Pass to Sicily, Goethe reflects on landscape, contrasting morphologies, the genesis of territories, providing detailed descriptions useful for reconstructing the conditions of the territory and crops of the late 18th century. His diary is a description of the impressions he received from the country and its people, mingled with reflections upon art, science and literature. Goethe studied mineralogical and geological phenomena and drew up notes on the life of the people, the climate and the plants. On various scientific occasions and, in particular, within the framework of the Italian Association "Geologia & Turismo", of the Working Group "Geomorphosites" of the International Association of Geomorphologists and the International Year of Planet Earth, the opportunity to re-examine Goethe's travels in Italy from a geological viewpoint was recognised. In the present paper an attempt was made to reproduce the geotourism itinerary ante litteram of the writer to Italy, one of the most important tourist destination worldwide, thanks to its rich cultural and natural heritage and the outstanding aesthetic qualities of the complex natural landscape. This project was essentially conceived with a twofold purpose. First of all, an attempt was made to reproduce the journey of a great writer, as an example of description of landscape perceived and described as

Deciphering Late-Pleistocence landscape evolution: linking proxies by combining pedo-stratigraphy and luminescence dating

Science.gov (United States)

Kreutzer, Sebastian; Meszner, Sascha; Faust, Dominik; Fuchs, Markus

2014-05-01

Interpreting former landscape evolution asks for understanding the processes that sculpt such landforms by means of deciphering complex systems. For reconstructing terrestrial Quaternary environments based on loess archives this might be considered, at least, as a three step process: (1) Identifying valuable records in appropriate morphological positions in a previously defined research area, (2) analysing the profiles by field work and laboratory methods and finally (3) linking the previously considered pseudo-isolated systems to set up a comprehensive picture. Especially the first and the last step might bring some pitfalls, as it is tempting to specify single records as pseudo-isolated, closed systems. They might be, with regard to their preservation in their specific morphological position, but in fact they are part of a complex, open system. Between 2008 and 2013, Late-Pleistocene loess archives in Saxony have been intensively investigated by field and laboratory methods. Linking pedo- and luminescence dating based chronostratigraphies, a composite profile for the entire Saxonian Loess Region has been established. With this, at least, two-fold approach we tried to avoid misinterpretations that might appear when focussing on one standard profile in an open morphological system. Our contribution focuses on this multi-proxy approach to decipher the Late-Pleistocene landscape evolution in the Saxonian Loess Region. Highlighting the challenges and advantages of combining different methods, we believe that (1) this multi-proxy approach is without alternative, (2) the combination of different profiles may simplify the more complex reality, but it may be a useful generalisation to understand and reveal the stratigraphical significance of the landscape evolution in this region.

Landscape genetics highlights the role of bank vole metapopulation dynamics in the epidemiology of Puumala hantavirus.

Science.gov (United States)

Guivier, E; Galan, M; Chaval, Y; Xuéreb, A; Ribas Salvador, A; Poulle, M-L; Voutilainen, L; Henttonen, H; Charbonnel, N; Cosson, J F

2011-09-01

Rodent host dynamics and dispersal are thought to be critical for hantavirus epidemiology as they determine pathogen persistence and transmission within and between host populations. We used landscape genetics to investigate how the population dynamics of the bank vole Myodes glareolus, the host of Puumala hantavirus (PUUV), vary with forest fragmentation and influence PUUV epidemiology. We sampled vole populations within the Ardennes, a French PUUV endemic area. We inferred demographic features such as population size, isolation and migration with regard to landscape configuration. We next analysed the influence of M. glareolus population dynamics on PUUV spatial distribution. Our results revealed that the global metapopulation dynamics of bank voles were strongly shaped by landscape features, including suitable patch size and connectivity. Large effective size in forest might therefore contribute to the higher observed levels of PUUV prevalence. By contrast, populations from hedge networks highly suffered from genetic drift and appeared strongly isolated from all other populations. This might result in high probabilities of local extinction for both M. glareolus and PUUV. Besides, we detected signatures of asymmetric bank vole migration from forests to hedges. These movements were likely to sustain PUUV in fragmented landscapes. In conclusion, our study provided arguments in favour of source-sink dynamics shaping PUUV persistence and spread in heterogeneous, Western European temperate landscapes. It illustrated the potential contribution of landscape genetics to the understanding of the epidemiological processes occurring at this local scale. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Analytically based forward and inverse models of fluvial landscape evolution during temporally continuous climatic and tectonic variations

Science.gov (United States)

Goren, Liran; Petit, Carole

2017-04-01

Fluvial channels respond to changing tectonic and climatic conditions by adjusting their patterns of erosion and relief. It is therefore expected that by examining these patterns, we can infer the tectonic and climatic conditions that shaped the channels. However, the potential interference between climatic and tectonic signals complicates this inference. Within the framework of the stream power model that describes incision rate of mountainous bedrock rivers, climate variability has two effects: it influences the erosive power of the river, causing local slope change, and it changes the fluvial response time that controls the rate at which tectonically and climatically induced slope breaks are communicated upstream. Because of this dual role, the fluvial response time during continuous climate change has so far been elusive, which hinders our understanding of environmental signal propagation and preservation in the fluvial topography. An analytic solution of the stream power model during general tectonic and climatic histories gives rise to a new definition of the fluvial response time. The analytic solution offers accurate predictions for landscape evolution that are hard to achieve with classical numerical schemes and thus can be used to validate and evaluate the accuracy of numerical landscape evolution models. The analytic solution together with the new definition of the fluvial response time allow inferring either the tectonic history or the climatic history from river long profiles by using simple linear inversion schemes. Analytic study of landscape evolution during periodic climate change reveals that high frequency (10-100 kyr) climatic oscillations with respect to the response time, such as Milankovitch cycles, are not expected to leave significant fingerprints in the upstream reaches of fluvial channels. Linear inversion schemes are applied to the Tinee river tributaries in the southern French Alps, where tributary long profiles are used to recover the

URBAN DETECTION, DELIMITATION AND MORPHOLOGY: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SELECTIVE "MEGACITIES"

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. Alhaddad

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Over the last 50 years, the world has faced an impressive growth of urban population. The walled city, close to the outside, an "island"for economic activities and population density within the rural land, has led to the spread of urban life and urban networks in almost all the territory. There was, as said Margalef (1999, "a topological inversion of the landscape". The "urban" has gone from being an island in the ocean of rural land vastness, to represent the totally of the space in which are inserted natural and rural "systems". New phenomena such as the fall of the fordist model of production, the spread of urbanization known as urban sprawl, and the change of scale of the metropolis, covering increasingly large regions, called "megalopolis" (Gottmann, 1961, have characterized the century. However there are no rigorous databases capable of measuring and evaluating the phenomenon of megacities and in general the process of urbanization in the contemporary world. The aim of this paper is to detect, identify and analyze the morphology of the megacities through remote sensing instruments as well as various indicators of landscape. To understand the structure of these heterogeneous landscapes called megacities, land consumption and spatial complexity needs to be quantified accurately. Remote sensing might be helpful in evaluating how the different land covers shape urban megaregions. The morphological landscape analysis allows establishing the analogies and the differences between patterns of cities and studying the symmetry, growth direction, linearity, complexity and compactness of the urban form. The main objective of this paper is to develop a new methodology to detect urbanized land of some megacities around the world (Tokyo, Mexico, Chicago, New York, London, Moscow, Sao Paulo and Shanghai using Landsat 7 images.

Morphology of the Zambezi River plume in the Sofala Bank ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In this paper, hydrographic data collected in the vicinity of the Zambezi River plume between 2004-2007 is discussed alongside historical data to infer the plume morphology. The sampling plan called for 73 CTD stations that were interspersed with sampling of shrimp recruitment. Satellite-derived wind speed and river ...

Connecting Brabant's cover sand landscapes through landscape history

Science.gov (United States)

Heskes, Erik; van den Ancker, Hanneke; Jungerius, Pieter Dirk; Harthoorn, Jaap; Maes, Bert; Leenders, Karel; de Jongh, Piet; Kluiving, Sjoerd; van den Oetelaar, Ger

2015-04-01

Noord-Brabant has the largest variety of cover sand landscapes in The Netherlands, and probably in Western Europe. During the Last Ice Age the area was not covered by land ice and a polar desert developed in which sand dunes buried the existing river landscapes. Some of these polar dune landscapes experienced a geomorphological and soil development that remained virtually untouched up to the present day, such as the low parabolic dunes of the Strabrechtse Heide or the later and higher dunes of the Oisterwijkse Vennen. As Noord-Brabant lies on the fringe of a tectonic basin, the thickness of cover sand deposits in the Centrale Slenk, part of a rift through Europe, amounts up to 20 metres. Cover sand deposits along the fault lines cause the special phenomenon of 'wijst' to develop, in which the higher grounds are wetter than the boarding lower grounds. Since 4000 BC humans settled in these cover sand landscapes and made use of its small-scale variety. An example are the prehistoric finds on the flanks and the historic towns on top of the 'donken' in northwest Noord-Brabant, where the cover sand landscapes are buried by river and marine deposits and only the peaks of the dunes protrude as donken. Or the church of Handel that is built beside a 'wijst' source and a site of pilgrimage since living memory. Or the 'essen' and plaggen agriculture that developed along the stream valleys of Noord-Brabant from 1300 AD onwards, giving rise to geomorphological features as 'randwallen' and plaggen soils of more than a metre thickness. Each region of Brabant each has its own approach in attracting tourists and has not yet used this common landscape history to connect, manage and promote their territories. We propose a landscape-historical approach to develop a national or European Geopark Brabants' cover sand landscapes, in which each region focuses on a specific part of the landscape history of Brabant, that stretches from the Late Weichselian polar desert when the dune

Does reintroducing large wood influence the hydraulic landscape of a lowland river system?

Science.gov (United States)

Matheson, Adrian; Thoms, Martin; Reid, Michael

2017-09-01

reintroduction of large wood is inferred because the character (the size and complexity of individual pieces) and positioning of large wood in managed reaches did not mimic that of reference reaches effectively despite the abundance of wood pieces being similar in the reference and managed reaches. The results of this study highlight the importance of understanding the natural character and distribution of large wood on hydraulic landscapes in large low energy lowland river systems, especially when reintroducing large wood for river management purposes.

Functional morphology of the hallucal metatarsal with implications for inferring grasping ability in extinct primates.

Science.gov (United States)

Goodenberger, Katherine E; Boyer, Doug M; Orr, Caley M; Jacobs, Rachel L; Femiani, John C; Patel, Biren A

2015-03-01

Primate evolutionary morphologists have argued that selection for life in a fine branch niche resulted in grasping specializations that are reflected in the hallucal metatarsal (Mt1) morphology of extant "prosimians", while a transition to use of relatively larger, horizontal substrates explains the apparent loss of such characters in anthropoids. Accordingly, these morphological characters-Mt1 torsion, peroneal process length and thickness, and physiological abduction angle-have been used to reconstruct grasping ability and locomotor mode in the earliest fossil primates. Although these characters are prominently featured in debates on the origin and subsequent radiation of Primates, questions remain about their functional significance. This study examines the relationship between these morphological characters of the Mt1 and a novel metric of pedal grasping ability for a large number of extant taxa in a phylogenetic framework. Results indicate greater Mt1 torsion in taxa that engage in hallucal grasping and in those that utilize relatively small substrates more frequently. This study provides evidence that Carpolestes simpsoni has a torsion value more similar to grasping primates than to any scandentian. The results also show that taxa that habitually grasp vertical substrates are distinguished from other taxa in having relatively longer peroneal processes. Furthermore, a longer peroneal process is also correlated with calcaneal elongation, a metric previously found to reflect leaping proclivity. A more refined understanding of the functional associations between Mt1 morphology and behavior in extant primates enhances the potential for using these morphological characters to comprehend primate (locomotor) evolution. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Tidal controls on river delta morphology

Science.gov (United States)

Hoitink, A. J. F.; Wang, Z. B.; Vermeulen, B.; Huismans, Y.; Kästner, K.

2017-09-01

River delta degradation has been caused by extraction of natural resources, sediment retention by reservoirs, and sea-level rise. Despite global concerns about these issues, human activity in the world’s largest deltas intensifies. Harbour development, construction of flood defences, sand mining and land reclamation emerge as key contemporary factors that exert an impact on delta morphology. Tides interacting with river discharge can play a crucial role in the morphodynamic development of deltas under pressure. Emerging insights into tidal controls on river delta morphology suggest that--despite the active morphodynamics in tidal channels and mouth bar regions--tidal motion acts to stabilize delta morphology at the landscape scale under the condition that sediment import during low flows largely balances sediment export during high flows. Distributary channels subject to tides show lower migration rates and are less easily flooded by the river because of opposing non-linear interactions between river discharge and the tide. These interactions lead to flow changes within channels, and a more uniform distribution of discharge across channels. Sediment depletion and rigorous human interventions in deltas, including storm surge defence works, disrupt the dynamic morphological equilibrium and can lead to erosion and severe scour at the channel bed, even decades after an intervention.

Assessment of landscape diversity and determination of landscape hotspots - a case of Slovenia

Science.gov (United States)

Perko, Drago; Ciglič, Rok; Hrvatin, Mauro

2017-04-01

Areas with high landscape diversity can be regarded as landscape hotspots, and vice versa areas with low landscape diversity can be marked as landscape coldspots. The main purpose of this paper is to use quantitative geoinformatical approach and identify parts of our test area (the country of Slovenia) that can be described as very diverse according to natural landscapes and natural elements. We used different digital raster data of natural elements and landscape classifications and defined landscape diversity and landscape hotspots. We defined diversity for each raster pixel by counting the number of different unique types of landscape elements and types of landscapes in its neighborhood. Namely, the method was used separately to define diversity according to natural elements (types of relief forms, rocks, and vegetation) and diversity according to existing geographical landscape classifications of Slovenia (types of landscapes). In both cases one-tenth of Slovenia's surface with the highest landscape diversity was defined as landscape hotspots. The same applies to the coldspots. Additionally we tested the same method of counting different types of landscapes in certain radius also for the area of Europe in order to find areas that are more diverse at continental level. By doing so we were able to find areas that have similar level of diversity as Slovenia according to different European landscape classifications. Areas with landscape diversity may have an advantage in economic development, especially in tourism. Such areas are also important for biodiversity, habitat, and species diversity. On the other hand, localities where various natural influences mix can also be areas where it is hard to transfer best practices from one place to another because of the varying responses of the landscapes to human intervention. Thus it is important to know where areas with high landscape diversity are.

Carbonate landscapes evolution: Insights from 36Cl

Science.gov (United States)

Godard, Vincent; Thomas, Franck; Ollivier, Vincent; Bellier, Olivier; Shabanian, Esmaeil; Miramont, Cécile; Fleury, Jules; Benedetti, Lucilla; Guillou, Valéry; Aster Team

2017-04-01

Carbonate landscapes cover a significant fraction of the Earth surface, but their long-term dynamics is still poorly understood. When comparing with the situation in areas underlain by quartz-rich lithologies, where the routine use of 10Be-derived denudation rates has delivered fundamental insights on landscape evolution processes, this knowledge gap is particularly notable. Recent advances in the measurement of 36Cl and better understanding of its production pathways has opened the way to the development of a similar physically-based and quantitative analysis of landscape evolution in carbonate settings. However, beyond these methodological considerations, we still face fundamental geomorphological open questions, as for example the assessment of the importance of congruent carbonate dissolution in long-wavelength topographic evolution. Such unresolved problems concerning the relative importance of physical and chemical weathering processes lead to question the applicability of standard slope-dependent Geomorphic Transport Laws in carbonate settings. These issues have been addressed studying the geomorphological evolution of selected limestone ranges in Provence, SE France, where 36Cl concentration measurements in bedrock and stream sediment samples allow constraining denudation over 10 ka time-scale. We first identify a significant denudation contrast between the summit surface and the flanks of the ranges, pointing to a substantial contribution of gravity-driven processes to the landscape evolution, in addition to dissolution. Furthermore, a detailed analysis of the relationships between hillslope morphology and hilltop denudation allow to identify a fundamental transition between two regimes: (1) a dynamics where hillslope evolution is controlled by linear diffusive downslope regolith transport; and, (2) a domain where denudation is limited by the rate at which physical and chemical weathering processes can produce clasts and lower the hilltop. Such an abrupt

Changing Landscapes, Changing Landscape's Story

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Lapka, Miloslav; Cudlínová, Eva

2003-01-01

Roč. 28, č. 3 (2003), s. 323-328 ISSN 0142-6397. [Symposium on Sustainable Landscapes in an Enlarged Europe. Nové Hrady, 12.09.2001-14.09.2001] R&D Projects: GA MŠk ME 530 Grant - others:GA-(XE) QLK5-CT-2000-01211-SPRITE Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z5039906 Keywords : Landscape stability * narrative approach * socio-economic typology Subject RIV: DO - Wilderness Conservation

A Classification of Landscape Services to Support Local Landscape Planning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

María Vallés-Planells

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The ecosystem services approach has been proven successful to measure the contributions of nature and greenery to human well-being. Ecosystems have an effect on quality of life, but landscapes also, as a broader concept, may contribute to people's well-being. The concept of landscape services, compared to ecosystem services, involves the social dimension of landscape and the spatial pattern resulting from both natural and human processes in the provision of benefits for human-well being. Our aim is to develop a classification for landscape services. The proposed typology of services is built on the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES and on a critical review of existing literature on human well-being dimensions, existing ecosystem service classifications, and landscape perception. Three themes of landscape services are defined, each divided into several groups: provisioning, regulation and maintenance, cultural and social life fulfillment, with the latter focusing on health, enjoyment, and personal and social fulfillment. A special emphasis is made on cultural services, which are especially important when applied to landscape and which have received less attention.

LANDSCAPE PLANNING IN UKRAINE: THE FIRST LANDSCAPE-PLANNING PROGRAM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leonid Rudenko

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The paper presents the results of the first, in Ukraine; project on landscape planning widely accepted in European countries. Under the project implemented in 2010–2013, a landscape-planning program has been developed for the Cherkassy oblast. This is the first document of this kind in Ukraine. The program is mainly based on the experience of the German and Russian schools of landscape planning and on research and assessment conducted by the authors, which allowed identifying approaches to landscape planning, principles of the national policy, and characteristics and potential of environmentally friendly planning in Ukraine. The paper discusses the main phases of the work on the development of the landscape program for the oblast. It also identifies the main stages and key concepts and principles of landscape planning. The paper presents the results of integrated research on the identification and classification of conflicts in land use and the integral concept of the developmental goals for the oblast. The results can be the foundation for adopting management decisions and development of action plans for the lower hierarchal branches.

The coastal landscape of the river of silver basis for management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martinez, A.; Fernandez, E.; Cendom, A.; Vila, L.

2013-01-01

A complex of morphogenic, ecologic and cultural factors converge in coastal landscape modelling. The goal of this research is to identify the coastal environment as a water-land interphase in the Rio de la Plata, Uruguay. The area of work is within Punta Gorda, Colonia Department, and Maldonado River, in the Maldonado Department. An integrated landscape approach is used to interpret the complex of natural areas. The knowledge of natural complex is the goal of this research using the vegetation dynamic as an expression of site condition. Cartography at scale 1:50.000, colour composition of Landsat images at scale 1:100.000 (1994), aerial photographs at scale 1:10.000 (1994), are the source of information. A methodology of three components was organized: a typology of the coastal border, scale 1:500.000, a littoral morphology analysis using maps and aerial photographs, scale 1:10.000 and the coastal landscape, scale 1:100.000. A land cover legend was organized to integrate: geomorphology, vegetation and human intervention. It has 12 classes y 4 subclasses of land cover. This information was integrated in an analysis of an ideal coastal outline that represents the ideal disposition of the landscape elements in a cross and vertical perspective. The final goal of this research is an inventory of coastal uniform sectors. The research was performed within an approach of environmental factors equilibrium, such as geomorphology, environment, biologic and anthropogenic, and natural’s process in progress. Specific and general coastal problems are identified. A conceptual coastal landscape approach, a coastal cartography and setting of landscape units are the final products

Characterizing European cultural landscapes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tieskens, Koen F.; Schulp, Catharina J E; Levers, Christian

2017-01-01

intensification and land abandonment. To prevent the loss of cultural landscapes, knowledge on the location of different types of cultural landscapes is needed. In this paper, we present a characterization of European cultural landscapes based on the prevalence of three key dimensions of cultural landscapes......Almost all rural areas in Europe have been shaped or altered by humans and can be considered cultural landscapes, many of which now are considered to entail valuable cultural heritage. Current dynamics in land management have put cultural landscapes under a huge pressure of agricultural...... the three dimensions into a continuous “cultural landscape index” that allows for a characterization of Europe's rural landscapes. The characterization identifies hotspots of cultural landscapes, where all three dimensions are present, such as in the Mediterranean. On the other hand, Eastern and Northern...

Multifunctional landscape practice and accessibility in manorial landscapes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brandt, Jesper; Svenningsen, Stig Roar; Christensen, Andreas Aagaard

. However classical manorial estates seems to represent an opposite trend. Allthough working at the same market conditions as other large specialized holdings developed through the process of structural rationalization, they have often maintained and elaborated a land use strategy based on a multifunctional...... use of the potential ecosystem services present within their domain. The targeted combination of agriculture, forestry, hunting rents, rental housing, and a variety of recreational activities influences makes a certain public accessibility to an integrated part of this strategy, diverging from...... the multifunctional landscape strategy supporting a certain public access. A study of this thesis is presented based on an analysis of multifunctionality, landscape development and accessibility in Danish Manorial landscapes and eventual linkages between their multifunctional landscape strategy, their history...

Beyond Landscape MacArchitecture: new languages, new landscapes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Simon Rackham

1996-03-01

Full Text Available The sine qua non of landscape architecture is respect for the genius loci, but even in the landscape, as in architecture and society more generally, a process of cultural homogenisation has been taking place. Against this process, a resurgence of interest in minority languages in Europe can be seen as an assertion of pride, and a desire to preserve difference. In Scotland, landscape architects are attempting to reinterpret Scottish and northern European urban design influences and materials: in effect to develop a new regional dialect for the new landscapes. Rooted in sound design principles and materials which respond to and reflect the climate, way of life and traditions of the place, design languages can communicate effectively about cultural values and differences.

PESP Landscaping Initiative

Science.gov (United States)

Landscaping practices can positively or negatively affect local environments and human health. The Landscaping Initiative seeks to enhance benefits of landscaping while reducing need for pesticides, fertilizers, etc., by working with partners.

Topographically mediated controls on aboveground biomass across a mediterranean-type landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Dahlin, K.; Asner, G. P.; Field, C. B.

2009-12-01

Aboveground biomass accumulation is a useful metric for evaluating habitat restoration and ecosystem services projects, in addition to being a robust measure of carbon sequestration. However, at the landscape scale non-anthropogenic controls on biomass accumulation are poorly understood. In this study we combined field measurements, high resolution data from the NASA JPL Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS), and the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO) airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) system to create a comprehensive map of aboveground biomass across a patchy mediterranean-type landscape (Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Stanford, CA). Candidate explanatory variables (e.g. slope, elevation, incident solar radiation) were developed using a geologic map and a digital elevation model derived from the lidar data. Finally, candidate variables were tested, and a model was produced to predict aboveground biomass from environmental data. Though many of the explanatory variables have only indirect effects on plant growth, the model permits inferences to be made about the relative importance of light, water, temperature, and edaphic characteristics on carbon accumulation in mediterranean-type systems.

Coupling movement and landscape ecology for animal conservation in production landscapes.

Science.gov (United States)

Doherty, Tim S; Driscoll, Don A

2018-01-10

Habitat conversion in production landscapes is among the greatest threats to biodiversity, not least because it can disrupt animal movement. Using the movement ecology framework, we review animal movement in production landscapes, including areas managed for agriculture and forestry. We consider internal and external drivers of altered animal movement and how this affects navigation and motion capacities and population dynamics. Conventional management approaches in fragmented landscapes focus on promoting connectivity using structural changes in the landscape. However, a movement ecology perspective emphasizes that manipulating the internal motivations or navigation capacity of animals represents untapped opportunities to improve movement and the effectiveness of structural connectivity investments. Integrating movement and landscape ecology opens new opportunities for conservation management in production landscapes. © 2018 The Authors.

Entropic Inference

Science.gov (United States)

Caticha, Ariel

2011-03-01

In this tutorial we review the essential arguments behing entropic inference. We focus on the epistemological notion of information and its relation to the Bayesian beliefs of rational agents. The problem of updating from a prior to a posterior probability distribution is tackled through an eliminative induction process that singles out the logarithmic relative entropy as the unique tool for inference. The resulting method of Maximum relative Entropy (ME), includes as special cases both MaxEnt and Bayes' rule, and therefore unifies the two themes of these workshops—the Maximum Entropy and the Bayesian methods—into a single general inference scheme.

Urban landscape infrastructures: Designing operative landscape structures for the built environment

OpenAIRE

Nijhuis, S.; Jauslin, D.T.

2015-01-01

This paper explores infrastructure as a type of landscape and landscape as a type of infrastructure. The hybridisation of the two concepts, landscape and infrastructure, seeks to redefine infrastructure beyond its strictly utilitarian definition, while allowing design disciplines to gain operative force in territorial transformation processes. This paper aims to put forward urban landscape infrastructures as a design concept, considering them as armatures for urban development and for facilit...

Mesoscale Simulation and Machine Learning of Asphaltene Aggregation Phase Behavior and Molecular Assembly Landscapes.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jiang; Gayatri, Mohit A; Ferguson, Andrew L

2017-05-11

Asphaltenes constitute the heaviest fraction of the aromatic group in crude oil. Aggregation and precipitation of asphaltenes during petroleum processing costs the petroleum industry billions of dollars each year due to downtime and production inefficiencies. Asphaltene aggregation proceeds via a hierarchical self-assembly process that is well-described by the Yen-Mullins model. Nevertheless, the microscopic details of the emergent cluster morphologies and their relative stability under different processing conditions remain poorly understood. We perform coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations of a prototypical asphaltene molecule to establish a phase diagram mapping the self-assembled morphologies as a function of temperature, pressure, and n-heptane:toluene solvent ratio informing how to control asphaltene aggregation by regulating external processing conditions. We then combine our simulations with graph matching and nonlinear manifold learning to determine low-dimensional free energy surfaces governing asphaltene self-assembly. In doing so, we introduce a variant of diffusion maps designed to handle data sets with large local density variations, and report the first application of many-body diffusion maps to molecular self-assembly to recover a pseudo-1D free energy landscape. Increasing pressure only weakly affects the landscape, serving only to destabilize the largest aggregates. Increasing temperature and toluene solvent fraction stabilizes small cluster sizes and loose bonding arrangements. Although the underlying molecular mechanisms differ, the strikingly similar effect of these variables on the free energy landscape suggests that toluene acts upon asphaltene self-assembly as an effective temperature.

Landscape, Geology and Wines in the Jurançon vineyard

Science.gov (United States)

Fasentieux, Bertrand; Burgio, Marion; Delfaud, Jean

2015-04-01

Located on the Pyrenean Northern Piedmont, in Bearn, the PDO vineyards of Jurançon are undergoing great development, which requires a study of soils. The landscape constitutes the main approach exploiting physical parameters - climatological, morphological and geological. Man has realized the cadastral map for agricultural land in which vineyards develop. The geological substratum falls into three units: the Cretaceous flysch to the South, the Cenozoic calcareous pudding stone of Jurançon to the North-East and the oligo-Miocene molasse of Monein to the North-West.The soils resulting from these units are varied, with different pHs, permeabilities and clay minerals. Each of these three ' terroirs ' produces dry or sweet wines with different characteristics well highlighted by winemakers. Thus, geology, associated with climatology, determines distinctive types. Their expression, the landscape, becomes a communication tool, with a view to develop wine tourism.

Contemporary danish landscape research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vejre, H.; Brandt, J.

2004-01-01

Danish landscape research blossomed during the 1990’ies thanks to several transdisciplinary research programmes involving several institutions. The main themes of the programmes encompassed Landscape change, landscape and biological diversity, nature and landscape management, use and monitoring...

Feedbacks stablizing wetland geometry on a pattened landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, X.; Heffernan, J. B.; Murray, A. B.

2017-12-01

Karst morphology is highly varied across different climatic and geologic regions of the world. Big Cypress National Preserve in SW Florida, features regularly distributed wetland depressions, located on exposed limestone bedrock. In this study, we explored the development of wetland depressions over the past 10kyrs of landscape formation. Specifically, we are interested in (1) whether the wetland depressions on the landscape have reached equilibrium size, and (2) if so, what are feedback mechanisms that contributed to stabilizing these depressions. We hypothesized three stabilizing feedback mechanisms. HYP1: increased size of depressions reduces landscape hydrological connectivity, which resulted in reduced landscape capacity to export dissolution products, hence lower weathering rate. HYP2: expansion of depression area increases tree biomass within the depression, which increased average evapotranspiration (ET) within the dome. The greater difference of ET rate between depression and upland leads to a lower water table in the depression. As a result, more subsurface water, carrying dissolved calcium, flows from catchment to depression. With lower export capacity and more calcium moving into the depression zones, rate of calcite precipitation increases, which lowers net weathering rate. HYP3: increasingly thicker sediment cover in the wetland depression over time decreases chemical transport capacity. This lowers both transport of CO2 from shallower soil to bedrock and transport of dissolution products from bedrock to surface. Both of these processes reduce bedrock-weathering rate. We built a 3-D numerical simulation model that partitioned the relative importance of different mechanisms. Preliminary results show that (1) there is an equilibrium size for wetland depressions for both radius and depth dimension; (2) current depressions are formed by coalescence of several nearby small depressions during development; (3) the soil cover feedback (HYP3) is the major

More than one kind of inference: re-examining what's learned in feature inference and classification.

Science.gov (United States)

Sweller, Naomi; Hayes, Brett K

2010-08-01

Three studies examined how task demands that impact on attention to typical or atypical category features shape the category representations formed through classification learning and inference learning. During training categories were learned via exemplar classification or by inferring missing exemplar features. In the latter condition inferences were made about missing typical features alone (typical feature inference) or about both missing typical and atypical features (mixed feature inference). Classification and mixed feature inference led to the incorporation of typical and atypical features into category representations, with both kinds of features influencing inferences about familiar (Experiments 1 and 2) and novel (Experiment 3) test items. Those in the typical inference condition focused primarily on typical features. Together with formal modelling, these results challenge previous accounts that have characterized inference learning as producing a focus on typical category features. The results show that two different kinds of inference learning are possible and that these are subserved by different kinds of category representations.

Responding to Landscape Change: Stakeholder Participation and Social Capital in Five European Landscapes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thanasis Kizos

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The concept of landscape has been increasingly used, in the last decades, in policy and land use planning, both in regard to so-called “special” and to “ordinary” or “everyday” landscapes. This has raised the importance of local and public participation in all issues that refer to landscapes and the definition of the groups that “have a stake” in the landscape. In this paper, we provide insights into how stakeholders perceive the dynamics of local processes of landscape change (and continuity and which processes of landscape change they perceive as important, in positive and negative ways, from five communities within the European Union. These landscapes involve different landscape issues “at stake”, different national and local planning and decision-making traditions and practices, and varying degrees of engagement. The understanding of these complexities and the unraveling of the insights is done through the concept of social capital and its different forms. We report on three series of workshops that have been organized to discuss landscape issues and approaches or ideas for landscape management. We witnessed interactions between the different stakeholders and gained insights into how social capital affects landscape change. We found that despite differences, similarities emerged concerning the interplay between “expert” and “local” knowledge and between “insideness” and “outsideness”. Social capital plays an important part, as it provides the template for personal and collective evaluation of landscape changes, who should manage these changes and how they should be managed. These findings are important to develop in-depth insights on dynamics and values of cultural landscapes and visions for re-coupling social and ecological components in cultural landscapes and translate them into policy and management options.

Urban landscape infrastructures : Designing operative landscape structures for the built environment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijhuis, S.; Jauslin, D.T.

2015-01-01

This paper explores infrastructure as a type of landscape and landscape as a type of infrastructure. The hybridisation of the two concepts, landscape and infrastructure, seeks to redefine infrastructure beyond its strictly utilitarian definition, while allowing design disciplines to gain operative

Perceptual inference.

Science.gov (United States)

Aggelopoulos, Nikolaos C

2015-08-01

Perceptual inference refers to the ability to infer sensory stimuli from predictions that result from internal neural representations built through prior experience. Methods of Bayesian statistical inference and decision theory model cognition adequately by using error sensing either in guiding action or in "generative" models that predict the sensory information. In this framework, perception can be seen as a process qualitatively distinct from sensation, a process of information evaluation using previously acquired and stored representations (memories) that is guided by sensory feedback. The stored representations can be utilised as internal models of sensory stimuli enabling long term associations, for example in operant conditioning. Evidence for perceptual inference is contributed by such phenomena as the cortical co-localisation of object perception with object memory, the response invariance in the responses of some neurons to variations in the stimulus, as well as from situations in which perception can be dissociated from sensation. In the context of perceptual inference, sensory areas of the cerebral cortex that have been facilitated by a priming signal may be regarded as comparators in a closed feedback loop, similar to the better known motor reflexes in the sensorimotor system. The adult cerebral cortex can be regarded as similar to a servomechanism, in using sensory feedback to correct internal models, producing predictions of the outside world on the basis of past experience. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Method for Gauging Landscape Change as a Prelude to Urban Watershed Regeneration: The Case of the Carioca River, Rio de Janeiro

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vera Regina Tangari

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Natural systems undergo processes, flows, and rhythms that differ from those of urban sociocultural systems. While the former takes place over eras or many generations, the latter may occur within years or even months. Natural systems change includes no principle of intentional progress or enhancement of complexity. In contrast, sociocultural systems change occurs through inherited characteristics, learning, and cultural transmission [1]. Both are dynamic, heterogeneous, and vulnerable to regime shifts, and are inextricably linked. The interrelations among natural and anthropogenic factors affecting sustainability vary spatially and temporally. This paper focuses on landscape changes along the Carioca River valley in Rio de Janeiro, located in the Brazilian Neotropical Southeastern Region, and its implications for local urban sustainability. The study incorporates a transdisciplinary approach that integrates landscape ecology and urban morphology methodologies to gauge landscape change and assess social-ecological systems dynamics. The methodology includes a variety of landscape change assessments; including on-site landscape ecological, landscape morphology, biological and urbanistic surveys, to gauge urban watershed quality. It presents an adapted inventory for assessment of urban tropical rivers, Neotropical Urban Stream Visual Assessment Protocol (NUSVAP, and correlates the level of stream and rainforest integrity to local urban environmental patterns and processes. How can urban regional land managers, planners and communities work together to promote shifts toward more desirable configurations and processes? An understanding of the transient behavior of social-ecological systems and how they respond to change and disturbance is fundamental to building appropriate management strategies and fostering resilience, regenerative capacity, and sustainable development in urban watersheds. The sociocultural patterns, processes and dynamics of Rio�

SEMANTIC PATCH INFERENCE

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Jesper

2009-01-01

Collateral evolution the problem of updating several library-using programs in response to API changes in the used library. In this dissertation we address the issue of understanding collateral evolutions by automatically inferring a high-level specification of the changes evident in a given set ...... specifications inferred by spdiff in Linux are shown. We find that the inferred specifications concisely capture the actual collateral evolution performed in the examples....

Developing a national stream morphology data exchange: Needs, challenges, and opportunities

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, Mathias J.; Gray, John R.; Peppler, Marie C.; Fitzpatrick, Faith A.; Schubauer-Berigan, Joseph P.

2012-05-01

Stream morphology data, primarily consisting of channel and foodplain geometry and bed material size measurements, historically have had a wide range of applications and uses including culvert/ bridge design, rainfall- runoff modeling, food inundation mapping (e.g., U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency food insurance studies), climate change studies, channel stability/sediment source investigations, navigation studies, habitat assessments, and landscape change research. The need for stream morphology data in the United States, and thus the quantity of data collected, has grown substantially over the past 2 decades because of the expanded interests of resource management agencies in watershed management and restoration. The quantity of stream morphology data collected has also increased because of state-of-the-art technologies capable of rapidly collecting high-resolution data over large areas with heretofore unprecedented precision. Despite increasing needs for and the expanding quantity of stream morphology data, neither common reporting standards nor a central data archive exist for storing and serving these often large and spatially complex data sets. We are proposing an open- access data exchange for archiving and disseminating stream morphology data.

Evidence and opportunities for integrating landscape ecology into natural resource planning across multiple-use landscapes

Science.gov (United States)

Trammel, E. Jamie; Carter, Sarah; Haby, Travis S.; Taylor, Jason J.

2018-01-01

Enhancing natural resource management has been a focus of landscape ecology since its inception, but numerous authors argue that landscape ecology has not yet been effective in achieving the underlying goal of planning and designing sustainable landscapes. We developed nine questions reflecting the application of fundamental research topics in landscape ecology to the landscape planning process and reviewed two recent landscape-scale plans in western North America for evidence of these concepts in plan decisions. Both plans considered multiple resources, uses, and values, including energy development, recreation, conservation, and protection of cultural and historic resources. We found that land use change and multiscale perspectives of resource uses and values were very often apparent in planning decisions. Pattern-process relationships, connectivity and fragmentation, ecosystem services, landscape history, and climate change were reflected less frequently. Landscape sustainability was considered only once in the 295 decisions reviewed, and outputs of landscape models were not referenced. We suggest six actionable opportunities for further integrating landscape ecology concepts into landscape planning efforts: 1) use landscape sustainability as an overarching goal, 2) adopt a broad ecosystem services framework, 3) explore the role of landscape history more comprehensively, 4) regularly consider and accommodate potential effects of climate change, 5) use landscape models to support plan decisions, and 6) promote a greater presence of landscape ecologists within agencies that manage large land bases and encourage active involvement in agency planning efforts. Together these actions may improve the defensibility, durability, and sustainability of landscape plan decisions.

Multimodel inference and adaptive management

Science.gov (United States)

Rehme, S.E.; Powell, L.A.; Allen, Craig R.

2011-01-01

Ecology is an inherently complex science coping with correlated variables, nonlinear interactions and multiple scales of pattern and process, making it difficult for experiments to result in clear, strong inference. Natural resource managers, policy makers, and stakeholders rely on science to provide timely and accurate management recommendations. However, the time necessary to untangle the complexities of interactions within ecosystems is often far greater than the time available to make management decisions. One method of coping with this problem is multimodel inference. Multimodel inference assesses uncertainty by calculating likelihoods among multiple competing hypotheses, but multimodel inference results are often equivocal. Despite this, there may be pressure for ecologists to provide management recommendations regardless of the strength of their study’s inference. We reviewed papers in the Journal of Wildlife Management (JWM) and the journal Conservation Biology (CB) to quantify the prevalence of multimodel inference approaches, the resulting inference (weak versus strong), and how authors dealt with the uncertainty. Thirty-eight percent and 14%, respectively, of articles in the JWM and CB used multimodel inference approaches. Strong inference was rarely observed, with only 7% of JWM and 20% of CB articles resulting in strong inference. We found the majority of weak inference papers in both journals (59%) gave specific management recommendations. Model selection uncertainty was ignored in most recommendations for management. We suggest that adaptive management is an ideal method to resolve uncertainty when research results in weak inference.

GIS-based landscape design research: Stourhead landscape garden as a case study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Steffen Nijhuis

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Landscape design research is important for cultivating spatial intelligence in landscape architecture. This study explores GIS (geographic information systems as a tool for landscape design research - investigating landscape designs to understand them as architectonic compositions (architectonic plan analysis. The concept ‘composition’ refers to a conceivable arrangement, an architectural expression of a mental construct that is legible and open to interpretation. Landscape architectonic compositions and their representations embody a great wealth of design knowledge as objects of our material culture and reflect the possible treatment of the ground, space, image and program as a characteristic coherence. By exploring landscape architectonic compositions with GIS, design researchers can acquire design knowledge that can be used in the creation and refinement of a design.  The research aims to identify and illustrate the potential role of GIS as a tool in landscape design research, so as to provide insight into the possibilities and limitations of using GIS in this capacity. The critical, information-oriented case of Stourhead landscape garden (Wiltshire, UK, an example of a designed landscape that covers the scope and remit of landscape architecture design, forms the heart of the study. The exploration of Stourhead by means of GIS can be understood as a plausibility probe. Here the case study is considered a form of ‘quasi-experiment’, testing the hypothesis and generating a learning process that constitutes a prerequisite for advanced understanding, while using an adjusted version of the framework for landscape design analysis by Steenbergen and Reh (2003. This is a theoretically informed analytical method based on the formal interpretation of the landscape architectonic composition addressing four landscape architectonic categories: the basic, the spatial, the symbolic and the programmatic form. This study includes new aspects to be

Statistical topography of fitness landscapes

OpenAIRE

Franke, Jasper

2011-01-01

Fitness landscapes are generalized energy landscapes that play an important conceptual role in evolutionary biology. These landscapes provide a relation between the genetic configuration of an organism and that organism’s adaptive properties. In this work, global topographical features of these fitness landscapes are investigated using theoretical models. The resulting predictions are compared to empirical landscapes. It is shown that these landscapes allow, at least with respe...

Industrious Landscaping

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brichet, Nathalia Sofie; Hastrup, Frida

2018-01-01

This article has a twofold ambition. It offers a history of landscaping at Søby brown coal beds—a former mining site in western Denmark—and a methodological discussion of how to write such a study. Exploring this specific industrial landscape through a series of projects that have made different...... natural resources appear, we show that even what is recognized as resources shifts over time according to radically different and unpredictable agendas. This indicates that the Søby landscape is fundamentally volatile, as its resourcefulness has been seen interchangeably to shift between the brown coal...... business, inexpensive estates for practically savvy people, pasture for grazing, and recreational forest, among other things. We discuss these rifts in landscape history, motivated by what we refer to as industriousness, to show that, at sites such as Søby, both natural resources and historical...

Systematics and morphological evolution within the moss family Bryaceae: a comparison between parsimony and Bayesian methods for reconstruction of ancestral character states.

Science.gov (United States)

Pedersen, Niklas; Holyoak, David T; Newton, Angela E

2007-06-01

The Bryaceae are a large cosmopolitan moss family including genera of significant morphological and taxonomic complexity. Phylogenetic relationships within the Bryaceae were reconstructed based on DNA sequence data from all three genomic compartments. In addition, maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference were employed to reconstruct ancestral character states of 38 morphological plus four habitat characters and eight insertion/deletion events. The recovered phylogenetic patterns are generally in accord with previous phylogenies based on chloroplast DNA sequence data and three major clades are identified. The first clade comprises Bryum bornholmense, B. rubens, B. caespiticium, and Plagiobryum. This corroborates the hypothesis suggested by previous studies that several Bryum species are more closely related to Plagiobryum than to the core Bryum species. The second clade includes Acidodontium, Anomobryum, and Haplodontium, while the third clade contains the core Bryum species plus Imbribryum. Within the latter clade, B. subapiculatum and B. tenuisetum form the sister clade to Imbribryum. Reconstructions of ancestral character states under maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference suggest fourteen morphological synapomorphies for the ingroup and synapomorphies are detected for most clades within the ingroup. Maximum parsimony and Bayesian reconstructions of ancestral character states are mostly congruent although Bayesian inference shows that the posterior probability of ancestral character states may decrease dramatically when node support is taken into account. Bayesian inference also indicates that reconstructions may be ambiguous at internal nodes for highly polymorphic characters.

Using Landscape metrics to analyze the landscape evolution under land abandonment

Science.gov (United States)

Pelorosso, Raffaele; Della Chiesa, Stefano; Gobattoni, Federica; Leone, Antonio

2010-05-01

The human actions and the human-linked land use changes are the main responsible of the present landscapes and vegetation patterns (Antrop, 2005; Pelorosso et al., 2009). Hence, revised concept of potential natural vegetation has been developed in landscape ecology. In fact, it cannot more be considered as the optimum for a certain landscape, but only as a general indication never widely reached. In particular Ingegnoli and Pignatti (2007) introduced the concept of fittest vegetation as "the most suitable or suited vegetation for the specific climate and geomorphic conditions, in a limited period of time and in a certain defined place with a particular range of incorporable disturbances (including man's) under natural or not natural conditions". Anthropic exploitation of land and its resources to obtain goods and services (Willemen et al, 2008) can be considered therefore the main cause of landscape change as an integrant part of nature, not external. The abandon of the land by farmers or other users it is one of the more felt problems for the marginal territories of Mediterranean basin. It is therefore caused by socio-economic changes of last decades and cause several impact on biodiversity (Geri et al. 2010) and hydro-geological assessment. A mountain landscape has however the capacity to provide goods like timber and services like aesthetic pleasure or regulation of water system. The necessity of a conservation strategy and the development of sustainable socio-economic management plan play a very important role in governing land and quality of life for people and ecosystems also for marginal territory. After a land abandonment, soil conditions and several climatic and orographic characteristic plus human disturbance affect the length of time required by secondary succession, throwing the establishment of vegetation with different association, structure and composition until a (stable or meta-stable) equilibrium is reached (Ingegnoli and Pignatti, 2007). In this

Using interviews and biological sign surveys to infer seasonal use of forested and agricultural portions of a human-dominated landscape by Asian elephants in Nepal

Science.gov (United States)

Lamichhane, Babu Ram; Subedi, Naresh; Pokheral, Chiranjibi Prasad; Dhakal, Maheshwar; Acharya, Krishna Prasad; Pradhan, Narendra Man Babu; Smith, James L. David; Malla, Sabita; Thakuri, Bishnu Singh; Yackulic, Charles B.

2018-01-01

Understanding how wide-ranging animals use landscapes in which human use is highly heterogeneous is important for determining patterns of human–wildlife conflict and designing mitigation strategies. Here, we show how biological sign surveys in forested components of a human-dominated landscape can be combined with human interviews in agricultural portions of a landscape to provide a full picture of seasonal use of different landscape components by wide-ranging animals and resulting human–wildlife conflict. We selected Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in Nepal to illustrate this approach. Asian elephants are threatened throughout their geographic range, and there are large gaps in our understanding of their landscape-scale habitat use. We identified all potential elephant habitat in Nepal and divided the potential habitat into sampling units based on a 10 km by 10 km grid. Forested areas within grids were surveyed for signs of elephant use, and local villagers were interviewed regarding elephant use of agricultural areas and instances of conflict. Data were analyzed using single-season and multi-season (dynamic) occupancy models. A single-season occupancy model applied to data from 139 partially or wholly forested grid cells estimated that 0.57 of grid cells were used by elephants. Dynamic occupancy models fit to data from interviews across 158 grid cells estimated that monthly use of non-forested, human-dominated areas over the preceding year varied between 0.43 and 0.82 with a minimum in February and maximum in October. Seasonal patterns of crop raiding by elephants coincided with monthly elephant use of human-dominated areas, and serious instances of human–wildlife conflict were common. Efforts to mitigate human–elephant conflict in Nepal are likely to be most effective if they are concentrated during August through December when elephant use of human-dominated landscapes and human–elephant conflict are most common.

INTEGRATED WATER MANAGEMENT AND DURABILITY OF LANDSCAPE OF PUBLIC IRRIGATED AREAS IN TUNISIA: CASES OF PUBLIC IRRIGATED AREAS OF CHOTT-MARIEM AND MORNAG

OpenAIRE

Abdelkarim Hamrita; Amira Boussetta; Rafael Mata Olmo; Mehdi Saqalli; Hichem Rejeb

2017-01-01

An important part of the landscape of irrigated areas in Tunisia is the result of morphology, organization and operation of agricultural policies implemented since independence, aimed at optimizing the exploitation of the best soils and natural resources, particularly water and productive crop intensification. The sustainability of the landscape of public irrigated areas has a strong bonding with the resources of irrigation water and their states of management. The scarcity of irrigation wate...

Selecting landscape metrics as indicators of spatial heterogeneity-A comparison among Greek landscapes

Science.gov (United States)

Plexida, Sofia G.; Sfougaris, Athanassios I.; Ispikoudis, Ioannis P.; Papanastasis, Vasilios P.

2014-02-01

This paper investigates the spatial heterogeneity of three landscapes along an altitudinal gradient and different human land use. The main aim was the identification of appropriate landscape indicators using different extents. ASTER image was used to create a land cover map consisting of three landscapes which differed in altitude and land use. A number of landscape metrics quantifying patch complexity, configuration, diversity and connectivity were derived from the thematic map at the landscape level. There were significant differences among the three landscapes regarding these four aspects of landscape heterogeneity. The analysis revealed a specific pattern of land use where lowlands are being increasingly utilized by humans (percentage of agricultural land = 65.84%) characterized by physical connectedness (high values of Patch Cohesion Index) and relatively simple geometries (low values of fractal dimension index). The landscape pattern of uplands was found to be highly diverse based upon the Shannon Diversity index. After selecting the scale (600 ha) where metrics values stabilized, it was shown that metrics were more correlated at the small scale of 60 ha. From the original 24 metrics, 14 individual metrics with high Spearman correlation coefficient and Variance Inflation Factor criterion were eliminated, leaving 10 representative metrics for subsequent analysis. Data reduction analysis showed that Patch Density, Area-Weighted Mean Fractal Dimension Index and Patch Cohesion Index are suitable to describe landscape patterns irrespective of the scale. A systematic screening of these metrics could enhance a deeper understanding of the results obtained by them and contribute to a sustainable landscape management of Mediterranean landscapes.

Phylogeny, character evolution, and biogeography of Cuscuta (dodders; Convolvulaceae) inferred from coding plastid and nuclear sequences.

Science.gov (United States)

García, Miguel A; Costea, Mihai; Kuzmina, Maria; Stefanović, Saša

2014-04-01

The parasitic genus Cuscuta, containing some 200 species circumscribed traditionally in three subgenera, is nearly cosmopolitan, occurring in a wide range of habitats and hosts. Previous molecular studies, on subgenera Grammica and Cuscuta, delimited major clades within these groups. However, the sequences used were unalignable among subgenera, preventing the phylogenetic comparison across the genus. We conducted a broad phylogenetic study using rbcL and nrLSU sequences covering the morphological, physiological, and geographical diversity of Cuscuta. We used parsimony methods to reconstruct ancestral states for taxonomically important characters. Biogeographical inferences were obtained using statistical and Bayesian approaches. Four well-supported major clades are resolved. Two of them correspond to subgenera Monogynella and Grammica. Subgenus Cuscuta is paraphyletic, with section Pachystigma sister to subgenus Grammica. Previously described cases of strongly supported discordance between plastid and nuclear phylogenies, interpreted as reticulation events, are confirmed here and three new cases are detected. Dehiscent fruits and globose stigmas are inferred as ancestral character states, whereas the ancestral style number is ambiguous. Biogeographical reconstructions suggest an Old World origin for the genus and subsequent spread to the Americas as a consequence of one long-distance dispersal. Hybridization may play an important yet underestimated role in the evolution of Cuscuta. Our results disagree with scenarios of evolution (polarity) previously proposed for several taxonomically important morphological characters, and with their usage and significance. While several cases of long-distance dispersal are inferred, vicariance or dispersal to adjacent areas emerges as the dominant biogeographical pattern.

Tectonic controls of transient landscapes in the Bhutan Himalaya

Science.gov (United States)

Adams, B. A.; Whipple, K. X.; Hodges, K. V.; Van Soest, M. C.; Heimsath, A. M.

2013-12-01

Previous research has identified many landscapes within the Himalaya that are not easily explained by classical critical taper models of orogenic wedges. One of the most striking examples is the sharp physiographic transition between the more subdued landforms of the Lower Himalayan ranges and the Higher Himalayan ranges to the north in Nepal. This transition has been attributed to several potential causes: changes in the rheology of rocks at depth, a ramp in the basal detachment of the orogenic wedge, a blind duplex, or a north-dipping, surface-breaking thrust fault. A similar, but more subdued transition marks the northern margin of perched, low-relief landscape patches found at ca. 3000 m in Bhutan. These low-relief surfaces, characterized by bogs and thick saprolites at the surface, overlie piggyback basins within the evolving orogenic wedge, filled with hundreds of meters of colluvial and alluvial deposits. The southern boundaries of the low-relief surfaces are less regular than the physiographic transition at their northern boundaries. The surfaces occur at similar elevations but are not continuous geographically, having been dissected by a series of river systems draining southward from the crest of the range. Pronounced knickpoints have formed at the southern margins of the low-relief surfaces. Our work suggests that there is a young (Pliocene-Pleistocene) fault system coincident with the physiographic transition in Bhutan. This high-angle, north-dipping structure, the Lhuentse fault, has minor normal-sense offset and could not have been responsible for differential uplift of the rugged terrain (in the hanging wall) relative to the low-relief landscape (in the footwall). The Lhuentse fault is coincident with the back limb of a previously inferred blind duplex at depth, and thus may be associated with active deformation on a rotated horse within the duplex. This duplex may also be responsible for the creation of the low-relief landscapes to the south of the

Inferring Microbial Fitness Landscapes

Science.gov (United States)

2016-02-25

what specific mutations , avian influenza viruses will adapt to novel human hosts; or how readily infectious bacteria will escape antibiotics or the...microbes as they adapt? For example, what determines how quickly, and by what specific mutations , avian influenza viruses will adapt to novel human...Ribosome-Footprint and mRNA Measurements Provide Insights into Dynamics and Regulation of Yeast Translation, Cell Reports, (02 2016): 1787. doi

Optimal inference with suboptimal models: Addiction and active Bayesian inference

Science.gov (United States)

Schwartenbeck, Philipp; FitzGerald, Thomas H.B.; Mathys, Christoph; Dolan, Ray; Wurst, Friedrich; Kronbichler, Martin; Friston, Karl

2015-01-01

When casting behaviour as active (Bayesian) inference, optimal inference is defined with respect to an agent’s beliefs – based on its generative model of the world. This contrasts with normative accounts of choice behaviour, in which optimal actions are considered in relation to the true structure of the environment – as opposed to the agent’s beliefs about worldly states (or the task). This distinction shifts an understanding of suboptimal or pathological behaviour away from aberrant inference as such, to understanding the prior beliefs of a subject that cause them to behave less ‘optimally’ than our prior beliefs suggest they should behave. Put simply, suboptimal or pathological behaviour does not speak against understanding behaviour in terms of (Bayes optimal) inference, but rather calls for a more refined understanding of the subject’s generative model upon which their (optimal) Bayesian inference is based. Here, we discuss this fundamental distinction and its implications for understanding optimality, bounded rationality and pathological (choice) behaviour. We illustrate our argument using addictive choice behaviour in a recently described ‘limited offer’ task. Our simulations of pathological choices and addictive behaviour also generate some clear hypotheses, which we hope to pursue in ongoing empirical work. PMID:25561321

Landscape Painting in Evaluation of Changes in Landscape

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Lacina, Jan; Halas, Petr

2015-01-01

Roč. 8, č. 2 (2015), s. 60-68 ISSN 1803-2427 Institutional support: RVO:68145535 Keywords : landscape painting * landscape ecology * land-use changes * biodiversity Subject RIV: DE - Earth Magnetism, Geodesy, Geography http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jlecol.2015.8.issue-2/jlecol-2015-0009/jlecol-2015-0009. xml

Urban Landscape Perspectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frederick Steiner

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Cities present significant opportunities for new landscape perspectives that can help inform conservation and development decisions. Early in the twenty-first century, the majority of the planet’s population became urban as more people lived in city-regions for the first time in our history. As the global population increases, so does this urbanization. The environmental challenges of population and urban growth are profound. Landscapes represent a synthesis of natural and cultural processes. Cities are certainly cultural phenomena. Historically, cities provided refuge from nature. The expanding field of urban ecology, coupled with landscape ecology, can enhance how the dual natural and cultural dimensions of landscapes in cities are understood. Furthermore, concepts such as ecosystem services and green infrastructure are proving useful for urban landscape planning and design. Examples from Dayton, Ohio; Brooklyn, New York; and Austin, Texas are presented.

Inference rule and problem solving

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Goto, S

1982-04-01

Intelligent information processing signifies an opportunity of having man's intellectual activity executed on the computer, in which inference, in place of ordinary calculation, is used as the basic operational mechanism for such an information processing. Many inference rules are derived from syllogisms in formal logic. The problem of programming this inference function is referred to as a problem solving. Although logically inference and problem-solving are in close relation, the calculation ability of current computers is on a low level for inferring. For clarifying the relation between inference and computers, nonmonotonic logic has been considered. The paper deals with the above topics. 16 references.

Incorporating Bioenergy in Sustainable Landscape Designs Workshop Two: Agricultural Landscapes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

2015-08-01

The Bioenergy Technologies Office hosted two workshops on Incorporating Bioenergy in Sustainable Landscape Designs with Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratories in 2014. The second workshop focused on agricultural landscapes and took place in Argonne, IL from June 24—26, 2014. The workshop brought together experts to discuss how landscape design can contribute to the deployment and assessment of sustainable bioenergy. This report summarizes the discussions that occurred at this particular workshop.

Post-Palaeozoic uplift history of southeastern Australia revisited: results from a process-based mode of landscape evolution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Van Der Beek, P.A.; Braun, J.; Lambeck, K.

1999-01-01

Developments over the last decade in the debate concerning the geomorphic evolution of the south-eastern Australian highlands are reviewed, taking as a starting point the model of passive denudation and isostatic rebound of a Palaeozoic mountain belt presented by Lambeck and Stephenson (1986). This model has been popular in the geomorphological community because it provides a quantitative framework to explain the very low rates of landscape evolution inferred from most geomorphological studies. The model has, however, also been criticised for its treatment of erosion as being linearly dependent on elevation, as well as for its predictions of regional uplift and denudation patterns that are not in accord with inferences from fission-track thermochronological data. Part of controversy stems from conceptual misunderstandings on the interpretation of data and from insufficient consideration of questions of spatial and temporal scale. First results of a new physical process-based model for large-scale long-term landscape evolution in the south-eastern highlands are presented. These show that the denudation history and drainage development of south-eastern Australia can be explained to a first order without invoking large-scale mid-Cretaceous or Tertiary uplift events. The model predicts drainage patterns in southeastern Australia to have evolved by rearrangement of an initially north-westerly directed drainage net, caused by drops in base-level during Mesozoic rifting along the southern and eastern margins of the study region. The geomorphology and available fission-track data in the Snowy Mountains region (and possibly also in the Bathurst - Blue Mountains region) do require renewed (mid Cretaceous?) uplift to have taken place. The model results are discussed in the light of recent controversies surrounding the southeastern highlands-their uplift history, denudation rates, depth of denudation of the coastal strip and inferred Mesozoic drainage patterns. Copyright (1999

Landscape Evolution Modelling-LAPSUS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Baartman, J. E. M.; Temme, A. J. A. M.; Schoorl, J. M.; Claessens, L.; Viveen, W.; Gorp, W. van; Veldkamp, A.

2009-07-01

Landscape evolution modelling can make the consequences of landscape evolution hypotheses explicit and theoretically allows for their falsification and improvement. ideally, landscape evolution models (LEMs) combine the results of all relevant landscape forming processes into an ever-adapting digital landscape (e.g. DEM). These processes may act on different spatial and temporal scales. LAPSUS is such a LEM. Processes that have in different studies been included in LAPSUS are water erosion and deposition, landslide activity, creep, solidification, weathering, tectonics and tillage. Process descriptions are as simple and generic as possible, ensuring wide applicability. (Author) 25 refs.

Landscape Evolution Modelling-LAPSUS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baartman, J. E. M.; Temme, A. J. A. M.; Schoorl, J. M.; Claessens, L.; Viveen, W.; Gorp, W. van; Veldkamp, A.

2009-01-01

Landscape evolution modelling can make the consequences of landscape evolution hypotheses explicit and theoretically allows for their falsification and improvement. ideally, landscape evolution models (LEMs) combine the results of all relevant landscape forming processes into an ever-adapting digital landscape (e.g. DEM). These processes may act on different spatial and temporal scales. LAPSUS is such a LEM. Processes that have in different studies been included in LAPSUS are water erosion and deposition, landslide activity, creep, solidification, weathering, tectonics and tillage. Process descriptions are as simple and generic as possible, ensuring wide applicability. (Author) 25 refs.

Knowledge and inference

CERN Document Server

Nagao, Makoto

1990-01-01

Knowledge and Inference discusses an important problem for software systems: How do we treat knowledge and ideas on a computer and how do we use inference to solve problems on a computer? The book talks about the problems of knowledge and inference for the purpose of merging artificial intelligence and library science. The book begins by clarifying the concept of """"knowledge"""" from many points of view, followed by a chapter on the current state of library science and the place of artificial intelligence in library science. Subsequent chapters cover central topics in the artificial intellig

Morphology of muscle attachment sites in the modern human hand does not reflect muscle architecture.

Science.gov (United States)

Williams-Hatala, E M; Hatala, K G; Hiles, S; Rabey, K N

2016-06-23

Muscle attachment sites (entheses) on dry bones are regularly used by paleontologists to infer soft tissue anatomy and to reconstruct behaviors of extinct organisms. This method is commonly applied to fossil hominin hand bones to assess their abilities to participate in Paleolithic stone tool behaviors. Little is known, however, about how or even whether muscle anatomy and activity regimes influence the morphologies of their entheses, especially in the hand. Using the opponens muscles from a sample of modern humans, we tested the hypothesis that aspects of hand muscle architecture that are known to be influenced by behavior correlate with the size and shape of their associated entheses. Results show no consistent relationships between these behaviorally-influenced aspects of muscle architecture and entheseal morphology. Consequently, it is likely premature to infer patterns of behavior, such as stone tool making in fossil hominins, from these same entheses.

The evolution of a thermokarst-lake landscape: Late Quaternary permafrost degradation and stabilization in interior Alaska

Science.gov (United States)

Edwards, Mary E.; Grosse, Guido; Jones, Benjamin M.; McDowell, Patricia F.

2016-01-01

Thermokarst processes characterize a variety of ice-rich permafrost terrains and often lead to lake formation. The long-term evolution of thermokarst landscapes and the stability and longevity of lakes depend upon climate, vegetation and ground conditions, including the volume of excess ground ice and its distribution. The current lake status of thermokarst-lake landscapes and their future trajectories under climate warming are better understood in the light of their long-term development. We studied the lake-rich southern marginal upland of the Yukon Flats (northern interior Alaska) using dated lake-sediment cores, observations of river-cut exposures, and remotely-sensed data. The region features thick (up to 40 m) Quaternary deposits (mainly loess) that contain massive ground ice. Two of three studied lakes formed ~ 11,000–12,000 cal yr BP through inferred thermokarst processes, and fire may have played a role in initiating thermokarst development. From ~ 9000 cal yr BP, all lakes exhibited steady sedimentation, and pollen stratigraphies are consistent with regional patterns. The current lake expansion rates are low (0 to drainage, nor of multiple lake generations within a basin. However, LiDAR images reveal linear “corrugations” (> 5 m amplitude), deep thermo-erosional gullies, and features resembling lake drainage channels, suggesting that highly dynamic surface processes have previously shaped the landscape. Evidently, widespread early Holocene permafrost degradation and thermokarst lake initiation were followed by lake longevity and landscape stabilization, the latter possibly related to establishment of dense forest cover. Partial or complete drainage of three lakes in 2013 reveals that there is some contemporary landscape dynamism. Holocene landscape evolution in the study area differs from that described from other thermokarst-affected regions; regional responses to future environmental change may be equally individualistic.

URBAN LANDSCAPE QUALITY AND FACTORS THAT HAVE INFLUENCE ON LANDSCAPE QUALITY IN LATGALE REGION

OpenAIRE

Matisovs, Ivars

2005-01-01

The paper deals with urban landscape individualities in the cities and towns of Latgale region. Also show facilities and methods of integrated assessment of urban landscape quality. Article provides information about specifics of urban landscape and factors, that have influence on landscape quality. The paper presents the results of Daugavpils and Rēzekne urban landscape quality complex assessment, that have been realised in 2003- 2005. This results don’t establish significant disparities bet...

Geometric statistical inference

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Periwal, Vipul

1999-01-01

A reparametrization-covariant formulation of the inverse problem of probability is explicitly solved for finite sample sizes. The inferred distribution is explicitly continuous for finite sample size. A geometric solution of the statistical inference problem in higher dimensions is outlined

Do molecules matter more than morphology? Promises and pitfalls in parasites.

Science.gov (United States)

Perkins, S L; Martinsen, E S; Falk, B G

2011-11-01

Systematics involves resolving both the taxonomy and phylogenetic placement of organisms. We review the advantages and disadvantages of the two kinds of information commonly used for such inferences--morphological and molecular data--as applied to the systematics of metazoan parasites generally, with special attention to the malaria parasites. The problems that potentially confound the use of morphology in parasites include challenges to consistent specimen preservation, plasticity of features depending on hosts or other environmental factors, and morphological convergence. Molecular characters such as DNA sequences present an alternative data source and are particularly useful when not all the parasite's life stages are present or when parasitaemia is low. Nonetheless, molecular data can bring challenges that include troublesome DNA isolation, paralogous gene copies, difficulty in developing molecular markers, and preferential amplification in mixed species infections. Given the differential benefits and shortcomings of both molecular and morphological characters, both should be implemented in parasite taxonomy and phylogenetics.

Territorial identity and landscape. Evolution morphology of nuclei in Castilla y Leon

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cortes Pedrosa, J.

2015-01-01

This paper aims to study the physical and socioeconomic transformations of rural settlements belonging to the Spanish region of Castile and Leon, throughout the second half of the 20th century. The evolution of urban form is analyzed, using a geographical information system (GIS) and calculating several shape metrics, and is then related to historical demographical data. The results are meant to show the effects of functional specialization, caused by the integration of rural regions in global economic hierarchies, on settlement structures and patterns. Gradual loss of the traditional features of Castilian villages, such as urban compactness and integration in the landscape, due to the disappearance or neglect of vernacular architecture and the construction of new industrial infrastructures, poses a risk for future place-based development policies. It is deemed necessary to preserve local identity and avoid destruction or degradation of the traditional heritage for revitalizing these territories. (Author)

Does landscape connectivity shape local and global social network structure in white-tailed deer?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Erin L Koen

Full Text Available Intraspecific social behavior can be influenced by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. While much research has focused on how characteristics of individuals influence their roles in social networks, we were interested in the role that landscape structure plays in animal sociality at both individual (local and population (global levels. We used female white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus in Illinois, USA, to investigate the potential effect of landscape on social network structure by weighting the edges of seasonal social networks with association rate (based on proximity inferred from GPS collar data. At the local level, we found that sociality among female deer in neighboring social groups (n = 36 was mainly explained by their home range overlap, with two exceptions: 1 during fawning in an area of mixed forest and grassland, deer whose home ranges had low forest connectivity were more social than expected; and 2 during the rut in an area of intensive agriculture, deer inhabiting home ranges with high amount and connectedness of agriculture were more social than expected. At the global scale, we found that deer populations (n = 7 in areas with highly connected forest-agriculture edge, a high proportion of agriculture, and a low proportion of forest tended to have higher weighted network closeness, although low sample size precluded statistical significance. This result implies that infectious disease could spread faster in deer populations inhabiting such landscapes. Our work advances the general understanding of animal social networks, demonstrating how landscape features can underlie differences in social behavior both within and among wildlife social networks.

Lines of landscape organisation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Løvschal, Mette

2015-01-01

This paper offers a landscape analysis of the earliest linear landscape boundaries on Skovbjerg Moraine, Denmark, during the first millennium BC. Using Delaunay triangulation as well as classic distribution analyses, it demonstrates that landscape boundaries articulated already established use-pa...

Goal inferences about robot behavior : goal inferences and human response behaviors

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Broers, H.A.T.; Ham, J.R.C.; Broeders, R.; De Silva, P.; Okada, M.

2014-01-01

This explorative research focused on the goal inferences human observers draw based on a robot's behavior, and the extent to which those inferences predict people's behavior in response to that robot. Results show that different robot behaviors cause different response behavior from people.

Beyond the conventional: meeting the challenges of landscape governance within the European Landscape Convention?

Science.gov (United States)

Scott, Alister

2011-10-01

Academics and policy makers seeking to deconstruct landscape face major challenges conceptually, methodologically and institutionally. The meaning(s), identity(ies) and management of landscape are controversial and contested. The European Landscape Convention provides an opportunity for action and change set within new governance agendas addressing interdisciplinarity and spatial planning. This paper critically reviews the complex web of conceptual and methodological frameworks that characterise landscape planning and management and then focuses on emerging landscape governance in Scotland within a mixed method approach involving policy analyses, semi-structured interviews and best practice case studies. Using Dower's (2008) criteria from the Articles of the European Landscape Convention, the results show that whilst some progress has been made in landscape policy and practice, largely through the actions of key individuals and champions, there are significant institutional hurdles and resource limitations to overcome. The need to mainstream positive landscape outcomes requires a significant culture change where a one-size-fits-all approach does not work. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Why Landscape Beauty Matters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Angelika Krebs

2014-11-01

Full Text Available This philosophical paper explores the aesthetic argument for landscape conservation. The main claim is that the experience of beautiful landscapes is an essential part of the good human life. Beautiful landscapes make us feel at home in the world. Their great and irreplaceable value lies therein. To establish this claim, the concepts of landscape and “Stimmung” are clarified. It is shown how “Stimmung” (in the sense of mood is infused into landscape (as atmosphere and how we respond to it aesthetically. We respond by resonating or feeling at home. The paper ends by indicating how art can help us to better appreciate landscape beauty. This is done by way of an example from contemporary nature poetry, Michael Donhauser’s Variationen in Prosa, which begins with “Und was da war, es nahm uns an” (“And what was there accepted us”.

Legible landscapes: the use of narratives in landscape design for leisure and tourism in Dutch cultural landscapes.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brinkhuijsen, M.

2007-01-01

Nowadays, leisure and tourism have become significant factors in rural development, which is manifest in the ‘commodification’ of landscapes. However, leisure and tourist markets are very competitive and consumers increasingly demand high quality, unique and memorable experiences. Landscape

Salt-Marsh Landscapes and the Signatures of Biogeomorphic Feedbacks

Science.gov (United States)

D'Alpaos, A.; Marani, M.

2014-12-01

Salt marshes are coastal ecosystems which play a large role in the bio-geomorphological evolution of intertidal areas. The dense stands of halophytic plants which populate salt-marsh systems largely contribute to govern their dynamics, influencing marsh hydrodynamics and sediment transport through enhanced flow resistance and settling, and direct particle capture by plant stems. In addition, plants are known to increase vertical accretion through direct organic accretion. Looking across the salt-marsh landscape can one see the signatures of feedbacks between landscape and biota? Field evidence and the results of biomorphodynamic models indeed show that the interplay between physical and biological processes generates some striking biological and morphological patterns at different scales. One such pattern, vegetation zonation, consists in a mosaic of vegetation patches, of approximately uniform composition, displaying sharp transitions in the presence of extremely small topographic gradients. Here we extend the model proposed by Marani et al. (2013) to a two-dimensional framework, furthermore including the effect of direct capture of sediment particles by plant stems. This allows us to account for the effect of the drainage density of tidal networks on the observed biogeomorphic patterns and to model the coupled evolution of marsh platforms and channel networks cutting through them. A number of different scenarios have been modelled to analyze the changes induced in bio-geomorphic patterns by plants with different characteristics, within marshes characterized by different drainage densities, or subjected to changing environmental forcing such as rates of relative sea level rise and sediment supply. Model results emphasize that zonation patterns are a signature of bio-geomorphic feedbacks with vegetation acting as a landscape constructor which feeds back on, directly alters, and contributes to shape tidal environments. In addition, model results show that

Identification Of Minangkabau Landscape Characters

Science.gov (United States)

Asrina, M.; Gunawan, A.; Aris, Munandar

2017-10-01

Minangkabau is one of cultures in indonesia which occupies landscape intact. Landscape of Minangkabau have a very close relationship with the culture of the people. Uniqueness of Minangkabau culture and landscape forming an inseparable characterunity. The landscape is necessarily identified to know the inherent landscape characters. The objective of this study was to identify the character of the Minangkabau landscape characterizes its uniqueness. The study was conducted by using descriptive method comprised literature review and field observasion. Observed the landscape characters comprised two main features, they were major and minor features. Indetification of the features was conducted in two original areas (darek) of the Minangkabau traditional society. The research results showed that major features or natural features of the landscape were predominantly landform, landcover, and hidrology. All luhak (districts) of Minangkabau showed similar main features such as hill, canyon, lake, valley, and forest. The existence of natural features such as hills, canyon and valleys characterizes the nature of minangkabau landscape. Minor features formed by Minangkabau cultural society were agricultural land and settlement. Rumah gadang (big house) is one of famous minor features characterizes the Minangkabau culture. In addition, several historical artefacts of building and others structure may strengthen uniqueness of the Minangkabau landscape character, such as The royal palace, inscription, and tunnels.

The mechanisms for filling carbon nanotubes with molten salts: carbon nanotubes as energy landscape filters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bishop, Clare L; Wilson, Mark

2009-01-01

The mechanisms for filling carbon nanotubes with molten salts are investigated using molecular dynamics computer simulation. Inorganic nanotubular structures, whose morphologies can be rationalized in terms of the folding, or the removal of sections from, planes of square nets are found to form. The formation mechanisms are found to follow a 'chain-by-chain' motif in which the structures build systematically from charge neutral M-X-M-Xc chains. The formation mechanisms are rationalized in terms of the ion-ion interactions (intra-chain and inter-chain terms). In addition, the mechanisms of filling are discussed in terms of a 'hopping' between basins on the underlying energy landscape. The role of the carbon nanotube as an energy landscape filter is discussed.

Mapa digital de solos: uma proposta metodológica usando inferência fuzzy Digital soil map: a methodological proposal using fuzzy inference

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Claudia C. Nolasco-Carvalho

2009-02-01

Full Text Available Elaborou-se um mapa digital de solos de uma área na região de Mucugê, BA, com o objetivo de avaliar o uso de geotecnologias na cartografia de solos. A metodologia desenvolvida a partir do modelo de inferência para solos - SoLIM , requer o conhecimento prévio da área por um especialista em mapeamento e está alicerçada na equação dos fatores de formação do solo e no modelo de distribuição dos solos na paisagem. Os dados, advindos do Modelo Digital do Terreno - MDT, da vegetação e da geologia, foram associados ao conhecimento do pedólogo e integrados em ambiente SIG (Sistema de Informações Geográficas sob inferência fuzzy. A modelagem por lógica fuzzy permitiu apontar as incertezas e transições da cobertura pedológica e gerou um mapa digital de solo que, quando comparado com o mapa convencional da área, mostrou menor generalização no domínio de espaços e parâmetros, ou seja, um refinamento da escala, porém a aplicabilidade da metodologia depende da validação de campo e da repetição em outras áreas.A digital soil map was elaborated for an area in the region of Mucugê-BA using data integration derived from a digital elevation model (DEM of the vegetation and geology that was associated with a soil scientist's knowledge and correlated in a GIS environment (Geography Information System under fuzzy inference, as a methodological proposal. The methodology was developed and based on the soil-land inference model - SoLIM, on the soil factor equation and the soil-landscape model. The fuzzy logic is able to simulate the uncertainty and transitions that often appear in pedologic systems. The results show that the methodology allows the generation of digital soil maps with increased scale and to reduce soil classe generalizations in the space and parameter domain. However, this methodology is very dependent upon the soil expert's knowledge and accuracy of the data base. To verify the applicability of the methodology the

A comparative framework to infer landscape effects on population genetic structure: Are habitat suitability models effective in explaining gene flow?

Science.gov (United States)

Maria C. Mateo-Sanchez; Niko Balkenhol; Samuel Cushman; Trinidad Perez; Ana Dominguez; Santiago Saura

2015-01-01

Most current methods to assess connectivity begin with landscape resistance maps. The prevailing resistance models are commonly based on expert opinion and, more recently, on a direct transformation of habitat suitability. However, habitat associations are not necessarily accurate indicators of dispersal, and thus may fail as a surrogate of resistance to...

Entropic Inference

OpenAIRE

Caticha, Ariel

2010-01-01

In this tutorial we review the essential arguments behing entropic inference. We focus on the epistemological notion of information and its relation to the Bayesian beliefs of rational agents. The problem of updating from a prior to a posterior probability distribution is tackled through an eliminative induction process that singles out the logarithmic relative entropy as the unique tool for inference. The resulting method of Maximum relative Entropy (ME), includes as special cases both MaxEn...

Hyporheic exchange in mountain rivers II: Effects of channel morphology on mechanics, scales, and rates of exchange

Science.gov (United States)

John M. Buffington; Daniele Tonina

2009-01-01

We propose that the mechanisms driving hyporheic exchange vary systematically with different channel morphologies and associated fluvial processes that occur in mountain basins, providing a framework for examining physical controls on hyporheic environments and their spatial variation across the landscape. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of hyporheic environments...

Integrating landscape ecology and geoinformatics to decipher landscape dynamics for regional planning.

Science.gov (United States)

Dikou, Angela; Papapanagiotou, Evangelos; Troumbis, Andreas

2011-09-01

We used remote sensing and GIS in conjunction with multivariate statistical methods to: (i) quantify landscape composition (land cover types) and configuration (patch density, diversity, fractal dimension, contagion) for five coastal watersheds of Kalloni gulf, Lesvos Island, Greece, in 1945, 1960, 1971, 1990 and 2002/2003, (ii) evaluate the relative importance of physical (slope, geologic substrate, stream order) and human (road network, population density) variables on landscape composition and configuration, and (iii) characterize processes that led to land cover changes through land cover transitions between these five successive periods in time. Distributions of land cover types did not differ among the five time periods at the five watersheds studied because the largest cumulative changes between 1945 and 2002/2003 did not take place at dominant land cover types. Landscape composition related primarily to the physical attributes of the landscape. Nevertheless, increase in population density and the road network were found to increase heterogeneity of the landscape mosaic (patchiness), complexity of patch shape (fractal dimension), and patch disaggregation (contagion). Increase in road network was also found to increase landscape diversity due to the creation of new patches. The main processes involved in land cover changes were plough-land abandonment and ecological succession. Landscape dynamics during the last 50 years corroborate the ecotouristic-agrotouristic model for regional development to reverse trends in agricultural land abandonment and human population decline and when combined with hypothetical regulatory approaches could predict how this landscape could develop in the future, thus, providing a valuable tool to regional planning.

Functional Morphology of Eunicidan (Polychaeta) Jaws

Science.gov (United States)

Clemo, W. C.; Dorgan, K. M.

2016-02-01

Polychaetes exhibit diverse feeding strategies and diets, with some species possessing hardened teeth or jaws of varying complexity. Species in the order Eunicida have complex, rigidly articulated jaws consisting of multiple pairs of maxillae and a pair of mandibles. While all Eunicida possess this general jaw structure, a number of characteristics of the jaw parts vary considerably among families. These differences, described for fossilized and extant species' jaws, were used to infer evolutionary relationships, but current phylogeny shows that jaw structures that are similar among several families are convergent. Little has been done, however, to relate jaw functional morphology and feeding behavior to diet. To explore these relationships, we compared the jaw kinematics of two taxa with similar but evolutionarily convergent jaw structures: Diopatra (Onuphidae) and Lumbrineris (Lumbrineridae). Diopatra species are tube-dwelling and predominantly herbivorous, whereas Lumbrineris species are burrowing carnivores. Jaw kinematics were observed and analyzed by filming individuals biting or feeding and tracking tooth movements in videos. Differences in jaw structure and kinematics between Diopatra and Lumbrineris can be interpreted to be consistent with their differences in diet. Relating jaw morphology to diet would provide insight into early annelid communities by linking fossil teeth (scolecodonts) to the ecological roles of extant species with similar morphologies.

Condensed landscape experience

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Earon, Ofri

2011-01-01

demands, quality of space, mixture of functions, urban complexity, public life and cultural heritage. In order to launch such an approach, an understanding of the spatial, social and environmental significance of a radical re-thinking of relationships between architecture and landscape is necessary...... is becoming a standard in contemporary architecture. Merging architecture and landscape has turned into a principle for an ecological / sustainable architecture. Yet, my aspiration is to achieve a wider interaction involving an application of a wider range of perspectives, such as: urban identity, social......‘Re-thinking interaction between landscape and urban buildings’ participates in an interdisciplinary discourse about the theoretical and practical advantages of openly juxtaposing landscape and architecture without having one more advanced in importance. Recently, the greenification of buildings...

The impact of phenotypic and molecular data on the inference of Colletotrichum diversity associated with Musa.

Science.gov (United States)

Vieira, Willie A S; Lima, Waléria G; Nascimento, Eduardo S; Michereff, Sami J; Câmara, Marcos P S; Doyle, Vinson P

2017-01-01

Developing a comprehensive and reliable taxonomy for the Colletotrichum gloeosporioides species complex will require adopting data standards on the basis of an understanding of how methodological choices impact morphological evaluations and phylogenetic inference. We explored the impact of methodological choices in a morphological and molecular evaluation of Colletotrichum species associated with banana in Brazil. The choice of alignment filtering algorithm has a significant impact on topological inference and the retention of phylogenetically informative sites. Similarly, the choice of phylogenetic marker affects the delimitation of species boundaries, particularly if low phylogenetic signal is confounded with strong discordance, and inference of the species tree from multiple-gene trees. According to both phylogenetic informativeness profiling and Bayesian concordance analyses, the most informative loci are DNA lyase (APN2), intergenic spacer (IGS) between DNA lyase and the mating-type locus MAT1-2-1 (APN2/MAT-IGS), calmodulin (CAL), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), glutamine synthetase (GS), β-tubulin (TUB2), and a new marker, the intergenic spacer between GAPDH and an hypothetical protein (GAP2-IGS). Cornmeal agar minimizes the variance in conidial dimensions compared with potato dextrose agar and synthetic nutrient-poor agar, such that species are more readily distinguishable based on phenotypic differences. We apply these insights to investigate the diversity of Colletotrichum species associated with banana anthracnose in Brazil and report C. musae, C. tropicale, C. theobromicola, and C. siamense in association with banana anthracnose. One lineage did not cluster with any previously described species and is described here as C. chrysophilum.

Genomic inferences of domestication events are corroborated by written records in Brassica rapa.

Science.gov (United States)

Qi, Xinshuai; An, Hong; Ragsdale, Aaron P; Hall, Tara E; Gutenkunst, Ryan N; Chris Pires, J; Barker, Michael S

2017-07-01

Demographic modelling is often used with population genomic data to infer the relationships and ages among populations. However, relatively few analyses are able to validate these inferences with independent data. Here, we leverage written records that describe distinct Brassica rapa crops to corroborate demographic models of domestication. Brassica rapa crops are renowned for their outstanding morphological diversity, but the relationships and order of domestication remain unclear. We generated genomewide SNPs from 126 accessions collected globally using high-throughput transcriptome data. Analyses of more than 31,000 SNPs across the B. rapa genome revealed evidence for five distinct genetic groups and supported a European-Central Asian origin of B. rapa crops. Our results supported the traditionally recognized South Asian and East Asian B. rapa groups with evidence that pak choi, Chinese cabbage and yellow sarson are likely monophyletic groups. In contrast, the oil-type B. rapa subsp. oleifera and brown sarson were polyphyletic. We also found no evidence to support the contention that rapini is the wild type or the earliest domesticated subspecies of B. rapa. Demographic analyses suggested that B. rapa was introduced to Asia 2,400-4,100 years ago, and that Chinese cabbage originated 1,200-2,100 years ago via admixture of pak choi and European-Central Asian B. rapa. We also inferred significantly different levels of founder effect among the B. rapa subspecies. Written records from antiquity that document these crops are consistent with these inferences. The concordance between our age estimates of domestication events with historical records provides unique support for our demographic inferences. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Inferring principles for sustainable development of business through analogies from ecological systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Sriram

2013-03-01

Full Text Available The literature in the field of sustainable development (SD of businesses is piecemeal and diverse. This paper identifies and integrates principles that businesses could use for transformation towards SD. This is done through analogical reasoning from the source context of ecological systems to the target contexts of business socio-economic systems and machine/technology systems. The methodologies of systems thinking and morphological analysis supplement the analogical reasoning. Based on this, twelve principles for sustainable development of business are inferred for business managers and policy makers.

Learning Convex Inference of Marginals

OpenAIRE

Domke, Justin

2012-01-01

Graphical models trained using maximum likelihood are a common tool for probabilistic inference of marginal distributions. However, this approach suffers difficulties when either the inference process or the model is approximate. In this paper, the inference process is first defined to be the minimization of a convex function, inspired by free energy approximations. Learning is then done directly in terms of the performance of the inference process at univariate marginal prediction. The main ...

Peculiarities of high-altitude landscapes formation in the Small Caucasus mountains

Science.gov (United States)

Trifonova, Tatiana

2014-05-01

the permanent exogenic processes favor regular rejuvenation of the slope soils. The basin structure determines the soilscape, and morphological elements of the basin are also different. The factors playing the significant part in the formation of soil-mantle composition in the basin can be identified. It is shown that landscapes formation and soil structure in mountains are controlled by two superimposed natural processes, i.e. the formation of vertical zonality and the development of river lithodrainage basins. References Trifonova T.A., 2008. River drainage basin as self-regulated natural geosistem. Izv. Russian of Academy of Sciences, Series on geography, 1: 28-36. Trifonova T.A., 2005. Development of basin approach in pedological and ecological studies. Eurasian Soil Science, 9: 931-937

Visualization of landscape changes and threatening environmental processes using a digital landscape model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Svatonova, H; Rybansky, M

2014-01-01

Visualizations supported by new geoinformation technologies prove to be appropriate tools for presenting and sharing the research results by professional and general public. The object of the research was to evaluate the benefits of visualizations for the nonexpert users. The subject of evaluation was: the success rate of interpreting the information; forming of a realistic idea of the unknown landscape; and the preference of the users during selection of the appropriate visualization for the purpose of solving the task. The tasks concerned: assessing the current situation and changes of the landscape; assessing the erosion in the landscape; and the ways of their visualizing. To prepare and process the landscape visualizations, it was necessary to select areas that allow tracking of land use changes and representative environmental processes. Then the digital landscape model was created and a number of visualizations were generated. The results of visualization testing show that the users prefer maps to orthophotos, they are able to formulate correct statements concerning the landscape with the help of visualizations, and that the simulated fly throughs represent a very suitable tool supporting formation of a realistic ideas about the landscape

Analysis of landscapes of the south coast in São Paulo State (Brazil)

OpenAIRE

Dias, Renê Lepiani; Oliveira, Regina Célia de

2012-01-01

The South Coast of São Paulo is structured in two main areas morphostructural: Atlantic Orogenic Belt and Cenozoic Sedimentary Basins. In this area are found various morphologies, that are in the form of trims topographic scarps, valleys carved, organization of major river network, the sharp convex tops in the Atlantic Forest domain extensive plain with the presence of unconsolidated deposits and important environmental systems, such as those related to mangroves. The landscape in which organ...

Landscape genetics and limiting factors

Science.gov (United States)

Samuel A. Cushman; Andrew J. Shirk; Erin L. Landguth

2013-01-01

Population connectivity is mediated by the movement of organisms or propagules through landscapes. However, little is known about how variation in the pattern of landscape mosaics affects the detectability of landscape genetic relationships. The goal of this paper is to explore the impacts of limiting factors on landscape genetic processes using simulation...

Morphological Awareness in Literacy Acquisition of Chinese Second Graders: A Path Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Haomin

2016-02-01

The present study tested a path diagram regarding the contribution of morphological awareness (MA) to early literacy acquisition among Chinese-speaking second graders ([Formula: see text]). Three facets of MA were addressed, namely derivational awareness, compound awareness and compound structure awareness. The model aimed to test a theory of causal order among measures of MA and literacy outcomes. Drawing upon multivariate path analysis, direct and indirect effects of MA were analyzed to identify their role in literacy performance among young children. Results revealed that all three facets of MA made significant contributions to lexical inference ability. In addition, compound awareness showed a unique and significant contribution to vocabulary knowledge. It was also observed that lexical inference ability had a mediating effect predictive of both vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Moreover, vocabulary knowledge mediated the effect of MA on reading comprehension. However, no significant contribution of MA to reading comprehension was found after controlling for lexical inference ability and vocabulary knowledge.

An Adaptive Landscape Classification Procedure using Geoinformatics and Artificial Neural Networks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Coleman, Andre Michael [Vrije Univ., Amsterdam (Netherlands)

2008-06-01

-dimensional data arrays, which can difficult to fully use. Establishing relationships among high-dimensional datasets through neurocomputing based patterning methods can help 1) resolve large volumes of data into a meaningful form; 2) provide an approach for inferring landscape processes in areas that have limited data available but that exhibit similar landscape characteristics; and 3) discover the value of individual variables or groups of variables that contribute to specific processes in the landscape.

Condensed landscape experience

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Earon, Ofri

2011-01-01

‘Re-thinking interaction between landscape and urban buildings’ participates in an interdisciplinary discourse about the theoretical and practical advantages of openly juxtaposing landscape and architecture without having one more advanced in importance. Recently, the greenification of buildings...... demands, quality of space, mixture of functions, urban complexity, public life and cultural heritage. In order to launch such an approach, an understanding of the spatial, social and environmental significance of a radical re-thinking of relationships between architecture and landscape is necessary...

SOIL VARIABILITY IN DIFFERENT LANDSCAPE POSITIONS IN THE PORTO ALEGRE BOTANICAL GARDEN, SOUTHERN BRAZIL

OpenAIRE

Silva,Luís Fernando da; Nascimento,Paulo César do; Inda,Alberto Vasconcellos; Silva,Edsleine Ribeiro

2015-01-01

ABSTRACTKnowledge of soil characteristics in areas where activities related to the environment are developed, such as Porto Alegre Botanical Garden (JB-PoA), is a fundamental condition for the sustainable use of this natural resource. The objective of this study was to characterize, classify and evaluate some issues about soil formation in Porto Alegre Botanical Garden, as well as relate their distribution on the landscape according to environmental characteristics. For the morphological desc...

THE ROLE OF KETTLE HOLES AS LOCAL SEDIMENTARY RESERVOIRS OF THE EARLY POST-GLACIAL LANDSCAPE OF SUWAŁKI LANDSCAPE PARK

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Krzysztof Micun

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The study is an attempt to determine the size of sedimentation at the bottoms of the small kettle holes of Suwałki Landscape Park as well as the deposits that fill them. The size and the type of the transformations occurring in the kettle holes during the Holocene were determined on the basis of conducted analyses. The presence of allochtonic mineral deposits and autochtonic lacustrine and biogenic deposits was affirmed. The first group consisted of loam colluvium with a maximum thickness of up to 1m. The other one contains lacustrine clays and silts with a maximum thickness of several tens of centimeters and gytjas and peats with a total thickness of up to 9 m. Sediments’ sequence in Snołda, Łuśnin and Linówek depressions indicated a secondary nature of the colluvium deposition in relations to the biogenic acumulation that took place throughout the Holocene. Hillslope sediments accumulation intensified only in times of economic activity growth in the area. Steep gradients of slopes and considerable depth of kettle holes favor the development of hillslope processes. The material accumulated in the depressions remains immobilised. This limits the spatial extent of the denudation and thus stabilises the morphology of early post-glacial landscape.

Camallanus tridentatus (Drasche) (Nematoda: Camallanidae): new taxonomically important morphological data.

Science.gov (United States)

Santos, Cláudia Portes; Moravec, Frantisek

2009-02-01

Camallanus tridentatus is redescribed on the basis of the examination of specimens obtained from the stomach, caeca and intestine of the naturally infected arapaima Arapaima gigas (Schinz) from the Mexiana Island, Amazon River Delta, Brazil. Data on the surface morphology of adults inferred from confocal laser scanning and scanning electron microscopical observations are also provided. The study revealed some taxonomically important, previously unreported morphological features in this species, such as the presence of the poorly sclerotized left spicule and deirids. C. tridentatus distinctly differs from other congeneric species parasitizing freshwater fishes in South America mainly in the structure of the buccal capsule and the female caudal end. C. maculatus Martins, Garcia, Piazza and Ghiraldelli is considered a junior synonymm of Camallanus cotti Fujita.

Camallanus tridentatus (Drasche (Nematoda: Camallanidae: new taxonomically important morphological data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cláudia Portes Santos

2009-02-01

Full Text Available Camallanus tridentatus is redescribed on the basis of the examination of specimens obtained from the stomach, caeca and intestine of the naturally infected arapaima Arapaima gigas (Schinz from the Mexiana Island, Amazon River Delta, Brazil. Data on the surface morphology of adults inferred from confocal laser scanning and scanning electron microscopical observations are also provided. The study revealed some taxonomically important, previously unreported morphological features in this species, such as the presence of the poorly sclerotized left spicule and deirids. C. tridentatus distinctly differs from other congeneric species parasitizing freshwater fishes in South America mainly in the structure of the buccal capsule and the female caudal end. C. maculatus Martins, Garcia, Piazza and Ghiraldelli is considered a junior synonymm of Camallanus cotti Fujita.

Landscape genetics as a tool for conservation planning: predicting the effects of landscape change on gene flow.

Science.gov (United States)

van Strien, Maarten J; Keller, Daniela; Holderegger, Rolf; Ghazoul, Jaboury; Kienast, Felix; Bolliger, Janine

2014-03-01

For conservation managers, it is important to know whether landscape changes lead to increasing or decreasing gene flow. Although the discipline of landscape genetics assesses the influence of landscape elements on gene flow, no studies have yet used landscape-genetic models to predict gene flow resulting from landscape change. A species that has already been severely affected by landscape change is the large marsh grasshopper (Stethophyma grossum), which inhabits moist areas in fragmented agricultural landscapes in Switzerland. From transects drawn between all population pairs within maximum dispersal distance (landscape composition as well as some measures of habitat configuration. Additionally, a complete sampling of all populations in our study area allowed incorporating measures of population topology. These measures together with the landscape metrics formed the predictor variables in linear models with gene flow as response variable (F(ST) and mean pairwise assignment probability). With a modified leave-one-out cross-validation approach, we selected the model with the highest predictive accuracy. With this model, we predicted gene flow under several landscape-change scenarios, which simulated construction, rezoning or restoration projects, and the establishment of a new population. For some landscape-change scenarios, significant increase or decrease in gene flow was predicted, while for others little change was forecast. Furthermore, we found that the measures of population topology strongly increase model fit in landscape genetic analysis. This study demonstrates the use of predictive landscape-genetic models in conservation and landscape planning.

Relationships between avian richness and landscape structure at multiple scales using multiple landscapes

Science.gov (United States)

Michael S. Mitchell; Scott H. Rutzmoser; T. Bently Wigley; Craig Loehle; John A. Gerwin; Patrick D. Keyser; Richard A. Lancia; Roger W. Perry; Christopher L. Reynolds; Ronald E. Thill; Robert Weih; Don White; Petra Bohall Wood

2006-01-01

Little is known about factors that structure biodiversity on landscape scales, yet current land management protocols, such as forest certification programs, place an increasing emphasis on managing for sustainable biodiversity at landscape scales. We used a replicated landscape study to evaluate relationships between forest structure and avian diversity at both stand...

Landscape Ecology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Andreas Aagaard; Brandt, Jesper; Svenningsen, Stig Roar

2017-01-01

, and the ecological significance of the patterns which are generated by such processes. In landscape ecology, perspectives drawn from existing academic disciplines are integrated based on a common, spatially explicit mode of analysis developed from classical holistic geography, emphasizing spatial and landscape...... to translate positivist readings of the environment and hermeneutical perspectives on socioecological interaction into a common framework or terminology....

Quantifying landscape change in an arctic coastal lowland using repeat airborne LiDAR

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Benjamin M.; Stoker, Jason M.; Gibbs, Ann E.; Grosse, Guido; Romanovsky, Vladimir E.; Douglas, Thomas A.; Kinsman, Nichole E.M.; Richmond, Bruce M.

2013-01-01

Increases in air, permafrost, and sea surface temperature, loss of sea ice, the potential for increased wave energy, and higher river discharge may all be interacting to escalate erosion of arctic coastal lowland landscapes. Here we use airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data acquired in 2006 and 2010 to detect landscape change in a 100 km2 study area on the Beaufort Sea coastal plain of northern Alaska. We detected statistically significant change (99% confidence interval), defined as contiguous areas (>10 m2) that had changed in height by at least 0.55 m, in 0.3% of the study region. Erosional features indicative of ice-rich permafrost degradation were associated with ice-bonded coastal, river, and lake bluffs, frost mounds, ice wedges, and thermo-erosional gullies. These features accounted for about half of the area where vertical change was detected. Inferred thermo-denudation and thermo-abrasion of coastal and river bluffs likely accounted for the dominant permafrost-related degradational processes with respect to area (42%) and volume (51%). More than 300 thermokarst pits significantly subsided during the study period, likely as a result of storm surge flooding of low-lying tundra (impact of warm summers in the late-1980s and mid-1990s. Our results indicate that repeat airborne LiDAR can be used to detect landscape change in arctic coastal lowland regions at large spatial scales over sub-decadal time periods.

Probabilistic inductive inference: a survey

OpenAIRE

Ambainis, Andris

2001-01-01

Inductive inference is a recursion-theoretic theory of learning, first developed by E. M. Gold (1967). This paper surveys developments in probabilistic inductive inference. We mainly focus on finite inference of recursive functions, since this simple paradigm has produced the most interesting (and most complex) results.

LAIT: a local ancestry inference toolkit.

Science.gov (United States)

Hui, Daniel; Fang, Zhou; Lin, Jerome; Duan, Qing; Li, Yun; Hu, Ming; Chen, Wei

2017-09-06

Inferring local ancestry in individuals of mixed ancestry has many applications, most notably in identifying disease-susceptible loci that vary among different ethnic groups. Many software packages are available for inferring local ancestry in admixed individuals. However, most of these existing software packages require specific formatted input files and generate output files in various types, yielding practical inconvenience. We developed a tool set, Local Ancestry Inference Toolkit (LAIT), which can convert standardized files into software-specific input file formats as well as standardize and summarize inference results for four popular local ancestry inference software: HAPMIX, LAMP, LAMP-LD, and ELAI. We tested LAIT using both simulated and real data sets and demonstrated that LAIT provides convenience to run multiple local ancestry inference software. In addition, we evaluated the performance of local ancestry software among different supported software packages, mainly focusing on inference accuracy and computational resources used. We provided a toolkit to facilitate the use of local ancestry inference software, especially for users with limited bioinformatics background.

Landscape Classifications for Landscape Metrics-based Assessment of Urban Heat Island: A Comparative Study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhao, X F; Deng, L; Wang, H N; Chen, F; Hua, L Z

2014-01-01

In recent years, some studies have been carried out on the landscape analysis of urban thermal patterns. With the prevalence of thermal landscape, a key problem has come forth, which is how to classify thermal landscape into thermal patches. Current researches used different methods of thermal landscape classification such as standard deviation method (SD) and R method. To find out the differences, a comparative study was carried out in Xiamen using a 20-year winter time-serial Landsat images. After the retrieval of land surface temperature (LST), the thermal landscape was classified using the two methods separately. Then landscape metrics, 6 at class level and 14 at landscape level, were calculated and analyzed using Fragstats 3.3. We found that: (1) at the class level, all the metrics with SD method were evened and did not show an obvious trend along with the process of urbanization, while the R method could. (2) While at the landscape level, 6 of the 14 metrics remains the similar trends, 5 were different at local turn points of the curve, 3 of them differed completely in the shape of curves. (3) When examined with visual interpretation, SD method tended to exaggerate urban heat island effects than the R method

Bayesian statistical inference

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bruno De Finetti

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This work was translated into English and published in the volume: Bruno De Finetti, Induction and Probability, Biblioteca di Statistica, eds. P. Monari, D. Cocchi, Clueb, Bologna, 1993.Bayesian statistical Inference is one of the last fundamental philosophical papers in which we can find the essential De Finetti's approach to the statistical inference.

Is there a hierarchy of social inferences? The likelihood and speed of inferring intentionality, mind, and personality.

Science.gov (United States)

Malle, Bertram F; Holbrook, Jess

2012-04-01

People interpret behavior by making inferences about agents' intentionality, mind, and personality. Past research studied such inferences 1 at a time; in real life, people make these inferences simultaneously. The present studies therefore examined whether 4 major inferences (intentionality, desire, belief, and personality), elicited simultaneously in response to an observed behavior, might be ordered in a hierarchy of likelihood and speed. To achieve generalizability, the studies included a wide range of stimulus behaviors, presented them verbally and as dynamic videos, and assessed inferences both in a retrieval paradigm (measuring the likelihood and speed of accessing inferences immediately after they were made) and in an online processing paradigm (measuring the speed of forming inferences during behavior observation). Five studies provide evidence for a hierarchy of social inferences-from intentionality and desire to belief to personality-that is stable across verbal and visual presentations and that parallels the order found in developmental and primate research. (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

The Development of the Sacred Landscape of Saqqara in the Old Kingdom

Science.gov (United States)

Magli, Giulio

2015-05-01

Saqqara is one of the most important Necropolis in Egypt. In the course of the third millennium BC many Pharaohs choose Saqqara for their tombs. As a consequence the landscape constantly grew with the addition of new monuments, from the mastaba tombs of the first dynasty to the last pyramid of the Old Kingdom, that of Pepi II. The monuments were constructed respecting a series of topographical constraints which are not due to the morphology of the area but rather reflect symbolic - dynastic or astronomical - motivations. The analysis of these connections gives a better understanding of the choices made by the kings' architects in order to keep Maat - order - in the development of the site. Further, the way in which the sacred landscape came to be structured at the end of the Old Kingdom allows us to formulate a proposal for the possible location of the unique pyramid of the sixth dynasty which is still to be found: that of Userkare.

Characterization of potential fire regimes: applying landscape ecology to fire management in Mexico

Science.gov (United States)

Jardel, E.; Alvarado, E.; Perez-Salicrup, D.; Morfín-Rios, J.

2013-05-01

Knowledge and understanding of fire regimes is fundamental to design sound fire management practices. The high ecosystem diversity of Mexico offers a great challenge to characterize the fire regime variation at the landscape level. A conceptual model was developed considering the main factors controlling fire regimes: climate and vegetation cover. We classified landscape units combining bioclimatic zones from the Holdridge life-zone system and actual vegetation cover. Since bioclimatic conditions control primary productivity and biomass accumulation (potential fuel), each landscape unit was considered as a fuel bed with a particular fire intensity and behavior potential. Climate is also a determinant factor of post-fire recovery rates of fuel beds, and climate seasonality (length of the dry and wet seasons) influences fire probability (available fuel and ignition efficiency). These two factors influence potential fire frequency. Potential fire severity can be inferred from fire frequency, fire intensity and behavior, and vegetation composition and structure. Based in the conceptual model, an exhaustive literature review and expert opinion, we developed rules to assign a potential fire regime (PFR) defined by frequency, intensity and severity (i.e. fire regime) to each bioclimatic-vegetation landscape unit. Three groups and eight types of potential fire regimes were identified. In Group A are fire-prone ecosystems with frequent low severity surface fires in grasslands (PFR type I) or forests with long dry season (II) and infrequent high-severity fires in chaparral (III), wet temperate forests (IV, fire restricted by humidity), and dry temperate forests (V, fire restricted by fuel recovery rate). Group B includes fire-reluctant ecosystems with very infrequent or occasional mixed severity surface fires limited by moisture in tropical rain forests (VI) or fuel availability in seasonally dry tropical forests (VII). Group C and PFR VIII include fire-free environments

INFERENCE BUILDING BLOCKS

Science.gov (United States)

2018-02-15

expressed a variety of inference techniques on discrete and continuous distributions: exact inference, importance sampling, Metropolis-Hastings (MH...without redoing any math or rewriting any code. And although our main goal is composable reuse, our performance is also good because we can use...control paths. • The Hakaru language can express mixtures of discrete and continuous distributions, but the current disintegration transformation

Practical Bayesian Inference

Science.gov (United States)

Bailer-Jones, Coryn A. L.

2017-04-01

Preface; 1. Probability basics; 2. Estimation and uncertainty; 3. Statistical models and inference; 4. Linear models, least squares, and maximum likelihood; 5. Parameter estimation: single parameter; 6. Parameter estimation: multiple parameters; 7. Approximating distributions; 8. Monte Carlo methods for inference; 9. Parameter estimation: Markov chain Monte Carlo; 10. Frequentist hypothesis testing; 11. Model comparison; 12. Dealing with more complicated problems; References; Index.

Terrestrial-style feeding in a very early aquatic tetrapod is supported by evidence from experimental analysis of suture morphology.

Science.gov (United States)

Markey, Molly J; Marshall, Charles R

2007-04-24

There is no consensus on when in the fish-tetrapod transition suction feeding, the primary method of prey capture in the aquatic realm, evolved into the direct biting on prey typical of terrestrial animals. Here, we show that differences in the morphology of selected cranial sutures between species that span the fish-tetrapod transition (the Devonian osteolepiform fish Eusthenopteron, the aquatic Devonian tetrapod Acanthostega, and the Permian terrestrial tetrapod Phonerpeton) can be used to infer when terrestrial feeding first appeared. Our approach consists of defining a sutural morphospace, assigning functional fields to that morphospace based on our previous measurements of suture function made during feeding in the living fish Polypterus, inferring the functions of the fossil sutures based on where they fall in the morphospace, and then using the correlation between feeding mode and the patterns of inferred suture function across the skull roof in taxa where feeding mode is unambiguous to infer the feeding mode practiced by Acanthostega. Using this procedure, we find that the suture morphologies of Acanthostega are inconsistent with the hypothesis that it captured prey primarily by means of suction, which suggests that it may have bitten directly on prey at or near the water's edge. Thus, our data strongly support the hypothesis that the terrestrial mode of feeding first emerged in aquatic taxa.

Titan Polar Landscape Evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Jeffrey M.

2016-01-01

With the ongoing Cassini-era observations and studies of Titan it is clear that the intensity and distribution of surface processes (particularly fluvial erosion by methane and Aeolian transport) has changed through time. Currently however, alternate hypotheses substantially differ among specific scenarios with respect to the effects of atmospheric evolution, seasonal changes, and endogenic processes. We have studied the evolution of Titan's polar region through a combination of analysis of imaging, elevation data, and geomorphic mapping, spatially explicit simulations of landform evolution, and quantitative comparison of the simulated landscapes with corresponding Titan morphology. We have quantitatively evaluated alternate scenarios for the landform evolution of Titan's polar terrain. The investigations have been guided by recent geomorphic mapping and topographic characterization of the polar regions that are used to frame hypotheses of process interactions, which have been evaluated using simulation modeling. Topographic information about Titan's polar region is be based on SAR-Topography and altimetry archived on PDS, SAR-based stereo radar-grammetry, radar-sounding lake depth measurements, and superposition relationships between geomorphologic map units, which we will use to create a generalized topographic map.

Landscape Ecology and problems of European cultural landscapes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brandt, Jesper

2011-01-01

by practical problems of European cultural – especial agricultural – landscapes since the rise of the environmental movement. Central themes have been the consequences of technological and structural changes within European agriculture for the landscape and the development of habitats and dispersal...... Problemstellungen basieren auf multifunktionalen Nutzungskonzepten ruraler Landschaften, besonders im Hinblick auf Suburbanisierungsprozesse. Eine Anzahl untereinander vergleichbarer Projekte, mit parallelen bis ähnlichen Ausprägungen innerhalb Dänemarks und weiteerer europäischer Länder, werden exemplarisch...

Driftcretions: The legacy impacts of driftwood on shoreline morphology

Science.gov (United States)

Kramer, Natalie; Wohl, Ellen

2015-07-01

This research demonstrates how vegetation interacts with physical processes to govern landscape development. We quantify and describe interactions among driftwood, sedimentation, and vegetation for Great Slave Lake, which is used as proxy for shoreline dynamics and landforms before deforestation and wood removal along major waterways. We introduce driftcretion to describe large, persistent concentrations of driftwood that interact with vegetation and sedimentation to influence shoreline evolution. We report the volume and distribution of driftwood along shorelines, the morphological impacts of driftwood delivery throughout the Holocene, and rates of driftwood accretion. Driftcretions facilitate the formation of complex, diverse morphologies that increase biological productivity and organic carbon capture and buffer against erosion. Driftcretions should be common on shorelines receiving a large wood supply and with processes which store wood permanently. We encourage others to work in these depositional zones to understand the physical and biological impacts of large wood export from river basins.

Landscape Builder: Software for the creation of initial landscapes for LANDIS from FIA data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

William Dijak

2013-06-01

Full Text Available I developed Landscape Builder to create spatially explicit landscapes as starting conditions for LANDIS Pro 7.0 and LANDIS II landscape forest simulation models from classified satellite imagery and Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA data collected over multiple years. LANDIS Pro and LANDIS II models project future landscapes by simulating tree growth, tree species succession, disease, insects, fire, wind, and management disturbance. Landscape Builder uses inventory plot attributes from the FIA inventory database, FIA unit map, National Forest type map, National Forest size class map, land cover map, and landform map to assign FIA plot attributes to raster pixels representing a real forest landscape. In addition to creating a detailed map of current (initial forest landscape conditions, the software produces specific files required for use in LANDIS Pro 7.0 or LANDIS II format. Other tools include the ability to create a dominant species and age-class map from previously created LANDIS maps, a tool to create a dominant species and age-class map from a stand map and field plot data, and a tool to convert between Esri ascii rasters and Erdas file format types.

Sustaining ecosystem services in cultural landscapes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tobias Plieninger

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Classical conservation approaches focus on the man-made degradation of ecosystems and tend to neglect the social-ecological values that human land uses have imprinted on many environments. Throughout the world, ingenious land-use practices have generated unique cultural landscapes, but these are under pressure from agricultural intensification, land abandonment, and urbanization. In recent years, the cultural landscapes concept has been broadly adopted in science, policy, and management. The interest in both outstanding and vernacular landscapes finds expression in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, the European Landscape Convention, and the IUCN Protected Landscape Approach. These policies promote the protection, management, planning, and governance of cultural landscapes. The ecosystem services approach is a powerful framework to guide such efforts, but has rarely been applied in landscape research and management. With this paper, we introduce a special feature that aims to enhance the theoretical, empirical and practical knowledge of how to safeguard the resilience of ecosystem services in cultural landscapes. It concludes (1 that the usefulness of the ecosystem services approach to the analysis and management of cultural landscapes should be reviewed more critically; (2 that conventional ecosystem services assessment needs to be complemented by socio-cultural valuation; (3 that cultural landscapes are inherently changing, so that a dynamic view on ecosystem services and a focus on drivers of landscape change are needed; and (4 that managing landscapes for ecosystem services provision may benefit from a social-ecological resilience perspective.

Influence of urban form on landscape pattern and connectivity in metropolitan regions: a comparative case study of Phoenix, AZ, USA, and Izmir, Turkey.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Sohyun; Hepcan, Çiğdem C; Hepcan, Şerif; Cook, Edward A

2014-10-01

Although ecological connectivity conservation in urban areas has recently been recognized as an important issue, less is known about its relationship to urban form and landscape pattern. This study investigates how urban morphology influences regional ecosystem pattern and landscape connectivity. Two metropolitan landscapes, Phoenix, AZ, USA, and Izmir, Turkey, were compared, both of which are fast-growing regions in their national context. A wide range of variables were considered for identifying natural and urban properties. The natural characteristics include typology of urban ecosystems, urban to natural cover ratio, dominant habitat type, urban biodiversity, landscape context, and connectivity conservation efforts. Urban parameters examine urban form, urban extent, urban cover proportion, growth rate, populations, urban gradient, major drivers of urbanization, urban density, and mode/approach of urban development. Twelve landscape metrics were measured and compared across the natural patches. Results show that there is little difference in landscape connectivity in the rural zones of Phoenix and Izmir, although Phoenix has slightly higher connectivity values. The connectivity variance in urbanized areas, however, is significantly dependent on the region. For example, Phoenix urban zones have substantially lower connectivity than either urban or suburban zones in Izmir. Findings demonstrate that small and compact urban settlements with more dense populations are more likely to conserve landscape connectivity compared to multiple-concentric but amalgamated urban form spreading all over the landscape (aka urban sprawl).

Paternity analysis of pollen-mediated gene flow for Fraxinus excelsior L. in a chronically fragmented landscape.

Science.gov (United States)

Bacles, C F E; Ennos, R A

2008-10-01

Paternity analysis based on microsatellite marker genotyping was used to infer contemporary genetic connectivity by pollen of three population remnants of the wind-pollinated, wind-dispersed tree Fraxinus excelsior, in a deforested Scottish landscape. By deterministically accounting for genotyping error and comparing a range of assignment methods, individual-based paternity assignments were used to derive population-level estimates of gene flow. Pollen immigration into a 300 ha landscape represents between 43 and 68% of effective pollination, mostly depending on assignment method. Individual male reproductive success is unequal, with 31 of 48 trees fertilizing one seed or more, but only three trees fertilizing more than ten seeds. Spatial analysis suggests a fat-tailed pollen dispersal curve with 85% of detected pollination occurring within 100 m, and 15% spreading between 300 and 1900 m from the source. Identification of immigrating pollen sourced from two neighbouring remnants indicates further effective dispersal at 2900 m. Pollen exchange among remnants is driven by population size rather than geographic distance, with larger remnants acting predominantly as pollen donors, and smaller remnants as pollen recipients. Enhanced wind dispersal of pollen in a barren landscape ensures that the seed produced within the catchment includes genetic material from a wide geographic area. However, gene flow estimates based on analysis of non-dispersed seeds were shown to underestimate realized gene immigration into the remnants by a factor of two suggesting that predictive landscape conservation requires integrated estimates of post-recruitment gene flow occurring via both pollen and seed.

Electromagnetic Landscape

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cermak, Daniel; Okutsu, Ayaka; Jørgensen, Stina Marie Hasse

2015-01-01

Daniel Cermak-Sassenrath, Ayaka Okutsu, Stina Hasse. Electromagnetic Landscape - In-between Signal, Noise and Environment. Installation and artist talk. 21th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) 2015, Vancouver, CAN, Aug 14-18, 2015.......Daniel Cermak-Sassenrath, Ayaka Okutsu, Stina Hasse. Electromagnetic Landscape - In-between Signal, Noise and Environment. Installation and artist talk. 21th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) 2015, Vancouver, CAN, Aug 14-18, 2015....

Landscape and zonal features of the formation of producing economy in Russia

Science.gov (United States)

Nizovtsev, Vyacheslav; Natalia, Erman

2016-04-01

settlement in the forest and steppe zones of the Iron Age tribes, which had a complex cattle-breeding and agricultural economy. Irreversible changes captured many of the components, including soils and lithogenic basis, of the landscapes. In the morphological structure of the landscapes there appear new permanent stable elements of anthropogenic origin: residential and arable, many of which have survived to this day. The work is performed under the project of Russian Foundation for Basic Research № 14-05-00618

Logical inference and evaluation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perey, F.G.

1981-01-01

Most methodologies of evaluation currently used are based upon the theory of statistical inference. It is generally perceived that this theory is not capable of dealing satisfactorily with what are called systematic errors. Theories of logical inference should be capable of treating all of the information available, including that not involving frequency data. A theory of logical inference is presented as an extension of deductive logic via the concept of plausibility and the application of group theory. Some conclusions, based upon the application of this theory to evaluation of data, are also given

Integrated landscape initiatives in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

García-Martín, María; Bieling, Claudia; Hart, Abigail

2016-01-01

Landscapes are linked to human well-being in a multitude of ways, some of which are challenged by global market forces and traditional management approaches. In response to this situation there has been a rise in local initiatives to sustain the values of landscape. The aim of this paper is to pr......Landscapes are linked to human well-being in a multitude of ways, some of which are challenged by global market forces and traditional management approaches. In response to this situation there has been a rise in local initiatives to sustain the values of landscape. The aim of this paper...... searches and canvassing of European umbrella organisations; followed by an online survey of representatives from the identified initiatives (n??=??71). Our results show that the most relevant characteristics of integrated landscape initiatives in Europe are: a holistic approach to landscape management...

Sustainable pest regulation in agricultural landscapes: a review on landscape composition, biodiversity and natural pest control.

Science.gov (United States)

Bianchi, F J J A; Booij, C J H; Tscharntke, T

2006-07-22

Agricultural intensification has resulted in a simplification of agricultural landscapes by the expansion of agricultural land, enlargement of field size and removal of non-crop habitat. These changes are considered to be an important cause of the rapid decline in farmland biodiversity, with the remaining biodiversity concentrated in field edges and non-crop habitats. The simplification of landscape composition and the decline of biodiversity may affect the functioning of natural pest control because non-crop habitats provide requisites for a broad spectrum of natural enemies, and the exchange of natural enemies between crop and non-crop habitats is likely to be diminished in landscapes dominated by arable cropland. In this review, we test the hypothesis that natural pest control is enhanced in complex patchy landscapes with a high proportion of non-crop habitats as compared to simple large-scale landscapes with little associated non-crop habitat. In 74% and 45% of the studies reviewed, respectively, natural enemy populations were higher and pest pressure lower in complex landscapes versus simple landscapes. Landscape-driven pest suppression may result in lower crop injury, although this has rarely been documented. Enhanced natural enemy activity was associated with herbaceous habitats in 80% of the cases (e.g. fallows, field margins), and somewhat less often with wooded habitats (71%) and landscape patchiness (70%). The similar contributions of these landscape factors suggest that all are equally important in enhancing natural enemy populations. We conclude that diversified landscapes hold most potential for the conservation of biodiversity and sustaining the pest control function.

Bipolarity and Ambivalence in Landscape Architecture

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koh, J.

2010-01-01

Our discipline of landscape architecture contains bipolarity, not only in terms of landscape and architecture but also because the idea of landscape is both aesthetic and scientific. Furthermore, within landscape architecture there is a gap between design (as implied by architecture) and planning

Landscape and landscape ecology as factors in the process of integrated spatial management

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brandt, Jesper

2009-01-01

Congress on Landscape Ecology in Veldhoven in 1981 (Tjallingii and De Veer 1981).Natural landscapes and landscape aspects of nature conservation was certainly a theme on the conference, but the main focus was on man-made landscapes, including urban ecology and the relations between urban and rural...... were very eager to be engaged in practical landscape planning, their scientific responsibility forced them often to be more and more humble concerning the applicability, often confronted with the economic consequences of their advises. As a consequence especially many biologists moved again into pure...... told, that the local farm cooperative had got a loan from the Ministry of Agriculture to cover the expenditures. Due to the experimental character of the project the loan was very attractive: It was free of rent and payment. But one important condition was added: It had to be proved that the corridor...

The Morphologies and Alignments of Gas, Mass, and the Central Galaxies of CLASH Clusters of Galaxies

Science.gov (United States)

Donahue, Megan; Ettori, Stefano; Rasia, Elena; Sayers, Jack; Zitrin, Adi; Meneghetti, Massimo; Voit, G. Mark; Golwala, Sunil; Czakon, Nicole; Yepes, Gustavo; Baldi, Alessandro; Koekemoer, Anton; Postman, Marc

2016-03-01

Morphology is often used to infer the state of relaxation of galaxy clusters. The regularity, symmetry, and degree to which a cluster is centrally concentrated inform quantitative measures of cluster morphology. The Cluster Lensing and Supernova survey with Hubble Space Telescope (CLASH) used weak and strong lensing to measure the distribution of matter within a sample of 25 clusters, 20 of which were deemed to be “relaxed” based on their X-ray morphology and alignment of the X-ray emission with the Brightest Cluster Galaxy. Toward a quantitative characterization of this important sample of clusters, we present uniformly estimated X-ray morphological statistics for all 25 CLASH clusters. We compare X-ray morphologies of CLASH clusters with those identically measured for a large sample of simulated clusters from the MUSIC-2 simulations, selected by mass. We confirm a threshold in X-ray surface brightness concentration of C ≳ 0.4 for cool-core clusters, where C is the ratio of X-ray emission inside 100 h70-1 kpc compared to inside 500 {h}70-1 kpc. We report and compare morphologies of these clusters inferred from Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect (SZE) maps of the hot gas and in from projected mass maps based on strong and weak lensing. We find a strong agreement in alignments of the orientation of major axes for the lensing, X-ray, and SZE maps of nearly all of the CLASH clusters at radii of 500 kpc (approximately 1/2 R500 for these clusters). We also find a striking alignment of clusters shapes at the 500 kpc scale, as measured with X-ray, SZE, and lensing, with that of the near-infrared stellar light at 10 kpc scales for the 20 “relaxed” clusters. This strong alignment indicates a powerful coupling between the cluster- and galaxy-scale galaxy formation processes.

Environmental research programme. Ecological research. Annual report 1994. Urban-industrial landscapes, forests, agricultural landscapes, river and lake landscapes, terrestrial ecosystem research, environmental pollution and health

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1995-01-01

In the annual report 1994 of the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology, the points of emphasis of the ecological research programme and their financing are discussed. The individual projects in the following subject areas are described in detail: urban-industrial landscapes, forests, agricultural landscapes, river and lake landscapes, other ecosystems and landscapes, terrestrial ecosystem research, environmental pollution and human health and cross-sectional activities in ecological research. (vhe) [de

Are Boreal Ovenbirds, Seiurus aurocapilla, More Prone to Move across Inhospitable Landscapes in Alberta's Boreal Mixedwood Forest than in Southern Québec's Temperate Deciduous Forest?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marc Bélisle

2007-12-01

Full Text Available Population life-history traits such as the propensity to move across inhospitable landscapes should be shaped by exposure to landscape structure over evolutionary time. Thus, birds that recently evolved in landscapes fragmented by natural disturbances such as fire would be expected to show greater behavioral and morphological vagility relative to conspecifics that evolved under less patchy landscapes shaped by fewer and finer-scaled disturbances, i.e., the resilience hypothesis. These predictions are not new, but they remain largely untested, even for well-studied taxa such as neotropical migrant birds. We combined two experimental translocation, i.e., homing, studies to test whether Ovenbird, Seiurus aurocapilla, from the historically dynamic boreal mixedwood forest of north-central Alberta (n = 55 is more vagile than Ovenbird from historically less dynamic deciduous forest of southern Québec (n = 89. We found no regional difference in either wing loading or the response of homing Ovenbird to landscape structure. Nevertheless, this study presents a heuristic framework that can advance the understanding of boreal landscape dynamics as an evolutionary force.

Energy landscapes in a crowded world

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pasqualetti, Martin; Stremke, Sven

2018-01-01

One of the main drivers of landscape transformation has been our demand for energy. We refer to the results of such transformations as "energy landscapes". This paper examines the definition of energy landscapes within a conceptual framework, proposes a classification of energy landscapes, and

[Landscape classification: research progress and development trend].

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Fa-Chao; Liu, Li-Ming

2011-06-01

Landscape classification is the basis of the researches on landscape structure, process, and function, and also, the prerequisite for landscape evaluation, planning, protection, and management, directly affecting the precision and practicability of landscape research. This paper reviewed the research progress on the landscape classification system, theory, and methodology, and summarized the key problems and deficiencies of current researches. Some major landscape classification systems, e. g. , LANMAP and MUFIC, were introduced and discussed. It was suggested that a qualitative and quantitative comprehensive classification based on the ideology of functional structure shape and on the integral consideration of landscape classification utility, landscape function, landscape structure, physiogeographical factors, and human disturbance intensity should be the major research directions in the future. The integration of mapping, 3S technology, quantitative mathematics modeling, computer artificial intelligence, and professional knowledge to enhance the precision of landscape classification would be the key issues and the development trend in the researches of landscape classification.

Trends in landscape research and landscape planning : implications for PhD students

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tress, G.; Tress, B.; Fry, G.; Antrop, M.

2005-01-01

This chapter introduces the contents of the book through an analysis of current trends in landscape research and landscape planning and a discussion of the consequences of these trends for PhD students.

Effects of habitat composition and landscape structure on worker foraging distances of five bumble bee species.

Science.gov (United States)

Redhead, John W; Dreier, Stephanie; Bourke, Andrew F G; Heard, Matthew S; Jordan, William C; Sumner, Seirian; Wang, Jinliang; Carvell, Claire

2016-04-01

Bumble bees (Bombus spp.) are important pollinators of both crops and wildflowers. Their contribution to this essential ecosystem service has been threatened over recent decades by changes in land use, which have led to declines in their populations. In order to design effective conservation measures, it is important to understand the effects of variation in landscape composition and structure on the foraging activities of worker bumble bees. This is because the viability of individual colonies is likely to be affected by the trade-off between the energetic costs of foraging over greater distances and the potential gains from access to additional resources. We used field surveys, molecular genetics, and fine resolution remote sensing to estimate the locations of wild bumble bee nests and to infer foraging distances across a 20-km² agricultural landscape in southern England, UK. We investigated five species, including the rare B. ruderatus and ecologically similar but widespread B. hortorum. We compared worker foraging distances between species and examined how variation in landscape composition and structure affected foraging distances at the colony level. Mean worker foraging distances differed significantly between species. Bombus terrestris, B. lapidarius, and B. ruderatus exhibited significantly greater mean foraging distances (551, 536, and 501 m, respectively) than B. hortorum and B. pascuorum (336 and 272 m, respectively). There was wide variation in worker foraging distances between colonies of the same species, which was in turn strongly influenced by the amount and spatial configuration of available foraging habitats. Shorter foraging distances were found for colonies where the local landscape had high coverage and low fragmentation of semi-natural vegetation, including managed agri-environmental field margins. The strength of relationships between different landscape variables and foraging distance varied between species, for example the strongest

Nordic Landscape

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hjortshøj, Rasmus

2017-01-01

This Box Set NORDIC LANDSCAPE presents Nordic Territories, a project by Rasmus Hjortshøj, exploring the man-made landscapes of the coastal territories and the entanglement of society and nature in times where it is no longer merely mankind subjected to nature, but where nature is equally being...... territories is not only their transient nature, but also the warm currents of the Gulf Stream making these northern shorelines habitable for human settlements....

Inference

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Møller, Jesper

(This text written by Jesper Møller, Aalborg University, is submitted for the collection ‘Stochastic Geometry: Highlights, Interactions and New Perspectives', edited by Wilfrid S. Kendall and Ilya Molchanov, to be published by ClarendonPress, Oxford, and planned to appear as Section 4.1 with the ......(This text written by Jesper Møller, Aalborg University, is submitted for the collection ‘Stochastic Geometry: Highlights, Interactions and New Perspectives', edited by Wilfrid S. Kendall and Ilya Molchanov, to be published by ClarendonPress, Oxford, and planned to appear as Section 4.......1 with the title ‘Inference'.) This contribution concerns statistical inference for parametric models used in stochastic geometry and based on quick and simple simulation free procedures as well as more comprehensive methods using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulations. Due to space limitations the focus...

Exploring the visual landscape : advances in physiognomic landscape research in the Netherlands

OpenAIRE

Nijhuis, S.; Lammeren, van, R.J.A.; Hoeven, van der, F.

2011-01-01

The book is the second volume in the Research in Urbanism Series of IOS Press and is about the combination of landscape research and planning, visual perception and Geographic Information Science. It offers clues for visual landscape assessment of spaces in cities, parks and rural areas. In that respect, it extends the long tradition in the Netherlands on physiognomic landscape research and shows the state of the art at this moment. ‘Exploring the Visual Landscape’ offers important clues for ...

Landscape anthropogenic disturbance in the Mediterranean ecosystem: is the current landscape sustainable?

Science.gov (United States)

Biondi, Guido; D'Andrea, Mirko; Fiorucci, Paolo; Franciosi, Chiara; Lima, Marco

2013-04-01

Mediterranean landscape during the last centuries has been subject to strong anthropogenic disturbances who shifted natural vegetation cover in a cultural landscape. Most of the natural forest were destroyed in order to allow cultivation and grazing activities. In the last century, fast growing conifer plantations were introduced in order to increase timber production replacing slow growing natural forests. In addition, after the Second World War most of the grazing areas were changed in unmanaged mediterranean conifer forest frequently spread by fires. In the last decades radical socio economic changes lead to a dramatic abandonment of the cultural landscape. One of the most relevant result of these human disturbances, and in particular the replacement of deciduous forests with coniferous forests, has been the increasing in the number of forest fires, mainly human caused. The presence of conifers and shrubs, more prone to fire, triggered a feedback mechanism that makes difficult to return to the stage of potential vegetation causing huge economic, social and environmental damages. The aim of this work is to investigate the sustainability of the current landscape. A future landscape scenario has been simulated considering the natural succession in absence of human intervention assuming the current fire regime will be unaltered. To this end, a new model has been defined, implementing an ecological succession model coupled with a simply Forest Fire Model. The ecological succession model simulates the vegetation dynamics using a rule-based approach discrete in space and time. In this model Plant Functional Types (PFTs) are used to describe the landscape. Wildfires are randomly ignited on the landscape, and their propagation is simulated using a stochastic cellular automata model. The results show that the success of the natural succession toward a potential vegetation cover is prevented by the frequency of fire spreading. The actual landscape is then unsustainable

Editorial: Mapping the Intellectual Landscape of Landscape and Urban Planning

Science.gov (United States)

Paul H. Gobster; Wei-Ning. Xiang

2012-01-01

Maps are central to our understanding of landscapes. When this Editorship began to revise the journal's Aims and Scope for presentation in a forthcoming editorial, we sought ways in which we could identify the core knowledge base and boundaries, however permeable, of what the journal community considers to be Landscape and Urban Planning (LAND). Strategically, we...

Identifying the characteristic of SundaParahiyangan landscape for a model of sustainable agricultural landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Dahlan, M. Z.; Nurhayati, H. S. A.; Mugnisjah, W. Q.

2017-10-01

This study was an explorative study of the various forms of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of Sundanese people in the context of sustainable agriculture. The qualitative method was used to identify SundaParahiyangan landscape by using Rapid Participatory Rural Appraisal throughsemi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and field survey. The Landscape Characteristic Assessment and Community Sustainability Assessment were used to analyze the characteristic of landscape to achieve the sustainable agricultural landscape criteria proposed by US Department of Agriculture. The results revealed that the SundaParahiyangan agricultural landscape has a unique characteristic as a result of the long-term adaptation of agricultural society to theirlandscape through a learning process for generations. In general, this character was reflected in the typical of Sundanese’s agroecosystems such as forest garden, mixed garden, paddy field, and home garden. In addition, concept of kabuyutan is one of the TEKs related to understanding and utilization of landscape has been adapted on revitalizing the role of landscape surrounding the agroecosystem as the buffer zone by calculating and designating protected areas. To support the sustainability of production area, integrated practices of agroforestry with low-external-input and sustainable agriculture (LEISA) system can be applied in utilizing and managing agricultural resources.

Lower complexity bounds for lifted inference

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jaeger, Manfred

2015-01-01

instances of the model. Numerous approaches for such “lifted inference” techniques have been proposed. While it has been demonstrated that these techniques will lead to significantly more efficient inference on some specific models, there are only very recent and still quite restricted results that show...... the feasibility of lifted inference on certain syntactically defined classes of models. Lower complexity bounds that imply some limitations for the feasibility of lifted inference on more expressive model classes were established earlier in Jaeger (2000; Jaeger, M. 2000. On the complexity of inference about...... that under the assumption that NETIME≠ETIME, there is no polynomial lifted inference algorithm for knowledge bases of weighted, quantifier-, and function-free formulas. Further strengthening earlier results, this is also shown to hold for approximate inference and for knowledge bases not containing...

Filtering mountain landscapes and hydrology through sediment transport

Science.gov (United States)

Phillips, C. B.; Jerolmack, D. J.

2013-12-01

*-U*c) suggests that the distribution is well defined by a single characteristic value, which validates long-term landscape evolution models' treatment of the variable fluid stress with an intermittency factor times the channel formative stress. The PDF of I* has a well defined peak coincident with the flood of maximum geomorphic work, indicating that particle motion and channel geometry are adjusted to near-threshold conditions determined by the integrated momentum of the characteristic flood. We test the generality of these observations using a compilation of hydrological and morphological data from across the United States. We utilize USGS stream data for gravel and bedrock rivers where the threshold of motion and channel geometry are known. This compilation shows that frequency magnitude distributions of (U*-U*c) in these threshold streams are all thin tailed, i.e., have a convergent mean value - even though flood recurrence plots for discharge are power law. Channels display morphological breaks coincident with the flood of maximum geomorphic work, indicating that the threshold of particle motion acts as a strong filter on hydrology. Data indicate that gravel and bedrock channels generally have a dominant flood - despite strong hydrologic variability - and maintain characteristic geometries associated with near-threshold transport during this flood.

Morphological homoplasy, life history evolution, and historical biogeography of plethodontid salamanders inferred from complete mitochondrial genomes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mueller, Rachel Lockridge; Macey, J. Robert; Jaekel, Martin; Wake, David B.; Boore, Jeffrey L.

2004-08-01

The evolutionary history of the largest salamander family (Plethodontidae) is characterized by extreme morphological homoplasy. Analysis of the mechanisms generating such homoplasy requires an independent, molecular phylogeny. To this end, we sequenced 24 complete mitochondrial genomes (22 plethodontids and two outgroup taxa), added data for three species from GenBank, and performed partitioned and unpartitioned Bayesian, ML, and MP phylogenetic analyses. We explored four dataset partitioning strategies to account for evolutionary process heterogeneity among genes and codon positions, all of which yielded increased model likelihoods and decreased numbers of supported nodes in the topologies (PP > 0.95) relative to the unpartitioned analysis. Our phylogenetic analyses yielded congruent trees that contrast with the traditional morphology-based taxonomy; the monophyly of three out of four major groups is rejected. Reanalysis of current hypotheses in light of these new evolutionary relationships suggests that (1) a larval life history stage re-evolved from a direct-developing ancestor multiple times, (2) there is no phylogenetic support for the ''Out of Appalachia'' hypothesis of plethodontid origins, and (3) novel scenarios must be reconstructed for the convergent evolution of projectile tongues, reduction in toe number, and specialization for defensive tail loss. Some of these novel scenarios imply morphological transformation series that proceed in the opposite direction than was previously thought. In addition, they suggest surprising evolutionary lability in traits previously interpreted to be conservative.

Self-organization in irregular landscapes: Detecting autogenic interactions from field data using descriptive statistics and dynamical systems theory

Science.gov (United States)

Larsen, L.; Watts, D.; Khurana, A.; Anderson, J. L.; Xu, C.; Merritts, D. J.

2015-12-01

The classic signal of self-organization in nature is pattern formation. However, the interactions and feedbacks that organize depositional landscapes do not always result in regular or fractal patterns. How might we detect their existence and effects in these "irregular" landscapes? Emergent landscapes such as newly forming deltaic marshes or some restoration sites provide opportunities to study the autogenic processes that organize landscapes and their physical signatures. Here we describe a quest to understand autogenic vs. allogenic controls on landscape evolution in Big Spring Run, PA, a landscape undergoing restoration from bare-soil conditions to a target wet meadow landscape. The contemporary motivation for asking questions about autogenic vs. allogenic controls is to evaluate how important initial conditions or environmental controls may be for the attainment of management objectives. However, these questions can also inform interpretation of the sedimentary record by enabling researchers to separate signals that may have arisen through self-organization processes from those resulting from environmental perturbations. Over three years at Big Spring Run, we mapped the dynamic evolution of floodplain vegetation communities and distributions of abiotic variables and topography. We used principal component analysis and transition probability analysis to detect associative interactions between vegetation and geomorphic variables and convergent cross-mapping on lidar data to detect causal interactions between biomass and topography. Exploratory statistics revealed that plant communities with distinct morphologies exerted control on landscape evolution through stress divergence (i.e., channel initiation) and promoting the accumulation of fine sediment in channels. Together, these communities participated in a negative feedback that maintains low energy and multiple channels. Because of the spatially explicit nature of this feedback, causal interactions could not

Variations on Bayesian Prediction and Inference

Science.gov (United States)

2016-05-09

inference 2.2.1 Background There are a number of statistical inference problems that are not generally formulated via a full probability model...problem of inference about an unknown parameter, the Bayesian approach requires a full probability 1. REPORT DATE (DD-MM-YYYY) 4. TITLE AND...the problem of inference about an unknown parameter, the Bayesian approach requires a full probability model/likelihood which can be an obstacle

Quantitative analyses of empirical fitness landscapes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Szendro, Ivan G; Franke, Jasper; Krug, Joachim; Schenk, Martijn F; De Visser, J Arjan G M

2013-01-01

The concept of a fitness landscape is a powerful metaphor that offers insight into various aspects of evolutionary processes and guidance for the study of evolution. Until recently, empirical evidence on the ruggedness of these landscapes was lacking, but since it became feasible to construct all possible genotypes containing combinations of a limited set of mutations, the number of studies has grown to a point where a classification of landscapes becomes possible. The aim of this review is to identify measures of epistasis that allow a meaningful comparison of fitness landscapes and then apply them to the empirical landscapes in order to discern factors that affect ruggedness. The various measures of epistasis that have been proposed in the literature appear to be equivalent. Our comparison shows that the ruggedness of the empirical landscape is affected by whether the included mutations are beneficial or deleterious and by whether intragenic or intergenic epistasis is involved. Finally, the empirical landscapes are compared to landscapes generated with the rough Mt Fuji model. Despite the simplicity of this model, it captures the features of the experimental landscapes remarkably well. (paper)

The Globalized Landscape: Rural Landscape Change and Policy in the United States and European Union

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nassauer, J.I.; Wascher, D.M.

2008-01-01

While some rural areas draw increasing populations to their landscape amenities and some are changed by the long reach of metropolitan sprawl, agriculture defines, and dominates rural landscapes. Amenity characteristics and ecological services of many rural landscapes occur in the context of

The study of the landscape: from a holistic approach to a social concept of knowledges

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Federica Badiali

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Three examples of the study and enhancement of the landscape in Italy are presented. The interdisciplinary approach to this topic is carried out not simply by juxtaposing disciplines, but by the integration of different ambits. In this way, disjunctive thought is substituted by a holistic approach that produces communication more appropriate to research. This offers the scientists a tool that is of paramount importance for their studies, and for ordinary citizens, a new way of considering the landscape. Example 1: Sustainable tourism and man–landscape relationships: Ecomuseum, Castello di Serravalle (Bologna. By studying the landscape of a hilly wine-producing area, it has been possible to observe the signs of reciprocal man–environment interactions that have characterized the area for over two millennia. For this reason, an Ecomuseum was founded, to provide an efficient tool for the enhancement of sustainable tourism, and also to popularize knowledge of local cultural heritage among the citizens. Example 2: Lago Bracciano near Montese (Modena: re-assessment of an Apennine area combining archeology, landscape and history. The landscape of areas containing historical settlements of local populations was reconstructed. This started with archeological and documentary data that had not yet been correlated, which was integrated with geological and geochemical data. In this way, a marginal tourism area has been improved by appraisal of its intrinsic cultural and historical values. Example 3: Geological elements and poetic trails in Frignano Park. This geological–literary itinerary starts from the assumption that there is a specific poetic and cultural value to the Modena Apennines that is linked to the morphological and geological features of this territory. Geology and literature become an accompaniment to a new pilgrimage of knowledge.

Quantifying landscape change in an arctic coastal lowland using repeat airborne LiDAR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jones, Benjamin M; Stoker, Jason M; Gibbs, Ann E; Richmond, Bruce M; Grosse, Guido; Romanovsky, Vladimir E; Douglas, Thomas A; Kinsman, Nicole E M

2013-01-01

Increases in air, permafrost, and sea surface temperature, loss of sea ice, the potential for increased wave energy, and higher river discharge may all be interacting to escalate erosion of arctic coastal lowland landscapes. Here we use airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data acquired in 2006 and 2010 to detect landscape change in a 100 km 2 study area on the Beaufort Sea coastal plain of northern Alaska. We detected statistically significant change (99% confidence interval), defined as contiguous areas (>10 m 2 ) that had changed in height by at least 0.55 m, in 0.3% of the study region. Erosional features indicative of ice-rich permafrost degradation were associated with ice-bonded coastal, river, and lake bluffs, frost mounds, ice wedges, and thermo-erosional gullies. These features accounted for about half of the area where vertical change was detected. Inferred thermo-denudation and thermo-abrasion of coastal and river bluffs likely accounted for the dominant permafrost-related degradational processes with respect to area (42%) and volume (51%). More than 300 thermokarst pits significantly subsided during the study period, likely as a result of storm surge flooding of low-lying tundra (<1.4 m asl) as well as the lasting impact of warm summers in the late-1980s and mid-1990s. Our results indicate that repeat airborne LiDAR can be used to detect landscape change in arctic coastal lowland regions at large spatial scales over sub-decadal time periods. (letter)

How Landscape Ecology Can Promote the Development of Sustainable Landscapes in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brandt, Jesper; Antrop, Marc; Ramos, Isabel Loupa

2013-01-01

related concepts. International cooperation demands a certain harmonization of these concepts for better mutual understanding. The 2000 European Landscape Convention provided an important momentum to rethink research, policy and management of landscapes from the perspective of sustainable development...

Cartography – morphology – topology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dinesen, Cort Ross; Peder Pedersen, Claus

I 2004 a Summer School was established on the Greek island of Hydra. The was to be the basis of research-based morphological and topological studies, which have since taken place for 4 weeks of every year. Starting with Hydra’s topography different ways of considering topology were developed....... The work was approached from a new angle every year through a series of associated questions, resulting in an extensive body of drawings describing the various discourses raised. The developed observational forms reflected in the collected body of drawings constitute a topological landscape with a great...... and developing topological emergence as a passage between cartographic appropriation and creative becoming while simultaneously lifting the material out of its mimetic reference, makes room for the of a movement towards a production of meaning as well as a basis for initiating architectonic practices. We seek...

Landscape resistance and habitat combine to provide an optimal model of genetic structure and connectivity at the range margin of a small mammal.

Science.gov (United States)

Marrotte, R R; Gonzalez, A; Millien, V

2014-08-01

We evaluated the effect of habitat and landscape characteristics on the population genetic structure of the white-footed mouse. We develop a new approach that uses numerical optimization to define a model that combines site differences and landscape resistance to explain the genetic differentiation between mouse populations inhabiting forest patches in southern Québec. We used ecological distance computed from resistance surfaces with Circuitscape to infer the effect of the landscape matrix on gene flow. We calculated site differences using a site index of habitat characteristics. A model that combined site differences and resistance distances explained a high proportion of the variance in genetic differentiation and outperformed models that used geographical distance alone. Urban and agriculture-related land uses were, respectively, the most and the least resistant landscape features influencing gene flow. Our method detected the effect of rivers and highways as highly resistant linear barriers. The density of grass and shrubs on the ground best explained the variation in the site index of habitat characteristics. Our model indicates that movement of white-footed mouse in this region is constrained along routes of low resistance. Our approach can generate models that may improve predictions of future northward range expansion of this small mammal. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Globalization and Landscape Architecture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robert R. Hewitt

2014-02-01

Full Text Available The literature review examines globalization and landscape architecture as discourse, samples its various meanings, and proposes methods to identify and contextualize its specific literature. Methodologically, the review surveys published articles and books by leading authors and within the WorldCat.org Database associated with landscape architecture and globalization, analyzing survey results for comprehensive conceptual and co-relational frameworks. Three “higher order” dimensions frame the review’s conceptual organization, facilitating the organization of subordinate/subtopical areas of interest useful for comparative analysis. Comparative analysis of the literature suggests an uneven clustering of discipline-related subject matter across the literature’s “higher order” dimensions, with a much smaller body of literature related to landscape architecture confined primarily to topics associated with the dispersion of global phenomena. A subcomponent of this smaller body of literature is associated with other fields of study, but inferentially related to landscape architecture. The review offers separate references and bibliographies for globalization literature in general and globalization and landscape architecture literature, specifically.

Contingent Diversity on Anthropic Landscapes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

William Balée

2010-02-01

Full Text Available Behaviorally modern human beings have lived in Amazonia for thousands of years. Significant dynamics in species turnovers due to human-mediated disturbance were associated with the ultimate emergence and expansion of agrarian technologies in prehistory. Such disturbances initiated primary and secondary landscape transformations in various locales of the Amazon region. Diversity in these locales can be understood by accepting the initial premise of contingency, expressed as unprecedented human agency and human history. These effects can be accessed through the archaeological record and in the study of living languages. In addition, landscape transformation can be demonstrated in the study of traditional knowledge (TK. One way of elucidating TK distinctions between anthropic and nonanthropic landscapes concerns elicitation of differential labeling of these landscapes and more significantly, elicitation of the specific contents, such as trees, occurring in these landscapes. Freelisting is a method which can be used to distinguish the differential species compositions of landscapes resulting from human-mediated disturbance vs. those which do not evince records of human agency and history. The TK of the Ka’apor Indians of Amazonian Brazil as revealed in freelisting exercises shows differentiation of anthropogenic from high forests as well as a recognition of diversity in the anthropogenic forests. This suggests that the agents of human-mediated disturbance and landscape transformation in traditional Amazonia encode diversity and contingency into their TK, which encoding reflects past cultural influence on landscape and society over time.

[Comparition of ecological security stress effects of artificial landscapes on natural landscapes in different rapid urban sprawl areas].

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Mei Xia; Lin, Tao; Qiu, Quan Yi; Sun, Cai Ge; Deng, Fu Liang; Zhang, Guo Qin

2017-04-18

The expansion of built-up area will cause stress effect on the regional natural ecological security pattern during urbanization process. Taking rapid expanding regions of four inland and coastal cities as study areas, including Tongzhou in Beijing, Zhengding in Hebei, Tanggu in Tianjin and Xiamen in Fujian, we constructed regional landscape stress indexes according to the principle of landscape ecology and comparatively analyzed the landscape pattern characteristics of rapid expanding regions and the differences of stress effect of artificial landscapes on four natural landscapes ecological security pattern in the process of rapid urbanization. Results showed that landscape erosion indexes of Tongzhou, Zhengding, Tanggu and Xiamen in 2015 were 1.039, 0.996, 1.239 and 0.945, respectively, which indicated that the natural landscapes were eroded significantly. Natural landscape types of those four regions presented different threatened levels. Among all natural landscape types, unused land and waters were worst threatened in Tongzhou, Zhengding and Tanggu, while in Xiamen cultivated land and waters showed the highest threat levels. The waters threat indexes of those four areas were all more than 0.743. Landscape isolation indexes of waters and unused land of the inland cities were greater than those of coastal cities, which meant water distribution of inland cities in the space was less gathered than that of coastal cities. Besides, compared with the other natural landscape, unused land and waters suffered the largest stress from artificial landscapes.

Adaptive Inference on General Graphical Models

OpenAIRE

Acar, Umut A.; Ihler, Alexander T.; Mettu, Ramgopal; Sumer, Ozgur

2012-01-01

Many algorithms and applications involve repeatedly solving variations of the same inference problem; for example we may want to introduce new evidence to the model or perform updates to conditional dependencies. The goal of adaptive inference is to take advantage of what is preserved in the model and perform inference more rapidly than from scratch. In this paper, we describe techniques for adaptive inference on general graphs that support marginal computation and updates to the conditional ...

Assessment of wind turbines impact on landscape character and landscape planning

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Cetkovský, Stanislav; Nováková, Eva

2009-01-01

Roč. 17, č. 2 (2009), s. 28-34 ISSN 1210-8812 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z30860518 Keywords : landscape character * wind turbines * landscape planning * GIS * visualisation * Czech Republic Subject RIV: DE - Earth Magnetism, Geodesy, Geography http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-70449368205&origin

Measuring urban tree loss dynamics across residential landscapes.

Science.gov (United States)

Ossola, Alessandro; Hopton, Matthew E

2018-01-15

The spatial arrangement of urban vegetation depends on urban morphology and socio-economic settings. Urban vegetation changes over time because of human management. Urban trees are removed due to hazard prevention or aesthetic preferences. Previous research attributed tree loss to decreases in canopy cover. However, this provides little information about location and structural characteristics of trees lost, as well as environmental and social factors affecting tree loss dynamics. This is particularly relevant in residential landscapes where access to residential parcels for field surveys is limited. We tested whether multi-temporal airborne LiDAR and multi-spectral imagery collected at a 5-year interval can be used to investigate urban tree loss dynamics across residential landscapes in Denver, CO and Milwaukee, WI, covering 400,705 residential parcels in 444 census tracts. Position and stem height of trees lost were extracted from canopy height models calculated as the difference between final (year 5) and initial (year 0) vegetation height derived from LiDAR. Multivariate regression models were used to predict number and height of tree stems lost in residential parcels in each census tract based on urban morphological and socio-economic variables. A total of 28,427 stems were lost from residential parcels in Denver and Milwaukee over 5years. Overall, 7% of residential parcels lost one stem, averaging 90.87 stems per km 2 . Average stem height was 10.16m, though trees lost in Denver were taller compared to Milwaukee. The number of stems lost was higher in neighborhoods with higher canopy cover and developed before the 1970s. However, socio-economic characteristics had little effect on tree loss dynamics. The study provides a simple method for measuring urban tree loss dynamics within and across entire cities, and represents a further step toward high resolution assessments of the three-dimensional change of urban vegetation at large spatial scales. Published by

Intergeneric Classification of Genus Bulbophyllum from Peninsular Malaysia Based on Combined Morphological and RBCL Sequence Data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hosseini, S.; Dadkhah, K.

2016-01-01

Bulbophyllum Thou. is largest genus in Orchidaceae family and a well-known plant of tropical area. The present study provides a comparative morphological study of 38 Bulbophyllum spp. as well as molecular sequence analysis of large subunit of rubisco (rbcL), to infer the intergeneric classification for studied taxa of genus Bulbophyllum. Thirty morphological characters were coded in a data matrix, and used in phenetic analysis. Morphological result was strongly consistent with earlier classification, with exception of B. auratum, B. gracillimum, B. mutabile and B. limbatum status. Furthermore Molecular data analysis of rbcL was congruent with morphological data in some aspects. Species interrelationships specified using combination of rbcL sequence data with morphological data. The results revealed close affiliation in 11 sections of Bulbophyllum from Peninsular Malaysia. Consequently, based on this study generic status of sections Cirrhopetalum and Epicrianthes cannot longer be supported, as they are deeply embedded within the genus Bulbophyllum. (author)

Fitness Landscapes of Functional RNAs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ádám Kun

2015-08-01

Full Text Available The notion of fitness landscapes, a map between genotype and fitness, was proposed more than 80 years ago. For most of this time data was only available for a few alleles, and thus we had only a restricted view of the whole fitness landscape. Recently, advances in genetics and molecular biology allow a more detailed view of them. Here we review experimental and theoretical studies of fitness landscapes of functional RNAs, especially aptamers and ribozymes. We find that RNA structures can be divided into critical structures, connecting structures, neutral structures and forbidden structures. Such characterisation, coupled with theoretical sequence-to-structure predictions, allows us to construct the whole fitness landscape. Fitness landscapes then can be used to study evolution, and in our case the development of the RNA world.

[Applications of 2D and 3D landscape pattern indices in landscape pattern analysis of mountainous area at county level].

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Chao; Qi, Wei; Li, Le; Sun, Yao; Qin, Tian-Tian; Wang, Na-Na

2012-05-01

Landscape pattern indices are the commonly used tools for the quantitative analysis of landscape pattern. However, the traditional 2D landscape pattern indices neglect the effects of terrain on landscape, existing definite limitations in quantitatively describing the landscape patterns in mountains areas. Taking the Qixia City, a typical mountainous and hilly region in Shandong Province of East China, as a case, this paper compared the differences between 2D and 3D landscape pattern indices in quantitatively describing the landscape patterns and their dynamic changes in mountainous areas. On the basis of terrain structure analysis, a set of landscape pattern indices were selected, including area and density (class area and mean patch size), edge and shape (edge density, landscape shape index, and fractal dimension of mean patch), diversity (Shannon's diversity index and evenness index) , and gathering and spread (contagion index). There existed obvious differences between the 3D class area, mean patch area, and edge density and the corresponding 2D indices, but no significant differences between the 3D landscape shape index, fractal dimension of mean patch, and Shannon' s diversity index and evenness index and the corresponding 2D indices. The 3D contagion index and 2D contagion index had no difference. Because the 3D landscape pattern indices were calculated by using patch surface area and surface perimeter whereas the 2D landscape pattern indices were calculated by adopting patch projective area and projective perimeter, the 3D landscape pattern indices could be relative accurate and efficient in describing the landscape area, density and borderline, in mountainous areas. However, there were no distinct differences in describing landscape shape, diversity, and gathering and spread between the 3D and 2D landscape pattern indices. Generally, by introducing 3D landscape pattern indices to topographic pattern, the description of landscape pattern and its dynamic

Feedbacks in human-landscape systems

Science.gov (United States)

Chin, Anne

2015-04-01

As human interactions with Earth systems intensify in the "Anthropocene", understanding the complex relationships among human activity, landscape change, and societal responses to those changes is increasingly important. Interdisciplinary research centered on the theme of "feedbacks" in human-landscape systems serves as a promising focus for unraveling these interactions. Deciphering interacting human-landscape feedbacks extends our traditional approach of considering humans as unidirectional drivers of change. Enormous challenges exist, however, in quantifying impact-feedback loops in landscapes with significant human alterations. This paper illustrates an example of human-landscape interactions following a wildfire in Colorado (USA) that elicited feedback responses. After the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire, concerns for heightened flood potential and debris flows associated with post-fire hydrologic changes prompted local landowners to construct tall fences at the base of a burned watershed. These actions changed the sediment transport regime and promoted further landscape change and human responses in a positive feedback cycle. The interactions ultimately increase flood and sediment hazards, rather than dampening the effects of fire. A simple agent-based model, capable of integrating social and hydro-geomorphological data, demonstrates how such interacting impacts and feedbacks could be simulated. Challenges for fully capturing human-landscape feedback interactions include the identification of diffuse and subtle feedbacks at a range of scales, the availability of data linking impact with response, the identification of multiple thresholds that trigger feedback mechanisms, and the varied metrics and data needed to represent both the physical and human systems. By collaborating with social scientists with expertise in the human causes of landscape change, as well as the human responses to those changes, geoscientists could more fully recognize and anticipate the coupled

Landscape characterization and biodiversity research

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dale, V.H. [Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States); Offerman, H. [Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Geography Dept.; Frohn, R. [Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States); Gardner, R.H. [Appalachian Environmental Lab., Frostburg, MD (United States)

1995-03-01

Rapid deforestation often produces landscape-level changes in forest characteristics and structure, including area, distribution, and forest habitat types. Changes in landscape pattern through fragmentation or aggregation of natural habitats can alter patterns of abundance for single species and entire communities. Examples of single-species effects include increased predation along the forest edge, the decline in the number of species with poor dispersal mechanisms, and the spread of exotic species that have deleterious effects (e.g., gypsy moth). A decrease in the size and number of natural habitat patches increases the probability of local extirpation and loss of diversity of native species, whereas a decline in connectivity between habitat patches can negatively affect species persistence. Thus, there is empirical justification for managing entire landscapes, not just individual habitat types, in order to insure that native plant and animal diversity is maintained. A landscape is defined as an area composed of a mosaic of interacting ecosystems, or patches, with the heterogeneity among the patches significantly affecting biotic and abiotic processes in the landscape. Patches comprising a landscape are usually composed of discrete areas of relatively homogeneous environmental conditions and must be defined in terms of the organisms of interest. A large body of theoretical work in landscape ecology has provided a wealth of methods for quantifying spatial characteristics of landscapes. Recent advances in remote sensing and geographic information systems allow these methods to be applied over large areas. The objectives of this paper are to present a brief overview of common measures of landscape characteristics, to explore the new technology available for their calculation, to provide examples of their application, and to call attention to the need for collection of spatially-explicit field data.

Exploring Cellular Targets of Vanillin Based on Morphological Changes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

OpenAIRE

Suga, Yohei

2011-01-01

Vanillin is one of the major phenolic compounds degraded from lignin. It is considered as a problematic byproduct of bioethanol production from lignocelluloses since it inhibits yeast growth and fermentation. However, detailed inhibitory mechanisms of vanillin are still unknown. In this study, I investigated intercellular targets of vanillin based on the image profiling method to infer the drug targets developed recently (Ohnuki et al., 2010). Using this method, I revealed that the morphology...

Editorial: Entropy in Landscape Ecology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Samuel A. Cushman

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Entropy and the second law of thermodynamics are the central organizing principles of nature, but the ideas and implications of the second law are poorly developed in landscape ecology. The purpose of this Special Issue “Entropy in Landscape Ecology” in Entropy is to bring together current research on applications of thermodynamics in landscape ecology, to consolidate current knowledge and identify key areas for future research. The special issue contains six articles, which cover a broad range of topics including relationships between entropy and evolution, connections between fractal geometry and entropy, new approaches to calculate configurational entropy of landscapes, example analyses of computing entropy of landscapes, and using entropy in the context of optimal landscape planning. Collectively these papers provide a broad range of contributions to the nascent field of ecological thermodynamics. Formalizing the connections between entropy and ecology are in a very early stage, and that this special issue contains papers that address several centrally important ideas, and provides seminal work that will be a foundation for the future development of ecological and evolutionary thermodynamics.

SOIL VARIABILITY IN DIFFERENT LANDSCAPE POSITIONS IN THE PORTO ALEGRE BOTANICAL GARDEN, SOUTHERN BRAZIL

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Luís Fernando da Silva

2015-10-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACTKnowledge of soil characteristics in areas where activities related to the environment are developed, such as Porto Alegre Botanical Garden (JB-PoA, is a fundamental condition for the sustainable use of this natural resource. The objective of this study was to characterize, classify and evaluate some issues about soil formation in Porto Alegre Botanical Garden, as well as relate their distribution on the landscape according to environmental characteristics. For the morphological description and collecting samples four profiles were selected (P1 to P4, located in the summit-shoulder transition, backslope, footslope and toeslope, respectively. Granulometric distribution of the P1 and P3 profiles indicated sharp textural gradient, with presence of textural and "plânico" B horizons, respectively, according to Brazilian System of Soil Classification. There is predominance of low values of pH, and low base saturation, with exception of P4, indicating probable deposition of solution material at this area. The Fed/Fes relationship was greater in the profile located in the summit-shoulder transition (P1, indicating higher weathering. The Feo/Fed relationship increased in P3 and P4 profiles, indicating greater participation of iron oxides of low crystallinity in reducing environment. The occurrence of some pedogenic processes may be inferred, like lessivage in P1 (Ultic Hapludalf, due to clay skins and higher values of fine clay:total clay relationship in subsurface; ferrolysis and gleization, by low pH value and high Feo/Fed relationship in E and EB horizons of P3 (Oxyaquic Hapludalf, being the last also present in P4 (Humaqueptic Endoaquent, indicating gleization occurrence.

The inference from a single case: moral versus scientific inferences in implementing new biotechnologies.

Science.gov (United States)

Hofmann, B

2008-06-01

Are there similarities between scientific and moral inference? This is the key question in this article. It takes as its point of departure an instance of one person's story in the media changing both Norwegian public opinion and a brand-new Norwegian law prohibiting the use of saviour siblings. The case appears to falsify existing norms and to establish new ones. The analysis of this case reveals similarities in the modes of inference in science and morals, inasmuch as (a) a single case functions as a counter-example to an existing rule; (b) there is a common presupposition of stability, similarity and order, which makes it possible to reason from a few cases to a general rule; and (c) this makes it possible to hold things together and retain order. In science, these modes of inference are referred to as falsification, induction and consistency. In morals, they have a variety of other names. Hence, even without abandoning the fact-value divide, there appear to be similarities between inference in science and inference in morals, which may encourage communication across the boundaries between "the two cultures" and which are relevant to medical humanities.

Competing Wind Energy Discourses, Contested Landscapes

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Antje Otto

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The impairment of landscapes is a concern constantly raised against wind energy developments in Germany as in other countries. Often, landscapes or landscape types are treated in the literature as essentialist or at least as uncontested categories. We analyse two examples of local controversies about wind energy, in which “landscape” is employed by supporters and opponents alike, from a poststructuralist and discourse theoretical angle. The aim is to identify and compare landscape constructs produced in the micro discourses of wind energy objectors and proponents at local level (a within each case, (b between the two cases and (c with landscape constructs that were previously found in macro discourses. One major finding is that several different landscapes can exist at one and the same place. Furthermore there seems to be a relatively stable set of competing landscape concepts which is reproduced in specific controversies. The paper concludes by highlighting practical consequences and by identifying promising avenues of further research.

Controls on wind abrasion patterns through a fractured bedrock landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Perkins, J. P.; Finnegan, N. J.

2017-12-01

Wind abrasion is an important geomorphic process for understanding arid landscape evolution on Earth and interpreting the post-fluvial history of Mars. Both the presence and orientation of wind-abraded landforms provide potentially important constraints on paleo-climatic conditions; however, such interpretations can be complicated by lithologic and structural heterogeneity. To explore the influence of pre-existing structure on wind abrasion, we exploit a natural experiment along the 10.2 Ma Lower Rio San Pedro ignimbrite in northern Chile. Here, a 3.2 Ma andesite flow erupted from Cerro de las Cuevas and deposited atop the ignimbrite, supplying wind-transportable sediment and initiating a phase of downwind abrasion. Additionally, the lava flow provides a continually varying degree of upwind topographic shielding along the ignimbrite that is reflected in a range of surface morphologies. Where fully shielded the ignimbrite surface is partially blanketed by sediment. However, as relief decreases the surface morphology shifts from large polygonal structures that emerge due to the concentration of wind abrasion along pre-existing fracture sets, to polygons that are bisected by wind-parallel grooves that cross-cut fracture sets, to linear sets of yardangs. We reconstruct the ignimbrite surface using a high-resolution digital elevation model, and calculate erosion rates ranging from 0.002 to 0.45 mm/kyr that vary strongly with degree of topographic shielding (R2 = 0.97). We use measured abrasion rates together with nearby weather station data to estimate the nondimensional Rouse number and Inertial Parameter for a range of particle sizes. From these calculations, we hypothesize that the change from fracture-controlled to flow-controlled morphology reflects increases in the grain size and inertia of particles in the suspension cloud. Where the ignimbrite experiences persistent high winds, large particles may travel in suspension and are largely insensitive to topographic

Research using energy landscape

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Hack Jin

2007-01-01

Energy landscape is a theoretical tool used for the study of systems where cooperative processes occur such as liquid, glass, clusters, and protein. Theoretical and experimental researches related to energy landscape are introduced in this review

Introductory statistical inference

CERN Document Server

Mukhopadhyay, Nitis

2014-01-01

This gracefully organized text reveals the rigorous theory of probability and statistical inference in the style of a tutorial, using worked examples, exercises, figures, tables, and computer simulations to develop and illustrate concepts. Drills and boxed summaries emphasize and reinforce important ideas and special techniques.Beginning with a review of the basic concepts and methods in probability theory, moments, and moment generating functions, the author moves to more intricate topics. Introductory Statistical Inference studies multivariate random variables, exponential families of dist

The potential of landscape labelling approaches for integrated landscape management in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mann, Carsten; Plieninger, Tobias

2017-01-01

This paper combines conceptual thinking and empirical analysis of landscape labelling as a new governance approach. With the help of a literature review and qualitative interviews, we (1) explore the conceptual orientation of landscape labelling, (2) analyse existing approaches in Europe and (3......) elaborate its potential for integrated landscape management on a regional scale. Governance analysis to identify fostering and hindering factors is carried out for regional brands in biosphere reserves in Germany, geographic indication in Spain, organic agriculture in France and a community forest...... approach within policy mixes that depend on supportive governance structures and stakeholders....

The control of inorganic nanotube morphology using an applied potential

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gingrich, Todd R; Wilson, Mark

2011-01-01

Molecular dynamics computer simulations of the filling of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by a generic molten salt to form hexagonal-net-based inorganic nanotubes (INTs) are described. A model is introduced to incorporate CNT metallicity which imposes variable Gaussian charges on each atomic site in order to retain an equipotential. The inclusion of CNT metallicity is observed to have no significant effect on the distribution of the INT morphologies formed as compared with the filling of non-metallic CNTs. The application of a voltage bias to the CNT forms a new class of INTs which can be considered as constructed from concentric layers of pseudo-close-packed anions and cations. Removal of the voltage bias leads to the formation of hexagonal-net-based INTs with a distribution of morphologies different to that observed for the filling of the unbiased CNTs. The differences in distributions are interpreted in terms of the CNTs behaving as effective energy landscape filters, for which the applied voltage acts as an additional control variable. The application of a potential acts to control the distribution of INT morphologies by facilitating alternative mechanistic pathways to nanotube formation.

Landscapes of the Kruger National Park

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

W. P. D Gertenbach

1983-12-01

Full Text Available Knowledge on the abiotic and biotic components of the Kruger National Park (KNP system has increased to such an extent, that it was possible to zonate the KNP into landscapes. A landscape was defined as an area with a specific geomorphology, climate, soil and vegetation pattern together with the associated fauna. On this basis 35 landscapes were identified and described in terms of the components mentioned in the definition. The objective of classification is that future management should be based on these landscapes. Relevant management considerations may change, but the landscape a@ a basic functional unit should not be negotiable.

Active inference, communication and hermeneutics.

Science.gov (United States)

Friston, Karl J; Frith, Christopher D

2015-07-01

Hermeneutics refers to interpretation and translation of text (typically ancient scriptures) but also applies to verbal and non-verbal communication. In a psychological setting it nicely frames the problem of inferring the intended content of a communication. In this paper, we offer a solution to the problem of neural hermeneutics based upon active inference. In active inference, action fulfils predictions about how we will behave (e.g., predicting we will speak). Crucially, these predictions can be used to predict both self and others--during speaking and listening respectively. Active inference mandates the suppression of prediction errors by updating an internal model that generates predictions--both at fast timescales (through perceptual inference) and slower timescales (through perceptual learning). If two agents adopt the same model, then--in principle--they can predict each other and minimise their mutual prediction errors. Heuristically, this ensures they are singing from the same hymn sheet. This paper builds upon recent work on active inference and communication to illustrate perceptual learning using simulated birdsongs. Our focus here is the neural hermeneutics implicit in learning, where communication facilitates long-term changes in generative models that are trying to predict each other. In other words, communication induces perceptual learning and enables others to (literally) change our minds and vice versa. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

New infrastructures, new landscapes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chiara Nifosì

2014-06-01

Full Text Available New infrastructures, new landscapes AbstractThe paper will discuss one recent Italian project that share a common background: the relevance of the existing maritime landscape as a non negotiable value. The studies will be discussed in details a feasibility study for the new port in Monfalcone. National infrastructural policies emphasize competitiveness and connection as a central issue incultural, economic and political development of communities . Based on networks and system development along passageways that make up the European infrastructural armor; the two are considered at the meantime as cause and effect of "territorialisation”. These two views are obviously mutually dependent. It's hard to think about a strong attractiveness out of the network, and to be part of the latter encourages competitiveness. Nonetheless this has proved to be conflictual when landscape values and the related attractiveness are considered.The presented case study project, is pursuing the ambition to promote a new approach in realizing large infrastructures; its double role is to improve connectivity and to generate lasting and positive impact on the local regions. It deal with issues of inter-modality and the construction of nodes and lines which connects Europe, and its markets.Reverting the usual approach which consider landscape project as as a way to mitigate or to compensate for the infrastructure, the goal is to succeed in realizing large infrastructural works by conceiving them as an occasion to reinterpret a region or, as extraordinary opportunities, to build new landscapes.The strategy proposed consists in achieving structural images based on the reinforcement of the environmental and historical-landscape systems. Starting from the reinterpretation of local maritime context and resources it is possible not just to preserve the attractiveness of a specific landscape but also to conceive infrastructure in a more efficient way. 

Semiotics in landscape design

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Karsten Jorgensen

1997-03-01

Full Text Available This paper claims that concepts of language can help us create better and more relevant landscape design. It is based on research undertaken by Karsten Jørgensen (1989, and subsequent studies carried out at the department of Land Use and Landscape Planning at the Agricultural University in Norway. The 'signs' that constitute the design language are categorised using the analytical vocabulary of landscape design; for example, elements, materials, effects and shapes. Studies of these signs are based on elements of semiotics and cognitive science, especially the Umwelt-theories developed by Jakob von Uexküll (Hoffmeyer 1994. We are constantly exposed to numerous signs of different kinds. Everywhere in society we see signs around us; for example, traffic signs, advertising signs and logos. It is therefore relevant to introduce the term 'semiosphere' in order to focus on the significance of semiosis at all levels of activity in the world, from cellular activities, to complex systems of development such as those found in a population. This study focuses on the semantic aspects of landscape architecture. In explaining the meaning of a statement, it is useful to have a set of rules or 'codes' to correlate a specific expression with a specific interpretation. These codes may be based on conventions, or on similarity between or stylisation of objects, such as natural or cultural landscapes. In any case, they are based on the interpreter's language and 'mind-structure'. At a general level, it is only possible to study sign content. To analyse meaning in landscape design you have to look at the context; for example, the overall composition of a garden or park and the situation, which includes the interpreter's cultural background, their experiences and so on. In other words, you have to analyse a specific case to be able to speak reasonably about meaning in landscape (designs.

Legislative Framework for Landscape Planning in Latvia

Science.gov (United States)

Nitavska, Natalija; Zigmunde, Daiga

2017-10-01

With the adoption and the ratification of the European Landscape Convention a legally justified need for a clear landscape policy was grounded in the European countries. It includes the elaboration of the new and the improvement of the existing legislative documents on landscape planning, protection and management. The aim of the particular study is to analyse the existing legislative documents in Latvia influencing landscape planning on different scales / and the implementation of the European Landscape Convention. The study emphasizes the complex structure of the Latvian legislative framework affected by the distribution of the normative documents under the various ministries. Therefore, the main problem is unclear responsibility levels and organizational system for solving the issues regarding landscape planning, protection and management. Thus the various discussions between the involved disciplines and responsible institutions are arising. Two groups of the legislative documents influencing the implementation of the landscape policy in Latvia are detected within the study. The first group is strategic documents determining main landscape planning principles and directions at European, national, regional and professional or sectoral level. The second group is operational documents providing a set of actions for the landscape planning, protection and management at the local or the municipality level. The study concludes that operational documents developed by the municipalities are in high importance because of their direct influence on the landscape planning in Latvia. This often leads to the different landscape planning requirements included in the normative documents of the neighbouring municipalities, although the spatial and ecological borders of the visual landscape do not fit with the formal borders of the municipalities. Thus, it is essential to develop the common principles and actions that would be incumbent on all municipalities to provide the

Incorporating bioenergy into sustainable landscape designs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dale, Virginia H.; Kline, Keith L.; Buford, Marilyn A.

2016-01-01

The paper describes an approach to landscape design that focuses on integrating bioenergy production with other components of environmental, social and economic systems. Landscape design as used here refers to a spatially explicit, collaborative plan for management of landscapes and supply chains...... land-management objectives from a wide array of stakeholders, up-front planning requirements, and the complexity and level of effort needed for successful stakeholder involvement. A landscape design process may be stymied by insufficient data or participation. An impetus for coordination is critical....... Landscape design can involve multiple scales and build on existing practices to reduce costs or enhance services. Appropriately applied to a specific context, landscape design can help people assess trade-offs when making choices about locations, types of feedstock, transport, refining and distribution...

Sustainability, Smart Growth, and Landscape Architecture

Science.gov (United States)

Sustainability, Smart Growth, and Landscape Architecture is an overview course for landscape architecture students interested in sustainability in landscape architecture and how it might apply to smart growth principles in urban, suburban, and rural areas

Methods for integrated modeling of landscape change: Interior Northwest Landscape Analysis System.

Science.gov (United States)

Jane L. Hayes; Alan. A. Ager; R. James Barbour

2004-01-01

The Interior Northwest Landscape Analysis System (INLAS) links a number of resource, disturbance, and landscape simulations models to examine the interactions of vegetative succession, management, and disturbance with policy goals. The effects of natural disturbance like wildfire, herbivory, forest insects and diseases, as well as specific management actions are...

Body and skull morphometric variations between two shovel-headed species of Amphisbaenia (Reptilia: Squamata with morphofunctional inferences on burrowing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leandro dos Santos Lima Hohl

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Background Morphological descriptions comparing Leposternon microcephalum and L. scutigerum have been made previously. However, these taxa lack a formal quantitative morphological characterization, and comparative studies suggest that morphology and burrowing performance are be related. The excavatory movements of L. microcephalum have been described in detail. However, there is a lack of studies comparing locomotor patterns and/or performance among different amphisbaenids sharing the same skull shape. This paper presents the first study of comparative morphometric variations between two closely related amphisbaenid species, L. microcephalum and L. scutigerum, with functional inferences on fossorial locomotion efficiency. Methods Inter-specific morphometric variations were verified through statistical analyses of body and cranial measures of L. microcephalum and L. scutigerum specimens. Their burrowing activity was assessed through X-ray videofluoroscopy and then compared. The influence of morphological variation on the speed of digging was tested among Leposternon individuals. Results Leposternon microcephalum and L. scutigerum are morphometrically distinct species. The first is shorter and robust with a wider head while the other is more elongated and slim with a narrower head. They share the same excavatory movements. The animals analyzed reached relatively high speeds, but individuals with narrower skulls dug faster. A negative correlation between the speed and the width of skull was determined, but not with total length or diameter of the body. Discussion The morphometric differences between L. microcephalum and L. scutigerum are in accord with morphological variations previously described. Since these species performed the same excavation pattern, we may infer that closely related amphisbaenids with the same skull type would exhibit the same excavatory pattern. The negative correlation between head width and excavation speed is also

Neogeomorphology, prediction, and the anthropic landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Haff, P. K.

The surface of the earth is undergoing profound change due to human impact. By some measures the level of human impact is comparable to the effects of major classical geomorphic processes such as fluvial sediment transport. This change is occurring rapidly, has no geologic precedent, and may represent an irreversible transition to a new and novel landscape with which we have no experience. For these reasons prediction of future landscape evolution will be of increasing importance. The combination of physical and social forces that drive modern landscape change represents the Anthropic Force. Neogeomorphology is the study of the Anthropic Force and its present and likely future effects on the landscape. Unique properties associated with the Anthropic Force include consciousness, intention and design. These properties support the occurrence of nonclassical geomorphic phenomena, such as landscape planning, engineering, and management. The occurrence of short time-scale phenomena induced by anthropic landscape change, the direct effects of this change on society, and the ability to anticipate and intentionally influence the future trajectory of the global landscape underscore the importance of prediction in a neogeomorphic world.

Roads Belong In the Urban Landscape

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Clemmensen, Thomas Juel

2012-01-01

In spite of being an essential part of the system of automobility and as such playing an important role in the development of urban landscapes, road networks seldom attracts much attention among architects involved in the planning and design of urban landscapes. One reason is probably found...... in the dominance of the zoning approach to planning, where road planning easily becomes isolated and reduced to a matter of traffic regulation and transport economy. Another possible reason could be, as suggested by the Australian landscape architect Christopher Sawyer, that road networks like other...... as landscape architects engage with road networks in profound ways, which moves beyond the purely visual and pictorial? Is it possible to conceptually (re)locate road networks in the landscape? The paper will address these questions by discussing different understandings of landscape and its relation...

Optimization methods for logical inference

CERN Document Server

Chandru, Vijay

2011-01-01

Merging logic and mathematics in deductive inference-an innovative, cutting-edge approach. Optimization methods for logical inference? Absolutely, say Vijay Chandru and John Hooker, two major contributors to this rapidly expanding field. And even though ""solving logical inference problems with optimization methods may seem a bit like eating sauerkraut with chopsticks. . . it is the mathematical structure of a problem that determines whether an optimization model can help solve it, not the context in which the problem occurs."" Presenting powerful, proven optimization techniques for logic in

Flowscapes: Designing infrastructure as landscape

OpenAIRE

Nijhuis, S.; Jauslin, D.T.; Van der Hoeven, F.D.

2015-01-01

Social, cultural and technological developments of our society are demanding a fundamental review of the planning and design of its landscapes and infrastructures, in particular in relation to environmental issues and sustainability. Transportation, green and water infrastructures are important agents that facilitate processes that shape the built environment and its contemporary landscapes. With movement and flows at the core, these landscape infrastructures facilitate aesthetic, functional,...

LANDSCAPE PATTERN VERSUS FARMING DEVELOPMENT. THE CASE OF THE POST-MARL HOLLOWS (PMH LANDSCAPE IN POLAND

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iwona MARKUSZEWSKA

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This article discusses the presence of unique landscape elements (post-marl hollows in an intensively operated farming region. The selected case study (the environs of Krotoszyn in the Wielkopolska region, Poland represents an example of a human-designed landscape in which post-marl hollows (PMH were created as a consequence of the soil-marling process. PMH are vital ecological habitats which have an influence on the high quality of the rural landscape. Currently, as PMH are undergoing the vanishing process, it seems essential to find a solution to maintain these unique landscape elements. The main aim of this paper is to analyse human-nature relationships during the current changes taking place in the agricultural landscape in order to get the answer to the question: how is this affecting the PMH? The study evaluates farmers’ pro-environmental behaviour and defines their identity with the local landscape that has been beneficial in predicting the forthcoming shaping of the landscape. The data describing the PMH were collected in the years 1998-2016, while conducting cartographic analysis, a literature review and repetitive field research. Additionally, remote sensing and geoportal database were used to analyse the PMH changes. Also, interviews and discussions with farmers and representatives of the local administrative body were conducted. Results indicated that local rural communities are little concerned about the environment, particularly when it pertains to the issue of conservation of the local landscape heritage (i.e. PMH. In addition, the lack of support from the administrative body makes more difficult the opportunity to maintain a unique landscape pattern, as described in this paper.

Inference in `poor` languages

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Petrov, S.

1996-10-01

Languages with a solvable implication problem but without complete and consistent systems of inference rules (`poor` languages) are considered. The problem of existence of finite complete and consistent inference rule system for a ``poor`` language is stated independently of the language or rules syntax. Several properties of the problem arc proved. An application of results to the language of join dependencies is given.

Introduction to Ecological Landscaping: A Holistic Description and Framework to Guide the Study and Management of Urban Landscape Parcels

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Parwinder Grewal

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Urbanized ecosystems and urban human populations are expanding around the world causing many negative environmental effects. A challenge for achieving sustainable urban social-ecological systems is understanding how urbanized landscapes can be designed and managed to minimize negative outcomes. To this end, an interdisciplinary Ecological Landscaping conference was organized to examine the interacting sociocultural and ecological causes and consequences of landscaping practices and products. This special issue of Cities and the Environment contains a diverse set of articles arising from that conference. In this introductory paper, we describe the meaning of ecological landscaping and a new conceptual framework that helps organize the topic’s complex issues. The essence of ecological landscaping is a holistic systems-thinking perspective for understanding the interrelationships among physical-ecological and sociocultural variables that give rise to the patterns and processes of biodiversity, abiotic conditions, and ecosystem processes within and among individually-managed urban landscape parcels. This perspective suggests that 1 variables not considered part of traditional landscaping and 2 the effects of landscaping within an individual parcel on variables outside of it must both be considered when making design and management decisions about a parcel. To illustrate how these points help create a more holistic, ecological approach to landscaping, a traditional ecosystem model is used to create a framework for discussing how sociocultural and physical-ecological inputs to a landscape parcel affect its characteristics and outputs. As exemplified by papers in this issue, an integrated sociocultural-ecological approach to the study of urban landscaping practices and products is needed to 1 understand why and how humans design and mange urban landscape parcels, 2 describe how the combined characteristics and outputs of many parcels give rise to the

EI: A Program for Ecological Inference

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gary King

2004-09-01

Full Text Available The program EI provides a method of inferring individual behavior from aggregate data. It implements the statistical procedures, diagnostics, and graphics from the book A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem: Reconstructing Individual Behavior from Aggregate Data (King 1997. Ecological inference, as traditionally defined, is the process of using aggregate (i.e., "ecological" data to infer discrete individual-level relationships of interest when individual-level data are not available. Ecological inferences are required in political science research when individual-level surveys are unavailable (e.g., local or comparative electoral politics, unreliable (racial politics, insufficient (political geography, or infeasible (political history. They are also required in numerous areas of ma jor significance in public policy (e.g., for applying the Voting Rights Act and other academic disciplines ranging from epidemiology and marketing to sociology and quantitative history.

Combining aesthetic with ecological values for landscape sustainability.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Dewei; Luo, Tao; Lin, Tao; Qiu, Quanyi; Luo, Yunjian

2014-01-01

Humans receive multiple benefits from various landscapes that foster ecological services and aesthetic attractiveness. In this study, a hybrid framework was proposed to evaluate ecological and aesthetic values of five landscape types in Houguanhu Region of central China. Data from the public aesthetic survey and professional ecological assessment were converted into a two-dimensional coordinate system and distribution maps of landscape values. Results showed that natural landscapes (i.e. water body and forest) contributed positively more to both aesthetic and ecological values than semi-natural and human-dominated landscapes (i.e. farmland and non-ecological land). The distribution maps of landscape values indicated that the aesthetic, ecological and integrated landscape values were significantly associated with landscape attributes and human activity intensity. To combine aesthetic preferences with ecological services, the methods (i.e. field survey, landscape value coefficients, normalized method, a two-dimensional coordinate system, and landscape value distribution maps) were employed in landscape assessment. Our results could facilitate to identify the underlying structure-function-value chain, and also improve the understanding of multiple functions in landscape planning. The situation context could also be emphasized to bring ecological and aesthetic goals into better alignment.

Perspectives on landscape identity, a conceptual challenge

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Stobbelaar, D.J.; Pedroli, B.

2011-01-01

The concept of landscape identity is often referred to in landscape policy and planning. A clear definition of the concept is lacking however. This is problematic because the term ‘landscape identity’ can have many different meanings and thus easily lead to confusion. We define landscape identity as

Welfare Landscape and Communities

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Braae, Ellen Marie

2017-01-01

Danish housing developments of the post-war era were a cornerstone in the implementation of the welfare vision and the overall urban and landscape planning in the post-war period. The new city was a horizontal city and – as it will be my primary ambition to show – a green and landscape-like city....... The landscape came, in Denmark, to play a prominent role and became synonymous with ‘The Good Life’, but it also presented a number of moral imperatives. The article concerns how communities and community feelings found their expression in the Danish ‘welfare landscapes’....

Weathering and landscape evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Turkington, Alice V.; Phillips, Jonathan D.; Campbell, Sean W.

2005-04-01

In recognition of the fundamental control exerted by weathering on landscape evolution and topographic development, the 35th Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium was convened under the theme of Weathering and Landscape Evolution. The papers and posters presented at the conference imparted the state-of-the-art in weathering geomorphology, tackled the issue of scale linkage in geomorphic studies and offered a vehicle for interdisciplinary communication on research into weathering and landscape evolution. The papers included in this special issue are encapsulated here under the general themes of weathering mantles, weathering and relative dating, weathering and denudation, weathering processes and controls and the 'big picture'.

Morphological inversion of complex diffusion

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, V. A. T.; Vural, D. C.

2017-09-01

Epidemics, neural cascades, power failures, and many other phenomena can be described by a diffusion process on a network. To identify the causal origins of a spread, it is often necessary to identify the triggering initial node. Here, we define a new morphological operator and use it to detect the origin of a diffusive front, given the final state of a complex network. Our method performs better than algorithms based on distance (closeness) and Jordan centrality. More importantly, our method is applicable regardless of the specifics of the forward model, and therefore can be applied to a wide range of systems such as identifying the patient zero in an epidemic, pinpointing the neuron that triggers a cascade, identifying the original malfunction that causes a catastrophic infrastructure failure, and inferring the ancestral species from which a heterogeneous population evolves.

Landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns and processes - eight hypotheses.

Science.gov (United States)

Tscharntke, Teja; Tylianakis, Jason M; Rand, Tatyana A; Didham, Raphael K; Fahrig, Lenore; Batáry, Péter; Bengtsson, Janne; Clough, Yann; Crist, Thomas O; Dormann, Carsten F; Ewers, Robert M; Fründ, Jochen; Holt, Robert D; Holzschuh, Andrea; Klein, Alexandra M; Kleijn, David; Kremen, Claire; Landis, Doug A; Laurance, William; Lindenmayer, David; Scherber, Christoph; Sodhi, Navjot; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf; Thies, Carsten; van der Putten, Wim H; Westphal, Catrin

2012-08-01

Understanding how landscape characteristics affect biodiversity patterns and ecological processes at local and landscape scales is critical for mitigating effects of global environmental change. In this review, we use knowledge gained from human-modified landscapes to suggest eight hypotheses, which we hope will encourage more systematic research on the role of landscape composition and configuration in determining the structure of ecological communities, ecosystem functioning and services. We organize the eight hypotheses under four overarching themes. Section A: 'landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns' includes (1) the landscape species pool hypothesis-the size of the landscape-wide species pool moderates local (alpha) biodiversity, and (2) the dominance of beta diversity hypothesis-landscape-moderated dissimilarity of local communities determines landscape-wide biodiversity and overrides negative local effects of habitat fragmentation on biodiversity. Section B: 'landscape moderation of population dynamics' includes (3) the cross-habitat spillover hypothesis-landscape-moderated spillover of energy, resources and organisms across habitats, including between managed and natural ecosystems, influences landscape-wide community structure and associated processes and (4) the landscape-moderated concentration and dilution hypothesis-spatial and temporal changes in landscape composition can cause transient concentration or dilution of populations with functional consequences. Section C: 'landscape moderation of functional trait selection' includes (5) the landscape-moderated functional trait selection hypothesis-landscape moderation of species trait selection shapes the functional role and trajectory of community assembly, and (6) the landscape-moderated insurance hypothesis-landscape complexity provides spatial and temporal insurance, i.e. high resilience and stability of ecological processes in changing environments. Section D: 'landscape constraints on

Principles of landscape architecture

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijhuis, S.

2013-01-01

The Department of Urbanism at the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment, TU Delft considers urbanism as a planning and design oriented activity towards urban and rural landscapes. It aims to enhance, restore or create landscapes from a perspective of sustainable development, so as to guide,

The Q-Sort method: use in landscape assessment research and landscape planning

Science.gov (United States)

David G. Pitt; Ervin H. Zube

1979-01-01

The assessment of visual quality inherently involves the measurement of perceptual response to landscape. The Q-Sort Method is a psychometric technique which produces reliable and valid interval measurements of people's perceptions of landscape visual quality as depicted in photographs. It is readily understood by participants across a wide range of age groups and...

Governing Forest Landscape Restoration: Cases from Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cora van Oosten

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Forest landscape restoration includes both the planning and implementation of measures to restore degraded forests within the perspective of the wider landscape. Governing forest landscape restoration requires fundamental considerations about the conceptualisation of forested landscapes and the types of restoration measures to be taken, and about who should be engaged in the governance process. A variety of governance approaches to forest landscape restoration exist, differing in both the nature of the object to be governed and the mode of governance. This paper analyses the nature and governance of restoration in three cases of forest landscape restoration in Indonesia. In each of these cases, both the original aim for restoration and the initiators of the process differ. The cases also differ in how deeply embedded they are in formal spatial planning mechanisms at the various political scales. Nonetheless, the cases show similar trends. All cases show a dynamic process of mobilising the landscape’s stakeholders, plus a flexible process of crafting institutional space for conflict management, negotiation and decision making at the landscape level. As a result, the landscape focus changed over time from reserved forests to forested mosaic lands. The cases illustrate that the governance of forest landscape restoration should not be based on strict design criteria, but rather on a flexible governance approach that stimulates the creation of novel public-private institutional arrangements at the landscape level.

Europe: the paradox of landscape change

OpenAIRE

Sluis, van der, Theo

2017-01-01

This thesis explores the processes of change in European rural landscapes. Landscapes have evolved over millennia as a result of human influence on the physical environment. Europe has a wide variety of landscapes that can alter within a relatively short distance, and which often form part of the national cultural identity of a European country. Central to this thesis, however, are insights into the processes of landscape change. In this context, the overall objective of this thesis is: To as...

On the criticality of inferred models

Science.gov (United States)

Mastromatteo, Iacopo; Marsili, Matteo

2011-10-01

Advanced inference techniques allow one to reconstruct a pattern of interaction from high dimensional data sets, from probing simultaneously thousands of units of extended systems—such as cells, neural tissues and financial markets. We focus here on the statistical properties of inferred models and argue that inference procedures are likely to yield models which are close to singular values of parameters, akin to critical points in physics where phase transitions occur. These are points where the response of physical systems to external perturbations, as measured by the susceptibility, is very large and diverges in the limit of infinite size. We show that the reparameterization invariant metrics in the space of probability distributions of these models (the Fisher information) are directly related to the susceptibility of the inferred model. As a result, distinguishable models tend to accumulate close to critical points, where the susceptibility diverges in infinite systems. This region is the one where the estimate of inferred parameters is most stable. In order to illustrate these points, we discuss inference of interacting point processes with application to financial data and show that sensible choices of observation time scales naturally yield models which are close to criticality.

On the criticality of inferred models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mastromatteo, Iacopo; Marsili, Matteo

2011-01-01

Advanced inference techniques allow one to reconstruct a pattern of interaction from high dimensional data sets, from probing simultaneously thousands of units of extended systems—such as cells, neural tissues and financial markets. We focus here on the statistical properties of inferred models and argue that inference procedures are likely to yield models which are close to singular values of parameters, akin to critical points in physics where phase transitions occur. These are points where the response of physical systems to external perturbations, as measured by the susceptibility, is very large and diverges in the limit of infinite size. We show that the reparameterization invariant metrics in the space of probability distributions of these models (the Fisher information) are directly related to the susceptibility of the inferred model. As a result, distinguishable models tend to accumulate close to critical points, where the susceptibility diverges in infinite systems. This region is the one where the estimate of inferred parameters is most stable. In order to illustrate these points, we discuss inference of interacting point processes with application to financial data and show that sensible choices of observation time scales naturally yield models which are close to criticality

An Inference Language for Imaging

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedemonte, Stefano; Catana, Ciprian; Van Leemput, Koen

2014-01-01

We introduce iLang, a language and software framework for probabilistic inference. The iLang framework enables the definition of directed and undirected probabilistic graphical models and the automated synthesis of high performance inference algorithms for imaging applications. The iLang framewor...

No interest in landscape? The art of non-participation in Danish landscape planning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Clausen, Laura Tolnov

2017-01-01

-participation in modern Danish landscape planning. The focus involves a critical investigation of the dominating idea that participation is always ‘a good thing’ and that people will always find it advantageous to participate. Tracing the stages of the author’s own research within participatory processes in Danish...... landscape planning, two key categories are identified as the deeper causes of people’s non-participation: the fear of the intimate, and the fear of the strange. A general conclusion is that non-participation can be explained in terms of ambivalence. The desire for landscape development does exist...

Landscape Use and Co-Occurrence Patterns of Neotropical Spotted Cats

Science.gov (United States)

Nagy-Reis, Mariana B.; Nichols, James D.; Chiarello, Adriano G.; Ribeiro, Milton Cezar; Setz, Eleonore Z. F.

2017-01-01

Small felids influence ecosystem dynamics through prey and plant population changes. Although most of these species are threatened, they are accorded one of the lowest research efforts of all felids, and we lack basic information about them. Many felids occur in sympatry, where intraguild competition is frequent. Therefore, assessing the role of interspecific interactions along with the relative importance of landscape characteristics is necessary to understand how these species co-occur in space. Here, we selected three morphologically similar and closely related species of small Neotropical cats to evaluate the roles of interspecific interactions, geomorphometry, environmental, and anthropogenic landscape characteristics on their habitat use. We collected data with camera trapping and scat sampling in a large protected Atlantic forest remnant (35,000 ha). Throughout occupancy modeling we investigated whether these species occur together more or less frequently than would be expected by chance, while dealing with imperfect detection and incorporating possible habitat preferences into the models. We used occupancy as a measure of their habitat use. Although intraguild competition can be an important determinant of carnivore assemblages, in our system, we did not find evidence that one species affects the habitat use of the other. Evidence suggested that proximity to the nature reserve (a more protected area) was a more important driver of Neotropical spotted cats’ occurrence than interspecific interactions or geomorphometry and environmental landscape characteristics—even though our entire study area is under some type of protection. This suggests that small felids can be sensitive to the area protection status, emphasizing the importance of maintaining and creating reserves and other areas with elevated protection for the proper management and conservation of the group. PMID:28052073

Arid landscape dynamics along a precipitation gradient: addressing vegetation - landscape structure - resource interactions at different time scales

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Buis, E.

2008-01-01

This research is entitled ‘Arid landscape dynamics along a precipitation gradient: addressing
vegetation – landscape structure – resource interactions at different time scales’ with as subtitle
‘A case study for the Northern Negev Desert of Israel’. Landscape dynamics describes the

EnviSAT ASAR Monitoring Of The Natural And Archaeological Landscape Of Nasca, Peru

Science.gov (United States)

Cigna, Francesca; Tapete, Deodato; Lasaponara, Rosa; Masini, Nicola

2013-12-01

We exploit the 4year-long archive of ENVISAT ASAR IS2 C-band imagery available through ESA Cat-1 project id.11073 over Nasca (Southern Peru), to reconstruct the temporal evolution of the Rio Grande drainage basin and its impacts on the natural and cultural heritage preserved within this region, well- known for the evidences of the ancient Paracas and Nasca Civilizations who flourished between the 4th century BC and the 6th century AD. Inferences about the recent changes of the cultural landscapes and the main landforms in 2003-2007 were retrieved based on SAR backscattering (σ0) time series. Ancient aqueduct systems (the so-called puquios) and the famous geoglyphs ('Nasca Lines') were detected, even at a medium-resolution scale provided by ENVISAT images.

Soil nutrients, landscape age, and Sphagno-Eriophoretum vaginati plant communities in Arctic moist-acidic Tundra landscapes

Science.gov (United States)

Joel Mercado-Diaz; William Gould; Grizelle Gonzalez

2014-01-01

Most research exploring the relationship between soil chemistry and vegetation in Alaskan Arctic tundra landscapes has focused on describing differences in soil elemental concentrations (e.g. C, N and P) of areas with contrasting vegetation types or landscape age. In this work we assess the effect of landscape age on physico-chemical parameters in organic and mineral...

Landscape Participatory Planning in the Digital City: Analysis of the Potentialities in Curitiba, Paraná

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Regina Maria Martins de Araujo Klein

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The technologies and services applied in a virtual environment offer alternative inclusion of citizens in the urban scenes qualification process, it is therefore desirable for the prevention of lack of articulation of landscape theme in the public administration sphere. Given these assumptions, the central question of the research focused on the interpretation of the incorporation possibilities real theme and factual participation of the population in municipal management through technological information resources. In this context, the main research objective is to analyze the potential of participatory planning of the landscape in the digital city. Thus, it is supported by documentary study on the reality of Curitiba, State of Parana. The observation unit covered the intervening legislation in green areas composition, defined as relevant clippings of landscape components of the urban area. Legal standards were associated with both qualitative and quantitative parameters of morphological and compositional elements as the interface with the community perspectives. The results demonstrate the lack of effective integration of urban dwellers in the current planning processes of these spaces in Curitiba. Notwithstanding the procedures adopted limitations, the conclusion indicates existence of capacity expansion in this connection within the digital city. This fact diagnosed by identifying enhancement opportunities of citizen’s virtual involvement and technological diversity options for this purpose.

Inland drift sand landscapes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fanta, J.; Siepel, H.

2010-01-01

Man has had a complex relationship with inland drift sands through the ages. For some centuries these landscapes were seen as a threat to society, especially agriculture and housing. At present we conserve these landscapes as important Natura 2000 priority habitats. In this book you may find these

Changing wind-power landscapes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Möller, Bernd

2006-01-01

of determining the likely visual-impact on landscapes and population, taking into account that there is no clear threshold for perceived adverse visual-impact. A geographical information system (GIS) has been used to build a regional landscape model for Northern Jutland County, which is used to assess visibility...

Glossary on agricultural landscapes.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kruse, A.; Centeri, C.; Renes, J.; Roth, M.; Printsman, A.; Palang, H.; Benito Jorda, M.-D.; Verlarde, M.D.; Kruckenberg, H.

2010-01-01

T he following glossary of terms related to the European agricultural landscape shall serve as a common basis for all parties, working in or on agricultural landscapes. Some of the terms are quite common and sometimes used in our every day language, but they often have different meanings in

Epigenetic Inheritance Across the Landscape

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amy Vaughn Whipple

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The study of epigenomic variation at the landscape-level in plants may add important insight to studies of adaptive variation. A major goal of landscape genomic studies is to identify genomic regions contributing to adaptive variation across the landscape. Heritable variation in epigenetic marks, resulting in transgenerational plasticity, can influence fitness-related traits. Epigenetic marks are influenced by the genome, the environment, and their interaction, and can be inherited independently of the genome. Thus, epigenomic variation likely influences the heritability of many adaptive traits, but the extent of this influence remains largely unknown. Here we summarize the relevance of epigenetic inheritance to ecological and evolutionary processes, and review the literature on landscape-level patterns of epigenetic variation. Landscape-level patterns of epigenomic variation in plants generally show greater levels of isolation by distance and isolation by environment then is found for the genome, but the causes of these patterns are not yet clear. Linkage between the environment and epigenomic variation has been clearly shown within a single generation, but demonstrating transgenerational inheritance requires more complex breeding and/or experimental designs. Transgenerational epigenetic variation may alter the interpretation of landscape genomic studies that rely upon phenotypic analyses, but should have less influence on landscape genomic approaches that rely upon outlier analyses or genome-environment associations. We suggest that multi-generation common garden experiments conducted across multiple environments will allow researchers to understand which parts of the epigenome are inherited, as well as to parse out the relative contribution of heritable epigenetic variation to the phenotype.

Epigenetic Inheritance across the Landscape.

Science.gov (United States)

Whipple, Amy V; Holeski, Liza M

2016-01-01

The study of epigenomic variation at the landscape-level in plants may add important insight to studies of adaptive variation. A major goal of landscape genomic studies is to identify genomic regions contributing to adaptive variation across the landscape. Heritable variation in epigenetic marks, resulting in transgenerational plasticity, can influence fitness-related traits. Epigenetic marks are influenced by the genome, the environment, and their interaction, and can be inherited independently of the genome. Thus, epigenomic variation likely influences the heritability of many adaptive traits, but the extent of this influence remains largely unknown. Here, we summarize the relevance of epigenetic inheritance to ecological and evolutionary processes, and review the literature on landscape-level patterns of epigenetic variation. Landscape-level patterns of epigenomic variation in plants generally show greater levels of isolation by distance and isolation by environment then is found for the genome, but the causes of these patterns are not yet clear. Linkage between the environment and epigenomic variation has been clearly shown within a single generation, but demonstrating transgenerational inheritance requires more complex breeding and/or experimental designs. Transgenerational epigenetic variation may alter the interpretation of landscape genomic studies that rely upon phenotypic analyses, but should have less influence on landscape genomic approaches that rely upon outlier analyses or genome-environment associations. We suggest that multi-generation common garden experiments conducted across multiple environments will allow researchers to understand which parts of the epigenome are inherited, as well as to parse out the relative contribution of heritable epigenetic variation to the phenotype.

Inference

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Møller, Jesper

2010-01-01

Chapter 9: This contribution concerns statistical inference for parametric models used in stochastic geometry and based on quick and simple simulation free procedures as well as more comprehensive methods based on a maximum likelihood or Bayesian approach combined with markov chain Monte Carlo...... (MCMC) techniques. Due to space limitations the focus is on spatial point processes....

Research needs for our national landscapes

Science.gov (United States)

Elwood L. Shafer

1979-01-01

The prevailing research problem for our national landscapes is: How shall we organize, control, and coordinate public and private development so as to protect, maintain, improve, and manage those landscape features that we value most? Research questions discussed include: environmental/political conflicts, taxation and zoning, landscape classification, public...

Europe: the paradox of landscape change

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sluis, van der Theo

2017-01-01

This thesis explores the processes of change in European rural landscapes. Landscapes have evolved over millennia as a result of human influence on the physical environment. Europe has a wide variety of landscapes that can alter within a relatively short distance, and which often form part of the

Inferring species trees from gene trees in a radiation of California trapdoor spiders (Araneae, Antrodiaetidae, Aliatypus.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jordan D Satler

Full Text Available The California Floristic Province is a biodiversity hotspot, reflecting a complex geologic history, strong selective gradients, and a heterogeneous landscape. These factors have led to high endemic diversity across many lifeforms within this region, including the richest diversity of mygalomorph spiders (tarantulas, trapdoor spiders, and kin in North America. The trapdoor spider genus Aliatypus encompasses twelve described species, eleven of which are endemic to California. Several Aliatypus species show disjunct distributional patterns in California (some are found on both sides of the vast Central Valley, and the genus as a whole occupies an impressive variety of habitats.We collected specimens from 89 populations representing all described species. DNA sequence data were collected from seven gene regions, including two newly developed for spider systematics. Bayesian inference (in individual gene tree and species tree approaches recovered a general "3 clade" structure for the genus (A. gulosus, californicus group, erebus group, with three other phylogenetically isolated species differing slightly in position across different phylogenetic analyses. Because of extremely high intraspecific divergences in mitochondrial COI sequences, the relatively slowly evolving 28S rRNA gene was found to be more useful than mitochondrial data for identification of morphologically indistinguishable immatures. For multiple species spanning the Central Valley, explicit hypothesis testing suggests a lack of monophyly for regional populations (e.g., western Coast Range populations. Phylogenetic evidence clearly shows that syntopy is restricted to distant phylogenetic relatives, consistent with ecological niche conservatism.This study provides fundamental insight into a radiation of trapdoor spiders found in the biodiversity hotspot of California. Species relationships are clarified and undescribed lineages are discovered, with more geographic sampling likely to

Feature Inference Learning and Eyetracking

Science.gov (United States)

Rehder, Bob; Colner, Robert M.; Hoffman, Aaron B.

2009-01-01

Besides traditional supervised classification learning, people can learn categories by inferring the missing features of category members. It has been proposed that feature inference learning promotes learning a category's internal structure (e.g., its typical features and interfeature correlations) whereas classification promotes the learning of…

Application of stone landscape in the city landscape%石景在城市景观中的运用

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

王鲜

2013-01-01

　　本文介绍了现代城市中石景艺术的风格与特点、现代景观中石景观的类型，以及现代景观中山石造景的艺术手法。%　　This paper introduces the style and features of stone landscape in modern city landscape, the types of stone landscape and the artistic method of stone landscape in modern landscape.

Landscape Character of Pongkor Mining Ecotourism Area

Science.gov (United States)

Kusumoarto, A.; Gunawan, A.; Machfud; Hikmat, A.

2017-10-01

Pongkor Mining Ecotourism Area has a diverse landscape character as a potential landscape resources for the development of ecotourism destination. This area is part of the Mount of Botol Resort, Halimun Salak National Park (HSNP). This area also has a fairly high biodiversity. This study aims to identify and analysis the category of landscape character in the Pongkor Mining Ecotourism Area for the development of ecotourism destination. This study used a descriptive approach through field surveys and interviews, was carried out through two steps : 1) identify the landscape character, and 2) analysis of the landscape character. The results showed that in areas set aside for ecotourism destination in Pongkor Mining, landscape character category scattered forests, tailing ponds, river, plain, and the built environment. The Category of landscape character most dominant scattered in the area is forest, here is the river, plain, tailing ponds, the built environment, and plain. The landscape character in a natural environment most preferred for ecotourism activities. The landscape character that spread in the natural environment and the built environment is a potential that must be protected and modified such as elimination of incongruous element, accentuation of natural form, alteration of the natural form, intensification and enhanced visual quality intensively to be developed as a ecotourism destination area.

Differentiation of Three Centella Species in Australia as Inferred from Morphological Characteristics, ISSR Molecular Fingerprinting and Phytochemical Composition.

Science.gov (United States)

Alqahtani, Ali; Cho, Jun-Lae; Wong, Ka Ho; Li, Kong M; Razmovski-Naumovski, Valentina; Li, George Q

2017-01-01

Centella asiatica is one of the popular herbs used for inflammatory and neural conditions. Its differentiation from similar species is currently lacking. The aims of this study were to differentiate the three closely related Centella species using methods based on morphological characters, genetic biodiversity, phytochemical compositions and antioxidant activities. According to the morphological characteristics, the collected samples were identified as three species: C. asiatica, Centella cordifolia and Centella erecta and clustered into three groups based on their morphometric variability. Dendogram constructed on the basis of the intersimple sequence repeats (ISSR) analyses were consistent with the morphological grouping. Centella cordifolia had the highest triterpene glycosides, phenolics and antioxidant capacity, followed by C. asiatica , then C. erecta , therefore, was genetically and chemically closer to C. asiatica , while C. erecta was distinctively different from them. The results confirm the occurrence of the closely related three species of Centella in Australia, and the differentiation among them can be achieved via the combination of morphometric, molecular and phytochemical methods. This first comparative botanical study on Centella species provides a foundation for further systematic study and medicinal development of Centella .

Differentiation of Three Centella Species in Australia as Inferred from Morphological Characteristics, ISSR Molecular Fingerprinting and Phytochemical Composition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Alqahtani

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Centella asiatica is one of the popular herbs used for inflammatory and neural conditions. Its differentiation from similar species is currently lacking. The aims of this study were to differentiate the three closely related Centella species using methods based on morphological characters, genetic biodiversity, phytochemical compositions and antioxidant activities. According to the morphological characteristics, the collected samples were identified as three species: C. asiatica, Centella cordifolia and Centella erecta and clustered into three groups based on their morphometric variability. Dendogram constructed on the basis of the intersimple sequence repeats (ISSR analyses were consistent with the morphological grouping. Centella cordifolia had the highest triterpene glycosides, phenolics and antioxidant capacity, followed by C. asiatica, then C. erecta, therefore, was genetically and chemically closer to C. asiatica, while C. erecta was distinctively different from them. The results confirm the occurrence of the closely related three species of Centella in Australia, and the differentiation among them can be achieved via the combination of morphometric, molecular and phytochemical methods. This first comparative botanical study on Centella species provides a foundation for further systematic study and medicinal development of Centella.

Determinants of a traditional agricultural landscape

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Janina Borysiak

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The study aim was to define the landscape determinants as certificates of natural and cultural heritage which identify the young glacial landscape under traditional agricultural management. These studies were conducted in the upper Parsęta basin (Pomerania, Poland covered by the many annual environmental monitoring programs since 1994. The aim of this monitoring is to observe changes in geoecosystems of the temperate climate zone. The parameters of the abiotic landscape subsystem have been monitored in a wide range of terms, whereas biotic elements and cultural resources only in a very limited way. This was the reason for undertaking complementary studies. The paper presents the so-called “zero-state” for 2014, which will be a reference point from which to track the direction of landscape changes in the future. The abiotic, geobotanical, and cultural determinants of this state chosen have been characterized on the basis of field mapping data and the available literature. They were chosen based on the methodology of landscape audit to define the specificity of the traditional agricultural landscape. They were selected on the basis of assessment criteria for landscape structure: complexity (diversification of land use and cover, naturalness (syngenesis of plant communities, hydrochemical properties of surface waters, coherence of composition with natural conditions, stewardship (intensity of use, crop weeds, ecological succession, fallows, anthropogenic denudation, aesthetic and visual perception, historicity (continuity of natural landscape elements, continuation of traditional agricultural use, architectural objects, and disharmonious elements.

Calculation of Configurational Entropy in Complex Landscapes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Samuel A Cushman

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Entropy and the second law of thermodynamics are fundamental concepts that underlie all natural processes and patterns. Recent research has shown how the entropy of a landscape mosaic can be calculated using the Boltzmann equation, with the entropy of a lattice mosaic equal to the logarithm of the number of ways a lattice with a given dimensionality and number of classes can be arranged to produce the same total amount of edge between cells of different classes. However, that work seemed to also suggest that the feasibility of applying this method to real landscapes was limited due to intractably large numbers of possible arrangements of raster cells in large landscapes. Here I extend that work by showing that: (1 the proportion of arrangements rather than the number with a given amount of edge length provides a means to calculate unbiased relative configurational entropy, obviating the need to compute all possible configurations of a landscape lattice; (2 the edge lengths of randomized landscape mosaics are normally distributed, following the central limit theorem; and (3 given this normal distribution it is possible to fit parametric probability density functions to estimate the expected proportion of randomized configurations that have any given edge length, enabling the calculation of configurational entropy on any landscape regardless of size or number of classes. I evaluate the boundary limits (4 for this normal approximation for small landscapes with a small proportion of a minority class and show it holds under all realistic landscape conditions. I further (5 demonstrate that this relationship holds for a sample of real landscapes that vary in size, patch richness, and evenness of area in each cover type, and (6 I show that the mean and standard deviation of the normally distributed edge lengths can be predicted nearly perfectly as a function of the size, patch richness and diversity of a landscape. Finally, (7 I show that the

The Importance of Edible Landscape in the Cities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Filiz Çelik

2017-02-01

Full Text Available The 21st century sustainable city requires the merging of urbanism with sustainable food systems. The challenges industrial food system separates people from their food sources. The design strategies for edible landscape are about re-inviting food back into the city and re-connecting people with their local/regional food system to promote a healthier lifestyle. Edible landscapes are a movement in transition and sprouting up as a response to the slow food movement and living a greener lifestyle. These urban agricultural landscapes are fast becoming iconic media darlings and are demonstrating that they are far more than growing vegetables and fruits on abandoned lots. Edible landscaping is the use of food plants as design features in a landscape. These plants are used both for aesthetic value as well as consumption. Edible landscapes encompass a variety of garden types and scales but do not include food items produced for sale. Edible landscaping is the practical integration of food plants within an ornamental or decorative setting. Using edibles in landscape design can enhance a garden by providing a unique ornamental component with additional health, aesthetic, and economic benefits. In this study; emergence of edible landscape, edible landscape design and maintenance, samples of edible landscape, productive plants, importance of edible landscaping for urban environments have been explained.

Modelling Geomorphic Systems: Landscape Evolution

OpenAIRE

Valters, Declan

2016-01-01

Landscape evolution models (LEMs) present the geomorphologist with a means of investigating how landscapes evolve in response to external forcings, such as climate and tectonics, as well as internal process laws. LEMs typically incorporate a range of different geomorphic transport laws integrated in a way that simulates the evolution of a 3D terrain surface forward through time. The strengths of LEMs as research tools lie in their ability to rapidly test many different hypotheses of landscape...

'Landscape Mirror' & 'Feed the Wind' : Teaching Landscape Architecture on Site at Oerol Festival in the Wadden Sea

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jauslin, D.T.; Bobbink, I.

2012-01-01

In the projects 'Landscape Mirror' 2011 and 'Feed the Wind' 2012 students of the Master of Landscape Architecture of the TU Delft have made an interactive project that evolved over the course of Oerol, a unique yearly recurring festival on the Wadden-Sea island Terschelling for landscape theatre &

Bayesian inversion of a CRN depth profile to infer Quaternary erosion of the northwestern Campine Plateau (NE Belgium

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. Laloy

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The rate at which low-lying sandy areas in temperate regions, such as the Campine Plateau (NE Belgium, have been eroding during the Quaternary is a matter of debate. Current knowledge on the average pace of landscape evolution in the Campine area is largely based on geological inferences and modern analogies. We performed a Bayesian inversion of an in situ-produced 10Be concentration depth profile to infer the average long-term erosion rate together with two other parameters: the surface exposure age and the inherited 10Be concentration. Compared to the latest advances in probabilistic inversion of cosmogenic radionuclide (CRN data, our approach has the following two innovative components: it (1 uses Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC sampling and (2 accounts (under certain assumptions for the contribution of model errors to posterior uncertainty. To investigate to what extent our approach differs from the state of the art in practice, a comparison against the Bayesian inversion method implemented in the CRONUScalc program is made. Both approaches identify similar maximum a posteriori (MAP parameter values, but posterior parameter and predictive uncertainty derived using the method taken in CRONUScalc is moderately underestimated. A simple way for producing more consistent uncertainty estimates with the CRONUScalc-like method in the presence of model errors is therefore suggested. Our inferred erosion rate of 39 ± 8. 9 mm kyr−1 (1σ is relatively large in comparison with landforms that erode under comparable (paleo-climates elsewhere in the world. We evaluate this value in the light of the erodibility of the substrate and sudden base level lowering during the Middle Pleistocene. A denser sampling scheme of a two-nuclide concentration depth profile would allow for better inferred erosion rate resolution, and including more uncertain parameters in the MCMC inversion.

Bayesian inversion of a CRN depth profile to infer Quaternary erosion of the northwestern Campine Plateau (NE Belgium)

Science.gov (United States)

Laloy, Eric; Beerten, Koen; Vanacker, Veerle; Christl, Marcus; Rogiers, Bart; Wouters, Laurent

2017-07-01

The rate at which low-lying sandy areas in temperate regions, such as the Campine Plateau (NE Belgium), have been eroding during the Quaternary is a matter of debate. Current knowledge on the average pace of landscape evolution in the Campine area is largely based on geological inferences and modern analogies. We performed a Bayesian inversion of an in situ-produced 10Be concentration depth profile to infer the average long-term erosion rate together with two other parameters: the surface exposure age and the inherited 10Be concentration. Compared to the latest advances in probabilistic inversion of cosmogenic radionuclide (CRN) data, our approach has the following two innovative components: it (1) uses Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling and (2) accounts (under certain assumptions) for the contribution of model errors to posterior uncertainty. To investigate to what extent our approach differs from the state of the art in practice, a comparison against the Bayesian inversion method implemented in the CRONUScalc program is made. Both approaches identify similar maximum a posteriori (MAP) parameter values, but posterior parameter and predictive uncertainty derived using the method taken in CRONUScalc is moderately underestimated. A simple way for producing more consistent uncertainty estimates with the CRONUScalc-like method in the presence of model errors is therefore suggested. Our inferred erosion rate of 39 ± 8. 9 mm kyr-1 (1σ) is relatively large in comparison with landforms that erode under comparable (paleo-)climates elsewhere in the world. We evaluate this value in the light of the erodibility of the substrate and sudden base level lowering during the Middle Pleistocene. A denser sampling scheme of a two-nuclide concentration depth profile would allow for better inferred erosion rate resolution, and including more uncertain parameters in the MCMC inversion.

Geological beauties and Landscape: new proposals to communicate the Geodiversity

Science.gov (United States)

Lugeri, Francesca; Farabollini, Piero; Amadio, Vittorio

2015-04-01

The European Landscape Convention proposes a concept of the landscape itself as an expression of the diversity of the natural, cultural and economic development of the population and identifies society as responsible of such a heritage. The landscape has a concrete value as natural resource and basis of functional processes that support life; it also has an important symbolic value: the consequences of the loss of landscape have been and still are devastating, even on a social level. The Landscape is object of human perceptions and, at the same time, can be considered the result of the interaction of many natural and cultural components: therefore it could become a "medium" to communicate the Earth Sciences to the whole society: the geo-morphological sciences are a powerful tool in order to explain and share a "sense of natural identity". The consciousness of being part of an ecosystem, is achieved through the knowledge and the experience of the environment. In order to create effective and efficient sensitivity in individuals and in communities, it is essential to explain the importance of geodiversity, which - integrated to bio diversity- contributes to the concept of "environmental diversity" essential balance of the planet and resource for the economy. The difficulty for the scientific communicators in reaching the wider public, requires new integrated solutions. A very positive experience is related to the project "GeoloGiro" geology at the Giro d'Italia, (realized thanks to a cooperation between ISPRA Geological Survey and the Italian Council of Geologists) which provides a TV time dedicated to make comprehensible the reasons of the geological and environmental beauties of the territory crossed by cyclists during each stage. A further project development, includes the transmission of a short cartoon in which a strange character - a pink dinosaur named GiROSAuro, cycling fan, pink as the jersey worn by the winners of the "Giro d 'Italia"- explains to the

Persistence of aquatic insects across managed landscapes: effects of landscape permeability on re-colonization and population recovery.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nika Galic

Full Text Available Human practices in managed landscapes may often adversely affect aquatic biota, such as aquatic insects. Dispersal is often the limiting factor for successful re-colonization and recovery of stressed habitats. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated the effects of landscape permeability, assuming a combination of riparian vegetation (edge permeability and other vegetation (landscape matrix permeability, and distance between waterbodies on the colonization and recovery potential of weakly flying insects. For this purpose, we developed two models, a movement and a population model of the non-biting midge, Chironomus riparius, an aquatic insect with weak flying abilities. With the movement model we predicted the outcome of dispersal in a landscape with several linear water bodies (ditches under different assumptions regarding landscape-dependent movement. Output from the movement model constituted the probabilities of encountering another ditch and of staying in the natal ditch or perishing in the landscape matrix, and was used in the second model. With this individual-based model of midge populations, we assessed the implications for population persistence and for recovery potential after an extreme stress event. We showed that a combination of landscape attributes from the movement model determines the fate of dispersing individuals and, once extrapolated to the population level, has a big impact on the persistence and recovery of populations. Population persistence benefited from low edge permeability as it reduced the dispersal mortality which was the main factor determining population persistence and viability. However, population recovery benefited from higher edge permeability, but this was conditional on the low effective distance that ensured fewer losses in the landscape matrix. We discuss these findings with respect to possible landscape management scenarios.

Active cell-matrix coupling regulates cellular force landscapes of cohesive epithelial monolayers

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Tiankai; Zhang, Yao; Wei, Qiong; Shi, Xuechen; Zhao, Peng; Chen, Long-Qing; Zhang, Sulin

2018-03-01

Epithelial cells can assemble into cohesive monolayers with rich morphologies on substrates due to competition between elastic, edge, and interfacial effects. Here we present a molecularly based thermodynamic model, integrating monolayer and substrate elasticity, and force-mediated focal adhesion formation, to elucidate the active biochemical regulation over the cellular force landscapes in cohesive epithelial monolayers, corroborated by microscopy and immunofluorescence studies. The predicted extracellular traction and intercellular tension are both monolayer size and substrate stiffness dependent, suggestive of cross-talks between intercellular and extracellular activities. Our model sets a firm ground toward a versatile computational framework to uncover the molecular origins of morphogenesis and disease in multicellular epithelia.

Learning topography with Tangible Landscape games

Science.gov (United States)

Petrasova, A.; Tabrizian, P.; Harmon, B. A.; Petras, V.; Millar, G.; Mitasova, H.; Meentemeyer, R. K.

2017-12-01

Understanding topography and its representations is crucial for correct interpretation and modeling of surface processes. However, novice earth science and landscape architecture students often find reading topographic maps challenging. As a result, many students struggle to comprehend more complex spatial concepts and processes such as flow accumulation or sediment transport.We developed and tested a new method for teaching hydrology, geomorphology, and grading using Tangible Landscape—a tangible interface for geospatial modeling. Tangible Landscape couples a physical and digital model of a landscape through a real-time cycle of hands-on modeling, 3D scanning, geospatial computation, and projection. With Tangible Landscape students can sculpt a projection-augmented topographic model of a landscape with their hands and use a variety of tangible objects to immediately see how they are changing geospatial analytics such as contours, profiles, water flow, or landform types. By feeling and manipulating the shape of the topography, while seeing projected geospatial analytics, students can intuitively learn about 3D topographic form, its representations, and how topography controls physical processes. Tangible Landscape is powered by GRASS GIS, an open source geospatial platform with extensive libraries for geospatial modeling and analysis. As such, Tangible Landscape can be used to design a wide range of learning experiences across a large number of geoscience disciplines.As part of a graduate level course that teaches grading, 16 students participated in a series of workshops, which were developed as serious games to encourage learning through structured play. These serious games included 1) diverting rain water to a specified location with minimal changes to landscape, 2) building different combinations of landforms, and 3) reconstructing landscapes based on projected contour information with feedback.In this poster, we will introduce Tangible Landscape, and

Forward and backward inference in spatial cognition.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Will D Penny

Full Text Available This paper shows that the various computations underlying spatial cognition can be implemented using statistical inference in a single probabilistic model. Inference is implemented using a common set of 'lower-level' computations involving forward and backward inference over time. For example, to estimate where you are in a known environment, forward inference is used to optimally combine location estimates from path integration with those from sensory input. To decide which way to turn to reach a goal, forward inference is used to compute the likelihood of reaching that goal under each option. To work out which environment you are in, forward inference is used to compute the likelihood of sensory observations under the different hypotheses. For reaching sensory goals that require a chaining together of decisions, forward inference can be used to compute a state trajectory that will lead to that goal, and backward inference to refine the route and estimate control signals that produce the required trajectory. We propose that these computations are reflected in recent findings of pattern replay in the mammalian brain. Specifically, that theta sequences reflect decision making, theta flickering reflects model selection, and remote replay reflects route and motor planning. We also propose a mapping of the above computational processes onto lateral and medial entorhinal cortex and hippocampus.

Is recreational hunting important for landscape multi-functionality?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lund, Jens Friis; Jensen, Frank Søndergaard

2017-01-01

Recreational hunting may be important to the shaping of the agricultural landscape. Land owners who hunt or lease out hunting rights have an incentive to promote landscapes that contain wildlife biotopes, which may serve wider societal values, such as landscape aesthetics, biodiversity, and prese......Recreational hunting may be important to the shaping of the agricultural landscape. Land owners who hunt or lease out hunting rights have an incentive to promote landscapes that contain wildlife biotopes, which may serve wider societal values, such as landscape aesthetics, biodiversity......, and preservation of valued and/or threatened animal and plant species. Recreational hunting may thus contribute to preserve and enhance landscape multifunctionality. Yet, little is known about the importance of hunting interests in motivating such landscape management. In this article, we seek to shed light...

CHARACTERIZATION OF MORPHOLOGICAL TRAITS OF COMMERCIAL INTEREST IN THE MORELET'S CROCODILE (Crocodylus moreletii

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Ricardo Serna-Lagunes

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Crocodylus moreletii is a species of commercial interest based on its skin. In this study, five morphological traits of commercial interest were characterized in 125 captivity-raised specimens of C. moreletii from four populations (Puente Chilapa, Gutiérrez Zamora, Villa Juárez and Puerto Vallarta. A canonical discriminant analysis (CDA was used to differentiate the populations according to their morphological traits, a cluster analysis (CA was used to infer which populations had the largest total length (TL, and a covariance analysis (ANCOVA was used to assess the allometry and detect which population was different in terms of TL. The CDA showed no significant effects, suggesting that the morphological traits were similar among populations; the CA grouped two populations which had the largest body size; the ANCOVA revealed a significant correlation between morphological traits and detected a TL effect significantly lower in males and females from Puente Chilapa, in comparison with the other three populations. In conclusion, the males from Gutiérrez Zamora and the females from Villa Juárez were morphologically outstanding in terms of TL, and they would be the right crocodiles to establish a breeding nucleus in order to obtain offspring with their phenotypic characteristics.

Landscaping and landscape ecology in the management of tree plantation. A reference to the city of Medellin, Colombia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Velez Restrepo, Luis Anibal

2007-01-01

The paper constitutes a reflection around the urban landscape, whit reference to Medellin, likewise around the landscaping and ecological potential that the city has along its terrain, its empty lots, without urbanizing, and especially, thanks to the tree plantation that its streets display. It is questioned the absence of a landscaping dimension in the urban planning; the increasing deterioration of the panoramic qualities; and the gradual loss of green spaces. At the same time, it is emphasized the importance that such tree planting has in the landscape, from the visual, social and environmental point of view. The work discusses the tendency to the artificiality of tree planting on sidewalks and vial road separators, raising conceptual limitations associated to the scale tree to tree, to the lack of incorporation of ecological landscape relations related to its handling, and to the landscaping approach within the framework of the urban designing. The reflection leans on data of the concrete situation, suggesting the complementary role that the vegetation could accomplish in streets and avenues with a perspective of ecological connectivity of the landscape

Linking ecosystem services with cultural landscape research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schaich, Harald; Biding, Claudia; Plieninger, Tobias

2010-01-01

The concept of ecosystem services facilitates the valuation of the multiple services from ecosystems and landscapes, the identification of trade-offs between different land use scenarios, and also informs decision making in land use planning. Unfortunately, cultural services have been mostly...... neglected within the ecosystem services framework. This could result in trade-off assessments which are biased and mislead ecosystem management and landscape planning. However, cultural landscape research approaches have proven valuable in the assessment of different nonmaterial landscape values...... and cultural services. In this paper, we compare the objectives, approaches, and methodologies adopted by ecosystem services research and cultural landscape research through a bibliographic research. Both research communities investigate the human dimension of ecosystems and landscapes and, hence, study...

Landscape Visualisation on the Internet

Science.gov (United States)

Imhof, M. P.; Cox, M. T.; Harvey, D. W.; Heemskerk, G. E.; Pettit, C. J.

2012-07-01

The Victorian Resources Online (VRO) website (http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/vro) is the principal means for accessing landscapebased information in Victoria. In this paper we introduce a range of online landscape visualisations that have been developed to enhance existing static web content around the nature and distribution of Victoria's landforms and soils as well as associated processes. Flash is used to develop online visualisations that include interactive landscape panoramas, animations of soil and landscape processes and videos of experts explaining features in the field as well as landscape "flyovers". The use of interactive visualisations adds rich information multimedia content to otherwise static pages and offers the potential to improve user's appreciation and understanding of soil and landscapes. Visualisation is becoming a key component of knowledge management activities associated with VRO - proving useful for both "knowledge capture" (from subject matter specialists) and "knowledge transfer" to a diverse user base. A range of useful visualisation products have been made available online, with varying degrees of interactivity and suited to a variety of users. The use of video files, animation and interactive visualisations is adding rich information content to otherwise static web pages. These information products offer new possibilities to enhance learning of landscapes and the effectiveness of these will be tested as the next phase of development.

Longwave infrared observation of urban landscapes

Science.gov (United States)

Goward, S. N.

1981-01-01

An investigation is conducted regarding the feasibility to develop improved methods for the identification and analysis of urban landscapes on the basis of a utilization of longwave infrared observations. Attention is given to landscape thermal behavior, urban thermal properties, modeled thermal behavior of pavements and buildings, and observed urban landscape thermal emissions. The differential thermal behavior of buildings, pavements, and natural areas within urban landscapes is found to suggest that integrated multispectral solar radiant reflectance and terrestrial radiant emissions data will significantly increase potentials for analyzing urban landscapes. In particular, daytime satellite observations of the considered type should permit better identification of urban areas and an analysis of the density of buildings and pavements within urban areas. This capability should enhance the utility of satellite remote sensor data in urban applications.

Piscivory limits diversification of feeding morphology in centrarchid fishes.

Science.gov (United States)

Collar, David C; O'Meara, Brian C; Wainwright, Peter C; Near, Thomas J

2009-06-01

Proximity to an adaptive peak influences a lineage's potential to diversify. We tested whether piscivory, a high quality but functionally demanding trophic strategy, represents an adaptive peak that limits morphological diversification in the teleost fish clade, Centrarchidae. We synthesized published diet data and applied a well-resolved, multilocus and time-calibrated phylogeny to reconstruct ancestral piscivory. We measured functional features of the skull and performed principal components analysis on species' values for these variables. To assess the role of piscivory on morphological diversification, we compared the fit of several models of evolution for each principal component (PC), where model parameters were allowed to vary between lineages that differed in degree of piscivory. According to the best-fitting model, two adaptive peaks influenced PC 1 evolution, one peak shared between highly and moderately piscivorous lineages and another for nonpiscivores. Brownian motion better fit PCs 2, 3, and 4, but the best Brownian models infer a slow rate of PC 2 evolution shared among all piscivores and a uniquely slow rate of PC 4 evolution in highly piscivorous lineages. These results suggest that piscivory limits feeding morphology diversification, but this effect is most severe in lineages that exhibit an extreme form of this diet.

Landscape Sustainability in a Sonoran Desert City

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chris A. Martin

2008-01-01

Full Text Available The objective of this paper is to discuss concepts of landscape sustainability in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Phoenix is situated in the greater Salt River Valley of the lower Sonoran Desert in the southwest United States. In this paper I use the ecological frameworks of ecosystem services and resiliency as a metric for understanding landscape sustainability. An assessment of landscape sustainability performance benchmarks were made by surveying research findings of scientists affiliated with the Central Arizona Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research Project (CAP LTER. In Phoenix, present day emphases on cultural, aesthetic, and habitat formation ecosystem services within an arid ecoregion of low natural resilience coupled to a complex matrix of socioeconomic stratification, excessive landscape water use and pruning practices has had the undesired effect of degrading landscape sustainability. This has been measured as mixed patterns of plant diversity and human-altered patterns of carbon regulation, microclimate control, and trophic dynamics. In the future, sustainable residential landscaping in desert cities such as Phoenix may be fostered through use of water-conserving irrigation technologies, oasis-style landscape design motifs, recycling of landscape green waste, and conservative plant pruning strategies.

Purification effects of five landscape plants on river landscape water

Science.gov (United States)

Ling, Sun; Lei, Zheng; Mao, Qinqing; Ji, Qingxin

2017-12-01

Five species of landscape plants which are scindapsus aureus, water hyacinth, cockscomb, calendula officinalis and salvia splendens were used as experimental materials to study their removal effects on nitrogen, phosphorus, chemical oxygen demand (CODMn) and suspended solids (SS) in urban river water. The results show that the 5 landscape plants have good adaptability and vitality in water body, among them, water hyacinth had the best life signs than the other 4 plants, and its plant height and root length increased significantly. They have certain removal effects on the nitrogen, phosphorus, CODMn (Chemical Oxygen Demand) and SS (Suspended Substance) in the landscape water of Dalong Lake, Xuzhou. Scindapsus aureus, water hyacinth, cockscomb, calendula officinalis and salvia splendens on the removal rate of total nitrogen were 76.69%, 78.57%, 71.42%, 69.64%, 67.86%; the ammonia nitrogen removal rate were 71.06%, 74.28%, 67.85%, 63.02%, 59.81%;the total phosphorus removal rate were 78.70%, 81.48%, 73.15%, 72.22%, 68.52%;the orthophosphate removal rates were 78.37%, 80.77%, 75.96%, 75.96%, 71.15%;the removal rate of CODMn was 52.5%, 55.35%, 46.02%, 45.42%, 44.19%; the removal rate of SS was 81.4%, 86%, 79.1%, 76.7%, 74.42%.The purification effect of 5 kinds of landscape plants of Dalong Lake in Xuzhou City: water hyacinth> scindapsus aureus>cockscomb>calendula officinalis>salvia splendens.

Energy landscapes, landscapes in transition. How to prepare one's territory to the deployment of renewable energies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2014-06-01

This guide first defines the notion of landscape, outlines what is at stake with decentralised renewable energy production, and presents the various important aspects of a deployment of decentralised renewable energy production. It describes how to define a general strategy for the integration of this production: relationship between energy and landscape, project implementation, partnership, tools to anticipate changes, evolution of social demand through dialogue, conciliation of technical and financial constraints and landscape ambitions. An appendix proposes legal and bibliographical information: legal relationships between energy and landscape, possible arrangements for PLU (plan local d'urbanisme, local urban plan) and SCOT (schema de coherence territoriale, territorial planning document)

A formal model of interpersonal inference

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael eMoutoussis

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Introduction: We propose that active Bayesian inference – a general framework for decision-making – can equally be applied to interpersonal exchanges. Social cognition, however, entails special challenges. We address these challenges through a novel formulation of a formal model and demonstrate its psychological significance. Method: We review relevant literature, especially with regards to interpersonal representations, formulate a mathematical model and present a simulation study. The model accommodates normative models from utility theory and places them within the broader setting of Bayesian inference. Crucially, we endow people's prior beliefs, into which utilities are absorbed, with preferences of self and others. The simulation illustrates the model's dynamics and furnishes elementary predictions of the theory. Results: 1. Because beliefs about self and others inform both the desirability and plausibility of outcomes, in this framework interpersonal representations become beliefs that have to be actively inferred. This inference, akin to 'mentalising' in the psychological literature, is based upon the outcomes of interpersonal exchanges. 2. We show how some well-known social-psychological phenomena (e.g. self-serving biases can be explained in terms of active interpersonal inference. 3. Mentalising naturally entails Bayesian updating of how people value social outcomes. Crucially this includes inference about one’s own qualities and preferences. Conclusion: We inaugurate a Bayes optimal framework for modelling intersubject variability in mentalising during interpersonal exchanges. Here, interpersonal representations are endowed with explicit functional and affective properties. We suggest the active inference framework lends itself to the study of psychiatric conditions where mentalising is distorted.

Landscape epidemiology in urban environments: The example of rodent-borne Trypanosoma in Niamey, Niger.

Science.gov (United States)

Rossi, Jean-Pierre; Kadaouré, Ibrahima; Godefroid, Martin; Dobigny, Gauthier

2017-10-05

Trypanosomes are protozoan parasites found worldwide, infecting humans and animals. In the past decade, the number of reports on atypical human cases due to Trypanosoma lewisi or T. lewisi-like has increased urging to investigate the multiple factors driving the disease dynamics, particularly in cities where rodents and humans co-exist at high densities. In the present survey, we used a species distribution model, Maxent, to assess the spatial pattern of Trypanosoma-positive rodents in the city of Niamey. The explanatory variables were landscape metrics describing urban landscape composition and physiognomy computed from 8 land-cover classes. We computed the metrics around each data location using a set of circular buffers of increasing radii (20m, 40m, 60m, 80m and 100m). For each spatial resolution, we determined the optimal combination of feature class and regularization multipliers by fitting Maxent with the full dataset. Since our dataset was small (114 occurrences) we expected an important uncertainty associated to data partitioning into calibration and evaluation datasets. We thus performed 350 independent model runs with a training dataset representing a random subset of 80% of the occurrences and the optimal Maxent parameters. Each model yielded a map of habitat suitability over Niamey, which was transformed into a binary map implementing a threshold maximizing the sensitivity and the specificity. The resulting binary maps were combined to display the proportion of models that indicated a good environmental suitability for Trypanosoma-positive rodents. Maxent performed better with landscape metrics derived from buffers of 80m. Habitat suitability for Trypanosoma-positive rodents exhibited large patches linked to urban features such as patch richness and the proportion of landscape covered by concrete or tarred areas. Such inferences could be helpful in assessing areas at risk, setting of monitoring programs, public and medical staff awareness or even

Globalization and Landscape Architecture

OpenAIRE

Robert R. Hewitt

2014-01-01

The literature review examines globalization and landscape architecture as discourse, samples its various meanings, and proposes methods to identify and contextualize its specific literature. Methodologically, the review surveys published articles and books by leading authors and within the WorldCat.org Database associated with landscape architecture and globalization, analyzing survey results for comprehensive concept...

Global diversity of the Ganoderma lucidum complex (Ganodermataceae, Polyporales) inferred from morphology and multilocus phylogeny.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Li-Wei; Cao, Yun; Wu, Sheng-Hua; Vlasák, Josef; Li, De-Wei; Li, Meng-Jie; Dai, Yu-Cheng

2015-06-01

Species of the Ganoderma lucidum complex are used in many types of health products. However, the taxonomy of this complex has long been chaotic, thus limiting its uses. In the present study, 32 collections of the complex from Asia, Europe and North America were analyzed from both morphological and molecular phylogenetic perspectives. The combined dataset, including an outgroup, comprised 33 ITS, 24 tef1α, 24 rpb1 and 21 rpb2 sequences, of which 19 ITS, 20 tef1α, 20 rpb1 and 17 rpb2 sequences were newly generated. A total of 13 species of the complex were recovered in the multilocus phylogeny. These 13 species were not strongly supported as a single monophyletic lineage, and were further grouped into three lineages that cannot be defined by their geographic distributions. Clade A comprised Ganoderma curtisii, Ganoderma flexipes, Ganoderma lingzhi, Ganoderma multipileum, Ganoderma resinaceum, Ganoderma sessile, Ganoderma sichuanense and Ganoderma tropicum, Clade B comprised G. lucidum, Ganoderma oregonense and Ganoderma tsugae, and Clade C comprised Ganoderma boninense and Ganoderma zonatum. A dichotomous key to the 13 species is provided, and their key morphological characters from context, pores, cuticle cells and basidiospores are presented in a table. The taxonomic positions of these species are briefly discussed. Noteworthy, the epitypification of G. sichuanense is rejected. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

THE METHODOLOGY OF VALORISING AND ASSESSING LANDSCAPE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stanisław Jacek Bacior

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Landscape evaluation process requires access to particular information resources making it possible to regionalize (divide into zones the area under investigation. Thus, the starting point is landscape assessment and evaluation followed by regionalization. As a result of this step, we determine certain areas that are homogenous with regards to their landscape assets Keywords: assessing landscape, structure of rural areas, spatial planning of rural areas.

Distributional Inference

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kroese, A.H.; van der Meulen, E.A.; Poortema, Klaas; Schaafsma, W.

1995-01-01

The making of statistical inferences in distributional form is conceptionally complicated because the epistemic 'probabilities' assigned are mixtures of fact and fiction. In this respect they are essentially different from 'physical' or 'frequency-theoretic' probabilities. The distributional form is

Landscape Planning of Schoolyards

Science.gov (United States)

Kopeva, A.; Khrapko, O.; Ivanova, O.

2017-11-01

The optimal landscape architecture planning of schoolyards allows for creation of favorable conditions for children personal development and physical fitness. The key principles of schoolyard landscape planning, same as for other areas intended for children, are as follows: establishment of a favorable microclimate, safety, aesthetic and educational environment. Green spaces play an essential role in this respect as they are essential to sanitary, hygienic, structural, and spatial planning performing decorative, artistic, cognitive, and educational functions in these areas. Various types of landscape plantings are used in school areas: borders, lawns, beds, vines, ornamental arrangements, and various potted plants. Children’s safety is the key principle when selecting a landscape design type and the plants’ range. Any allergenic, poisonous, thorny, strong-smelling or life-threatening plants are excluded. Plants on school grounds can serve as visual aids for studies. Drought-resistant, attractive, colorful, abundantly blooming plants with variable leaf texture are preferred. Ornamental trees and shrubs as well as perennials and annuals provide a broad plant range for school grounds.

Phylogenetic diversity in the core group of Peziza inferred from ITS sequences and morphology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, K.; Læssøe, Thomas; Pfister, D.H.

2002-01-01

Species delimitation within the core group of Peziza is highly controversial. The group, typified by P. vesiculosa, is morphologically coherent and in previous analyses of LSU rDNA sequences it formed a highly supported clade. Phylogenetic diversity and species limits were investigated within......), shallowly cup- to disc-shaped apothecia (A) and large (up to 15 cm), deeply cup-shaped to expanded apothecia (B). The overall exciple structure (a stratified or non-stratified medullary layer) and to some degree spore surface relief, likewise support the groupings. Clade A contains taxa with smooth...... that populations on a diverse array of substrates may be closely related, or indeed, conspecific....

Continuous Integrated Invariant Inference, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The proposed project will develop a new technique for invariant inference and embed this and other current invariant inference and checking techniques in an...

Processes of aesthetic transformation in ordinary landscapes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Krarup, Jonna Majgaard

2004-01-01

it was distributed systematically as an almost industrially produced landscape element. Windbreaks are now regarded as a traditional element in the Danish agricultural landscape. As a landscape element it is an international phenomenon known and used in Germany, France, England etc. Originally local farming...... practices, natural conditions, techniques and national legislation in the respective countries, formed the aesthetic expression. In this respect one could speak of the impact of northern nature on the aesthetic expression of the Danish windbreaks, as well as the impact from national phenomena....... These features determined the specific aesthetic and architectural identity of ordinary Danish, i.e. Nordic, landscapes. Contemporary cultural changes such as the aesthetification of everyday life and of ordinary landscape, i.e. farming landscape, are now manifest in the way the windbreaks are motivated...

Land destruction and redevelopment - the use of computer based landscape evolution models for post-mining landscape reconstruction

Science.gov (United States)

Hancock, Greg; Willgoose, Garry

2017-04-01

Mining provides essential resources for the global economy as well as considerable employment and economic benefits for the community. Mining is necessary for the modern economy. However, in recent decades the scale and environmental impact of mining has grown in line with the global demand for resources. This requires ever increasing areas of land to be disturbed. In particular, open-cast mining removes topsoil, disrupts aquifers and removes uneconomic material to depths of many hundreds of metres. Post-mining, this highly disturbed landscape system requires rehabilitation. The first and most important component of this process is to construct an erosionally stable landform which then can ecologically integrate with the surrounding undisturbed landscape. The scale and importance of this process cannot be overstated as without planned rehabilitation it is likely that a degraded and highly erosional landscape system with result. Here we discuss computer based landform evolution models which provide essential information on the likely erosional stability of the reconstructed landscape. These models use a digital elevation model to represent the landscape and dynamically adjusts the surface in response to erosion and deposition. They provide information on soil erosion rates at the storm event time scale through to annual time scales. The models can also be run to assess landscape evolution at millennial time scales. They also provide information on the type of erosion (i.e. rilling, gullying) and likely gully depths (and if they will occur). Importantly, the latest models have vegetation, armouring and pedogenesis submodels incorporated into their formulation. This allows both the surface and subsurface landscape evolution to be assessed. These models have been widely used and have huge benefits for the assessment of reconstructed landscapes as well as other disturbed landscape systems. Here we outline the state of the art.

Estimating uncertainty of inference for validation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Booker, Jane M [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Langenbrunner, James R [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Hemez, Francois M [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Ross, Timothy J [UNM

2010-09-30

We present a validation process based upon the concept that validation is an inference-making activity. This has always been true, but the association has not been as important before as it is now. Previously, theory had been confirmed by more data, and predictions were possible based on data. The process today is to infer from theory to code and from code to prediction, making the role of prediction somewhat automatic, and a machine function. Validation is defined as determining the degree to which a model and code is an accurate representation of experimental test data. Imbedded in validation is the intention to use the computer code to predict. To predict is to accept the conclusion that an observable final state will manifest; therefore, prediction is an inference whose goodness relies on the validity of the code. Quantifying the uncertainty of a prediction amounts to quantifying the uncertainty of validation, and this involves the characterization of uncertainties inherent in theory/models/codes and the corresponding data. An introduction to inference making and its associated uncertainty is provided as a foundation for the validation problem. A mathematical construction for estimating the uncertainty in the validation inference is then presented, including a possibility distribution constructed to represent the inference uncertainty for validation under uncertainty. The estimation of inference uncertainty for validation is illustrated using data and calculations from Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF). The ICF measurements of neutron yield and ion temperature were obtained for direct-drive inertial fusion capsules at the Omega laser facility. The glass capsules, containing the fusion gas, were systematically selected with the intent of establishing a reproducible baseline of high-yield 10{sup 13}-10{sup 14} neutron output. The deuterium-tritium ratio in these experiments was varied to study its influence upon yield. This paper on validation inference is the

Landscape attributes as drivers of the geographical variation in density of Sapajus nigritus Kerr, 1792, a primate endemic to the Atlantic Forest

Science.gov (United States)

Hendges, Carla D.; Melo, Geruza L.; Gonçalves, Alberto S.; Cerezer, Felipe O.; Cáceres, Nilton C.

2017-10-01

Neotropical primates are among the most well studied forest mammals concerning their population densities. However, few studies have evaluated the factors that influence the spatial variation in the population density of primates, which limits the possibility of inferences towards this animal group, especially at the landscape-level. Here, we compiled density data of Sapajus nigritus from 21 forest patches of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We tested the effects of climatic variables (temperature, precipitation), landscape attributes (number of patches, mean inter-patch isolation distance, matrix modification index) and patch size on the population density using linear models and the Akaike information criterion. Our findings showed that the density of S. nigritus is influenced by landscape attributes, particularly by fragmentation and matrix modification. Overall, moderately fragmented landscapes and those surrounded by matrices with intermediate indexes of temporal modification (i.e., crop plantations, forestry) are related to high densities of this species. These results support the assumptions that ecologically flexible species respond positively to forest fragmentation. However, the non-linear relationship between S. nigritus density and number of patches suggests that even the species that are most tolerant to forest cover changes seem to respond positively only at an intermediate level of habitat fragmentation, being dependent of both a moderate degree of forest cover and a high quality matrix. The results we found here can be a common response to fragmentation for those forest dweller species that are able to use the matrix as complementary foraging sites.

Nature and landscape protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klinda, J.; Lieskovska, Z.

1998-01-01

In accordance with National Council of the Slovak Republic Act N. 287/1994 Coll. on Nature and Landscape Protection, the system of complex nature landscape protection has been designed based on five levels of protection. Categories of protected areas as well as cultural monuments in the Slovak Republic are reviewed.Slovak contribution to the world heritage is included

A Nonstationary Markov Model Detects Directional Evolution in Hymenopteran Morphology.

Science.gov (United States)

Klopfstein, Seraina; Vilhelmsen, Lars; Ronquist, Fredrik

2015-11-01

Directional evolution has played an important role in shaping the morphological, ecological, and molecular diversity of life. However, standard substitution models assume stationarity of the evolutionary process over the time scale examined, thus impeding the study of directionality. Here we explore a simple, nonstationary model of evolution for discrete data, which assumes that the state frequencies at the root differ from the equilibrium frequencies of the homogeneous evolutionary process along the rest of the tree (i.e., the process is nonstationary, nonreversible, but homogeneous). Within this framework, we develop a Bayesian approach for testing directional versus stationary evolution using a reversible-jump algorithm. Simulations show that when only data from extant taxa are available, the success in inferring directionality is strongly dependent on the evolutionary rate, the shape of the tree, the relative branch lengths, and the number of taxa. Given suitable evolutionary rates (0.1-0.5 expected substitutions between root and tips), accounting for directionality improves tree inference and often allows correct rooting of the tree without the use of an outgroup. As an empirical test, we apply our method to study directional evolution in hymenopteran morphology. We focus on three character systems: wing veins, muscles, and sclerites. We find strong support for a trend toward loss of wing veins and muscles, while stationarity cannot be ruled out for sclerites. Adding fossil and time information in a total-evidence dating approach, we show that accounting for directionality results in more precise estimates not only of the ancestral state at the root of the tree, but also of the divergence times. Our model relaxes the assumption of stationarity and reversibility by adding a minimum of additional parameters, and is thus well suited to studying the nature of the evolutionary process in data sets of limited size, such as morphology and ecology. © The Author

Phylogenetic reconstruction of Syntermitinae (Isoptera, Termitidae based on morphological and molecular data.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mauricio M Rocha

Full Text Available The subfamily Syntermitinae comprises a group of Neotropical termites with 18 genera and 101 species described. It has been considered a natural group, but relationships among the genera within the subfamily remain uncertain, and some genera appear to be non-monophyletic. Here, we provide a comprehensive phylogeny including six Neotropical species of Termitinae as outgroup, 42 Syntermitinae species as ingroup, 92 morphological characters (from external and internal anatomy of soldier and worker castes and 117 molecular sequences (109 obtained for this study and 8 from GenBank of 4 gene regions (41 and 22 from Cytochrome Oxidase I and II respectively, 19 from Cytochrome b, and 35 from 16S rDNA. Morphological and molecular data were analyzed in combination, with the Bayesian inference method, and the important aspects of termite biology, defense and feeding habits are discussed based on the resulting tree. Although useful for providing diagnostic characters, the morphology of the soldier caste reveals several cases of convergence; whereas the feeding habit shows indications of evolutionary significance.

Phylogenetic reconstruction of Syntermitinae (Isoptera, Termitidae) based on morphological and molecular data.

Science.gov (United States)

Rocha, Mauricio M; Morales-Corrêa E Castro, Adriana C; Cuezzo, Carolina; Cancello, Eliana M

2017-01-01

The subfamily Syntermitinae comprises a group of Neotropical termites with 18 genera and 101 species described. It has been considered a natural group, but relationships among the genera within the subfamily remain uncertain, and some genera appear to be non-monophyletic. Here, we provide a comprehensive phylogeny including six Neotropical species of Termitinae as outgroup, 42 Syntermitinae species as ingroup, 92 morphological characters (from external and internal anatomy of soldier and worker castes) and 117 molecular sequences (109 obtained for this study and 8 from GenBank) of 4 gene regions (41 and 22 from Cytochrome Oxidase I and II respectively, 19 from Cytochrome b, and 35 from 16S rDNA). Morphological and molecular data were analyzed in combination, with the Bayesian inference method, and the important aspects of termite biology, defense and feeding habits are discussed based on the resulting tree. Although useful for providing diagnostic characters, the morphology of the soldier caste reveals several cases of convergence; whereas the feeding habit shows indications of evolutionary significance.

Decision making on fitness landscapes

Science.gov (United States)

Arthur, R.; Sibani, P.

2017-04-01

We discuss fitness landscapes and how they can be modified to account for co-evolution. We are interested in using the landscape as a way to model rational decision making in a toy economic system. We develop a model very similar to the Tangled Nature Model of Christensen et al. that we call the Tangled Decision Model. This is a natural setting for our discussion of co-evolutionary fitness landscapes. We use a Monte Carlo step to simulate decision making and investigate two different decision making procedures.

Decision Making on Fitness Landscapes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Arthur, Rudy; Sibani, Paolo

2017-01-01

We discuss fitness landscapes and how they can be modified to account for co-evolution. We are interested in using the landscape as a way to model rational decision making in a toy economic system. We develop a model very similar to the Tangled Nature Model of Christensen et. al. that we call...... the Tangled Decision Model. This is a natural setting for our discussion of co-evolutionary fitness landscapes. We use a Monte Carlo step to simulate decision making and investigate two different decision making procedures....

Masticatory jaw movement of Exaeretodon argentinus (Therapsida: Cynodontia inferred from its dental microwear.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tai Kubo

Full Text Available Dental microwear of four postcanine teeth of Exaeretodon argentinus was analyzed using both two dimensional (2D and three dimensional (3D methods to infer their masticatory jaw movements. Results of both methods were congruent, showing that linear microwear features (scratches were well aligned and mostly directed to the antero-posterior direction in all four teeth examined. These findings support the palinal masticatory jaw movement, which was inferred in previous studies based on the observation of gross morphology of wear facets. In contrast, the lack of detection of lateral scratches confirmed the absence of the lateral jaw movement that was also proposed by a previous study. Considering previous microwear studies on cynodonts, palinal jaw movements observed in Exaeretodon evolved within cynognathian cynodonts from the fully orthal jaw movement of its basal member. Although there are currently only three studies of dental microwear of non-mammalian cynodonts including the present study, microwear analysis is a useful tool for the reconstruction of masticatory jaw movement and its future application to various cynodonts will shed light on the evolutionary process of jaw movement towards the mammalian condition in more detail.

The concept of landscape education at school level with respect to the directions of the science of landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Szczęsna, Joanna

2010-01-01

School education is both a starting point for the development of various scientific disciplines (school educates future researchers) and the result of science. The landscape research is conducted within many scientific disciplines and has a long tradition. Lanscape education, which is the result of a scientific dimension, is implemented in primary school under the nature subject. Primary school education is the only level at which the geographical contents are carried out on landscape. The landscape is of interest to many disciplines: geography, architecture, social sciences and the arts. In recent years, there were many studies which contained an overview of the main strands of the science of landscape, presented the differences in the meaning of the concept and objectives of individual research disciplines. These studies have become the ground for the characterization of the concept of landscape education implemented in Polish school and its evaluation in terms of scientific achievements. A review of educational purposes, the basic content of education and achievements of students, demonstrate the influence of multiple scientific disciplines in school landscape education. The most significant share of the course content are achievements of geography disciplines, particularly: physical geography, environmental protection and landscape ecology. Other scientific fields: literature, art, psychology, sociology, and architecture do not have any impact on the school landscape education or their impact remains marginal.

Molecular, morphological and fossil input data for inferring relationship among viviparous brotulas (Bythitidae) - Resulting in a family status change for Dinematichthyidae

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Knudsen, Steen Wilhelm; Møller, Peter Rask; Schwarzhans, Werner

2016-01-01

This article comprise the data related to the research article (Møller et al., 2016) [1], and makes it possible to explore and reproduce the topologies that allowed [1] to infer the relationship between the families Bythitidae and Dinematichthyidae. The supplementary data holds nexus-input files ...

Comparing the landscape level perceptual abilities of forest sciurids in fragmented agricultural landscapes*

Science.gov (United States)

Patrick A. Zollner

2000-01-01

Perceptual range is the maximum distance from which an animal can perceive the presence of remote landscape elements such as patches of habitat. Such perceptual abilities are of interest because they influence the probability that an animal will successfully disperse to a new patch in a landscape. Furthermore, understanding how perceptual range differs between species...

Forest landscape analysis and design: a process for developing and implementing land management objectives for landscape patterns.

Science.gov (United States)

Nancy Diaz; Dean. Apostol

1992-01-01

This publication presents a Landscape Design and Analysis Process, along with some simple methods and tools for describing landscapes and their function. The information is qualitative in nature and highlights basic concepts, but does not address landscape ecology in great depth. Readers are encouraged to consult the list of selected references in Chapter 2 if they...

Selecting Landscape Plants: Shade Trees

OpenAIRE

Relf, Diane; Appleton, Bonnie Lee, 1948-2012; Close, David

2015-01-01

Because of the permanency of trees and their importance in the landscape, care must be taken to select the best species for each situation. This publication goes over how to choose landscape trees that are shade tolerant.

Morphological indicators of a mascon beneath Ceres' largest crater, Kerwan

Science.gov (United States)

Bland, Michael T.; Ermakov, Anton; Raymond, Carol A.; Williams, David A.; Bowling, Tim J.; Preusker, F.; Park, Ryan S.; Marchi, Simone; Castillo-Rogez, Julie C.; Fu, R.R.; Russell, Christopher T.

2018-01-01

Gravity data of Ceres returned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Dawn spacecraft is consistent with a lower density crust of variable thickness overlying a higher density mantle. Crustal thickness variations can affect the long‐term, postimpact modification of impact craters on Ceres. Here we show that the unusual morphology of the 280 km diameter crater Kerwan may result from viscous relaxation in an outer layer that thins substantially beneath the crater floor. We propose that such a structure is consistent with either impact‐induced uplift of the high‐density mantle beneath the crater or from volatile loss during the impact event. In either case, the subsurface structure inferred from the crater morphology is superisostatic, and the mass excess would result in a positive Bouguer anomaly beneath the crater, consistent with the highest‐degree gravity data from Dawn. Ceres joins the Moon, Mars, and Mercury in having basin‐associated gravity anomalies, although their origin may differ substantially.

Morphological Indicators of a Mascon Beneath Ceres's Largest Crater, Kerwan

Science.gov (United States)

Bland, M. T.; Ermakov, A. I.; Raymond, C. A.; Williams, D. A.; Bowling, T. J.; Preusker, F.; Park, R. S.; Marchi, S.; Castillo-Rogez, J. C.; Fu, R. R.; Russell, C. T.

2018-02-01

Gravity data of Ceres returned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Dawn spacecraft is consistent with a lower density crust of variable thickness overlying a higher density mantle. Crustal thickness variations can affect the long-term, postimpact modification of impact craters on Ceres. Here we show that the unusual morphology of the 280 km diameter crater Kerwan may result from viscous relaxation in an outer layer that thins substantially beneath the crater floor. We propose that such a structure is consistent with either impact-induced uplift of the high-density mantle beneath the crater or from volatile loss during the impact event. In either case, the subsurface structure inferred from the crater morphology is superisostatic, and the mass excess would result in a positive Bouguer anomaly beneath the crater, consistent with the highest-degree gravity data from Dawn. Ceres joins the Moon, Mars, and Mercury in having basin-associated gravity anomalies, although their origin may differ substantially.

Quantum-Like Representation of Non-Bayesian Inference

Science.gov (United States)

Asano, M.; Basieva, I.; Khrennikov, A.; Ohya, M.; Tanaka, Y.

2013-01-01

This research is related to the problem of "irrational decision making or inference" that have been discussed in cognitive psychology. There are some experimental studies, and these statistical data cannot be described by classical probability theory. The process of decision making generating these data cannot be reduced to the classical Bayesian inference. For this problem, a number of quantum-like coginitive models of decision making was proposed. Our previous work represented in a natural way the classical Bayesian inference in the frame work of quantum mechanics. By using this representation, in this paper, we try to discuss the non-Bayesian (irrational) inference that is biased by effects like the quantum interference. Further, we describe "psychological factor" disturbing "rationality" as an "environment" correlating with the "main system" of usual Bayesian inference.

Bayesian Inference Methods for Sparse Channel Estimation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Niels Lovmand

2013-01-01

This thesis deals with sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) with application to radio channel estimation. As opposed to the classical approach for sparse signal representation, we focus on the problem of inferring complex signals. Our investigations within SBL constitute the basis for the development...... of Bayesian inference algorithms for sparse channel estimation. Sparse inference methods aim at finding the sparse representation of a signal given in some overcomplete dictionary of basis vectors. Within this context, one of our main contributions to the field of SBL is a hierarchical representation...... analysis of the complex prior representation, where we show that the ability to induce sparse estimates of a given prior heavily depends on the inference method used and, interestingly, whether real or complex variables are inferred. We also show that the Bayesian estimators derived from the proposed...

Contrasting roles of water chemistry, lake morphology, land-use, climate and spatial processes in driving phytoplankton richness in the Danish landscape

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Özkan, Korhan; Jeppesen, Erik; Søndergaard, Martin

2013-01-01

Understanding of the forces driving the structure of biotic communities has long been an important focus for ecology, with implications for applied and conservation science. To elucidate the factors driving phytoplankton genus richness in the Danish landscape, we analyzed data derived from late-s...

Effect of sub-pore scale morphology of biological deposits on porous media flow properties

Science.gov (United States)

Ghezzehei, T. A.

2012-12-01

Biological deposits often influence fluid flow by altering the pore space morphology and related hydrologic properties such as porosity, water retention characteristics, and permeability. In most coupled-processes models changes in porosity are inferred from biological process models using mass-balance. The corresponding evolution of permeability is estimated using (semi-) empirical porosity-permeability functions such as the Kozeny-Carman equation or power-law functions. These equations typically do not account for the heterogeneous spatial distribution and morphological irregularities of the deposits. As a result, predictions of permeability evolution are generally unsatisfactory. In this presentation, we demonstrate the significance of pore-scale deposit distribution on porosity-permeability relations using high resolution simulations of fluid flow through a single pore interspersed with deposits of varying morphologies. Based on these simulations, we present a modification to the Kozeny-Carman model that accounts for the shape of the deposits. Limited comparison with published experimental data suggests the plausibility of the proposed conceptual model.

Statistical inference an integrated Bayesianlikelihood approach

CERN Document Server

Aitkin, Murray

2010-01-01

Filling a gap in current Bayesian theory, Statistical Inference: An Integrated Bayesian/Likelihood Approach presents a unified Bayesian treatment of parameter inference and model comparisons that can be used with simple diffuse prior specifications. This novel approach provides new solutions to difficult model comparison problems and offers direct Bayesian counterparts of frequentist t-tests and other standard statistical methods for hypothesis testing.After an overview of the competing theories of statistical inference, the book introduces the Bayes/likelihood approach used throughout. It pre

A new miniature characid (Ostariophysi: Characiformes: Characidae, with phylogenetic position inferred from morphological and molecular data.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

André Luiz Netto-Ferreira

Full Text Available Erythrocharax altipinnis is described from the Serra do Cachimbo, Pará, Brazil. The new taxon is distinguished from all of the Characidae genera by having the pelvic bones firmly attached through the isquiatic processes; a nearly triangular hiatus in the musculature covering the anterior chamber of the swim bladder between the first and second pleural ribs (pseudotympanum; the pedunculate, notably expanded and distally compressed teeth in both jaws; circumorbital series represented by antorbital and four infraorbital bones with laterosensory canals not enclosed; a single tooth row in the premaxillary with the teeth perfectly aligned and similar in shape and cusp number; the first three branched dorsal-fin rays distinctly elongate in males; a bright red adipose and caudal fins in life; a conspicuous dark midlateral stripe extending from the opercle to the tip of the median caudal-fin rays; and by the absence of a humeral spot. The phylogenetic position of the new taxon is discussed using morphological and molecular datasets, with conflicting results of both approaches discussed. Additionally, a summarized discussion on the current problems in the Characidae taxonomy is presented and the principal biases in the morphological dataset are also discussed.

Studying landscape architecture in Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Braae, Ellen Marie; Hare, Richard Andrew

2010-01-01

s demanded large numbers of landscape architects. Today landscape architecture education addresses current challenges of climate change and the need for sustainable development where an understanding of natural systems is seen as essential for future urbanisation processes in evermore innovative......Landscape architecture is a well-established profession in Denmark. From the early 20th Century the profession developed steadily. However, it was 1960 before a separate education was established. This proved timely as the immense physical development of the Danish welfare state of the 1970s and 80...

Holocene evolution of aquatic bioactivity and terrestrial erosion inferred from Skorarvatn, Vestfirðir, Iceland: Where is the Little Ice Age?

Science.gov (United States)

Harning, D.; Geirsdottir, A.; Miller, G. H.

2016-12-01

Icelandic lake sediment is well suited to provide high-resolution, well-dated continuous archives of North Atlantic climate variability. We provide new insight into the Holocene climate evolution of Vestfirðir, NW Iceland, from a 10.3 ka multi-proxy lake sediment record from non-glacial lake Skorarvatn. Age control is derived from a combination of tephrochronology and 14C-dated macrofossils. Sediment samples were analyzed for both physical (MS, density) and biological (TC, TN, δ13C, δ15N, C/N, BSi) climate proxies, providing a sub-centennial record of aquatic bioactivity and terrestrial landscape stability, and hence, summer temperature. The lake basin was ice free by at least 10.3 ka yet the waning Icelandic Ice Sheet persisted in the catchment until 9.3 ka. The local Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM), inferred from maximum aquatic bioactivity, spans 8.9 to 7.2 ka but was interrupted by significant cooling at 8.2 ka. In accordance with other Icelandic climate records documenting progressively cooler summers following the HTM, our record reveals reduced aquatic productivity and elevated terrestrial erosion toward the present. Superimposed on this 1st order trend are abrupt episodes of cooling, inferred from low aquatic bioactivity and/or enhanced landscape instability, at 6.4, 4.2, 3, 2.5 and 1.5 ka. Surprisingly, there is no clear indication of the Little Ice Age (LIA) in our record despite evidence for the local ice cap, Drangajökull, attaining maximum areal coverage at this time. Persistently low temperatures inferred from reduced aquatic productivity plateau at 2 ka whereas increasing terrestrial erosion ceases at 1 ka. Lack of a catchment erosion signal during the LIA may be the result of depleted catchment soils and/or perennially frozen ground preventing the mobilization of soil and vegetation. With the exception of the LIA, Skorarvatn's qualitative summer temperature record corresponds closely to summer sea surface temperature and sea ice records on the

Phylogeny and infrageneric delimitation in the genus Spiraea (Rosaceae) inferred from AFLP markers and compared with morphology

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Záveská Drábková, Lenka; Pospíšková, M.; Businský, R.

2017-01-01

Roč. 185, č. 4 (2017), s. 525-541 ISSN 0024-4074 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA16-14649S Institutional support: RVO:67985939 Keywords : morphological analysis * Spiraea * AFLP Subject RIV: EF - Botanics OBOR OECD: Plant sciences, botany Impact factor: 2.277, year: 2016

Inferred vs realized patterns of gene flow: an analysis of population structure in the Andros Island Rock Iguana.

Science.gov (United States)

Colosimo, Giuliano; Knapp, Charles R; Wallace, Lisa E; Welch, Mark E

2014-01-01

Ecological data, the primary source of information on patterns and rates of migration, can be integrated with genetic data to more accurately describe the realized connectivity between geographically isolated demes. In this paper we implement this approach and discuss its implications for managing populations of the endangered Andros Island Rock Iguana, Cyclura cychlura cychlura. This iguana is endemic to Andros, a highly fragmented landmass of large islands and smaller cays. Field observations suggest that geographically isolated demes were panmictic due to high, inferred rates of gene flow. We expand on these observations using 16 polymorphic microsatellites to investigate the genetic structure and rates of gene flow from 188 Andros Iguanas collected across 23 island sites. Bayesian clustering of specimens assigned individuals to three distinct genotypic clusters. An analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) indicates that allele frequency differences are responsible for a significant portion of the genetic variance across the three defined clusters (Fst =  0.117, p<0.01). These clusters are associated with larger islands and satellite cays isolated by broad water channels with strong currents. These findings imply that broad water channels present greater obstacles to gene flow than was inferred from field observation alone. Additionally, rates of gene flow were indirectly estimated using BAYESASS 3.0. The proportion of individuals originating from within each identified cluster varied from 94.5 to 98.7%, providing further support for local isolation. Our assessment reveals a major disparity between inferred and realized gene flow. We discuss our results in a conservation perspective for species inhabiting highly fragmented landscapes.

Inferred vs Realized Patterns of Gene Flow: An Analysis of Population Structure in the Andros Island Rock Iguana

Science.gov (United States)

Colosimo, Giuliano; Knapp, Charles R.; Wallace, Lisa E.; Welch, Mark E.

2014-01-01

Ecological data, the primary source of information on patterns and rates of migration, can be integrated with genetic data to more accurately describe the realized connectivity between geographically isolated demes. In this paper we implement this approach and discuss its implications for managing populations of the endangered Andros Island Rock Iguana, Cyclura cychlura cychlura. This iguana is endemic to Andros, a highly fragmented landmass of large islands and smaller cays. Field observations suggest that geographically isolated demes were panmictic due to high, inferred rates of gene flow. We expand on these observations using 16 polymorphic microsatellites to investigate the genetic structure and rates of gene flow from 188 Andros Iguanas collected across 23 island sites. Bayesian clustering of specimens assigned individuals to three distinct genotypic clusters. An analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) indicates that allele frequency differences are responsible for a significant portion of the genetic variance across the three defined clusters (Fst =  0.117, p0.01). These clusters are associated with larger islands and satellite cays isolated by broad water channels with strong currents. These findings imply that broad water channels present greater obstacles to gene flow than was inferred from field observation alone. Additionally, rates of gene flow were indirectly estimated using BAYESASS 3.0. The proportion of individuals originating from within each identified cluster varied from 94.5 to 98.7%, providing further support for local isolation. Our assessment reveals a major disparity between inferred and realized gene flow. We discuss our results in a conservation perspective for species inhabiting highly fragmented landscapes. PMID:25229344

Inferred vs realized patterns of gene flow: an analysis of population structure in the Andros Island Rock Iguana.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giuliano Colosimo

Full Text Available Ecological data, the primary source of information on patterns and rates of migration, can be integrated with genetic data to more accurately describe the realized connectivity between geographically isolated demes. In this paper we implement this approach and discuss its implications for managing populations of the endangered Andros Island Rock Iguana, Cyclura cychlura cychlura. This iguana is endemic to Andros, a highly fragmented landmass of large islands and smaller cays. Field observations suggest that geographically isolated demes were panmictic due to high, inferred rates of gene flow. We expand on these observations using 16 polymorphic microsatellites to investigate the genetic structure and rates of gene flow from 188 Andros Iguanas collected across 23 island sites. Bayesian clustering of specimens assigned individuals to three distinct genotypic clusters. An analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA indicates that allele frequency differences are responsible for a significant portion of the genetic variance across the three defined clusters (Fst =  0.117, p<<0.01. These clusters are associated with larger islands and satellite cays isolated by broad water channels with strong currents. These findings imply that broad water channels present greater obstacles to gene flow than was inferred from field observation alone. Additionally, rates of gene flow were indirectly estimated using BAYESASS 3.0. The proportion of individuals originating from within each identified cluster varied from 94.5 to 98.7%, providing further support for local isolation. Our assessment reveals a major disparity between inferred and realized gene flow. We discuss our results in a conservation perspective for species inhabiting highly fragmented landscapes.

Inference Attacks and Control on Database Structures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhamed Turkanovic

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Today’s databases store information with sensitivity levels that range from public to highly sensitive, hence ensuring confidentiality can be highly important, but also requires costly control. This paper focuses on the inference problem on different database structures. It presents possible treats on privacy with relation to the inference, and control methods for mitigating these treats. The paper shows that using only access control, without any inference control is inadequate, since these models are unable to protect against indirect data access. Furthermore, it covers new inference problems which rise from the dimensions of new technologies like XML, semantics, etc.

The semiotics of landscape design communication: towards a critical visual research approach in landscape architecture.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Raaphorst, K.M.C.; Duchhart, I.; Knaap, van der W.G.M.; Roeleveld, Gerda; Brink, van den A.

2017-01-01

In landscape architecture, visual representations are the primary means of communication between stakeholders in design processes. Despite the reliance on visual representations, little critical research has been undertaken by landscape architects on how visual communication forms work or their

The Landscape Architecture - Between the Art of the Gardens and the Science of the Landscape Interventions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Doina-Mira Dascălu

2005-01-01

Full Text Available The modern landscape architecture being a profession that has an important impact on the environment, tries and succeeds to cover a very wide area. Because of its complex preoccupations area, the profession of the landscape architect may find itself in a nebula regarding the comprehension and the reaction of the public and cities mayors towards it. The landscape architecture has as purpose the realization of an ambience that is favourable to the human life progress, having in view the increasing of life’s quality and of the urban comfort, the maintenance of the ecological equilibrium. Despite the complexity of its preoccupations, the landscape architecture has been often lowered to the same level with the exclusive arrangement of green spaces.

Genetic diversity among Korean bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) ecotypes characterized by morphological, cytological and molecular approaches.

Science.gov (United States)

Kang, Si-Yong; Lee, Geung-Joo; Lim, Ki Byung; Lee, Hye Jung; Park, In Sook; Chung, Sung Jin; Kim, Jin-Baek; Kim, Dong Sub; Rhee, Hye Kyung

2008-04-30

The genus Cynodon comprises ten species. The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic diversity of Korean bermudagrasses at the morphological, cytological and molecular levels. Morphological parameters, the nuclear DNA content and ploidy levels were observed in 43 bermudagrass ecotypes. AFLP markers were evaluated to define the genetic diversity, and chromosome counts were made to confirm the inferred cytotypes. Nuclear DNA contents were in the ranges 1.42-1.56, 1.94-2.19, 2.54, and 2.77-2.85 pg/2C for the triploid, tetraploid, pentaploid, and hexaploid accessions, respectively. The inferred cytotypes were triploid (2n = 3x = 27), tetraploid (2n = 4x = 36), pentaploid (2n = 5x = 45), and hexaploid (2n = 6x = 54), but the majority of the collections were tetraploid (81%). Mitotic chromosome counts verified the corresponding ploidy levels. The fast growing fine-textured ecotypes had lower ploidy levels, while the pentaploids and hexaploids were coarse types. The genetic similarity ranged from 0.42 to 0.94 with an average of 0.64. UPGMA cluster analysis and principle coordinate analysis separated the ecotypes into 6 distinct groups. The genetic similarity suggests natural hybridization between the different cytotypes, which could be useful resources for future breeding and genetic studies.

Evaluation of the changes of landscape types of Slovakia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zita IZAKOVIČOVÁ

2013-07-01

Full Text Available In the last period landscape protection, its representative types more and more comes to the limelight. In October 2000 the European Landscape Convention - also known as the Florence Convention was adopted. The aims of this Convention are to promote landscape protection, management and planning, and to organise European co-operation on landscape issues.  Contracting states ought to analyse the landscape types on the whole area of their countries, to analyse their features, record their changes, specify motive power and pressure forming them and assess selected types with respect to special values attributed by engaged participants and inhabitants. Knowledge and identification of single landscape types enable the intensification of care of diversity of single landscape types and landscape biodiversity. It is an unavoidable condition in the strategic planning process and effective protection of regionally special landscape.Slovakia signed ELC in 2005 and became an active participant in its implementation. The Institute of the Landscape Ecology of Slovak Academy of Sciences elaborated methodology for specification and evaluation of the representative landscape types of Slovakia (RLTS.RLTS are defined as homogeneous units considering the landscape character, functions and current land-use. GIS (Geographical Information Systems tool was used to create RLTS, in particular by overlaying of abiotic landscape structure (type of relief, quaternary deposits, climatic regions, and soil types and land-cover map (CORINE Land Cover 2006 - CLC at national scale. This process yielded to a patched map of homogeneous areas, which were further interpreted, generalized, and regionalized to a final map of RLTS.Landscape types of Slovakia were defined by the synthesis of the mentioned maps. Totally there were identified 126 basic landscape types. Each landscape type represents unique combination of land-use in different abiotic conditions and gives the unique

Airborne laser altimeter measurements of landscape topography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ritchie, J.C.

1995-01-01

Measurements of topography can provide a wealth of information on landscape properties for managing hydrologic and geologic systems and conserving natural and agricultural resources. This article discusses the application of an airborne laser altimeter to measure topography and other landscape surface properties. The airborne laser altimeter makes 4000 measurements per second with a vertical recording resolution of 5 cm. Data are collected digitally with a personal computer. A video camera, borehole sighted with the laser, records an image for locating flight lines. GPS data are used to locate flight line positions on the landscape. Laser data were used to measure vegetation canopy topography, height, cover, and distribution and to measure microtopography of the land surface and gullies with depths of 15–20 cm. Macrotopography of landscape profiles for segments up to 4 km were in agreement with available topographic maps but provided more detail. Larger gullies with and without vegetation, and stream channel cross sections and their associated floodplains have also been measured and reported in other publications. Landscape segments for any length could be measured for either micro- or macrotopography. Airborne laser altimeter measurements of landscape profiles can provide detailed information on landscape properties or specific needs that will allow better decisions on the design and location of structures (i.e., roads, pipe, and power lines) and for improving the management and conservation of natural and agricultural landscapes. (author)

The garden and the layered landscape: landscape urbanism through the lens of garden design

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Wit, S.I.; Dahl, Caroline; Diedrich, Lisa; Lindholm, Gunilla; Vicenzotti, Vera; Vogel, Nina

2016-01-01

In the era of globalization, also landscape architects and urban designers have learnt to think big–in large scales and far-reaching visions. Landscape is called upon as the model and the medium of urbanism, feeding into a grand narrative of saving the day when architecture as the ordering principle

Type Inference with Inequalities

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schwartzbach, Michael Ignatieff

1991-01-01

of (monotonic) inequalities on the types of variables and expressions. A general result about systems of inequalities over semilattices yields a solvable form. We distinguish between deciding typability (the existence of solutions) and type inference (the computation of a minimal solution). In our case, both......Type inference can be phrased as constraint-solving over types. We consider an implicitly typed language equipped with recursive types, multiple inheritance, 1st order parametric polymorphism, and assignments. Type correctness is expressed as satisfiability of a possibly infinite collection...

Time, Space and the History of Agricultural Landscapes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Svenningsen, Stig Roar; Christensen, Andreas Aagaard

history, especially as the rate of changes in cultural landscapes has increased during the last 40 years as the result of the development in the agro-industrial sector. However landscape changes rarely occur as abrupt and sudden breaks, but more as gradual process over long time periods corresponding...... with development in farming technology, modes of production and social organization. The majority of sources material to landscape history are of geographic nature, such as cartographic material, aerial imagery, photographs and paintings and opposite to the gradual nature of changes in the landscape, most sources...... to the physical structure of landscapes has a fixed temporal nature depicting the landscape at time of record, often at different spatial scales. This creates a challenge for Environmental history of European agricultural landscapes to produce a framework, which can incorporate these differences in temporal...

The farming system component of European agricultural landscapes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Erling

2017-01-01

Agricultural landscapes are the outcome of combined natural and human factors over time. This paper explores the scope of perceiving the agricultural landscapes of the European Union (EU) as distinct patterns of farming systems and landscape elements in homogeneous biophysical and administrative...... landscapes evolve from the praxis of the farmers and takes into account the scale, intensity and specialisation of the agricultural production. From farming system design point of view, the approach can be used to integrate the landscape in the design process. From a policy point of view, the approach offers...... endowments. The focus is on the farming systems component of the agricultural landscapes by applying a typology to the sample farms of the Farm Accountancy Data Network and scaling up the results to the landscape level for the territory of the EU. The farming system approach emphasises that agricultural...

Introduction: Enquiries into Contemporary Ritual Landscapes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen

2017-06-01

Full Text Available ‘Landscape’ and ‘ritual’ have been largely discussed in the social and human sciences, although their inter-relatedness has gained li le scholarly a ention. Drawing on earlier studies of ritual and landscape, as well as the authors’ own ethnographic works, ‘ritual landscape’ is suggested here as a useful analytical tool with which to understand how landscapes are produced, and how they, in their turn, produce certain types of being. ‘Ritual landscape’ recognises di erent modalities of agency, power-relation, knowledge, emotion, and movement. The article shows how the subjectivity of other-than-human beings such as ancestors, earth formations, land, animals, plants and, in general, materiality of ritual contexts, shape landscapes. We argue that ways of perceiving landscape includes a number of material and immaterial aspects indicated by ways of moving through landscapes and interacting with di erent human and non-human subjects that come to inhabit the world, creating relations and producing agentive ensembles and complexes.

From climate-smart agriculture to climate-smart landscapes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Scherr Sara J

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background For agricultural systems to achieve climate-smart objectives, including improved food security and rural livelihoods as well as climate change adaptation and mitigation, they often need to be take a landscape approach; they must become ‘climate-smart landscapes’. Climate-smart landscapes operate on the principles of integrated landscape management, while explicitly incorporating adaptation and mitigation into their management objectives. Results An assessment of climate change dynamics related to agriculture suggests that three key features characterize a climate-smart landscape: climate-smart practices at the field and farm scale; diversity of land use across the landscape to provide resilience; and management of land use interactions at landscape scale to achieve social, economic and ecological impacts. To implement climate-smart agricultural landscapes with these features (that is, to successfully promote and sustain them over time, in the context of dynamic economic, social, ecological and climate conditions requires several institutional mechanisms: multi-stakeholder planning, supportive landscape governance and resource tenure, spatially-targeted investment in the landscape that supports climate-smart objectives, and tracking change to determine if social and climate goals are being met at different scales. Examples of climate-smart landscape initiatives in Madagascar’s Highlands, the African Sahel and Australian Wet Tropics illustrate the application of these elements in contrasting contexts. Conclusions To achieve climate-smart landscape initiatives widely and at scale will require strengthened technical capacities, institutions and political support for multi-stakeholder planning, governance, spatial targeting of investments and multi-objective impact monitoring.

Can uncertain landscape evolution models discriminate between landscape responses to stable and changing future climate? A millennial-scale test

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Temme, A.J.A.M.; Baartman, J.E.M.; Schoorl, J.M.

2009-01-01

In the light of increasing societal interest in the effects of climate change, geomorphologists face the task of discriminating between natural landscape changes and landscape changes that result from human-induced climate change. Landscape Evolution Models (LEMs) are available for this purpose, but

Landscape Architectural Design as Scientific Inquiry?

OpenAIRE

Lenzholzer, S.

2011-01-01

This presentation discusses ‘landscape architectural design as scientific inquiry’ and exemplifies this with the description of a design process within climate-responsive design leading to new design knowledge. ‘Research and design’ are issues that need increasing attention within landscape architecture academia. Substantial contributions on ‘research’ and ‘design’ exist within architectural theory [1,2,3,4]. However, within landscape architecture, there are only few publications on this topi...

EVERYDAY LANDSCAPE AND MEANING IN URBAN LIVING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

LAKSHMI PRIYA RAJENDRAN

2013-11-01

Full Text Available This paper conceptualizes landscape from a temporal and spatial perspective which emphasizes peoples’ interactions and activities as an inherent part of understanding the landscape itself. Today, peoples’ interaction with the landscape has become more complex, largely owing to the changing notions of place in contemporary urban living. In this context, the paper examines the role and significance of the landscapes of everyday life in urban environment and delineates how it (reconstructs ordinary human and social meanings that are necessary conditions for our existence. The paper is presented in three sections. In the first section, it discusses the concept of everyday life and its relevance in the contemporary urban living. In the following section, it examines the complexities encountered in urban landscapes today .The third section of the paper discusses how meaningful interaction experienced with everyday landscapes offer valuable insights for addressing the challenges posed by the complexities of urban city living. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for attention towards the largely neglected or overlooked domains of ‘ordinary’ everyday landscape by designer professionals, which plays a crucial role in creating meaningful relationship between people and place.

Influence of urban morphology on total noise pollution: multifractal description.

Science.gov (United States)

Ariza-Villaverde, Ana B; Jiménez-Hornero, Francisco J; Gutiérrez De Ravé, Eduardo

2014-02-15

Exposure to ambient noise levels above 65 dB can cause public health problems. The spatial distribution of this kind of pollution is linked to various elements which make up the urban form, such as construction density, the existence of open spaces and the shape and physical position of buildings. Since urban morphology displays multifractal behaviour, the present research studies for the first time the relationship between total noise pollution and urban features, such as street width and building height by means of a joint multifractal spectrum in two neighbourhoods of the city of Cordoba (Andalusia, Spain). According to the results, the joint multifractal spectrum reveals a positive correlation between the total noise pollution and the street width to building height ratio, this being more evident when urban morphology is regular. The information provided by the multifractal analysis completes the description obtained by using urban indexes and landscape metrics and might be useful for urban planning once the linkage between both frameworks has been done. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Driving the Landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Haff, P. K.

2012-12-01

Technological modification of the earth's surface (e.g., agriculture, urbanization) is an old story in human history, but what about the future? The future of landscape in an accelerating technological world, beyond a relatively short time horizon, lies hidden behind an impenetrable veil of complexity. Sufficiently complex dynamics generates not only the trajectory of a variable of interest (e.g., vegetation cover) but also the environment in which that variable evolves (e.g., background climate). There is no way to anticipate what variables will define that environment—the dynamics creates its own variables. We are always open to surprise by a change of conditions we thought or assumed were fixed or by the appearance of new phenomena of whose possible existence we had been unaware or thought unlikely. This is especially true under the influence of technology, where novelty is the rule. Lack of direct long-term predictability of landscape change does not, however, mean we cannot say anything about its future. The presence of persistence (finite time scales) in a system means that prediction by a calibrated numerical model should be good for a limited period of time barring bad luck or faulty implementation. Short-term prediction, despite its limitations, provides an option for dealing with the longer-term future. If a computer-controlled car tries to drive itself from New York to Los Angeles, no conceivable (or possible) stand-alone software can be constructed to predict a priori the space-time trajectory of the vehicle. Yet the drive is normally completed easily by most drivers. The trip is successfully completed because each in a series of very short (linear) steps can be "corrected" on the fly by the driver, who takes her cues from the environment to keep the car on the road and headed toward its destination. This metaphor differs in a fundamental way from the usual notion of predicting geomorphic change, because it involves a goal—to reach a desired

Morphological Awareness in Vocabulary Acquisition among Chinese-Speaking Children: Testing Partial Mediation via Lexical Inference Ability

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Haomin

2015-01-01

The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of Chinese-specific morphological awareness on vocabulary acquisition among young Chinese-speaking students. The participants were 288 Chinese-speaking second graders from three different cities in China. Multiple regression analysis and mediation analysis were used to uncover the mediated and…

The cultural biography of landscape as an interdisciplinary tool for landscape planning at Banjarmasin City, South Kalimantan Province, Indonesia.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Damayanti, Vera; Spek, Mattheus

2015-01-01

During the twentieth century concepts of cultural landscape have been developed that have led to the inclusion of the cultural dimension in landscape studies. The implication of this in landscape planning and management is that planners should not only comprehend the physical dimension of a

Inference in models with adaptive learning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Chevillon, G.; Massmann, M.; Mavroeidis, S.

2010-01-01

Identification of structural parameters in models with adaptive learning can be weak, causing standard inference procedures to become unreliable. Learning also induces persistent dynamics, and this makes the distribution of estimators and test statistics non-standard. Valid inference can be

Architecture and Landscape. Approaches from archaeology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rebeca Blanco-Rotea

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This work proposes a theoretical and conceptual basis for the study of the fortified landscapes of the Galician- Portuguese border in the Modern Age. From this theoretical framework there was designed a research program that studies these landscapes. It proposes an approach to the study of this type of archaeological record from the Landscape Archeology and the Archeology of Architecture, introducing the concepts of built space and Archeology of Built Space.

Modeling Coupled Landscape Evolution and Soil Organic Carbon Dynamics in Intensively Management Landscapes

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Q.; Kumar, P.

2017-12-01

Soil is the largest reservoir of carbon in the biosphere but in agricultural areas it is going through rapid erosion due disturbance arising from crop harvest, tillage, and tile drainage. Identifying whether the production of soil organic carbon (SOC) from the crops can compensate for the loss due to erosion is critical to ensure our food security and adapt to climate change. In the U.S. Midwest where large areas of land are intensively managed for agriculture practices, predicting soil quantity and quality are critical for maintaining crop yield and other Critical Zone services. This work focuses on modeling the coupled landscape evolutions soil organic carbon dynamics in agricultural fields. It couples landscape evolution, surface water runoff, organic matter transformation, and soil moisture dynamics to understand organic carbon gain and loss due to natural forcing and farming practices, such as fertilizer application and tillage. A distinctive feature of the model is the coupling of surface ad subsurface processes that predicts both surficial changes and transport along with the vertical transport and dynamics. Our results show that landscape evolution and farming practices play dominant roles in soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics both above- and below-ground. Contrary to the common assumption that a vertical profile of SOC concentration decreases exponentially with depth, we find that in many situations SOC concentration below-ground could be higher than that at the surface. Tillage plays a complex role in organic matter dynamics. On one hand, tillage would accelerate the erosion rate, on the other hand, it would improve carbon storage by burying surface SOC into below ground. Our model consistently reproduces the observed above- and below-ground patterns of SOC in the field sites of Intensively Managed Landscapes Critical Zone Observatory (IMLCZO). This model bridges the gaps between the landscape evolution, below- and above-ground hydrologic cycle, and

Fiducial inference - A Neyman-Pearson interpretation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Salome, D; VonderLinden, W; Dose,; Fischer, R; Preuss, R

1999-01-01

Fisher's fiducial argument is a tool for deriving inferences in the form of a probability distribution on the parameter space, not based on Bayes's Theorem. Lindley established that in exceptional situations fiducial inferences coincide with posterior distributions; in the other situations fiducial

Uncertainty in prediction and in inference

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hilgevoord, J.; Uffink, J.

1991-01-01

The concepts of uncertainty in prediction and inference are introduced and illustrated using the diffraction of light as an example. The close re-lationship between the concepts of uncertainty in inference and resolving power is noted. A general quantitative measure of uncertainty in

Digital landscapes of imagination

OpenAIRE

Starlight Vattano

2014-01-01

Urban landscapes that exist in the expression of an imaginative sequence define their shape through the digital representation. These hyperreal dimensions, combine imagination and representation as constituents a new reality, which follows the utopian, suprematist and constructivist theories, where the two-dimensional dynamics is transformed into an infinite space in which the imagination creates new forms. Although interpretations of the urban landscape film, put in place a correspondence be...

Phylogenetic relationships of Vepris (Rutaceae inferred from chloroplast, nuclear, and morphological data.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cynthia M Morton

Full Text Available The tribe Toddalieae Hook. F. (Rutaceae has been controversial since its inception by Bentham and Hooker. The nine taxa examined, Acronychia J.R. & G.Foster, Diphasia Pierre, Diphasiopsis Mendonca, Fagaropsis Mildbr.ex. Siebenl., Oricia Pierre, Teclea Delile, Toddaliopsis Engl., Toddalia Juss. and Vepris Comm. ex. A. Juss, have been recognized under the tribe Toddalieae or Tribes Acronychia, Phellodendron and Toddalia. More recently Araliopsis Engl., Diphasia, Diphasiopsis, Oricia, Teclea, and Toddaliopsis have been incorporated into the genus Vepris, while Toddalia and Fagaropsis have continued to be recognized as closely related. For this study, sequence data of one non-coding chloroplast region (trnL-F and one nuclear region (ITS and various morphological characters, based on Mziray's taxonomic studies were examined to try to elucidate these relationships. This study found that the taxa Diphasia, Diphasiopsis, Oricia, Teclea, Toddaliopsis, Vepris, Toddalia eugeniifolia Engl. and Toddalia glomerata F. Hoffm. form a monophyletic group. Due to the amount of intrageneric and intraspecific variation, species delimitations were difficult to determine; however, these genera should be united into Vepris. The analyses also confirmed that Toddalia asiatica (L. Lam., Zanthoxylon sp. and Fagaropsis angolensis (Engl. H.M. Gardner are the closest relatives to this group.

Role of Aeolian Dust in Shaping Landscapes and Soils of Arid and Semi-Arid South Africa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joseph R. McAuliffe

2018-05-01

Full Text Available The deposition of fine aeolian sediment profoundly influences the morphology of several different landscapes of the arid and semi-arid western portion of South Africa. Such landscapes and features include: (1 regularly-spaced mounds known as heuweltjies of the succulent Karoo region, (2 barren stone pavements in the more arid regions, and (3 hillslopes with smooth, curvilinear slope profiles that are mantled with coarse, stony colluvium. Investigations of each of these are presented, together with comparisons of similar features found within arid and semi-arid portions of Western North America. Recent findings suggest that the formation of the distinct, regularly-spaced heuweltjies involves a linked set of biological and physical processes. These include nutrient accumulation by termites and the production of dense vegetation patches, which, in turn, serve as a trap for aeolian sediments. Dust deposition is also responsible for the formation of stone pavements as demonstrated by research conducted principally in the Mojave Desert region of the United States. Mineralogical and geochronological studies have demonstrated that the stone clasts remain on the surface as fine aeolian sediments are translocated downward beneath the clasts resulting in a silt-rich soil horizon directly beneath the clasts. Pavements examined in South Africa have the same morphological features that can only be explained by the same process. The formation of soils on hillslopes mantled with stony colluvium are commonly viewed as having formed through the in-situ weathering of the stony colluvium. However, like pavements, mantles of coarse, stony colluvium are effective dust traps that provide the long-term stability required for advanced development of thick, fine-grained soils. This process contributes to the evolution of smooth, vegetated, curvilinear slope profiles. In each of these examples, the accumulation of dust has a profound influence, not only in soil formation

Space Strategies for the New Learning Landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Dugdale, Shirley

2009-01-01

The Learning Landscape is the total context for students' learning experiences and the diverse landscape of learning settings available today--from specialized to multipurpose, from formal to informal, and from physical to virtual. The goal of the Learning Landscape approach is to acknowledge this richness and maximize encounters among people,…

Compositional and mutational rate heterogeneity in mitochondrial genomes and its effect on the phylogenetic inferences of Cimicomorpha (Hemiptera: Heteroptera).

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Huanhuan; Li, Teng; Dang, Kai; Bu, Wenjun

2018-04-18

Mitochondrial genome (mt-genome) data can potentially return artefactual relationships in the higher-level phylogenetic inference of insects due to the biases of accelerated substitution rates and compositional heterogeneity. Previous studies based on mt-genome data alone showed a paraphyly of Cimicomorpha (Insecta, Hemiptera) due to the positions of the families Tingidae and Reduviidae rather than the monophyly that was supported based on morphological characters, morphological and molecular combined data and large scale molecular datasets. Various strategies have been proposed to ameliorate the effects of potential mt-genome biases, including dense taxon sampling, removal of third codon positions or purine-pyrimidine coding and the use of site-heterogeneous models. In this study, we sequenced the mt-genomes of five additional Tingidae species and discussed the compositional and mutational rate heterogeneity in mt-genomes and its effect on the phylogenetic inferences of Cimicomorpha by implementing the bias-reduction strategies mentioned above. Heterogeneity in nucleotide composition and mutational biases were found in mt protein-coding genes, and the third codon exhibited high levels of saturation. Dense taxon sampling of Tingidae and Reduviidae and the other common strategies mentioned above were insufficient to recover the monophyly of the well-established group Cimicomorpha. When the sites with weak phylogenetic signals in the dataset were removed, the remaining dataset of mt-genomes can support the monophyly of Cimicomorpha; this support demonstrates that mt-genomes possess strong phylogenetic signals for the inference of higher-level phylogeny of this group. Comparison of the ratio of the removal of amino acids for each PCG showed that ATP8 has the highest ratio while CO1 has the lowest. This pattern is largely congruent with the evolutionary rate of 13 PCGs that ATP8 represents the highest evolutionary rate, whereas CO1 appears to be the lowest. Notably

Polynomial Chaos Surrogates for Bayesian Inference

KAUST Repository

Le Maitre, Olivier

2016-01-06

The Bayesian inference is a popular probabilistic method to solve inverse problems, such as the identification of field parameter in a PDE model. The inference rely on the Bayes rule to update the prior density of the sought field, from observations, and derive its posterior distribution. In most cases the posterior distribution has no explicit form and has to be sampled, for instance using a Markov-Chain Monte Carlo method. In practice the prior field parameter is decomposed and truncated (e.g. by means of Karhunen- Lo´eve decomposition) to recast the inference problem into the inference of a finite number of coordinates. Although proved effective in many situations, the Bayesian inference as sketched above faces several difficulties requiring improvements. First, sampling the posterior can be a extremely costly task as it requires multiple resolutions of the PDE model for different values of the field parameter. Second, when the observations are not very much informative, the inferred parameter field can highly depends on its prior which can be somehow arbitrary. These issues have motivated the introduction of reduced modeling or surrogates for the (approximate) determination of the parametrized PDE solution and hyperparameters in the description of the prior field. Our contribution focuses on recent developments in these two directions: the acceleration of the posterior sampling by means of Polynomial Chaos expansions and the efficient treatment of parametrized covariance functions for the prior field. We also discuss the possibility of making such approach adaptive to further improve its efficiency.

Marc Treib: Representing Landscape Architecture

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Braae, Ellen Marie

2008-01-01

The editor of Representing Landscape Architecture, Marc Treib, argues that there is good reason to evaluate the standard practices of representation that landscape architects have been using for so long. In the rush to the promised land of computer design these practices are now in danger of being...

Osteological postcranial traits in hylid anurans indicate a morphological continuum between swimming and jumping locomotor modes.

Science.gov (United States)

Soliz, Mónica; Tulli, Maria J; Abdala, Virginia

2017-03-01

Anurans exhibit a particularly wide range of locomotor modes that result in wide variations in their skeletal structure. This article investigates the possible correlation between morphological aspects of the hylid postcranial skeleton and their different locomotor modes and habitat use. To do so, we analyzed 18 morphometric postcranial variables in 19 different anuran species representative of a variety of locomotor modes (jumper, hopper, walker, and swimmer) and habitat uses (arboreal, bush, terrestrial, and aquatic). Our results show that the evolution of the postcranial hylid skeleton cannot be explained by one single model, as for example, the girdles suggest modular evolution while the vertebral column suggests other evolutionary modules. In conjunction with data from several other studies, we were able to show a relationship between hylid morphology and habitat use; offering further evidence that the jumper/swimmer and walker/hopper locomotor modes exhibit quite similar morphological architecture. This allowed us to infer that new locomotor modalities are, in fact, generated along a morphological continuum. J. Morphol. 278:403-417, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Tool-effect: Controls on Landscape Persistence

Science.gov (United States)

Willenbring, J. K.; Brocard, G. Y.; Salles, T.; Harrison, E. J.

2017-12-01

The ability of rivers to cut through rock and to remove former land surfaces sets the pace of landscape response to mountain uplift. Because of associations between tectonism, river incision, erosion, carbon burial and silicate weathering, high rates of rock uplift are thought to initiate a cascade of processes that are linked to sequestration of CO2 over geologic timescales. However, even in some cases of landscapes experiencing rapid uplift, some portions of landscapes remain unchanged or `relict' for long periods and the fluxes of chemical weathering and physical erosion do not reflect the new tectonic regime-sometimes for millions of years following uplift. These relict portions of the landscape are often composed of subdued topography with thick soils. River incision is achieved by various processes, but one of the main contributors is bedrock abrasion by bedload. Here, we show how the presence of flat, relict landscapes in headwaters can lead to reduced incision rates and low erosion fluxes. We use a known pulse of uplift in Puerto Rico and track the river response to the uplift over time to illustrate a how landscapes in hot, humid climates can persist for millions of years even after rapid mountain uplift. We run experiments on simplified topography using numerical landscape evolution models. Typically, numerical landscape evolution models apply a standard stream power law model, whereby river incision is proportional to basal shear stress or unit stream power, and is not affected by gravel flux. We implement a formulation of the tool and cover effect model, and then we added a reinforcing effect of weathering on this process, by implementing a gravel production function. This function simulates the effect of the residence time of rocks in soil, which is expected to affect the grain-size distribution of the particles in the soil, with lower erosion rates, and longer residence time further decreasing the proportion of gravel delivered to the streams. We find

Defining the landscape of adaptive genetic diversity.

Science.gov (United States)

Eckert, Andrew J; Dyer, Rodney J

2012-06-01

Whether they are used to describe fitness, genome architecture or the spatial distribution of environmental variables, the concept of a landscape has figured prominently in our collective reasoning. The tradition of landscapes in evolutionary biology is one of fitness mapped onto axes defined by phenotypes or molecular sequence states. The characteristics of these landscapes depend on natural selection, which is structured across both genomic and environmental landscapes, and thus, the bridge among differing uses of the landscape concept (i.e. metaphorically or literally) is that of an adaptive phenotype and its distribution across geographical landscapes in relation to selective pressures. One of the ultimate goals of evolutionary biology should thus be to construct fitness landscapes in geographical space. Natural plant populations are ideal systems with which to explore the feasibility of attaining this goal, because much is known about the quantitative genetic architecture of complex traits for many different plant species. What is less known are the molecular components of this architecture. In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Parchman et al. (2012) pioneer one of the first truly genome-wide association studies in a tree that moves us closer to this form of mechanistic understanding for an adaptive phenotype in natural populations of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud.). © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Interactive Instruction in Bayesian Inference

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Khan, Azam; Breslav, Simon; Hornbæk, Kasper

2018-01-01

An instructional approach is presented to improve human performance in solving Bayesian inference problems. Starting from the original text of the classic Mammography Problem, the textual expression is modified and visualizations are added according to Mayer’s principles of instruction. These pri......An instructional approach is presented to improve human performance in solving Bayesian inference problems. Starting from the original text of the classic Mammography Problem, the textual expression is modified and visualizations are added according to Mayer’s principles of instruction....... These principles concern coherence, personalization, signaling, segmenting, multimedia, spatial contiguity, and pretraining. Principles of self-explanation and interactivity are also applied. Four experiments on the Mammography Problem showed that these principles help participants answer the questions...... that an instructional approach to improving human performance in Bayesian inference is a promising direction....

Inferring Phylogenetic Networks Using PhyloNet.

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Dingqiao; Yu, Yun; Zhu, Jiafan; Nakhleh, Luay

2018-07-01

PhyloNet was released in 2008 as a software package for representing and analyzing phylogenetic networks. At the time of its release, the main functionalities in PhyloNet consisted of measures for comparing network topologies and a single heuristic for reconciling gene trees with a species tree. Since then, PhyloNet has grown significantly. The software package now includes a wide array of methods for inferring phylogenetic networks from data sets of unlinked loci while accounting for both reticulation (e.g., hybridization) and incomplete lineage sorting. In particular, PhyloNet now allows for maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian inference of phylogenetic networks from gene tree estimates. Furthermore, Bayesian inference directly from sequence data (sequence alignments or biallelic markers) is implemented. Maximum parsimony is based on an extension of the "minimizing deep coalescences" criterion to phylogenetic networks, whereas maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference are based on the multispecies network coalescent. All methods allow for multiple individuals per species. As computing the likelihood of a phylogenetic network is computationally hard, PhyloNet allows for evaluation and inference of networks using a pseudolikelihood measure. PhyloNet summarizes the results of the various analyzes and generates phylogenetic networks in the extended Newick format that is readily viewable by existing visualization software.

Populating the Landscape: a top down approach

CERN Document Server

Hawking, Stephen William; Hertog, Thomas

2006-01-01

We put forward a framework for cosmology that combines the string landscape with no boundary initial conditions. In this framework, amplitudes for alternative histories for the universe are calculated with final boundary conditions only. This leads to a top down approach to cosmology, in which the histories of the universe depend on the precise question asked. We study the observational consequences of no boundary initial conditions on the landscape, and outline a scheme to test the theory. This is illustrated in a simple model landscape that admits several alternative inflationary histories for the universe. Only a few of the possible vacua in the landscape will be populated. We also discuss in what respect the top down approach differs from other approaches to cosmology in the string landscape, like eternal inflation.

Populating the landscape: A top-down approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hawking, S.W.; Hertog, Thomas

2006-01-01

We put forward a framework for cosmology that combines the string landscape with no boundary initial conditions. In this framework, amplitudes for alternative histories for the universe are calculated with final boundary conditions only. This leads to a top-down approach to cosmology, in which the histories of the universe depend on the precise question asked. We study the observational consequences of no boundary initial conditions on the landscape, and outline a scheme to test the theory. This is illustrated in a simple model landscape that admits several alternative inflationary histories for the universe. Only a few of the possible vacua in the landscape will be populated. We also discuss in what respect the top-down approach differs from other approaches to cosmology in the string landscape, like eternal inflation

Active inference and learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Friston, Karl; FitzGerald, Thomas; Rigoli, Francesco; Schwartenbeck, Philipp; O Doherty, John; Pezzulo, Giovanni

2016-09-01

This paper offers an active inference account of choice behaviour and learning. It focuses on the distinction between goal-directed and habitual behaviour and how they contextualise each other. We show that habits emerge naturally (and autodidactically) from sequential policy optimisation when agents are equipped with state-action policies. In active inference, behaviour has explorative (epistemic) and exploitative (pragmatic) aspects that are sensitive to ambiguity and risk respectively, where epistemic (ambiguity-resolving) behaviour enables pragmatic (reward-seeking) behaviour and the subsequent emergence of habits. Although goal-directed and habitual policies are usually associated with model-based and model-free schemes, we find the more important distinction is between belief-free and belief-based schemes. The underlying (variational) belief updating provides a comprehensive (if metaphorical) process theory for several phenomena, including the transfer of dopamine responses, reversal learning, habit formation and devaluation. Finally, we show that active inference reduces to a classical (Bellman) scheme, in the absence of ambiguity. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Qualifying Urban Landscapes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Clemmensen, Thomas Juel; Nielsen, Tom; Daugaard, Morten

2010-01-01

The article presents an attempt to develop alternatives to the dominant planning and design principles used in building and rebuilding the contemporary urban landscape. The basic idea is that the ‘forces of modernisation’ driving current development might result in a broader and more interesting...... for contemporary urban landscape design practice....... to the task of constructing and improving things. With this goal, a set of objectives based in important insights from recent urban theory are formulated constituting the normative spine of the analysis of a number of found situations as basis for formulating eight generic concepts of qualification...

The landscape configuration of zoonotic transmission of Ebola virus disease in West and Central Africa: interaction between population density and vegetation cover

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Michael G. Walsh

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Ebola virus disease (EVD is an emerging infectious disease of zoonotic origin that has been responsible for high mortality and significant social disruption in West and Central Africa. Zoonotic transmission of EVD requires contact between susceptible human hosts and the reservoir species for Ebolaviruses, which are believed to be fruit bats. Nevertheless, features of the landscape that may facilitate such points of contact have not yet been adequately identified. Nor have spatial dependencies between zoonotic EVD transmission and landscape structures been delineated. This investigation sought to describe the spatial relationship between zoonotic EVD transmission events, or spillovers, and population density and vegetation cover. An inhomogeneous Poisson process model was fitted to all precisely geolocated zoonotic transmissions of EVD in West and Central Africa. Population density was strongly associated with spillover; however, there was significant interaction between population density and green vegetation cover. In areas of very low population density, increasing vegetation cover was associated with a decrease in risk of zoonotic transmission, but as population density increased in a given area, increasing vegetation cover was associated with increased risk of zoonotic transmission. This study showed that the spatial dependencies of Ebolavirus spillover were associated with the distribution of population density and vegetation cover in the landscape, even after controlling for climate and altitude. While this is an observational study, and thus precludes direct causal inference, the findings do highlight areas that may be at risk for zoonotic EVD transmission based on the spatial configuration of important features of the landscape.

Landscape genetics of high mountain frog metapopulations

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Murphy, M.A.; Dezzani, R.; Pilliod, D.S.; Storfer, A.

2010-01-01

Explaining functional connectivity among occupied habitats is crucial for understanding metapopulation dynamics and species ecology. Landscape genetics has primarily focused on elucidating how ecological features between observations influence gene flow. Functional connectivity, however, may be the result of both these between-site (landscape resistance) landscape characteristics and at-site (patch quality) landscape processes that can be captured using network based models. We test hypotheses of functional connectivity that include both between-site and at-site landscape processes in metapopulations of Columbia spotted frogs (Rana luteiventris) by employing a novel justification of gravity models for landscape genetics (eight microsatellite loci, 37 sites, n = 441). Primarily used in transportation and economic geography, gravity models are a unique approach as flow (e.g. gene flow) is explained as a function of three basic components: distance between sites, production/attraction (e.g. at-site landscape process) and resistance (e.g. between-site landscape process). The study system contains a network of nutrient poor high mountain lakes where we hypothesized a short growing season and complex topography between sites limit R. luteiventris gene flow. In addition, we hypothesized production of offspring is limited by breeding site characteristics such as the introduction of predatory fish and inherent site productivity. We found that R. luteiventris connectivity was negatively correlated with distance between sites, presence of predatory fish (at-site) and topographic complexity (between-site). Conversely, site productivity (as measured by heat load index, at-site) and growing season (as measured by frost-free period between-sites) were positively correlated with gene flow. The negative effect of predation and positive effect of site productivity, in concert with bottleneck tests, support the presence of source-sink dynamics. In conclusion, gravity models provide a

Active Inference, homeostatic regulation and adaptive behavioural control.

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Pezzulo, Giovanni; Rigoli, Francesco; Friston, Karl

2015-11-01

We review a theory of homeostatic regulation and adaptive behavioural control within the Active Inference framework. Our aim is to connect two research streams that are usually considered independently; namely, Active Inference and associative learning theories of animal behaviour. The former uses a probabilistic (Bayesian) formulation of perception and action, while the latter calls on multiple (Pavlovian, habitual, goal-directed) processes for homeostatic and behavioural control. We offer a synthesis these classical processes and cast them as successive hierarchical contextualisations of sensorimotor constructs, using the generative models that underpin Active Inference. This dissolves any apparent mechanistic distinction between the optimization processes that mediate classical control or learning. Furthermore, we generalize the scope of Active Inference by emphasizing interoceptive inference and homeostatic regulation. The ensuing homeostatic (or allostatic) perspective provides an intuitive explanation for how priors act as drives or goals to enslave action, and emphasises the embodied nature of inference. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Generative Inferences Based on Learned Relations

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Chen, Dawn; Lu, Hongjing; Holyoak, Keith J.

2017-01-01

A key property of relational representations is their "generativity": From partial descriptions of relations between entities, additional inferences can be drawn about other entities. A major theoretical challenge is to demonstrate how the capacity to make generative inferences could arise as a result of learning relations from…

Molecular phylogeny of Acer monspessulanum L. subspecies from Iran inferred using the ITS region of nuclear ribosomal DNA

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HANIF KHADEMI

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract. Khademi H, Mehregan I, Assadi M, Nejadsatari T, Zarre S. 2015. Molecular phylogeny of Acer monspessulanum L. subspecies from Iran inferred using the ITS region of nuclear ribosomal DNA. Biodiversitas 17: 16-23. This study was carried out on the Acer monspessulanum complex growing wild in Iran. Internal transcribed spacer (ITS sequences for 75 samples representing five different subspecies of Acer monspessulanum were analyzed. Beside this, 86 previously published ITS sequences from GenBank were used to test the monophyly of the complex worldwide. Phylogenetic analyses were conducted using Bayesian inference and maximum parsimony. The results indicate that most samples of A. monspessulanum species from Iran were part of a monophyletic clade with 8 samples of A. ibericum from Georgia, A. hyrcanum from Iran and one of A. sempervirens from Greece (PP= 1; BS= 79%. Our results indicate that use of morphological characteristics coupled with molecular data will be most effective.

Fractal Landscape Algorithms for Environmental Simulations

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Mao, H.; Moran, S.

2014-12-01

Natural science and geographical research are now able to take advantage of environmental simulations that more accurately test experimental hypotheses, resulting in deeper understanding. Experiments affected by the natural environment can benefit from 3D landscape simulations capable of simulating a variety of terrains and environmental phenomena. Such simulations can employ random terrain generation algorithms that dynamically simulate environments to test specific models against a variety of factors. Through the use of noise functions such as Perlin noise, Simplex noise, and diamond square algorithms, computers can generate simulations that model a variety of landscapes and ecosystems. This study shows how these algorithms work together to create realistic landscapes. By seeding values into the diamond square algorithm, one can control the shape of landscape. Perlin noise and Simplex noise are also used to simulate moisture and temperature. The smooth gradient created by coherent noise allows more realistic landscapes to be simulated. Terrain generation algorithms can be used in environmental studies and physics simulations. Potential studies that would benefit from simulations include the geophysical impact of flash floods or drought on a particular region and regional impacts on low lying area due to global warming and rising sea levels. Furthermore, terrain generation algorithms also serve as aesthetic tools to display landscapes (Google Earth), and simulate planetary landscapes. Hence, it can be used as a tool to assist science education. Algorithms used to generate these natural phenomena provide scientists a different approach in analyzing our world. The random algorithms used in terrain generation not only contribute to the generating the terrains themselves, but are also capable of simulating weather patterns.

Ecosystem services in changing landscapes: An introduction

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Louis Iverson; Cristian Echeverria; Laura Nahuelhual; Sandra. Luque

2014-01-01

The concept of ecosystem services from landscapes is rapidly gaining momentum as a language to communicate values and benefits to scientists and lay alike. Landscape ecology has an enormous contribution to make to this field, and one could argue, uniquely so. Tools developed or adapted for landscape ecology are being increasingly used to assist with the quantification...

Landscape degradation at different spatial scales caused by aridification

OpenAIRE

Meyer Burghard Christian; Mezősi Gábor; Kovács Ferenc

2017-01-01

Landscape responses to degradation caused by aridification bring the landscape system into a new equilibrium state. The system transformation may entail irreversible changes to its constituting parameters. This paper analyses the impact of aridification on landscape degradation processes in the sand-covered landscapes of the Hungarian Danube-Tisza Interfluve region at the regional, landscape, and local site scales. Changes in groundwater level (well data), lake surface area (Modified Normaliz...

Understanding the Global Cold War Legacy: Narrating through Landscape

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Melanie Klein

2004-06-01

Full Text Available The end of the Cold War brought the shrinking and dismantling of vast nuclear weapons complexes. As a result, some landscape architects will find themselves reclaiming a new, very specific type of Cold War landscape: those degraded by nuclear arms testing, production and waste storage. Nuclear landscapes pose multiple and complex challenges. Before designing nuclear reclamations, one must ask: what are the issues? If designers misunderstand the nuclear landscape 'problem', it will be 'solved' in the wrong way. My position is based on the assumption that society desires these landscapes to be reclaimed safely and in ways that allow them to educate the public. Landscape architects can find ways to reclaim nuclear landscapes safely while leaving narratives for generations to come. Perhaps it is too early to describe how nuclear reclamations will look. It is not too early to discuss what designs for nuclear reclamations should accomplish. This paper raises questions critical to the design of nuclear reclamations, both globally and locally. Near precedents - past reclamations that narrate other types of degraded landscapes - are discussed, and it is noted how we can learn from them when considering nuclear landscape reclamation. This paper does not articulate a specific design theory or solution to Cold War nuclear landscapes, but rather, it seeks to pose critical questions that designers should ask. These questions will be broad because we consider nuclear landscapes globally. The questions will require in-depth investigation of local issues as each unique nuclear landscape is considered.

Combining Aesthetic with Ecological Values for Landscape Sustainability

OpenAIRE

Yang, Dewei; Luo, Tao; Lin, Tao; Qiu, Quanyi; Luo, Yunjian

2014-01-01

Humans receive multiple benefits from various landscapes that foster ecological services and aesthetic attractiveness. In this study, a hybrid framework was proposed to evaluate ecological and aesthetic values of five landscape types in Houguanhu Region of central China. Data from the public aesthetic survey and professional ecological assessment were converted into a two-dimensional coordinate system and distribution maps of landscape values. Results showed that natural landscapes (i.e. wate...

Dynamic-landscape metapopulation models predict complex response of wildlife populations to climate and landscape change

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Thomas W. Bonnot; Frank R. Thompson; Joshua J. Millspaugh

2017-01-01

The increasing need to predict how climate change will impact wildlife species has exposed limitations in how well current approaches model important biological processes at scales at which those processes interact with climate. We used a comprehensive approach that combined recent advances in landscape and population modeling into dynamic-landscape metapopulation...

Sustaining ecosystem services in cultural landscapes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Plieninger, Tobias; van der Horst, Dan; Schleyer, Christian

2014-01-01

Classical conservation approaches focus on the man-made degradation of ecosystems and tend to neglect the socialecological values that human land uses have imprinted on many environments. Throughout the world, ingenious land-use practices have generated unique cultural landscapes...... research and management. With this paper, we introduce a special feature that aims to enhance the theoretical, empirical and practical knowledge of how to safeguard the resilience of ecosystem services in cultural landscapes. It concludes (1) that the usefulness of the ecosystem services approach...... to the analysis and management of cultural landscapes should be reviewed more critically; (2) that conventional ecosystem services assessment needs to be complemented by socio-cultural valuation; (3) that cultural landscapes are inherently changing, so that a dynamic view on ecosystem services and a focus...

Landscape degradation at different spatial scales caused by aridification

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Meyer Burghard Christian

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Landscape responses to degradation caused by aridification bring the landscape system into a new equilibrium state. The system transformation may entail irreversible changes to its constituting parameters. This paper analyses the impact of aridification on landscape degradation processes in the sand-covered landscapes of the Hungarian Danube-Tisza Interfluve region at the regional, landscape, and local site scales. Changes in groundwater level (well data, lake surface area (Modified Normalized Difference Water Index and vegetation cover (Enhanced Vegetation Index were analysed over time periods of 12–60 years. Significant regional variation in decreasing groundwater levels is observed and limits the regional applicability of this indicator. Applying the lake surface area parameter from remote sensing data demonstrated greater utility, identifying several local lakes in the landscapes which have dried out. Analysis of the vegetation response indicated minor changes over the 2000–2014 time period and did not indicate a landscape system change. Landscape degradation as a result of changes in groundwater, vegetation, land cover and land use is clearly identified exclusively in local lake areas, but at the landscape scale, changes in the water balance are found in phases of system stability and transformation. Thresholds are identified to support policy and management towards landscape degradation neutrality.

Congruence between morphological and molecular markers inferred from the analysis of the intra-morphotype genetic diversity and the spatial structure of Oxalis tuberosa Mol.

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Pissard, Audrey; Arbizu, Carlos; Ghislain, Marc; Faux, Anne-Michèle; Paulet, Sébastien; Bertin, Pierre

2008-01-01

Oxalis tuberosa is an important crop cultivated in the highest Andean zones. A germplasm collection is maintained ex situ by CIP, which has developed a morphological markers system to classify the accessions into morphotypes, i.e. groups of morphologically identical accessions. However, their genetic uniformity is currently unknown. The ISSR technique was used in two experiments to determine the relationships between both morphological and molecular markers systems. The intra-morphotype genetic diversity, the spatial structures of the diversity and the congruence between both markers systems were determined. In the first experience, 44 accessions representing five morphotypes, clearly distinct from each other, were analyzed. At the molecular level, the accessions exactly clustered according to their morphotypes. However, a genetic variability was observed inside each morphotype. In the second experiment, 34 accessions gradually differing from each other on morphological base were analyzed. The morphological clustering showed no geographical structure. On the opposite, the molecular analysis showed that the genetic structure was slightly related to the collection site. The correlation between both markers systems was weak but significant. The lack of perfect congruence between morphological and molecular data suggests that the morphological system may be useful for the morphotypes management but is not appropriate to study the genetic structure of the oca. The spatial structure of the genetic diversity can be related to the evolution of the species and the discordance between the morphological and molecular structures may result from similar selection pressures at different places leading to similar forms with a different genetic background.

Passive Solar Landscape Design: Its Impact on Fossil Fuel Consumption Through Landscape Design

OpenAIRE

Boelt, Robin Wiatt

2006-01-01

Gas, electricity, heating and cooling buildings - comfort â our lives revolve around fossil fuels. Technology and the demands of living in todayâ s society add to our gigantic fossil fuel appetite. With gas prices topping three dollars per gallon, changes must be made. This thesis project presents an analysis of passive solar landscape design (PSLD) principles used to create microclimates within the landscape, and thereby increasing human comfort both indoors and outdoors. The ...

Evolutionary radiation of "stone plants" in the genus Argyroderma (Aizoaceae): unraveling the effects of landscape, habitat, and flowering time.

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Ellis, Allan G; Weis, Arthur E; Gaut, Brandon S

2006-01-01

Recent phylogenetic evidence suggests that the extraordinary diversity of the Cape Floristic Kingdom in South Africa may be the result of widespread evolutionary radiation. Our understanding of the role of adaptive versus neutral processes in these radiations remains largely speculative. In this study we investigated factors involved in the diversification of Argyroderma, a genus within the most spectacular of the Cape radiations, that of the Ruschioid subfamily of the Aizoaceae. We used amplified fragment length polymorphisms and a suite of morphological traits to elucidate patterns of differentiation within and between species of Argyroderma across the range of the genus. We then used a matrix correlation approach to assess the influence of landscape structure, edaphic gradients, and flowering phenology on phenotypic and neutral genetic divergence in the system. We found evidence for strong spatial genetic isolation at all taxonomic levels. In addition, genetic differentiation occurs along a temporal axis, between sympatric species with divergent flowering times. Morphological differentiation, which previous studies suggest is adaptive, occurs along a habitat axis, between populations occupying different edaphic microenvironments. Morphological differentiation is in turn significantly associated with flowering time shifts. Thus we propose that diversification within Argyroderma has occurred through a process of adaptive speciation in allopatry. Spatially isolated populations diverge phenotypically in response to divergent habitat selection, which in turn leads to the evolution of reproductive isolation through divergence of flowering phenologies, perhaps as a correlated response to morphological divergence. Evidence suggests that diversification of the group has proceeded in two phases: the first involving divergence of allopatric taxa on varied microhabitats within a novel habitat type (the quartz gravel plains), and the second involving range expansion of an

Mosaic boreal landscapes with open and forested wetlands

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sjoeberg, K.; Ericson, L.

1997-01-01

We review patterns and processes important for biodiversity in the Fennoscandian boreal forest, describe man's past and present impact and outline a strategy for conservation. The boreal landscape was earlier characterized by a mosaic of open and forested wetlands and forests. Drainage and felling operation have largely changed that pattern. Several organisms depend upon the landscape mosaic. Natural ecotones between mire and forest provide food resources predictable in space and time contrasting to unpredictable edges in the silvicultured landscape. The mosaic is also a prerequisite for organisms dependent on non-substitutable resources in the landscape. The importance of swamp forests has increased as they function as refugia for earlier more widespread old-growth species. Programmes for maintaining biodiversity in the boreal landscape should include the following points. First, the natural mosaic with open and forested wetlands must be maintained. Second, swamp forests must receive a general protection as they often constitute the only old-growth patches in the landscape. Third, we need to restore earlier disturbance regimes. Present strategy plans for conservation are insufficient, as they imply that a too large proportion of boreal organisms will not be able to survive outside protected areas. Instead, we need to focus more on how to preserve organisms in the man-influenced landscape. As a first step we need to understand how organisms are distributed in landscapes at various spatial scales. We need studies in landscapes where the original mosaic has faced various degrees of fragmentation. (au) 124 refs

Spatial modelling of landscape aesthetic potential in urban-rural fringes.

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Sahraoui, Yohan; Clauzel, Céline; Foltête, Jean-Christophe

2016-10-01

The aesthetic potential of landscape has to be modelled to provide tools for land-use planning. This involves identifying landscape attributes and revealing individuals' landscape preferences. Landscape aesthetic judgments of individuals (n = 1420) were studied by means of a photo-based survey. A set of landscape visibility metrics was created to measure landscape composition and configuration in each photograph using spatial data. These metrics were used as explanatory variables in multiple linear regressions to explain aesthetic judgments. We demonstrate that landscape aesthetic judgments may be synthesized in three consensus groups. The statistical results obtained show that landscape visibility metrics have good explanatory power. Ultimately, we propose a spatial modelling of landscape aesthetic potential based on these results combined with systematic computation of visibility metrics. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Topographic imprint on chemical weathering in deeply weathered soil-mantled landscapes (southern Brazil)

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Vanacker, Veerle; Schoonejans, Jerome; Ameijeiras-Marino, Yolanda; Opfergelt, Sophie; Minella, Jean

2017-04-01

The regolith mantle is defined as the thin layer of unconsolidated material overlaying bedrock that contributes to shape the Earth's surface. The development of the regolith mantle in a landscape is the result of in-situ weathering, atmospheric input and downhill transport of weathering products. Bedrock weathering - the physical and chemical transformations of rock to soil - contributes to the vertical development of the regolith layer through downward propagation of the weathering front. Lateral transport of soil particles, aggregates and solutes by diffusive and concentrated particle and solute fluxes result in lateral redistribution of weathering products over the hillslope. In this study, we aim to expand the empirical basis on long-term soil evolution at the landscape scale through a detailed study of soil weathering in subtropical soils. Spatial variability in chemical mass fluxes and weathering intensity were studied along two toposequences with similar climate, lithology and vegetation but different slope morphology. This allowed us to isolate the topographic imprint on chemical weathering and soil development. The toposequences have convexo-concave slope morphology, and eight regolith profiles were analysed involving the flat upslope, steep midslope and flat toeslope part. Our data show a clear topographic imprint on soil development. Along hillslope, the chemical weathering intensity of the regolith profiles increases with distance from the crest. In contrast to the upslope positions, the soils in the basal concavities develop on in-situ and transported regolith. While the chemical weathering extent on the slope convexities (the upslope profiles) is similar for the steep and gentle toposequence, there is a clear difference in the rate of increase of the chemical weathering extent with distance from the crest. The increase of chemical weathering extent along hillslope is highest for the steep toposequence, suggesting that topography enhances soil particle

Human Needs as an Approach to Designed Landscapes

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Dalia Aly

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The traditional approach of landscape architecture has always focused on the aesthetic and visual aspects of landscapes while giving less attention to other aspects. This view has limited the benefits that can be derived from designed landscapes, despite the wide-ranging potential they carry for humans; socially, environmentally and economically. As a result, many researchers and practitioners are currently challenging this view to develop a more holistic and multidimensional approach. The present research therefore aims at proposing a new perspective for public designed landscapes based on fundamental human needs. The study methodology was comprised of critical content analysis for three main domains: sustainable development, human needs in specific relation to public landscapes, and significant approaches to fundamental human needs. Reconciliation among these domains was achieved based on a modified version of Max-Neef’s matrix of fundamental human needs. Human needs in public landscapes were merged into the matrix to reach a comprehensive yet specific perspective. The study concluded with a conceptual framework that can provide a wider perspective to human needs in designed landscapes. It proposes a new tool for the analysis of the benefits of public landscapes and their value for humans, which can be further used in various applications.

Future landscapes: opportunities and challenges

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John Stanturf

2015-01-01

The global magnitude of degraded and deforested areas is best approached by restoring landscapes. Heightened international perception of the importance of forests and trees outside forests (e.g., woodlands, on farms) demands new approaches to future landscapes. The current need for forest restoration is two billion ha; most opportunities are mosaic restoration in the...

The landscape context of cereal aphid–parasitoid interactions

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Thies, Carsten; Roschewitz, Indra; Tscharntke, Teja

2005-01-01

Analyses at multiple spatial scales may show how important ecosystem services such as biological control are determined by processes acting on the landscape scale. We examined cereal aphid–parasitoid interactions in wheat fields in agricultural landscapes differing in structural complexity (32–100% arable land). Complex landscapes were associated with increased aphid mortality resulting from parasitism, but also with higher aphid colonization, thereby counterbalancing possible biological control by parasitoids and lastly resulting in similar aphid densities across landscapes. Thus, undisturbed perennial habitats appeared to enhance both pests and natural enemies. Analyses at multiple spatial scales (landscape sectors of 0.5–6 km diameter) showed that correlations between parasitism and percentage of arable land were significant at scales of 0.5–2 km, whereas aphid densities responded to percentage of arable land at scales of 1–6 km diameter. Hence, the higher trophic level populations appeared to be determined by smaller landscape sectors owing to dispersal limitation, showing the ‘functional spatial scale’ for species-specific landscape management. PMID:15695212

Parametric statistical inference basic theory and modern approaches

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Zacks, Shelemyahu; Tsokos, C P

1981-01-01

Parametric Statistical Inference: Basic Theory and Modern Approaches presents the developments and modern trends in statistical inference to students who do not have advanced mathematical and statistical preparation. The topics discussed in the book are basic and common to many fields of statistical inference and thus serve as a jumping board for in-depth study. The book is organized into eight chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of how the theory of statistical inference is presented in subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 briefly discusses statistical distributions and their properties. Chapt

Influence of landscape structure and human modifications on insect biomass and bat foraging activity in an urban landscape.

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Caragh G Threlfall

Full Text Available Urban landscapes are often located in biologically diverse, productive regions. As such, urbanization may have dramatic consequences for this diversity, largely due to changes in the structure and function of urban communities. We examined the influence of landscape productivity (indexed by geology, housing density and vegetation clearing on the spatial distribution of nocturnal insect biomass and the foraging activity of insectivorous bats in the urban landscape of Sydney, Australia. Nocturnal insect biomass (g and bat foraging activity were sampled from 113 sites representing backyard, open space, bushland and riparian landscape elements, across urban, suburban and vegetated landscapes within 60 km of Sydney's Central Business District. We found that insect biomass was at least an order of magnitude greater within suburban landscapes in bushland and backyard elements located on the most fertile shale influenced geologies (both p<0.001 compared to nutrient poor sandstone landscapes. Similarly, the feeding activity of bats was greatest in bushland, and riparian elements within suburbs on fertile geologies (p = 0.039. Regression tree analysis indicated that the same three variables explained the major proportion of the variation in insect biomass and bat foraging activity. These were ambient temperature (positive, housing density (negative and the percent of fertile shale geologies (positive in the landscape; however variation in insect biomass did not directly explain bat foraging activity. We suggest that prey may be unavailable to bats in highly urbanized areas if these areas are avoided by many species, suggesting that reduced feeding activity may reflect under-use of urban habitats by bats. Restoration activities to improve ecological function and maintain the activity of a diversity of bat species should focus on maintaining and restoring bushland and riparian habitat, particularly in areas with fertile geology as these were key bat