A climate-change vulnerability and adaptation assessment for Brazil's protected areas

Brazil hosts the largest expanse of tropical ecosystems within protected areas (PAs), which shelter biodiversity and support traditional human populations. We assessed the vulnerability to climate change of 993 terrestrial and coastal-marine Brazilian PAs by combining indicators of climatic-change hazard with indicators of PA resilience (size, native vegetation cover, and probability of climate-driven vegetation transition). This combination of indicators allows the identification of broad climate-change adaptation pathways. Seventeen PAs (20,611 km²) were highly vulnerable and located mainly in the Atlantic Forest (7 PAs), Cerrado (6), and the Amazon (4). Two hundred fifty-eight PAs (756,569 km²), located primarily in Amazonia, had a medium vulnerability. In the Amazon and western Cerrado, the projected severe climatic change and probability of climate-driven vegetation transition drove vulnerability up, despite the generally good conservation status of PAs. Over 80% of PAs of high or moderate vulnerability are managed by indigenous populations. Hence, besides the potential risks to biodiversity, the traditional knowledge and livelihoods of the people inhabiting these PAs may be threatened. In at least 870 PAs, primarily in the Atlantic Forest and Amazon, adaptation could happen with little or no intervention due to low climate-change hazard, high resilience status, or both. At least 20 PAs in the Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, and Amazonia should be targeted for stronger interventions (e.g., improvement of ecological connectivity), given their low resilience status. Despite being a first attempt to link vulnerability and adaptation in Brazilian PAs, we suggest that some of the PAs identified as highly or moderately vulnerable should be prioritized for testing potential adaptation strategies in the near future.     

Using culturomics and social media data to characterize wildlife consumption

Wildlife provides food, medicine, clothing, and other necessities for humans, but overexploitation can disrupt the sustainability of wildlife resources and severely threaten global biodiversity. Understanding the characteristics of consumer behavior is helpful for wildlife managers and policy makers, but the traditional survey methods are laborious and time-consuming. In contrast, culturomics may more efficiently identify the features of wildlife consumption. As a case study of the culturomics approach, we examined tiger bone wine consumption in China based on social media and Baidu search engine data. Tiger bone wine is one of the most purchased tiger products; its consumption is closely related to tiger poaching, which greatly threatens wild tiger survival. We searched a popular social media website for the term “tiger bone wine” and focused on posts that were originally created from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2018. We filtered and classified posts related to the purchase, sale, or consumption of tiger bone wine and extracted information on providers, consumption motivations, year of production, and place of origin of the tiger bone wines based on the texts and photos of these posts. We found 756 posts related to tiger bone wine consumption, 113 of which mentioned providers of tiger bone wine, including friends (53%), elder relatives (37%), peer relatives (7%), and others (3%). Out of the 756 posts, 266 indicated the motivations of tiger bone wine consumption. Tiger bone wines were consumed as a tonic (34%), medicine (23%), game product (30%), and a symbol of wealth (28%). Some posts indicated ≥2 consumption motivations. These findings were consistent with the search queries from Baidu index. Such information could help develop targeted strategies for tiger conservation. The culturomics approach illustrated by our study is a rapid and cost-efficient way to characterize wildlife consumption.     

Development and evaluation of RAMP I – a practitioner’s tool for screening of musculoskeletal disorder risk factors in manual handling

RAMP I is a screening tool developed to support practitioners in screening for work-related musculoskeletal disorder risk factors related to manual handling. RAMP I, which is part of the RAMP tool, is based on research-based studies combined with expert group judgments. More than 80 practitioners participated in the development of RAMP I. The tool consists of dichotomous assessment items grouped into seven categories. Acceptable reliability was found for a majority of the assessment items for 15 practitioners who were given 1?h of training. The usability evaluation points to RAMP I being usable for screening for musculoskeletal disorder risk factors, i.e., usable for assessing risks, being usable as a decision base, having clear results and that the time needed for an assessment is acceptable. It is concluded that RAMP I is a usable tool for practitioners.     

A proactive process risk assessment approach based on job hazard analysis and resilient engineering

Complex systems often experience a long period of incubation before accidents occur. Therefore, a proactive risk assessment is essential for process safety. The conventional job hazard analysis (JHA) method has been an effective tool to conduct a process risk assessment in the high-risk industrial field. However, the conventional JHA is inadequate for the proactive risk assessment since it is usually conducted during and before one specific operation process. Operations such as startup and maintenance are performed repeatedly on the lifecycle of a plant. Therefore, the risk reduction measures for the industrial process should include not only preventive actions obtained from the conventional JHA but also recovery ones. Resilience engineering (RE) has proven to be helpful for the recovery analysis of a complex system. The objective of this paper is to propose a proactive and comprehensive process risk assessment approach based on JHA and RE. The mechanism of applying RE to address operation process risk is illustrated. The integrated approach can provide guidelines to establish proactive risk reduction measures as well as maintain a low-risk level. Finally, a gas transmission startup process risk assessment case is presented to demonstrate its applicability.     

Effect of deuterium-depleted water on reproduction of rainbow trout

During the artificial reproduction of salmonides, the fecundity can be increased either by improving the viability of spermatozoa, or by extending the time period during which a roe micropile remains open, thus allowing its fecundation. Practically, this can be achieved by the use of some fertilising techniques suitable for fish species. Here, we show that the reproduction of rainbow trout in a 1:1 solution of deuterium-depleted water and distilled water led to a significant increase in survival of roes during their embryonic development. Moreover, the addition of glucose and fructose into the deuterium-depleted fertilising solutions led to a further increase in roe survival during embryonic development. The increase in survival is mainly explained by an increase in the motility of spermatozoa.     

期权理论在排污权初始分配中的应用

排污权交易是当前总量控制目标下最具潜力的环境政策,它兼有环境质量保障和成本效率优化的特点.在对国内外排污权交易和初始分配充分考察的基础上,提出了在排污权初次分配中引入期权机制的尝试,并对这种方法的理论基础作了分析和讨论.     

Epidemiologic Analysis of Factors Associated with Local Disappearances of Native Ranid Frogs in Arizona

Abstract:  We examined factors that may independently or synergistically contribute to amphibian population declines. We used epidemiologic case–control methodology to sample and analyze a large database developed and maintained by the Arizona Game and Fish Department that describes historical and currently known ranid frog localities in Arizona, U.S.A. Sites with historical documentation of target ranid species ( n = 324) were evaluated to identify locations where frogs had disappeared during the study period (case sites) and locations where frog populations persisted (control sites). Between 1986 and 2003, 117 (36%) of the 324 sites became case sites, of which 105 were used in the analyses. An equal number of control sites were sampled to control for the effects of time. Risk factors, or predictor variables, were defined from environmental data summarized during site surveys and geographic information system data layers. We evaluated risk factors with univariate and multifactorial logistic-regression analyses to derive odds ratios (OR). Odds for local population disappearance were significantly related to 4 factors in the multifactorial model. Disappearance of frog populations increased with increasing elevation (OR = 2.7 for every 500 m, p < 0.01). Sites where disappearances occurred were 4.3 times more likely to have other nearby sites that also experienced disappearances (OR = 4.3, p < 0.01), whereas the odds of disappearance were 6.7 times less (OR = 0.15, p < 0.01) when there was a source population nearby. Sites with disappearances were 2.6 times more likely to have introduced crayfish than were control sites (OR = 2.6, p = 0.04). The identification of factors associated with frog disappearances increases understanding of declines occurring in natural populations and aids in conservation efforts to reestablish and protect native ranids by identifying and prioritizing implicated threats.     

Risk-evaluation of Hi-tech Enterprise in the Process of Approaching Global Market

In the high technology industry, small and medium sized technology enterprises (SMSTEs) play a pivotal role in advancing the whole industry. To achieve sustainable development, they need to extend their scope of business activities beyond a national view and exploit international market actively to meet international competitions that increase quickly in the form of allocating resources within the scope of the world. However, the SMSTEs are also facing risks associated with themselves during the process of exploiting international market owing to their own restrictions, so what they should do is to consider risk evaluations in exploiting the international market.     

中国可持续发展综合评价研究

可持续发展作为一个动态、开放的复杂巨系统。人口、资源、经济、环境和科技构成了其关键要素。本文基于PREEST系统模型。首先提出了一套中国可持续发展综合评价指标体系：同时。借助于主成分分析法和隶属度分析法。就中国1987～2001年度的综合发展指数与协调发展指数进行了实证分析；最后。基于研究成果。对中国未来的可持续发展提出了若干政策建议。     

岷江上游崩塌滑坡分布规律研究

岷江为长江—级支流，上游长３３０ｋｍ，自１９８６年以来，发生崩塌滑坡２００余处，体积约２．１亿ｍ￣３。作者研究了岷江上游崩塌滑坡的分布规律。采用统计指标法，将岷江上游分为三种不同的崩塌滑坡分布密度区：①ＵＸＳ．高密度区；②ＭＸＳ，中密度区；③ＬＸＳ＿３低密度区。