Effects of amusing memes on concern for unappealing species

There is limited knowledge of the mechanisms that can inspire people's concern and engagement in the protection of unpopular and unappealing species. We analyzed Polish people's interest in themed internet memes featuring the proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) and the consequences of this interest for conservation marketing. We examined Google Trends data, used Google Search, and searched popular media materials to estimate interest in the proboscis monkey in Poland. Photos of the proboscis monkey when presented with humor in internet memes attracted as much interest as usually more popular species (e.g., koala, panda, and orangutan) used in marketing by nongovernmental organizations. Amusing internet memes spread by social media positively correlated with increasing interest in the unappealing species, such as proboscis monkey. Interest in amusing internet memes positively correlated with individuals’ decisions to donate to 6 crowdfunding actions. Thus, conservation marketing that includes amusing memes and social media may provide a worthwhile complement to traditional campaigns and are likely to influence individuals who are unaffected by the usual means.     

利用Google Earth研究构造对喀斯特地貌的控制和对碳酸盐岩岩系风化成土的影响

通过互联网Google Earth欧洲卫星图像资料的观察,发现贵州喀斯特地区碳酸盐岩风化成土能力与地层岩性、构造和地貌等密切相关。二叠系生物礁石漠化显著,成土能力差;三叠系大冶组薄层灰岩成土能力高,很少有石漠化;地层倾角大的碳酸盐岩区,石漠化不显著;地层平缓的碳酸盐岩区,石漠化强或中等,碳酸盐岩风化成土能力中等。另外,大型节理带对碳酸盐岩风化成土具有明显的控制作用,节理带碳酸盐岩溶蚀相对强烈,常形成低洼地形,碳酸盐岩风化成土速率较高,红粘土堆积相对厚,不容易石漠化;而节理带间的区域往往地形较高,是石漠化易发育的区域。     

Effectiveness of Africa's tropical protected areas for maintaining forest cover

The effectiveness of parks for forest conservation is widely debated in Africa, where increasing human pressure, insufficient funding, and lack of management capacity frequently place significant demands on forests. Tropical forests house a substantial portion of the world's remaining biodiversity and are heavily affected by anthropogenic activity. We analyzed park effectiveness at the individual (224 parks) and national (23 countries) level across Africa by comparing the extent of forest loss (as a proxy for deforestation) inside parks to matched unprotected control sites. Although significant geographical variation existed among parks, the majority of African parks had significantly less forest loss within their boundaries (e.g., Mahale Park had 34 times less forest loss within its boundary) than control sites. Accessibility was a significant driver of forest loss. Relatively inaccessible areas had a higher probability (odds ratio >1, p < 0.001) of forest loss but only in ineffective parks, and relatively accessible areas had a higher probability of forest loss but only in effective parks. Smaller parks less effectively prevented forest loss inside park boundaries than larger parks (T = ?2.32, p < 0.05), and older parks less effectively prevented forest loss inside park boundaries than younger parks (F_2,154 = ?4.11, p < 0.001). Our analyses, the first individual and national assessment of park effectiveness across Africa, demonstrated the complexity of factors (such as geographical variation, accessibility, and park size and age) influencing the ability of a park to curb forest loss within its boundaries.     

Experimental study on fire suppression performance of the high pressure water mist in the engine room of an offshore platform

The total flooding application water mist system is a new type of environmentally-friendly fixed extinguishing system. The optimizing design can improve its fire extinguishing performance. At present, the water mist fire extinguishing system in the engine room of the offshore deepwater semi-submersible support platform has not attracted sufficient attention. In this paper, the water mist in the engine room of a deepwater semi-submersible support platform was studied. It contains the effect of water mist on the heat absorption and oxygen insulation of diesel pool fires. The applicable parameters of the water mist fire extinguishing system were also determined. Moreover, based on the shielding of the fire source in the engine room and the different requirements for water mist extinguishing parameters, a hierarchical multi-parameter combined high-pressure water mist fire extinguishing system was proposed. In the full-scale experimental engine room model, according to the fire extinguishing experiments for diesel pool fires with different areas, this kind of hierarchical multi-parameter water mist system is very effective on shielded and non-shielded fires. In addition, it is still effective even in a non-closed environment coupled with smoke exhausting.     

Investigation of Nanoparticle Additives to Biodiesel for Improvement of the Performance and Exhaust Emissions in a Compression Ignition Engine

Worldwide energy demand has been growing steadily during the past five decades and most experts believe that this trend will continue to rise. The amount of emitted harmful emission gases increases in parallel with increasing energy consumption. This increase has forced many countries to take various precautions, and various restrictions on emitted emissions have been carried. In this study, effects of addition of oxygen containing nanoparticle additives to biodiesel on fuel properties and effects on diesel engine performance and exhaust emissions were investigated. Two different nanoparticle additives, namely MgO and SiO₂, were added to biodiesel at the addition dosage of 25 and 50 ppm. Fuel properties, engine performance, and exhaust emission characteristics of obtained modified fuels were examined. As a result of this study, engine emission values NO_x and CO were decreased and engine performance values slightly increased with the addition of nanoparticle additives.     

Modelling and Prediction of Diesel Engine Performance using Relevance Vector Machine

Diesel engines are being increasingly adopted by many car manufacturers today, yet no exact mathematical diesel engine model exists due to its highly nonlinear nature. In the current literature, black-box identification has been widely used for diesel engine modelling and many artificial neural network (ANN) based models have been developed. However, ANN has many drawbacks such as multiple local minima, user burden on selection of optimal network structure, large training data size, and over-fitting risk. To overcome these drawbacks, this article proposes to apply an emerging machine learning technique, relevance vector machine (RVM), to model and predict the diesel engine performance. The property of global optimal solution of RVM allows the model to be trained using only a few experimental data sets. In this study, the inputs of the model are engine speed, load, and cooling water temperature, while the output parameters are the brake-specific fuel consumption and the amount of exhaust emissions like nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide. Experimental results show that the model accuracy is satisfactory even the training data is scarce. Moreover, the model accuracy is compared with that using typical ANN. Evaluation results also show that RVM is superior to typical ANN approach.     

电梯接地保护与检验

良好的接地保护是维护电梯正常运行的重要措施，同时为检修作业人员的安全提供强有力的保障，因此是电梯检验中一个重要的项目。文章先对接地保护的概念进行澄清，接着介绍低压系统的几种接地型式，通过比较得出适用于电梯的接地系统，最后结合检规的要求介绍了有关的检验方法并指出日常检验中接地线存在的问题。     

地球系统科学提出前我国科学界的某些思维

列举了在1988年美国提出"地球系统科学"前我国学者在该领域的某些思维:人与天地相应的观点,东亚大陆磁异常与我国人群健康关系的观点,天地生三位一体的观点,地球表层学的观点以及灾害系统的观点等.这些观点虽不如"地球系统科学"着眼于全球整体,但也包括了很大的系统,且不空洞.     

The Impact of Landsat Satellite Monitoring on Conservation Biology

Landsat 7s recent malfunctioning will result in significant gaps in long-term satellite monitoring of Earth, affecting not only the research of the Earth science community but also conservation users of these data. To determine whether or how important Landsat monitoring is for conservation and natural resource management, we reviewed the Landsat programs history with special emphasis on the development of user groups. We also conducted a bibliographic search to determine the extent to which conservation research has been based on Landsat data. Conservation biologists were not an early user group of Landsat data because a) biologists lacked technical capacity – computers and software – to analyze these data; b) Landsats 1980s commercialization rendered images too costly for biologists budgets; and c) the broad-scale disciplines of conservation biology and landscape ecology did not develop until the mid-to-late 1980s. All these conditions had changed by the 1990s and Landsat imagery became an important tool for conservation biology. Satellite monitoring and Landsat continuity are mandated by the Land Remote Sensing Act of 1992. This legislation leaves open commercial options. However, past experiments with commercial operations were neither viable nor economical, and severely reduced the quality of monitoring, archiving and data access for academia and the public. Future satellite monitoring programs are essential for conservation and natural resource management, must provide continuity with Landsat, and should be government operated.     

钙钛矿型烯土复合氧化物及其在汽车尾气净化工程中的应用

本文介绍了钙铁矿型烯土复合氧化物的结构特征、制备方法与催化性能；分析了该类氧化物对汽车尾气环境的适应性，并与现有的贵金属催化剂作了比较．