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.     

“Hey Friend,Buy Green”: Social Media Use to Influence Eco-Purchasing Involvement

This study addresses the use of message carriers to convey corporate social responsibility information to promote eco-purchasing involvement. The work tests various media formats transmitted via social media. The effects of corporate vs. peer communication in a corporate social responsibility campaign in stimulating self-reported eco-purchasing involvement are indicated. The research varies communication dimensions of a fictional corporate social responsibility campaign sent through social media. Multiple media formats; new release; article; and advertisement were tested, as was the inclusion of social media persuasive sentiment. The analysis of source/format combinations and source/format/sentiment combinations found statistically significant differences for consumer-to-consumer communication in stimulating eco-purchasing involvement in certain circumstances. This research suggests an emerging role for the consumer communicator as a content co-creator and validates the effective use of articles and news releases instead of advertising on social media, yielding managerial and scholarly implications.     

基于复杂系统建模的水管理政策研究进展

基于Agent的建模方法（ABSS）通过自下而上的方式，考察系统中主体的不同状态和行为特征、主体与环境的作用、主体之间的作用，来表征系统的宏观特征，是进行复杂社会环境系统分析和政策研究的重要手段，在水资源、水环境管理系统中得到了有效的应用。本文在大量文献调研的基础上，讨论了ABSS建模方法的基本原理、主要特征、系统构成、分类方法和开发工具等特征，总结了其供水系统发展、水资源分配和流域水资源管理、农业土地和水资源利用、居民用水行为、农业污染控制及人类活动的水环境影响等方面的应用，分析了其在研究内容、研究方法、研究结果等方面的发展趋势，讨论了利用该方法研究我国水资源管理和水污染控制政策的必要性和重要性。     

Social Sciences and landscape analysis: opportunities for the improvement of conservation policy design

This article develops a methodology aimed at generating a systematic social diagnosis of social and natural landscapes. The analytical process is divided into six easily replicable and causatively connected steps. The goal is two-fold: first, to present the inextricable connections between physical landscapes and the communities that occupy them. And second, to provide a fundamental tool to public policy designers that should simultaneously improve social acceptability of conservation policies and policy efficiency and effectiveness. Finally, this methodology is consciously heterogeneous from a theoretical perspective. This article puts together, in fruitful dialogue, contributions from varying places on the social theory spectrum: from political economy to poststructural theory.     

Reflections on the use of Bayesian belief networks for adaptive management

A broad range of tools are available for integrated water resource management (IWRM). In the EU research project NeWater, a hypothesis exists that IWRM cannot be realised unless current management regimes undergo a transition toward adaptive management (AM). This includes a structured process of learning, dealing with complexity, uncertainty etc. We assume that it is no longer enough for managers and tool researchers to understand the complexity and uncertainty of the outer natural system-the environment. It is just as important, to understand what goes on in the complex and uncertain participatory processes between the water managers, different stakeholders, authorities and researchers when a specific tool and process is used for environmental management. The paper revisits a case study carried out 2001-2004 where the tool Bayesian networks (BNs) was tested for groundwater management with full stakeholder involvement. With the participation of two researchers (the authors) and two water managers previously involved in the case study, a qualitative interview was prepared and carried out in June 2006. The aim of this ex-post evaluation was to capture and explore the water managers' experience with Bayesian belief networks when used for integrated and adaptive water management and provide a narrative approach for tool enhancement.     

Small queens in the ant Ectatomma tuberculatum: a new case of social parasitism

Social parasites exploit the worker force of colonies of other social insects to rear their own young. Social parasitism occurs in several Hymenoptera and is particularly common in several tribes of the ant subfamilies Myrmicinae and Formicinae. Here, we document the occurrence of miniaturized queens (microgynes) in colonies of Ectatomma tuberculatum, an ant belonging to the subfamily Ectatomminae. Behavioral observations and genetic analyses show that microgynes concentrate their reproductive efforts almost exclusively on the production of sexual offspring (microgynes and males), whereas the regular, large queens (macrogynes) produce workers in addition to sexuals. According to mitochondrial and nuclear markers, gene flow between microgynes and macrogynes is extremely limited. Whereas the co-occurrence of microgynes and macrogynes in the related species Ectatomma ruidum constitutes an intraspecific polymorphism associated with alternative dispersal tactics, microgynes found in colonies of E. tuberculatum appear to be a distinct species and to represent the first case of social parasitism in the poneromorph subfamilies of ants.     

北京水灾及其社会影响

北京在历史上曾发生多次重大水灾,给人民生命财产、城市建设及社会安定带来了巨大影响。形成水灾的主要因素是永定河决口泛溢和区域雨涝。现从大量的历史文献中列举几个实例,来看水灾的严重程度及其影响后果。     

生物基聚合物PHBV和PLA复合材料在不同介质中的生物降解及其影响因素

传统工艺的塑料生产不仅依赖石油资源的持续开发利用,同时给环境造成了前所未有的压力,近年来生物基聚合物（聚（3-羟基-3-戊酸酯）-PHBV,聚乳酸-PLA）日渐成为传统石油基塑料的替代产品.本文采用呼吸测试手段,旨在揭示均质复合材料在不同环境介质（土壤、熟化堆肥、水体）条件下及有机添加剂（木质素）,无机添加剂（蒙脱石）和天然有机物链增长剂（Joncryl）作用下的生物降解特征.结果表明：当链增长剂Joncryl添加量为5%时,对所有介质PHBV和PLA复合材料产生显著抑制作用.Joncryl添加量为0.2%时,未对所测样品的生物降解行为产生干扰作用.在熟化堆肥介质中,PLA复合材料比PHBV基质混合物的生物降解速率明显降低.有机木质纤维添加剂（榛子壳粉末）单独在聚合物中添加或者和链增长剂Joncryl以及非有机添加剂（Dellite72T）共同作用下都可促进PLA聚合物中各组分的相容连接性.实验结果表明,新型添加剂在不同介质中以二元或三元添加的方式对生物降解过程产生重要影响,该研究将为新型材料使用后的生物降解效应提供理论依据.     

Attitudes of women of childbearing age towards prenatal diagnosis in Southeastern France

The objective of this study was to explore women's attitudes towards prenatal diagnosis of trisomy 21 and to examine some of the factors possibly responsible for these attitudes before implementing in real practice serological screening of pregnant women at risk for trisomy 21. We carried out a telephone survey on a representative sample of women who had recently had a normal livebirth delivery in the Marseille district in 1990. The participation rate was 80 per cent and the average age of the mothers was 28-9 years. Among the 514 women interviewed, 78 per cent stated that they would ask for an amniocentesis for a 1 per cent risk of trisomy 21 at their next pregnancy. When adjusting for confounding factors, the decision to have or not to have an amniocentesis was found to depend not only on the women's attitude towards induced abortion, but also on their understanding of the risk involved and on the social context (knowing a handicapped child, discussion with the father). It also depended on the women's age and on what they knew about amniocentesis from the medical point of view. The risk of miscarriage can influence a woman's choice but this objection was not found to affect the women's decisions significantly in our survey. The data showed the existence of a high potential demand for fetal karyotyping.     

多孔介质中污染物运移空间变异最优估计

论述了空间变异性分析的原理和方法,着重阐述不同估值方法在多孔介质污染物运移空间变异分析中的应用.实践表明,地质统计学方法能够弥补经典概率统计方法在评价区域化变量空间变异性方面的不足,从而对多孔介质中污染物运移的空间变异性做出更切合实际的分析与评价.