Assessing post-industrial land cover change at the Pine Point Mine,NWT, Canada using multi-temporal Landsat analysis and landscape metrics

This study investigates land cover change near the abandoned Pine Point Mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Industrial mineral development transforms local environments, and the effects of such disturbances are often long-lasting, particularly in subarctic, boreal environments where vegetation conversion can take decades. Located in the Boreal Plains Ecozone, the Pine Point Mine was an extensive open pit operation that underwent little reclamation when it shut down in 1988. We apply remote sensing and landscape ecology methods to quantify land cover change in the 20 years following the mine’s closure. Using a time series of near-anniversary Landsat images, we performed a supervised classification to differentiate seven land cover classes. We used raster algebra and landscape metrics to track changes in land cover composition and configuration in the 20 years since the mine shut down. We compared our results with a site in Wood Buffalo National Park that was never subjected to extensive anthropogenic disturbance. This space-for-time substitution provided an analog for how the ecosystem in the Pine Point region might have developed in the absence of industrial mineral development. We found that the dense conifer class was dominant in the park and exhibited larger and more contiguous patches than at the mine site. Bare land at the mine site showed little conversion through time. While the combination of raster algebra and landscape metrics allowed us to track broad changes in land cover composition and configuration, improved access to affordable, high-resolution imagery is necessary to effectively monitor land cover dynamics at abandoned mines.     

Application of preparative capillary gas chromatography (pcGC), automated structure generation and mutagenicity prediction to improve effect-directed analysis of genotoxicants in a contaminated groundwater

Background, aim and scope  

The importance of groundwater for human life cannot be overemphasised. Besides fulfilling essential ecological functions, it is a major source of drinking water. However, in the industrial area of Bitterfeld, it is contaminated with a multitude of harmful chemicals, including genotoxicants. Therefore, recently developed methodologies including preparative capillary gas chromatography (pcGC), MOLGEN-MS structure generation and mutagenicity prediction were applied within effect-directed analysis (EDA) to reduce sample complexity and to identify candidate mutagens in the samples. A major focus was put on the added value of these tools compared to conventional EDA combining reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RP-LC) followed by GC/MS analysis and MS library search.     

Placental MRI and its application to fetal intervention

Objective

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of placental invasion has been part of clinical practice for many years. The possibility of being better able to assess placental vascularization and function using MRI has multiple potential applications. This review summarises up-to-date research on placental function using different MRI modalities.

Method

We discuss how combinations of these MRI techniques have much to contribute to fetal conditions amenable for therapy such as singletons at high risk for fetal growth restriction (FGR) and monochorionic twin pregnancies for planning surgery and counselling for selective growth restriction and transfusion conditions.

Results

The whole placenta can easily be visualized on MRI, with a clear boundary against the amniotic fluid, and a less clear placental-uterine boundary. Contrasts such as diffusion weighted imaging, relaxometry, blood oxygenation level dependent MRI and flow and metabolite measurement by dynamic contrast enhanced MRI, arterial spin labeling, or spectroscopic techniques are contributing to our wider understanding of placental function.

Conclusion

The future of placental MRI is exciting, with the increasing availability of multiple contrasts and new models that will boost the capability of MRI to measure oxygen saturation and placental exchange, enabling examination of placental function in complicated pregnancies.     

一种改进的多学习教与学优化算法

针对传统教与学算法在解决复杂多峰函数优化问题时,具有局部最优且搜索开发能力较差的缺点,提出了一种改进的多学习教与学优化算法,新算法为学员的每一维加入不同的教学因子,设计了基于学员均值比较的教师选择策略和向教师及学员学习的多学习策略。基于多个单峰和多峰函数的仿真结果表明,新算法跟传统的、改进的教与学算法相比,在稳定性、寻优精度和收敛速度方面更具优势。     

Developing the interaction matrix technique as a tool assessing the impact of traffic on air quality

This paper develops a technique which can be used as a preliminary tool for assessing air quality related to urban traffic. It combines a Geographic Information System (GIS) with an interaction matrix-type methodology based on a system analysis approach. The matrix identifies and quantifies interactions between all selected variables involved in a system as well as their interaction with the system as a whole. This matrix is used to determine the weightings to apply to spatial datasets within a GIS to develop a pollution vulnerability map. The focus of the paper is to introduce and assess a more versatile coding of the interaction matrix with respect to previously used coding. A case study is presented in which the modified interaction methodology is applied to data for a busy urban location. The resulting vulnerability map, in terms of pollution vulnerable hot spots, was compared to a pollution map derived from an advanced dispersion model. The interaction matrix technique with GIS can be used as a tool complementary to sophisticated numerical modelling and has potential as an analytical tool to evaluate multidisciplinary systems.     

Principles and processes for effecting change in environmental management in New Zealand

In New Zealand environmental management is essentially the responsibility of land managers. Management decisions affect both production/productivity and the environment. However, responsibility for ensuring positive environmental outcomes falls on both local (Regional) and Central Government, and both they and international agencies such as the OECD would wish to monitor and report on changes. In terms of policy, strong links have been established via Central and Regional Government to land managers. Consumers in the market place are also, increasingly, requiring responsibility for positive environmental outcomes of those who purchase and process primary products. Strong links for responsibility have been established between our international markets and processing businesses and there is a noticeable strengthening of the links from the processors to the land manager/producer. In New Zealand a range of initiatives has been developed and implemented over recent times, whereby land managers are taking increasing responsibility for accounting for the environmental outcomes of their production activities. The range covers the spectrum from voluntary to compulsory (e.g., in order to meet market requirements) and from those initiated by customers to processor and/or producer initiatives. This paper follows the evolution of the principles that drove the predominant activities of the period and the processes that initiated the changes in environmental management. As the focus of agriculturalists changed from pioneering in a new world, to establishing a production base, to economic reality, and finally to environmental responsibility, the processes of extension adapted to meet the new challenge.     

Devolving Residential Energy Efficiency Responsibility to Local Government: the case of HECA

Substantial improvements in residential energy efficiency are required if the UK is to meet its target of reducing CO 2 emissions by 20% between 1990 and 2010. The Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 (HECA) devolves much of the responsibility for this to local authorities, by requiring them to draw up strategies to increase energy efficiency in this sector by 30% in the next 10-15 years. While many authorities have responded positively to the Act, others are struggling, and 25% of HECA reports initially failed to meet the Act's statutory obligations. The Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE) conducted research to identify barriers faced by local authorities in implementing HECA. They were found to include officers' lack of experience, their lack of time and a lack of support from elected members. Action must be taken to ensure that HECA achieves its potential. The authors suggest that the Act needs to be adequately supported by central legislation, and that devolution of responsibility must be accompanied by some devolution of finances. The authors also recommend that the Act could be used as an example for international replication.     

Identification of highly brominated analogues of Q1 in marine mammals

Three novel halogenated organic compounds (HOCs) have been identified in the blubber of marine mammals from coastal New England with the molecular formulae C(9)H(3)N(2)Br(6)Cl, C(9)H(3)N(2)Br(7), and C(9)H(4)N(2)Br(5)Cl. They were identified using high and low resolution gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS) and appear to be highly brominated analogues of Q1, a heptachlorinated HOC suspected to be naturally produced. These compounds were found in Atlantic white sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus acutus), bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), Risso's dolphin (Grampus griseus), harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas), fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus), grey seal (Halichoerus grypus), harp seal (Phoca groenlandica) and a potential food source (Loligo pealei) with concentrations as high as 2.7 microg/g (lipid weight). The regiospecificity of C(9)H(3)N(2)Br(6)Cl is suggestive of a biogenic origin. Debromination of C(9)H(3)N(2)Br(6)Cl may be significant in the formation of C(9)H(4)N(2)Br(5)Cl.