Beyond savanna: An evolutionary and environmental psychology approach to behavioral effects of nature scenery in green advertising

Evolutionary psychology has been proposed as an analytic framework for the behavioral effects of landscapes displayed in advertising. In this study, an evolutionary and environmental psychology approach is used to analyze affective reactions to advertising depicting specific natural environments or urban scenes, both prominent ingredients of contemporary advertising imagery. The experimental field study exposed 750 participants at random to one advert of a set of 13 experimental green energy advertisements, each displaying a different biome. Six basic emotional responses (pleasure, arousal, happiness, freedom, safety, and interest) as well as attitude toward the ad and brand attitude were assessed subsequently. Anova and structural equation analysis were used for data analysis. Results of the study confirm the leading opinion on generalized more positive behavioral effects toward visual stimuli representing nature scenes with biospheric contents as opposed to pictures of urban environments or desert settings. In line with earlier empirical research, further findings do not support the hypothesis on an innate preference for savanna landscapes in adults but confirm preferences for images of lush green landscapes with water and familiar biomes. Overall results give significant support to the application of environmental and evolutionary psychology to advertising.     

基于冷阴极触发管振动试验夹具的设计

介绍了一种基于冷阴极触发管性能检测及振动试验所需的夹具,从夹具材料的选取、结构设计和刚度要求进行了设计,分析了该夹具在制造过程中存在的关键问题及解决方法,并在振动试验中加以验证。     

Sexual difference in PCB congener distributions of burbot (Lota lota) from Lake Erie

Concentrations of 86 congeners of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were determined for 25 adult female and 25 adult male burbot (Lota lota) from Lake Erie. Significant differences in mean proportions of total PCB concentration between males and females ages 14–17 were found for 26 congeners. Males generally had higher mean proportions of hexachloro congeners, whereas females had higher mean proportions of more highly chlorinated congeners. In contrast, only four congeners exhibited differences between males and females ages 6–13 in mean proportions of total PCB. Therefore, the sexual difference in PCB congener distribution widened for older burbot. Males ages 14–17 also had higher proportions of certain hexachloro congeners than the other three demographic groups (males ages 6–13, females ages 6–13, and females ages 14–17) we examined. The reverse was true for more highly chlorinated congeners. The results supported a previous hypothesis that older male burbot spent a substantial amount of time feeding in the vicinity of mouths of rivers with sediment contaminated with PCBs. However, additional studies are needed to clarify and corroborate this apparent “hot spot” effect, such as seasonal movements, spatial distributions, and diet of burbot; and PCB congener distributions of various species of prey fishes captured at various locations throughout the eastern basin of Lake Erie and at different locations in the contaminated rivers.     

人工湿地基质的筛选及其对猪场废水厌氧消化液中氨氮吸附性能研究

采用静态吸附实验,对比了岷江砂、沱江砂、青衣江砂、沸石、活性炭对猪场废水厌氧消化液中氨氮的吸附去除效率,基于氨氮去除能力、购买成本与运费的比较,筛选出性价比较高的基质--岷江砂作为四川地区人工湿地的基质处理猪场废水厌氧消化液.吸附实验表明,砂对氨氮的去除率随振荡时间和投加量的增加而增加.通过吸附等温曲线Langmuir...     

A Contemporary,Sex‐Limited Change in Body Size of an Estuarine Turtle in Response to Commercial Fishing

Abstract: Juvenile growth rate and adult body size are important components of life‐history strategies because of their direct impact on fitness. The diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) is a sexually dimorphic, long‐lived turtle inhabiting brackish waters throughout the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. In parts of its range, terrapins face anthropogenically imposed mortality: juveniles of both sexes inadvertently enter commercial crab traps and drown. For adult females, the carapace eventually grows large enough that they cannot enter traps, whereas males almost never reach that critical size. We compared age structure, carapace dimensions, growth curves, and indices of sexual dimorphism for a Chesapeake Bay population of terrapins (where mortality of turtles is high due to crab traps) with contemporary terrapins from Long Island Sound and museum specimens from Chesapeake Bay (neither group subject to commercial crab traps). We also calculated the allochronic and synchronic rates of evolutionary change (haldanes) for males and females to measure the rate of trait change in a population or between populations, respectively. We found a dramatic shift to a younger male age structure, a decrease in the length of time to terminal female carapace size, a 15% increase in female carapace width, and an increase in sexual dimorphism in Chesapeake Bay. In a new twist, our results implicate a fishery in the selective increase in size of a reptilian bycatch species. These sex‐specific changes in life history and demography have implications for population viability that need to be considered when addressing conservation of this threatened turtle.     

Use of an Action‐Selection Framework for Human‐Carnivore Conflict in the Bangladesh Sundarbans

Abstract: Human–carnivore conflict is manifested in the death of humans, livestock, and carnivores. The resulting negative local attitudes and retribution killings imperil the future of many endangered carnivores. We tailored existing management tools to create a framework to facilitate the selection of actions to alleviate human–carnivore conflict and applied the framework to the human–tiger conflict in the Bangladesh Sundarbans. We identified potential actions that consider previous management efforts, local knowledge, cost‐effectiveness, fieldwork experience of authors and project staff, previous research on tiger ecology by the authors, and recommendations from human–carnivore conflict studies in other countries. Our framework includes creation of a profile to improve understanding of the nature of the conflict and its underlying causality. Identified actions include deterrents, education, direct tiger management, and response teams. We ranked actions by their potential to reduce conflict and the monetary cost of their implementation. We ranked tiger‐response teams and monitoring problem tigers as the two best actions because both had relatively high impact and cost‐effectiveness. We believe this framework could be used under a wide range of human–wildlife conflict situations because it provides a structured approach to selection of mitigating actions.     

INTEGRATED MODELING FOR WATERSHED MANAGEMENT: MULTIPLE OBJECTIVES AND SPATIAL EFFECTS1

ABSTRACT: This paper presents an optimization framework for prioritizing sites for wetlands restoration on a watershed or landscape scale. The framework is designed for analyzing the potential environmental impacts of alternative management strategies while accounting for economic constraints, thereby aiding decision makers in explicitly considering multiple management objectives. The modeling strategy consists of two phases. First, relationships between the configuration of land use types in a watershed and valued ecosystem services are specified mathematically. Second, those functions are incorporated into a spatial optimization model that allows comparisons of the expected environmental impacts and economic costs of management strategies that change the configuration of land use in the watershed. By way of a stylized example, this paper develops the general structure of the framework, presents simulation results based on two production functions for ecosystem services, and discusses the potential utility of the methodology for watershed management.     

COUPLING OF NONPARAMETRIC FREQUENCY AND L-MOMENT ANALYSES FOR MIXED DISTRIBUTION IDENTIFICATION 1

ABSTRACT: Both L-moment and nonparametric frequency analyses were performed on a series of annual maximum floods from New Brunswick, Canada. The L-moment analysis concluded that the data were generated from a unimodal Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution. However, the nonparametric frequency analysis indicated that a majority of stations followed nonunimodal mixed distributions since peak flows occur during different seasons and are the result of different generating mechanisms. The coupling of L-moment and nonparametric analyses facilitates mixed distribution identification. Thus, the nonparametric method helps in identifying underlying probability distribution, especially when samples arise from mixed distributions.     

Hermaphrodite sex role preferences: the role of partner body size, mating history and female fitness in the sea slug Chelidonura sandrana

Costs and benefits associated with matings and the effects of mating frequency on fitness commonly differ between the sexes. As a result, outcrossing simultaneous hermaphrodites may prefer to copulate in the more rewarding sex role, generating conflicts over sperm donation and sperm receipt between mates. Because recent sex role preference models remain controversial, we contrast here some of their assumptions and predictions in the sea slug Chelidonura sandrana. For this hermaphrodite with sperm storage and internal fertilisation, risk-averse models assume that fitness pay-offs are constantly higher in the female than in the male function in any single mating. Moreover, excluding mutual partner assessment, these models predict male mating behaviour to be independent of receiver traits. The competing gender ratio hypothesis assumes that relative fitness pay-offs, and thus the preferred mating roles, vary and may reverse between matings and predicts that ejaculation strategies co-vary with receiver quality. We found that field mating rates of C. sandrana substantially exceeded what is required to maintain female fertility and fecundity, indicating large variation in direct female benefits between matings. We further demonstrate that male copulation duration adaptively increased with partner body size (i.e. fecundity) but decreased with recent partner promiscuity. These findings are compatible with the gender ratio hypothesis but contradict risk-averse models.     

Assessing Anchor Damage on Coral Reefs: A Case Study in Selection of Environmental Indicators

Because environmental conservation can remove scarce natural resources from competing uses, it is important to gain support for conservation programs by demonstrating that management actions have been effective in achieving their goals. One way to do this is to show that selected significant environmental variables (indicators) vary between managed and unmanaged areas or change over time following implementation of a management regime. However, identifying indicators that reflect environmental conditions relevant to management practices has proven difficult. This paper focuses on developing a framework for choosing indicators in a coral reef habitat. The framework consisted of three phases: (1) information gathering to identify candidate variables; (2) field-testing candidate variables at sites that differ in intensity of human activity, thus identifying potential indicators; and (3) evaluating potential indicators against a set of feasibility criteria to identify the most useful indicators. To identify indicators suitable to measure the success of a management strategy to reduce anchor damage to a coral reef, 24 candidate variables were identified and evaluated at sites with different intensities of anchoring. In this study, measures that reflected injuries to coral colonies were generally more efficient than traditional measures of coral cover in describing the effects of anchoring. The number of overturned colonies was identified as the single most useful indicator of coral reef condition associated with anchoring intensities. The indicator selection framework developed here has the advantages of being transparent, cost efficient, and readily transferable to other types of human activities and management strategies.