{"results":[{"id":"doaj_10.1016/j.iswcr.2025.09.004","title":"Global patterns of gully occurrence and their sensitivity to environmental changes","authors":[{"name":"Yixian Chen"},{"name":"Sofie De Geeter"},{"name":"Jean Poesen"},{"name":"Francis Matthews"},{"name":"Benjamin Campforts"},{"name":"Pasquale Borrelli"},{"name":"Panos Panagos"},{"name":"Matthias Vanmaercke"}],"abstract":"Gully formation is a significant driver of soil erosion and land degradation worldwide and often leads to important downstream impacts. Nonetheless, our understanding of the global patterns and the factors controlling this process remains limited. Here, we present the first global assessment of gully density's spatial patterns. Using mapped observations from over 17,000 representative study sites worldwide, we trained random forest models that simulate both the susceptibility to gullying at a 1 km2 resolution and the corresponding gully head density (GHD). Through an interpretable machine learning framework, we demonstrate that global GHD patterns result from a combination of environmental factors with non-linear interactions, leading to significant regional variations in the dominant factors controlling GHD. We distinguish between gully hotspots driven primarily by natural factors such as topography, geomorphology, tectonics, pedology or climate and those where land use and land cover play a dominant role. Based on these insights, we identified critical global areas of gully erosion, i.e., hotspots where gully occurrence is likely highly sensitive to anthropogenic drivers. These include the Chinese Loess Plateau, the Ethiopian Highlands, and large parts of the Mediterranean and Sahel regions. Also desert regions are often characterized by high GHDs. However, in these cases, their occurrence is mainly driven by natural factors. The insights we provide are valuable to inform land management and targeted erosion mitigation strategies.","source":"DOAJ","year":2026,"language":"","subjects":["Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)"],"doi":"10.1016/j.iswcr.2025.09.004","url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209563392500111X","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":70},{"id":"doaj_10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-G-2025-813-2025","title":"GIS enabled thunderstorm forecasting system for one of the world’s hotspot region for severe thunderstorms","authors":[{"name":"S. S. Kundu"},{"name":"A. Srivastava"},{"name":"A. Kundu"},{"name":"S. P. Aggarwal"}],"abstract":"The eastern parts of India, Bangladesh, and the North Eastern Region (NER) of India are among the world's most active areas for thunderstorms and lightning, resulting in substantial human and livestock casualties annually. Lightning strikes cause over 500 fatalities in India and approximately 300 in Bangladesh each year, alongside significant property damage and loss of wildlife, such as the death of 18 elephants in Assam in 2021. To mitigate the devastating effects, this study developed a pilot-scale forecasting system for lightning and thunderstorms over the NER of India, leveraging space-based platforms, ground-based detectors, and numerical models. Data sources included the WWLLN (World Wide Lightning Location Network), India's national lightning detection network, Doppler Weather Radar (DWR), and satellite data from INSAT 3D/3DS. The WRF-ELEC model was employed for forecasting, assimilating lightning data via nudging techniques, and achieving forecasts with up to 75% accuracy for lead times of up to four hours. A GIS-based system was used to track convective systems and predict impacted areas at a village level with a one-hour lead time. This system integrates lightning detection, satellite imagery, and DWR data, enabling the identification of affected populations and land use, thereby aiding in disaster preparedness and mitigation. The study demonstrates the potential of integrating earth observation data, in-situ measurements, and numerical models to provide location-specific and time-sensitive lightning forecasts. Coupled with awareness campaigns on safety measures during lightning, this approach offers a robust mechanism to reduce casualties and property damage. Scaling this system beyond the pilot region could significantly enhance disaster risk reduction in other lightning-prone regions.","source":"DOAJ","year":2025,"language":"","subjects":["Technology","Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)","Applied optics. Photonics"],"doi":"10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-G-2025-813-2025","url":"https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLVIII-G-2025/813/2025/isprs-archives-XLVIII-G-2025-813-2025.pdf","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":69},{"id":"doaj_10.1186/s40100-025-00347-9","title":"Exploring consumer preferences and policy implications in local food systems: Does taste or labeling matter in honey?","authors":[{"name":"Belinda Lopéz-Galán"},{"name":"Tiziana de-Magistris"}],"abstract":"Abstract This study analyses the influence of geographical origin and taste on honey consumer behavior. First, we explore the influence of geographical origin on consumers’ hedonic evaluation of honey. We then assess the influence of geographical origin and taste on their willingness to pay (WTP) for honey. We conducted a field experiment at a real supermarket. The participants were exposed to two treatments (blind and informed treatment). The findings showed that knowledge about the geographical origin of honey influences consumers’ hedonic evaluations and that the WTP for honey is more strongly influenced by geographical origin than by taste.","source":"DOAJ","year":2025,"language":"","subjects":["Nutrition. Foods and food supply","Agricultural industries"],"doi":"10.1186/s40100-025-00347-9","url":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40100-025-00347-9","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":69},{"id":"arxiv_2506.15723","title":"Modern approaches to building interpretable models of the property market using machine learning on the base of mass cadastral valuation","authors":[{"name":"Alexey S. Tanashkin"},{"name":"Irina G. Tanashkina"},{"name":"Alexander S. Maksimchuik"}],"abstract":"In this paper, we review modern approaches to building interpretable models of property markets using machine learning on the base of mass valuation of property in the Primorye region, Russia. There are numerous potential difficulties one could encounter in the effort to build a good model. Their main source is the huge difference between noisy real market data and ideal data usually used in tutorials on machine learning. This paper covers all stages of modeling: collection of initial data, identification of outliers, search and analysis of patterns in the data, formation and final choice of price factors, building of the model, and evaluation of its efficiency. For each stage, we highlight potential issues and describe sound methods for overcoming emerging difficulties on actual examples. We show that the combination of classical linear regression with kriging (interpolation method of geostatistics) allows to build an effective model for land parcels. For flats, when many objects are attributed to one spatial point, the application of geostatistical methods becomes problematic. Instead, we suggest linear regression with automatic generation and selection of additional rules on the base of decision trees, so called the RuleFit method. We compare the performance of our inherently interpretable models with well-proven \"black-box\" Random Forest method and demonstrate similar results. Thus we show, that despite such a strong restriction as the requirement of interpretability which is important in practical aspects, for example, legal matters, it is still possible to build effective models of real property markets.","source":"arXiv","year":2025,"language":"en","subjects":["q-fin.ST","cs.LG","econ.GN","stat.AP"],"doi":"10.1016/j.landusepol.2026.107970","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.15723","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.15723","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2025-06-05T13:17:18Z","score":69},{"id":"arxiv_2507.18099","title":"Comparison of Segmentation Methods in Remote Sensing for Land Use Land Cover","authors":[{"name":"Naman Srivastava"},{"name":"Joel D Joy"},{"name":"Yash Dixit"},{"name":"Swarup E"},{"name":"Rakshit Ramesh"}],"abstract":"Land Use Land Cover (LULC) mapping is essential for urban and resource planning, and is one of the key elements in developing smart and sustainable cities.This study evaluates advanced LULC mapping techniques, focusing on Look-Up Table (LUT)-based Atmospheric Correction applied to Cartosat Multispectral (MX) sensor images, followed by supervised and semi-supervised learning models for LULC prediction. We explore DeeplabV3+ and Cross-Pseudo Supervision (CPS). The CPS model is further refined with dynamic weighting, enhancing pseudo-label reliability during training. This comprehensive approach analyses the accuracy and utility of LULC mapping techniques for various urban planning applications. A case study of Hyderabad, India, illustrates significant land use changes due to rapid urbanization. By analyzing Cartosat MX images over time, we highlight shifts such as urban sprawl, shrinking green spaces, and expanding industrial areas. This demonstrates the practical utility of these techniques for urban planners and policymakers.","source":"arXiv","year":2025,"language":"en","subjects":["cs.CV","cs.LG"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.18099","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.18099","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2025-07-24T05:23:02Z","score":69},{"id":"crossref_10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107165","title":"Investigating the interactions between spatiotemporal land use/land cover dynamics and private land ownership","authors":[{"name":"Ismail Ercument Ayazli"}],"abstract":"","source":"CrossRef","year":2024,"language":"en","subjects":null,"doi":"10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107165","url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107165","is_open_access":true,"citations":5,"published_at":"","score":68.15},{"id":"doaj_Structural+Modeling+Based+on+Supply+Chain+Integration+in+Relation+to+Supply+Chain+Risk%2C+Product+Quality+and+Innovation+Capability","title":"Structural Modeling Based on Supply Chain Integration in Relation to Supply Chain Risk, Product Quality and Innovation Capability","authors":[{"name":"Abolfazl Kazzazi"},{"name":"Amir Mohammad khani"}],"abstract":"\u003cp\u003eThis study aims to investigate the unique features of the food supply chain, examining the impact of food supply chain integration, consisting of internal integration, supplier and customer, the quality of food products and product innovation capability. Managers need to understand the importance of supplier and customer integration when responding to supply chain risk and company uncertainty. The data were collected from 168 managers active in the food industry in Tehran province. The partial least squares tool (SmartPLS 3.0) was used to analyze the data using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique. The results show that there is a strong relationship between uncertainty and supply chain integration including customer, supplier and internal integration. The findings indicate that customer integration and supplier integration are critical factors in improving product quality in the food supply chain. The results can be related to the prominent role of customer relations and contact in the development of innovation capabilities in manufactured products, which has also been approved by some previous studies. Additionally, analyzing the various dimensions of supply chain integration separately revealed that internal integration is a capability factor for external integration. This study can help businesses in the food industry understand the value-creating roles of food supply chain integration and provide valuable guidance for them to decide how to meet the various challenges and manage food supply chain integration in order to improve product quality and product innovation capability.\u003c/p\u003e","source":"DOAJ","year":2024,"language":"","subjects":["Management. Industrial management"],"url":"https://sanad.iau.ir/journal/jpm/Article/975230","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":68},{"id":"arxiv_2406.14220","title":"Evaluation of Deep Learning Semantic Segmentation for Land Cover Mapping on Multispectral, Hyperspectral and High Spatial Aerial Imagery","authors":[{"name":"Ilham Adi Panuntun"},{"name":"Ying-Nong Chen"},{"name":"Ilham Jamaluddin"},{"name":"Thi Linh Chi Tran"}],"abstract":"In the rise of climate change, land cover mapping has become such an urgent need in environmental monitoring. The accuracy of land cover classification has gotten increasingly based on the improvement of remote sensing data. Land cover classification using satellite imageries has been explored and become more prevalent in recent years, but the methodologies remain some drawbacks of subjective and time-consuming. Some deep learning techniques have been utilized to overcome these limitations. However, most studies implemented just one image type to evaluate algorithms for land cover mapping. Therefore, our study conducted deep learning semantic segmentation in multispectral, hyperspectral, and high spatial aerial image datasets for landcover mapping. This research implemented a semantic segmentation method such as Unet, Linknet, FPN, and PSPnet for categorizing vegetation, water, and others (i.e., soil and impervious surface). The LinkNet model obtained high accuracy in IoU (Intersection Over Union) at 0.92 in all datasets, which is comparable with other mentioned techniques. In evaluation with different image types, the multispectral images showed higher performance with the IoU, and F1-score are 0.993 and 0.997, respectively. Our outcome highlighted the efficiency and broad applicability of LinkNet and multispectral image on land cover classification. This research contributes to establishing an approach on landcover segmentation via open source for long-term future application.","source":"arXiv","year":2024,"language":"en","subjects":["cs.CV","cs.LG"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.14220","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.14220","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2024-06-20T11:40:12Z","score":68},{"id":"arxiv_2401.01395","title":"Deep autoregressive modeling for land use land cover","authors":[{"name":"Christopher Krapu"},{"name":"Mark Borsuk"},{"name":"Ryan Calder"}],"abstract":"Land use / land cover (LULC) modeling is a challenging task due to long-range dependencies between geographic features and distinct spatial patterns related to topography, ecology, and human development. We identify a close connection between modeling of spatial patterns of land use and the task of image inpainting from computer vision and conduct a study of a modified PixelCNN architecture with approximately 19 million parameters for modeling LULC. In comparison with a benchmark spatial statistical model, we find that the former is capable of capturing much richer spatial correlation patterns such as roads and water bodies but does not produce a calibrated predictive distribution, suggesting the need for additional tuning. We find evidence of predictive underdispersion with regard to important ecologically-relevant land use statistics such as patch count and adjacency which can be ameliorated to some extent by manipulating sampling variability.","source":"arXiv","year":2024,"language":"en","subjects":["cs.CV","cs.LG"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.01395","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.01395","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2024-01-02T18:03:57Z","score":68},{"id":"doaj_10.1038/s41598-023-31409-x","title":"The impacts of tidal wetland loss and coastal development on storm surge damages to people and property: a Hurricane Ike case-study","authors":[{"name":"Zaid Al-Attabi"},{"name":"Yicheng Xu"},{"name":"Georgette Tso"},{"name":"Siddharth Narayan"}],"abstract":"Abstract Coastal wetlands protect communities during hurricanes by reducing storm surge flooding and damages. Previous studies have quantified surge reduction benefits of wetlands, but there is less understanding of how the combination of wetland loss and coastal development influences the spatial distribution of flood extents and damages. In this study we integrate a high-resolution 2-D hydrodynamic model with land-use/land-cover change analyses to assess the effects of total wetland loss, decadal wetland loss, and coastal development on storm surge damages in Galveston Bay, Texas. We measure storm surge flood extents from Hurricane Ike for three scenarios: (i) 2008 Baseline; (ii) 2008 No Wetlands, and (iii) 2019 “Present-day H. Ike”. We find that during Hurricane Ike in 2008, the total loss of coastal wetlands would have increased damages by a net ~ USD $934 million or 12.8% of baseline damages. For the 2019 Present-day H. Ike scenario, we found very few wetlands were lost between 2008 and 2019. If Hurricane Ike had occurred in 2019, damages would have been higher by ~ $2.52 billion or 34.6%, almost entirely due to increased real estate value and new coastal development. Our findings suggest that, while increase in economic exposure is a key driver of storm surge risks in Galveston Bay, effective wetland conservation continues to reduce these risks.","source":"DOAJ","year":2023,"language":"","subjects":["Medicine","Science"],"doi":"10.1038/s41598-023-31409-x","url":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31409-x","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":67},{"id":"doaj_10.35692/07183992.16.1.4","title":"Influencia conjunta de la autoestima y la motivación escolar en la elección de un programa universitario","authors":[{"name":"Elías Jordan Karmach-Sánchez"},{"name":"Carlos Leandro Delgado-Fuentealba"},{"name":"Paola Giuliana Zerega-Tallia"},{"name":"Carlos Alberto Figueroa-Moreno"}],"abstract":"\nPara los jóvenes, la elección acertada de un pro-grama universitario constituye un desafío para ellos, su familia y la sociedad, puesto que el desarrollo personal, el éxito profesional, los valores y el servicio a la comunidad dependen de ella. Considerando que los factores que intervienen en esta elección son variados, el estudio buscó determinar, empíricamente, si el grado de autoestima y moti-vación escolar tiene efecto en la matrícula de un programa universitario, como primera preferencia. La muestra corresponde a los 2626 jóvenes que ingresaron a la Universidad de Concepción, Cam-pus Chillán, en 2016-2021. Se utilizó un modelo pro-bit binario, pues la variable dependiente toma uno de dos valores discretos. El grado de autoestima y motivación se midió a partir de uno de los índices de desarrollo personal y social (IDPS), entregado por la Agencia de Calidad del Ministerio de Educación de Chile para cada establecimiento de egreso de enseñanza media. Se incorporaron variables de control, como las características personales del estudiante y del establecimiento. Los resultados confirman que, cuanto mayor es el índice de autoestima y moti-vación escolar, mayor es la probabilidad de que el estudiante ingrese al programa de su primera preferencia. Este análisis confirma (1) la importancia de este Indicador y (2) que aún faltan avances para fortalecer programas escolares que pongan el énfasis en propiciar condiciones que permitan el desarrollo integral de los estudiantes, destacando las fortalezas por sobre las debilidades.\n","source":"DOAJ","year":2023,"language":"","subjects":["Business","Management. Industrial management"],"doi":"10.35692/07183992.16.1.4","url":"https://journalmbr.net/index.php/mbr/article/view/6478","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":67},{"id":"arxiv_2401.02424","title":"Mapping of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) using EuroSAT and Transfer Learning","authors":[{"name":"Suman Kunwar"},{"name":"Jannatul Ferdush"}],"abstract":"As the global population continues to expand, the demand for natural resources increases. Unfortunately, human activities account for 23% of greenhouse gas emissions. On a positive note, remote sensing technologies have emerged as a valuable tool in managing our environment. These technologies allow us to monitor land use, plan urban areas, and drive advancements in areas such as agriculture, climate change mitigation, disaster recovery, and environmental monitoring. Recent advances in AI, computer vision, and earth observation data have enabled unprecedented accuracy in land use mapping. By using transfer learning and fine-tuning with RGB bands, we achieved an impressive 99.19% accuracy in land use analysis. Such findings can be used to inform conservation and urban planning policies.","source":"arXiv","year":2023,"language":"en","subjects":["cs.CV","cs.AI","cs.LG"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.02424","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.02424","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2023-11-06T18:10:25Z","score":67},{"id":"arxiv_2309.12416","title":"ISLAND: Interpolating Land Surface Temperature using land cover","authors":[{"name":"Yuhao Liu"},{"name":"Pranavesh Panakkal"},{"name":"Sylvia Dee"},{"name":"Guha Balakrishnan"},{"name":"Jamie Padgett"},{"name":"Ashok Veeraraghavan"}],"abstract":"Cloud occlusion is a common problem in the field of remote sensing, particularly for retrieving Land Surface Temperature (LST). Remote sensing thermal instruments onboard operational satellites are supposed to enable frequent and high-resolution observations over land; unfortunately, clouds adversely affect thermal signals by blocking outgoing longwave radiation emission from the Earth's surface, interfering with the retrieved ground emission temperature. Such cloud contamination severely reduces the set of serviceable LST images for downstream applications, making it impractical to perform intricate time-series analysis of LST. In this paper, we introduce a novel method to remove cloud occlusions from Landsat 8 LST images. We call our method ISLAND, an acronym for Interpolating Land Surface Temperature using land cover. Our approach uses LST images from Landsat 8 (at 30 m resolution with 16-day revisit cycles) and the NLCD land cover dataset. Inspired by Tobler's first law of Geography, ISLAND predicts occluded LST through a set of spatio-temporal filters that perform distance-weighted spatio-temporal interpolation. A critical feature of ISLAND is that the filters are land cover-class aware, making it particularly advantageous in complex urban settings with heterogeneous land cover types and distributions. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, we show that ISLAND achieves robust reconstruction performance across a variety of cloud occlusion and surface land cover conditions, and with a high spatio-temporal resolution. We provide a public dataset of 20 U.S. cities with pre-computed ISLAND LST outputs. Using several case studies, we demonstrate that ISLAND opens the door to a multitude of high-impact urban and environmental applications across the continental United States.","source":"arXiv","year":2023,"language":"en","subjects":["eess.IV"],"doi":"10.1016/j.rsase.2024.101332","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.12416","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.12416","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2023-09-21T18:31:16Z","score":67},{"id":"crossref_10.5194/essd-2022-351","title":"Annual emissions of carbon from land use, land-use change, and forestry 1850–2020","authors":[{"name":"Richard  A. Houghton"},{"name":"Andrea Castanho"}],"abstract":"Abstract. Estimates of the annual emissions of carbon from Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) are important for tracking global, regional, and national carbon budgets, which in turn help predict future rates of climate change and help define potential solutions for mitigation. Here we update a long-term (1850–2020) series of annual, national carbon emissions from LULUCF (Houghton and Nassikas, 2017), based largely, after 1960, on statistics of land use from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (Faostat, 2021). Those data suggest that rates of deforestation in the tropics (and thus net emissions of carbon) have decreased over the last ten years (2011–2020). The data also indicate that the net loss of tropical forests is greater than the net gain in croplands and pastures, and we explore three alternative interpretations of this apparent forest conversion, one of which is shifting cultivation. We note that LULUCF is not equivalent to LULCC (Land-Use and Land-Cover Change), and suggest that the difference between “land use” and “land cover” may contribute to variation among independent estimates of emissions. The calculated emissions of carbon based on LULUCF approximate the anthropogenic component of terrestrial carbon emissions, but carbon management opportunities exist for unmanaged lands as well.","source":"CrossRef","year":2022,"language":"en","subjects":null,"doi":"10.5194/essd-2022-351","url":"https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2022-351","is_open_access":true,"citations":2,"published_at":"","score":66.06},{"id":"doaj_Instrumentos+de+control+documental+para+la+Direcci%C3%B3n+de+Planificaci%C3%B3n+F%C3%ADsica+de+un+municipio+","title":"Instrumentos de control documental para la Dirección de Planificación Física de un municipio ","authors":[{"name":"Lauren Reyis Canto Hernández"},{"name":"Yusilka Martínez Veitía"},{"name":"Luis Ernesto Paz Enrique"}],"abstract":"\nObjetivo: Diseñar instrumentos de control documental para la Dirección Municipal de Planificación Física de Santo Domingo, provincia Villa Clara, Cuba, para fortalecer dicha gestión de documentos.\n\r\n\nMétodos: El estudio se clasifica como descriptivo. Para la obtención de resultados se utilizaron los métodos inducción-deducción, analítico-sintético, análisis documental y la encuesta.\n\r\n\nPrincipales resultados: Se diseñaron dos instrumentos de control documental para la entidad; estos fueron: cuadro de clasificación documental y tabla de retención; se estableció además una Comisión De Valoración Documental.\n\r\n\nConclusiones: Se evidenciaron condiciones desfavorables para la gestión documental en el Archivo Central de la organización. Se identifica la falta de espacio para los documentos, así como la ausencia de sistemas de gestión para automatizar los procesos de transferencia documental y digitalizar las series documentales. Se diseñaron instrumentos de gestión documental que contribuyen a minimizar los riesgos a los que se expone la organización y mejorar su gestión. \n","source":"DOAJ","year":2022,"language":"","subjects":["Management. Industrial management","Business"],"url":"https://retos.reduc.edu.cu/index.php/retos/article/view/255","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":66},{"id":"doaj_10.3389/fevo.2022.983337","title":"Assessing the impact of forest structure disturbances on the arboreal movement and energetics of orangutans—An agent-based modeling approach","authors":[{"name":"Kirana Widyastuti"},{"name":"Kirana Widyastuti"},{"name":"Romain Reuillon"},{"name":"Romain Reuillon"},{"name":"Paul Chapron"},{"name":"Wildan Abdussalam"},{"name":"Darmae Nasir"},{"name":"Mark E. Harrison"},{"name":"Mark E. Harrison"},{"name":"Helen Morrogh-Bernard"},{"name":"Muhammad Ali Imron"},{"name":"Uta Berger"}],"abstract":"Agent-based models have been developed and widely employed to assess the impact of disturbances or conservation management on animal habitat use, population development, and viability. However, the direct impacts of canopy disturbance on the arboreal movement of individual primates have been less studied. Such impacts could shed light on the cascading effects of disturbances on animal health and fitness. Orangutans are an arboreal primate that commonly encounters habitat quality deterioration due to land-use changes and related disturbances such as forest fires. Forest disturbance may, therefore, create a complex stress scenario threatening orangutan populations. Due to forest disturbances, orangutans may adapt to employ more terrestrial, as opposed to arboreal, movements potentially prolonging the search for fruiting and nesting trees. In turn, this may lead to changes in daily activity patterns (i.e., time spent traveling, feeding, and resting) and available energy budget, potentially decreasing the orangutan's fitness. We developed the agent-based simulation model BORNEO (arBOReal aNimal movEment mOdel), which explicitly describes both orangutans' arboreal and terrestrial movement in a forest habitat, depending on distances between trees and canopy structures. Orangutans in the model perform activities with a motivation to balance energy intake and expenditure through locomotion. We tested the model using forest inventory data obtained in Sebangau National Park, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. This allowed us to construct virtual forests with real characteristics including tree connectivity, thus creating the potential to expand the environmental settings for simulation experiments. In order to parameterize the energy related processes of the orangutans described in the model, we applied a computationally intensive evolutionary algorithm and evaluated the simulation results against observed behavioral patterns of orangutans. Both the simulated variability and proportion of activity budgets including feeding, resting, and traveling time for female and male orangutans confirmed the suitability of the model for its purpose. We used the calibrated model to compare the activity patterns and energy budgets of orangutans in both natural and disturbed forests . The results confirm field observations that orangutans in the disturbed forest are more likely to experience deficit energy balance due to traveling to the detriment of feeding time. Such imbalance is more pronounced in males than in females. The finding of a threshold of forest disturbances that affects a significant change in activity and energy budgets suggests potential threats to the orangutan population. Our study introduces the first agent-based model describing the arboreal movement of primates that can serve as a tool to investigate the direct impact of forest changes and disturbances on the behavior of species such as orangutans. Moreover, it demonstrates the suitability of high-performance computing to optimize the calibration of complex agent-based models describing animal behavior at a fine spatio-temporal scale (1-m and 1-s granularity).","source":"DOAJ","year":2022,"language":"","subjects":["Evolution","Ecology"],"doi":"10.3389/fevo.2022.983337","url":"https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.983337/full","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":66},{"id":"doaj_10.1186/s13362-021-00107-6","title":"Cost effective reproduction number based strategies for reducing deaths from COVID-19","authors":[{"name":"Christopher Thron"},{"name":"Vianney Mbazumutima"},{"name":"Luis V. Tamayo"},{"name":"Léonard Todjihounde"}],"abstract":"Abstract In epidemiology, the effective reproduction number R e $R_{e}$ is used to characterize the growth rate of an epidemic outbreak. If R e \u003e 1 $R_{e} \u003e1$ , the epidemic worsens, and if R e \u003c 1 $R_{e}\u003c 1$ , then it subsides and eventually dies out. In this paper, we investigate properties of R e $R_{e}$ for a modified SEIR model of COVID-19 in the city of Houston, TX USA, in which the population is divided into low-risk and high-risk subpopulations. The response of R e $R_{e}$ to two types of control measures (testing and distancing) applied to the two different subpopulations is characterized. A nonlinear cost model is used for control measures, to include the effects of diminishing returns. Lowest-cost control combinations for reducing instantaneous R e $R_{e}$ to a given value are computed. We propose three types of heuristic strategies for mitigating COVID-19 that are targeted at reducing R e $R_{e}$ , and we exhibit the tradeoffs between strategy implementation costs and number of deaths. We also consider two variants of each type of strategy: basic strategies, which consider only the effects of controls on R e $R_{e}$ , without regard to subpopulation; and high-risk prioritizing strategies, which maximize control of the high-risk subpopulation. Results showed that of the three heuristic strategy types, the most cost-effective involved setting a target value for R e $R_{e}$ and applying sufficient controls to attain that target value. This heuristic led to strategies that begin with strict distancing of the entire population, later followed by increased testing. Strategies that maximize control on high-risk individuals were less cost-effective than basic strategies that emphasize reduction of the rate of spreading of the disease. The model shows that delaying the start of control measures past a certain point greatly worsens strategy outcomes. We conclude that the effective reproduction can be a valuable real-time indicator in determining cost-effective control strategies.","source":"DOAJ","year":2021,"language":"","subjects":["Mathematics","Industry"],"doi":"10.1186/s13362-021-00107-6","url":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13362-021-00107-6","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":65},{"id":"doaj_10.5937/sjm16-22279","title":"FDI determinants in Europe and Chinese influence","authors":[{"name":"Alena Dorakh"}],"abstract":"Despite recent concerns about the increasing influence of outside investors on the European Union (EU) and Western Balkans, the developed European countries are still a dominant source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the region, confirming the benefits of EU membership. At the same time, fast-growing connectivity and lower trade costs in accession and neighboring countries determine the FDI growth from China, particularly via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). By applying panel data over 2000-2019 for 34 countries, which form 89% of all European FDI, we first examine FDI patterns around Europe, compare the EU, NMS, and Western Balkans; verify the importance of EU membership for FDI, caused reducing trade costs and improving connectivity. Thus, the new EU member states (NMS) and Western Balkans appear both as a home country and as a pre- entry destination to the EU. Then, we calculate trade costs indices for each selected country and partners over time and find that Europe and China are closely interconnected through trade and FDI. It means that stronger ties with China can be realized for the sample countries at the cost of easing relations with the EU. Finally, incorporating trade costs indices into the FDI model; we evaluate the impact of connectivity on FDI and estimate how BRI affected FDI in Europe. Additionally, we validate that the old framework of horizontal and vertical FDI not representative well and even new complex vertical or export-oriented FDI strategies are shifting today.","source":"DOAJ","year":2021,"language":"","subjects":["Management. Industrial management"],"doi":"10.5937/sjm16-22279","url":"https://aseestant.ceon.rs/index.php/sjm/article/view/22279/17784","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":65},{"id":"doaj_10.15688/jvolsu4.2021.4.9","title":"Crafts by Nomads of the Ural and Turgai Regions at the Beginning of the 20th Century","authors":[{"name":"Marat Kappasov"}],"abstract":"         Introduction. The article, based on the “Materials on the Kyrgyz (Kazakh) Land Use Collected and Developed by the Statistical Parties of the Turgai-Ural Resettlement Region”, examines the crafts of the nomads of the Lbischensky, Uralsky, Turgai, Irgiz, Temir uyezds in the early 20th century. Temir, Lbishchensky and Ural uyezds belonged to the Ural region, Turgai and Irgiz uyezds to the Turgai region.  Methods and materials. Using the mathematical method, the method of comparative analysis and content analysis, the author shows how much income per person came from crafts in the studied uyezds and proves that crafts were only additional industries and could not compete with nomadic cattle breeding. The article examines the crafts that brought the greatest income. Farmhands, transportation, groundhog hunting, fishing, etc., were well-known crafts; the Muslim spiritual cult and its servants was an unusual craft.  Analysis. Our article shows that the studied uyezds had their own craft specializations. For example, a significant number of nomads in Lbischensky uyezd were engaged in transportation, in Turgai uyezd in hunting groundhogs, in Irgiz uyezd in hunting and fishing.  Results. At the end of the article, the author concludes that the majority of nomads were primarily engaged in crafts as farmhands due to their poverty.","source":"DOAJ","year":2021,"language":"","subjects":["History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics","International relations"],"doi":"10.15688/jvolsu4.2021.4.9","url":"https://hfrir.jvolsu.com/index.php/en/component/attachments/download/2592","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"","score":65},{"id":"arxiv_2107.06100","title":"Secure Charging and Payment System for Electric Land Vehicles with Authentication Protocol","authors":[{"name":"Omer Aydin"}],"abstract":"It is obvious that fossil fuels are a limited resource and will be replaced by other energy sources in the future considering economic and en-vironmental problems. Electricity comes to the forefront among the sources that are candidates to replace fossil fuels. In the near future, electric land, air and sea vehicles will start to take more place in daily life. For this reason, systems for the charging systems of these devices and post-charge payments have been developed. There is no general standard on this issue yet. In this study, a charge and payment system, which is safe against known cyber-attacks for use in electric land ve-hicles, and which prioritizes privacy, is proposed. A system has been proposed to verify each other wired or wirelessly with an authentication protocol, where the data communication is encrypted, and the payment transactions are performed securely and invoiced to the vehicle owners.","source":"arXiv","year":2021,"language":"en","subjects":["cs.CR"],"url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.06100","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.06100","is_open_access":true,"published_at":"2021-07-10T21:49:18Z","score":65}],"total":2278922,"page":1,"page_size":20,"sources":["CrossRef","DOAJ","arXiv"],"query":"Land use"}