Fiona Preston-Whyte , Toshka Barnardo , Danica Marlin
et al.
Data gaps limit solutions and policy development for environmental issues. Citizen science offers a possible solution to reduce data gaps at a limited cost while enhancing environmental education (EE). While highly effective in the latter, citizen science campaigns rarely produce reliable, comparable, and meaningful data. This often results from fragmented awareness, varying data collection methods, and little training prior to data collection. This article explores how Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can be used to train citizen scientists, increase the value of citizen science data, and ensure that resources invested in citizen science initiatives are used more efficiently. We use a beach macrolitter monitoring course developed by Sustainable Seas Trust (SST) (NGO/NPO) and GRID-Arendal (a research foundation) as a case study in Africa, since the marine litter issue has widespread public support, and beaches are pleasant locations that attract potential citizen scientists. Beach macrolitter surveys utilise everyday equipment, and monitoring methods are simple if individuals are supported with appropriate training. This is especially relevant in Africa, where plastic pollution is forecasted to increase faster than other regions, and resources for research can be limited. This article gives a modified problemsolution model (mPSM) perspective, considering the challenges and solutions of MOOC development by two organisations working in the same space with limited resources. Challenges to inclusivity for online training in Africa included language barriers and limited technological access. Using Africa as a case study, we show that by combining professional abilities, inclusive digital education can be achieved using data-light MOOCs, offline engagement and other inclusive strategies to overcome the challenges of m- (mobile) and e- (electronic) learning. This kind of EE can be a powerful tool in developing reliable data while enhancing citizens’ agency in working towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
O ensino de Geografia tem como finalidade fazer o aluno aprender para crescer, viver e conviver em sociedade. No entanto, persistem desafios no processo de ensino, como a desconexão entre os conteúdos e a realidade dos estudantes e a falta de conhecimento pleno das bases epistemológicas da disciplina por parte de alguns professores. É necessário pensar em metodologias didáticas para que os conteúdos promovam raciocínio crítico e análise geográfica eficaz, uma vez que ele deve proporcionar aos alunos uma compreensão reflexiva sobre o espaço em que vivem e as dinâmicas sociais e ambientais que o moldam. Este estudo discute o papel do professor, as reflexões sobre o ensino de Geografia e a implementação de propostas complementares, como jogos e maquetes, no contexto educacional. O embasamento desta pesquisa deu-se a partir do registro disponível, decorrente de pesquisas anteriores, em documentos impressos, como livros, artigos, teses etc. Utiliza-se de dados ou de categorias teóricas já trabalhados por outros pesquisadores e devidamente registrados.
Accurately monitoring disaster effects is a crucial task in relief efforts (e.g. typhoon rescue). Social media data plays a vital role in disaster management, while deep learning-based methods gain more attention in typhoon disaster research. However, most existing classification methods for typhoon disasters are limited to multi-class but single-label levels, contradicting the reality that a social media text may correspond to multiple types of disaster damage. This paper proposes a siamese text classification network (SiamTCN) for multi-class multi-label information extraction from typhoon disasters based on Sina Weibo data. The SiamTCN leverages a dual-path architecture with shared weights, utilizing multi-head self-attention and convolution to extract hidden features from texts. A novel multi-class multi-label contrastive loss function is proposed to optimize the model. Additionally, address information is extracted through address matching and check-in locations. The spatio-temporal characteristics provide actionable insights for disaster management, enabling timely and targeted responses to affected regions. Experiments are conducted on Sina Weibo texts collected from six typical typhoon land-falls in Chinese coastal regions from 2018 to 2023. The results demonstrate that the accuracy achieved by the proposed method is 0.9454, 0.9391, and 0.9422, respectively. The code for this paper is available at https://github.com/SiamTCN.
Alisa Luangrath, Joorim Na, Pandi Kalimuthu
et al.
Biodegradable plastics (BPs) are widely used as alternatives to non-BPs due to their inherent ability to undergo facile degradation. However, the ecotoxicological impact of biodegradable microplastics (MPs) rarely remains scientific documented especially to aquatic ecosystem and organisms compared to conventional microplastics. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the ecotoxicity of biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) MPs to Daphnia magna with that of conventional polyethylene (PE) MPs with and without ultraviolet (UV) treatment (4 weeks). The acute toxicity (48 h) of PLA MPs was significantly higher than that of PE MPs, potentially attributable to their elevated bioconcentration resulting from their higher density. UV treatment notably reduced the particle size of PLA MPs and induced new hydrophilic functional groups containing oxygen. Thus, the acute lethal toxicity of PLA MPs exhibited noteworthy increase, compared to before UV treatment after UV treatment, which was greater than that of UV-PE MPs. In addition, UV-PLA MPs showed markedly elevated reactive oxygen species concentration in D. magna compared to positive control. However, there was no significant increase in the level of lipid peroxidation, possibly due to successful defense by antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase and catalase). These findings highlight the ecotoxicological risks of biodegradable MPs to aquatic organisms, which require comprehensive long-term studies.
La gentrificación es reconocida como uno de los procesos urbanos, a nivel planetario, tendiente a agudizar las desigualdades socioespaciales y a cercenar el derecho a la ciudad para grupos de menores ingresos. El papel decisivo del Estado en este proceso ha recibido creciente atención, y la investigación latinoamericana sobre el tema ha aportado evidencias clave en ese sentido. A partir de una revisión de la literatura especializada sobre gentrificación, gestión de la ciudad y políticas urbanas neoliberales, el presente artículo propone una categorización de diferentes mecanismos concretos a través de los cuales se pone en práctica la gentrificación liderada por el Estado. Se detallan los siguientes mecanismos: el marco regulatorio urbano y la “excepcionalidad sistemática”; la institucionalización de la gobernanza urbana empresarial; la (re)inversión selectiva en el territorio; y las estrategias de (re)activación territorial. El artículo ilustra estos mecanismos a partir de la experiencia argentina, con el fin de sentar las bases para operacionalizar diversas variables capaces de captar cada uno de ellos.
Internal migration is an essential part of regional population change. Driven by various determinants, internal migration has been unequal across time and space. Migration responses to the changes in societal circumstances make it relevant to investigate the spatial and temporal dimension of internal migration in Serbia before and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The research aims to identify to what extent and in what way the pandemic has changed the magnitude and geographical patterns of internal migration in Serbia. The study is based on additionally processed official statistics on internal migration for the period 2018–2020, from March to December for each year, at the municipal, district (oblast, plural—oblasti), and regional levels. These are aggregate administrative data on usual residence registration by month. The derived data on the net migration rate is cartographically presented using the classification method natural Breaks (Jenks). Spatial dependence was assessed applying the spatial autocorrelation method, based on the Local Moran statistic. The results revealed that the pandemic affected not only the volume of internal migration but also its spatial patterns. The findings present new insights on the role of internal migration in reallocation of population across Serbia before and during the COVID-19 pandemic while underlying the importance of further research to deepen the understanding of internal migration trends upon the COVID-19 outbreak.
One of the aspects of studies of micropopulations of ( Eremias arguta deserti Gmelin, 1789) and ( Phrynocephalus guttatus guttatus Gmelin, 1789) in the conditions of the southeastern part of the Lower Volga region was the observation of inter-seasonal fluctuations in body weight of individuals. Males of Eremias arguta deserti are consistently heavier in the spring than females. In the autumn periods, the results turned out to be contradictory and do not make it possible to conclude which individuals of which sex have the greatest mass. Statistical processing of materials using the Kruskal - Walli’s criterion (H) did not reveal significant differences in Eremias arguta deserti when comparing the mass of all females and males both for all periods and separately in spring and autumn periods. Phrynocephalus g. guttatus also showed no statistical significance when comparing all males and females for the entire period. However, the results obtained when comparing between females and males during the 2018 season, as well as when comparing females of different years, were statistically significant. In addition, the body weight of fingerlings of both groups, between the autumn seasons of 2017 and 2018, revealed statistical significance. Individuals of both Phrynocephalus g. guttatus and Eremias arguta deserti steadily gain body weight, despite the slowdown or complete stop of the growth of individuals in the former and autotomy in the latter. Regeneration of the tail or its absence obviously affects the growth of the trunk of Eremias arguta deserti.
A cultural route represents a spatial link between different cultural groups, which co-influenced their mutual development, also enriched their relationship with the natural environment, resulting in a vast body of knowledge. First recognized on a world platform in 1993 by UNESCO, the concept is on its evolutionary stage, and there are several developing viewpoints expressed on its meaning and constituents. However, the small-scale routes with predominantly intangible characters are overlooked in discussion compared to the large expanse, trans-national routes that possess a significant amount of tangible resources. As a preliminary step in this endeavor of recognizing local routes with intangible aspects, the paper attempts to analyze the transhumance route of Pithoragarh, India, and explore the possibilities of the route being identified as a Cultural Route. It adopts a qualitative, ethnographic research approach for investigating the route and the associated Johar, Darma, Chaudans, and Byans valley and collects data through semi-structured interviews with experts and community members. The results indicate that the routes connected the highlands with the lowlands and created a vertical model that facilitated constant movement, brought together many cultures, and enabled fluid socio-cultural and economic interactions. It suggests that a richer understanding of the cultural assets could emerge by exploring the route's significance as a 'cultural route' and with further in-depth investigation, it can qualify to be recognized and protected as a cultural route.
Maryam Fallah, Ahmad Reza Pirali Zefrehei, Seyyed Aliakbar Hedayati
et al.
Urgent is growing to have reliable information from the country's water resources. In recent years, data mining models such as artificial neural network (ANN), gene expression programming, Bayesian network, machine algorithms, such as a support vector machine (SVM), and Random Forest have found widespread use in the field of simulation and prediction of components in aquatic ecosystems. Variables vary greatly on water quality parameters (due to nonlinear and complex relationships). Therefore, conventional methods are not eligible to solve water resource quality management problems. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of simulating the spatial and temporal alterations in water quality parameters during the period 1985-2014 in Anzali Wetland using a SVM model. Based on principal components analysis (PCA), the parameters EC, TDS, pH and BOD5 were selected for analysis in this study. Spearman correlation was calculated to determine the inputs of the model and the correlation coefficient(CC) between the water quality parameters. According to the results of the correlation table analysis, 8 types of structures including different inputs were used to predict the parameters with machine vector. In the next stage, 70% of the data were used to train, while the rest were used for analyzing the models. Criteria for determination coefficient (R2) and root mean square error (RMSE) were used for evaluation and model performance. The results revealed that in verification stage among different used models, the pH had the highest accuracy (0.95), while the lowest RMSE (0.20). Trend of alterations for optimal model of each parameter on a time scale, indicated an adequate estimation at most points. In general, the results exhibited the appropriate accuracy and acceptable performance of the SVM model in simulating water parameters.
Abstract More than half of the total population in China are living in cities. Especially, the people in highly developed and spatially integrated city clusters, i.e., urban agglomerations (UAs), are facing increasing human‐perceived heat stress that describes the combined effects of hot temperature, high humidity, and lowered surface wind speed. By analyzing multiple indicators over 20 major UAs across China, we demonstrate that summer heat stress has been significantly intensifying in nearly all UAs during 1971–2014. This intensification is more profound in northern than southern regions and is especially stronger in more urbanized and densely populated areas (e.g., Beijing‐Tianjin‐Hebei and the Yangtze River Delta). Based on a dynamic classification of weather stations using time‐varying land use/land cover maps, we find that urban core areas exhibit distinctly stronger increasing heat stress trends than their surrounding rural areas. On average, urbanization contributes to approximately one‐quarter of the total increase in mean heat stress over urban core areas of UAs and nearly half of the total increase in extreme heat stress events. The urbanization effect is also dependent on the geographical region within China. Urbanization tends to have stronger intensifying effects on heat stress in UAs with higher population density in low‐altitude areas, while it has a relatively weaker intensifying and even weakening effect in some arid and high‐altitude regions. Moreover, as various heat stress metrics may yield different estimations of long‐term trend and urbanization contribution, the particular choice of heat stress indicator is of critical importance for investigations on this subject matter.
Paloma Mara de Lima Ferreira, Adriano Rolim da Paz, Juan Martín Bravo
ABSTRACT Hydrological models (HMs) can be applied for different purposes, and a key step is model calibration using objective functions (OF) to quantify the agreement between observed and calculated discharges. Fully understanding the OF is important to properly take advantage of model calibration and interpret the results. This study evaluates 36 OF proposed in the literature, considering two watersheds of different hydrological regimes. Daily simulated streamflow time-series, using a distributed hydrological model (MGB-IPH), and ten daily streamflow synthetic time-series, generated from the observed and calculated streamflows, were used in the analysis of each watershed. These synthetic data were used to evaluate how does each metric evaluate hypothetical cases that present isolated very well known error behaviors. Despite of all NSE-derived (Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency) metrics that use the square of the residuals in their formulation have shown higher sensitivity to errors in high flows, the ones that use daily and monthly averages of flow rates in absolute terms were more stringent than the others to assess HMs performance. Low flow errors were better evaluated by metrics that use the flow logarithm. The constant presence of zero flow rates deteriorate them significantly, with the exception of the metrics TRMSE (Transformed root mean square error) did not demonstrate this problem. An observed limitation of the formulations of some metrics was that the errors of overestimation or underestimation are compensated. Our results reassert that each metric should be interpreted specifically thinking about the aspects it has been proposed for, and simultaneously taking into account a set of metrics would lead to a broader evaluation of HM ability (e.g. multiobjective model evaluation). We recommend that the use of synthetic time series as those proposed in this work could be useful as an auxiliary step towards better understanding the evaluation of a calibrated hydrological model for each study case, taking into account model capabilities and observed hydrologic regime characteristics.
The acoustic and visual understanding of man is a hotly debated issue in contemporary culture. I found it important therefore to look at certain historical, cultural, aesthetical, philosophical and anthropological peculiarities of human image in Antiquity as reflected in the arts. The following aspects deserve special attention: the visualization of sense and values; the interaction of “ethos” (character) and “soma” (body); the influence of the plastic images on the narrative ones; a normative typology of man; the significance of visual and acoustic perception. In this context, I studied ancient physiognomic; Aristotelian understanding of the acoustic and plastic arts; genesis, evolution and significance of the sculptural portrait image of man and the image of philosopher in Antiquity. I also pay attention to some methodological aspects of the study. As a result, there emerges an integral image of philosopher, which allows looking at the Greek culture from a fresh angle.
Greek language and literature. Latin language and literature, Philosophy (General)
Pterocarpus santalinus (Family – Fabaceae) popularly known as Red Sanders is an endemic species confined to Southern parts of Eastern Ghats of India specially in Andhra Pradesh. Heartwood of Red Sanders has high demand in domestic as well as international market and the wavy grained wood is valued. Along with its extensive use in furniture, the red dye obtained from the wood is used as colouring agent for textile, medicine and food. The heartwood can accumulate various elements and rare earth elements like strontium cadmium, zinc, copper and uranium. The wood has different uses in traditional and folklore medicines and is used for the treatment of diabetes, prickly heat, skin diseases and for various other ailments. A number of studies have been carried out to anatomically and phenotypicaly screen wavy grain at seedling stage. Morphological variability and genetic diversity studies reveal that Red Sanders harbours enormous variability. Though, macro and micro propagation protocol have been developed, further refinement is required for mass propagation. Andhra Pradesh Forest Department has also initiated different activities under tree improvement programme. Considering the wood demand, restricted distribution, slow regeneration, illegal harvest, trade and habitat destruction, the species has been categorized as endangered by International Union for Conservation of Nature and has been listed in Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and is also classified as a “reserved tree” under the Andhra Pradesh Preservation of Private Forest Rules, 1978. To revive the past glory of this valuable species, Government agencies, farmers, entrepreneurs and policy makers have to join hands for its protection, sustainable utilization and conservation.