In the article the principles of the philosophical and historical analysis of the contemporary political situation (First World War, the Revolution of the year 1917) in M.A. Aldanov’s book ...«Armageddon» (1918) are singled out. The author of the article attempts to view Aldanov’s skepticism as a method of experiencing reality that confronts the dogmatic thinking.
The applications of object-based image analysis (OBIA) in remote sensing studies of wetlands have been growing over recent decades, addressing tasks from detection and delineation of wetland bodies ...to comprehensive analyses of within-wetland cover types and their change. Compared to pixel-based approaches, OBIA offers several important benefits to wetland analyses related to smoothing of the local noise, incorporating meaningful non-spectral features for class separation and accounting for landscape hierarchy of wetland ecosystem organization and structure. However, there has been little discussion on whether unique challenges of wetland environments can be uniformly addressed by OBIA across different types of data, spatial scales and research objectives, and to what extent technical and conceptual aspects of this framework may themselves present challenges in a complex wetland setting. This review presents a synthesis of 73 studies that applied OBIA to different types of remote sensing data, spatial scale and research objectives. It summarizes the progress and scope of OBIA uses in wetlands, key benefits of this approach, factors related to accuracy and uncertainty in its applications and the main research needs and directions to expand the OBIA capacity in the future wetland studies. Growing demands for higher-accuracy wetland characterization at both regional and local scales together with advances in very high resolution remote sensing and novel tasks in wetland restoration monitoring will likely continue active exploration of the OBIA potential in these diverse and complex environments.
•Dimensions of environmental heterogeneity are compared with indicators of visual complexity.•Substantial overlap between ecological and aesthetic heterogeneity indicates the potential for ...cross-disciplinary bridge.•Visual and ecological complexity may be jointly used to promote resilient and multi-functional landscapes.•Future work should develop objective, replicable indicators of complexity applicable to both disciplines.
Environmental heterogeneity has recently received increased attention due to its effect on biological diversity, ecosystem services and ecological resilience to disturbance and hazards. However, its relationships with landscape complexity as an indicator of visual aesthetic quality have not been yet extensively discussed. The purpose of this paper is to review different dimensions of environmental heterogeneity and to explore their potential for bridging visual quality with provision of other ecosystem services and resilience in landscape design, management and planning. This synthesis reveals the substantial overlap between spatial and temporal indicators of heterogeneity from ecological literature and the indicators of visual complexity, diversity and variety from the studies of subjective preferences and objective scenic beauty criteria. The potential of heterogeneity is also reviewed in the context of the relationship between visual quality and ecological resilience to perturbations, an increasingly important objective in the face of the global environmental change. The limitations of heterogeneity as a design and management goal are also discussed, including links between heterogeneity and disturbance, undesirable outcomes of excessive landscape complexity and present lack of criteria for its optimal levels. The synthesis concludes by identifying the key strategies and research needs to facilitate the application of this concept towards multi-functional landscapes supporting versatile ecosystem services together with scenic priorities.
Recent discourses on sustainable ecosystem management have increasingly emphasized the importance of bundling relationships and interactions among multiple ecosystem services supported by similar ...natural and anthropogenic mechanisms within the total environment. Yet, the aesthetic benefits of ecosystems, playing critical role in management of both wild and anthropogenic landscapes, have been under-represented in these discussions. This disregard contributes to the disconnection between environmental science and practice and limits our understanding of ecological and societal implications of management decisions that either generate aesthetic benefits or impact them while targeting other ecosystem services. This discussion reviews several “wicked problems” that arise due to such limited understanding, focusing on three recognized challenges in present-day ecosystem management: replacement of natural ecosystem functions, spatial decoupling of service beneficiaries from its environmental consequences and increasing inequalities in access to services. Strategies towards solutions to such wicked challenges are also discussed, capitalizing on the potential of innovative landscape design, cross-disciplinary research and collaboration, and emerging economic and policy instruments.
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•Aesthetic ecosystem services are under-discussed in recent ecological literature.•This disregard contributes to wicked challenges in ecosystem management objectives.•Discussed examples of such challenges suggest that they have multiple common roots.•Potential solutions call for targeted research and new economic and policy tools.•Collaboration among environmental, social and landscape design fields is critical.
Remote sensing of vegetation phenology has long been used to characterize ecosystem functions and responses to climate at spatial and temporal scales unfeasible to field surveys. However, the ...potential of remote sensing to elucidate mechanistic drivers of phenology and the underlying plant community processes at such scales remains under‐discussed.
This review synthesizes possibilities to advance this knowledge using multi‐temporal remote sensing and discusses remaining challenges and progress in instruments and analytical tools. Recent evidence indicates that, besides documenting vegetation seasonality and responses to climate, remote sensing of phenology can help meet emerging needs for indicators of plant diversity, vegetation structure and ecosystem change.
Responses of phenological metrics to stressors over large, heterogeneous regions may provide clues on ecological resilience manifested in asynchronies, recovery of vegetation cycles and stable microrefugia. At the same time, important barriers persist in relation to choosing among phenological estimation methods and paradigms, characterizing phenological events beyond changes in photosynthetically active biomass, and mechanistic interpretation of phenological patterns.
Synthesis. Increasing temporal frequency of products, opportunities for multi‐sensor data fusion, and advances in historically less available hyperspectral, active microwave and lidar instruments promise to help navigate these barriers and enable more comprehensive assessments of seasonality. Progress in customizable local platforms such as unoccupied aerial vehicles and phenocams may further enrich ground‐level understanding of phenology and validate satellite‐based assessments. However, remote sensing analyses alone are insufficient for mechanistic interpretation of phenology, which can be challenged by artefacts in remote sensing data and sensitivity of estimated metrics to landscape structure and spatial resolution of the inputs. Robust and informative phenological assessments call for rigorous collaborations with field ecological studies, strategic selection of ancillary environmental and geographic data, and wider adoption of causal inference approaches to address these needs and support novel explorations in plant ecology.
Increasing temporal frequency of remote sensing products, opportunities for multi‐sensor data fusion, and advances in historically less available hyperspectral, active microwave and lidar instruments enable more comprehensive assessments of seasonality and its relationships with plant community ecology and biodiversity. Progress in customizable local platforms such as unoccupied aerial vehicles and phenocams may further enrich ground‐level understanding of phenology and validate satellite‐based assessments. However, remote sensing analyses alone are insufficient for mechanistic interpretation of phenology, which can be challenged by artefacts in remote sensing data and sensitivity of estimated metrics to landscape structure and spatial resolution of the inputs. Robust and informative phenological assessments call for rigorous collaborations with field ecological studies, strategic selection of ancillary environmental and geographic data, and wider adoption of causal inference approaches to address these needs and support novel explorations in plant ecology.
Vitamin-deficient children suffering from diabetes mellitus received milk dishes and drinks enriched with vitamin-rich premixes produced in Austria (Roche) for 2 weeks. The diet efficacy was ...evaluated by the values of thiamine, riboflavin, 4-pyridoxic acid, 1-methylnicotinamide and xanthurenic acid urinary excretion, blood levels of free and total riboflavin, nicotinamide and pyridoxic coenzymes, transketolase activity measured before and after the diet treatment. The latter resulted in a marked improvement in the levels of vitamins B1, B2, B6, PP and C, prevented the spring fall in vitamin supply. In view of incomplete normalization of the children's vitamin status after the two-week diet it is recommended to use the vitamin-enriched food and drinks for longer time or under a continuous regimen.
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