Background: Teledermatoscopy accuracy has been examined in experimental settings and is recommended for primary care despite lacking real-world implementation evidence. A teledermatoscopy service has ...been provided in Estonia since 2013, where lesions are evaluated based on the patient’s or general practitioner’s suggestion. Objective: The management plan and diagnostic accuracy of a real-world store-and-forward teledermatoscopy service for melanoma diagnosis were evaluated. Methods: A retrospective study analyzed 4748 cases from 3403 patients using the service between October 16, 2017 and August 30, 2019 by matching country-wide databases. Management plan accuracy was calculated as the percentage of melanoma found that was managed correctly. Diagnostic accuracy parameters were sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values. Results: Management plan accuracy for melanoma detection was 95.5% (95% CI, 77.2-99.9). Diagnostic accuracy showed a sensitivity of 90.48% (95% CI, 69.62-98.83) and a specificity of 92.57% (95% CI, 91.79-93.31). Limitations: Matching the lesions was limited to SNOMED CT location standard precision. Diagnostic accuracy was calculated based on a combination of diagnosis and management plan data. Conclusion: Teledermatoscopy for detecting and managing melanoma in real-world clinical practice displays results comparable with those in experimental setting studies.
Urban air quality management plan (UAQMP) is an effective and efficient tool employed in managing acceptable urban air quality. However, the UAQM practices are specific to a country’s needs and ...requirements. Majority of the developed countries have full–fledged UAQMP with a regulatory management framework. However, developing countries are still working in formulating the effective and efficient UAQMPs to manage their deteriorating urban air environment. The first step in the process of formulation of UAQMP is to identify the air quality control regions based on ambient air quality status and second, initiate a time bound program involving all stakeholders to develop UAQMPs. The successful implementation of UAQMPs depends on the strength of its key components, e.g. goal/objective, monitoring network, emission inventory, air quality modeling, control strategies and public participation. This paper presents a comprehensive review on UAQMPs, being implemented worldwide at different scales e.g., national (macro), city (medium), and local (micro).
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has created many initiatives to integrate geodiversity and geoheritage into the management of protected areas through a broader concept of ...nature. However, many protected areas do not have an inventory of geological sites. In view of this fact, this study aims to discuss the inventory of geological sites (including geomorphological, hydrological, petrological, sedimentological, and structural sites) and analyse, through a case study, how geodiversity is described in an existing management plan, prepared before IUCN included geoconservation in the Manual for the Management of Protected Areas. This study was conducted in the Itatiaia National Park, which has outstanding geomorphological and other geological features. To ensure appropriate assessment of geological sites, we carried out an inventory of geological sites and then we analysed how the management plan addressed geodiversity. The inventory includes 17 geosites (distributed in six geological frameworks), seven geodiversity sites and three viewpoints. We concluded that although geodiversity is mentioned in the plan, the inventory of geological sites would facilitate and support the exploration of management possibilities that range from conservation to education. Therefore, we recommend the inclusion of the inventoried sites in the management plan of protected areas because it is a valuable tool for the proper conservation and management of geoheritage.
•Chemcatcher® used to sequester polar pesticides in a drinking water treatment plant.•Sampler extracts analysed using a suspect screening mass spectrometric workflow.•Fifty-eight polar pesticides ...identified within the water treatment works.•Multivariate statistical analysis identified clusters of pesticides with similar fate.•Cluster analysis was used to design a new management plan for improving water quality.
Emerging contaminants such as polar pesticides pose a potential risk to human health due to their presence in drinking water. However, their occurrence and fate in drinking water treatment plants is poorly understood. In this study we use passive sampling coupled to suspect screening and multivariate analysis to describe pesticide fate throughout the treatment stream of an operational drinking water treatment plant. ChemcatcherÒ passive sampling devices were deployed at sites (n = 6) positioned at all stages of the treatment stream during consecutive deployments (n = 20) over a twelve-month period. Sample extracts (n = 120) were analysed using high-resolution liquid chromatography-quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry and compounds identified against a commercially available database. A total of 58 pesticides and transformation products from different classes were detected. Statistical analysis of the qualitative screening data was performed to identify clusters of pesticides with similar fate during ozonation, granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration, and chlorination. The performance of each treatment process was investigated. Adsorption to GAC media was found to account for the greatest proportion of pesticide attenuation (average removal of 70% based on detection frequency), however, operational performance varied for certain pesticides during periods of episodic and sustained pollution. GAC breakthrough occurred for 21 compounds detected in the GAC filtrate. Eleven pesticides were found to occur in potable water following treatment. We developed a management plan containing controls, triggers, and responses, for five pesticides and a metabolite (atrazine, atrazine desethyl, DEET, dichlorobenzamide, metazachlor, and propyzamide) prioritised based on their current and future risk to treated water quality.
Display omitted
The Open-Specimen Movement Colella, Jocelyn P; Stephens, Ryan B; Campbell, Mariel L ...
Bioscience,
04/2021, Letnik:
71, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Abstract
The open-science movement seeks to increase transparency, reproducibility, and access to scientific data. As primary data, preserved biological specimens represent records of global ...biodiversity critical to research, conservation, national security, and public health. However, a recent decrease in specimen preservation in public biorepositories is a major barrier to open biological science. As such, there is an urgent need for a cultural shift in the life sciences that normalizes specimen deposition in museum collections. Museums embody an open-science ethos and provide long-term research infrastructure through curation, data management and security, and community-wide access to samples and data, thereby ensuring scientific reproducibility and extension. We propose that a paradigm shift from specimen ownership to specimen stewardship can be achieved through increased open-data requirements among scientific journals and institutional requirements for specimen deposition by funding and permitting agencies, and through explicit integration of specimens into existing data management plan guidelines and annual reporting.
•We analyse social perception of flash flood risk at the local level.•We assess level of awareness of a specific emergency Civil Protection Plan.•Risk communication must be implemented to improve ...risk perception and awareness.•Increasing risk perception and awareness will improve resilience of the community.
In urban areas prone to flash floods, characterization of social resilience is critical to guarantee the success of emergency management plans. In this study, we present the methodological approach that led to the submission and subsequent approval of the Civil Protection Plan of Navaluenga (Central Spain), in which the first phase was to analyse flood hazard by combining the Hydrological Modelling System (HEC-HMS) and the Iber 2D hydrodynamic model. We then analysed social vulnerability and designed measures to put into practice within the framework of the Civil Protection Plan. At a later phase, we assessed citizens’ flash-flood risk perception and level of awareness regarding some key variables of the Civil Protection Plan. To this end, 254 adults representing roughly 12% of the population census were interviewed. Responses were analysed descriptively, comparing awareness regarding preparedness and response actions with the corresponding information and behaviours previously defined in the Civil Protection Plan. In addition, we carried out a latent class cluster analysis aimed at identifying the different groups present among the interviewees. Our results showed that risk perception is low. Specifically, 60.8% of the interviewees showed low risk perception and low awareness (cluster 1); 24.4% had high risk perception and low awareness (cluster 2), while the remaining 14.8% presented high long-term risk perception and high awareness (cluster 3). These findings suggest the need for integrating these key variables of social risk perception and local tailored information in emergency management plans, especially in urban areas prone to flash-floods where response times are limited.
The Data Stewardship Wizard is a tool for data management planning that is focused on getting the most value out of data management planning for the project itself rather than on fulfilling ...obligations. It is based on FAIR Data Stewardship, in which each data-related decision in a project acts to optimize the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and/or Reusability of the data. The background to this philosophy is that the first reuser of the data is the researcher themselves. The tool encourages the consulting of expertise and experts, can help researchers avoid risks they did not know they would encounter by confronting them with practical experience from others, and can help them discover helpful technologies they did not know existed. In this paper, we discuss the context and motivation for the tool, we explain its architecture and we present key functions, such as the knowledge model evolvability and migrations, assembling data management plans, metrics and evaluation of data management plans. Keywords: Data Stewardship, Data Management Plan, FAIR
•We analyse how ecosystem service concepts are used in EU water policy implementation.•Five case studies are compared: Italy, United Kingdom, Romania, Belgium and Portugal.•Legal and planning ...instruments implementing the Water Framework Directive are examined.•Water ecosystem services are analysed and discussed with panels of stakeholders.•Stakeholders opinion on benefits, risks and knowledge gaps on ecosystem services is examined.
In this research we explored how the concepts and approaches of ecosystem services are currently used in water management in Europe, in the application of River Basin Management Plans (RBMP) developed for the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). Five case studies have been considered, located in the River Basin Districts of the Po river (Italy), Scotland (United Kingdom), Scheldt river (Belgium), Danube river (Romania), Sado and Mira rivers and Ribeiras do Algarve (Portugal). These cases represent different regional contexts of application of this EU water policy, with specific socio-economic drivers and environmental issues. Each case study has developed an operational framework to analyse ecosystem services in practice together with a group of local stakeholders. In each regional case, we examined how EU water policy and RBMPs are implemented, considered legal and planning instruments from the national to the local scale, and we analysed the use of ecosystem service terms and concepts in the relevant planning instruments. In parallel, we explored the view of local stakeholders and water managers on the topic, collecting their opinion on three major aspects: the usefulness of the concepts and approaches of ecosystem services for WFD river basin management plans, the risks and benefits of their use, and the knowledge needs to put the concepts into practice. The major drawback of the ecosystem service approach seems to be the challenge for practitioners of understanding new concepts and methodologies, while the major advantages are that it highlights all the hidden benefits of a water body in good health and promotes multi-functionality and sustainability in water management. The results of this study provide a picture across Europe of the current use of the concepts of ecosystem services in the RBMP and relevant insight on the opinion of local stakeholders and water managers.
Husodo T, Shanida SS, Megantara EN. 2019. Biodiversity management plan in the non-conservation area, Cisokan hydropower plan area, Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 20: 1524-1536. Based on ...data from various environmental studies at the Upper Cisokan Pumped Storage (UCPS) Hydropower plan area, further studies need to be carried out that can provide clearer guidance on how to protect and restore the environment (including habitat) around the UCPS, protect, and manage the endangered biodiversity through adaptive approaches and ecosystem management. One of these studies was the UCPS Biodiversity Management Plan (BMP). The aim of this study was to identify the strategy for biodiversity management at the project site. Methods of this study were based on several years of qualitative and descriptive-analytical studies, which updated information from earlier studies. Information on the area’s biodiversity was obtained directly through field surveys and indirectly through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions (FGD) with local community members and other stakeholders in the area. This article presents the strategy for biodiversity management at project site, including minimizing habitat gap and habitat loss; expanding and enriching habitats; making corridors; protecting the natural forests (protection of remnant forest); controlling access; managing fire, the impact of traffic on native fauna, land clearing and human-wildlife conflict; minimizing impacts to biodiversity, particularly threatened species; integrating management with adjoining land managers (PLN, perhutani, the community); strengthening capacities for integrating and institutionalizing biodiversity conservation and management; conducting campaign for biodiversity awareness, communication, and education; and developing value-added products and alternative sustainable livelihood for bio-resource-dependent communities.
Keywords: Biodiversity Management Plan, Hydropower Company
A major ecological danger to many countries' coastal areas is posed by plastic contamination from marine debris. Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are all included in the South ...Asian Seas (SAS) Programme of the United Nations Environment Programme. The action plans for reducing marine litter are essential to addressing the SAS region's long-term demands for environmentally friendly coastal growth and marine resources. The uniqueness of this action plan rests in its specific to the area attention to the SAS region, which addresses particular difficulties and opportunities, as well as its all-encompassing strategy that combines economic, environmental, and social elements to encourage sustainable marine litter management. Despite the management action plans now being executed in the SAS region, a specific policy still has to be strengthened. As a result, the suggestions for developing policies, plans for action, and strategies for effectively managing marine resources addressed in this article may provide information about how to discover the most likely solution for the next generation.
PDF
