Coastal upwelling ecosystems around the world are defined by wind-generated currents that bring deep, nutrient-rich waters to the surface ocean where they fuel exceptionally productive food webs. ...These ecosystems are also now understood to share a common vulnerability to ocean acidification and hypoxia (OAH). In the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME), reports of marine life die-offs by fishers and resource managers triggered research that led to an understanding of the risks posed by hypoxia. Similarly, unprecedented losses from shellfish hatcheries led to novel insights into the coastal expression of ocean acidification. Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) scientists and other researchers in the CCLME responded to the rise of OAH with new ocean observations and experiments. This work revealed insights into the expression of OAH as coupled environmental stressors, their temporal and spatial variability, and impacts on species, ecological communities, and fisheries. Sustained investigations also deepened the understanding of connections between climate change and the intensification of hypoxia, and are beginning to inform the ecological and eco-evolutionary processes that can structure responses to the progression of ocean acidification and other pathways of global change. Moreover, because the severity of the die-offs and hatchery failures and the subsequent scientific understanding combined to galvanize public attention, these scientific advances have fostered policy advances. Across the CCLME, policymakers are now translating the evolving scientific understanding of OAH into new management actions.
Personal information management (PIM) is an interdisciplinary research area with established theoretical foundations from information science and applied empirical research from human‐computer ...interaction (HCI). The increasingly popular activity tracking technology (ATT) has given rise to a new type of personal information about one's daily physical activities, which has not been scrutinized under theoretical frameworks in PIM. This article presents an in‐depth qualitative interview study supplemented by participant‐driven photo elicitation with 20 long‐term activity tracker users about how they manage personal information generated by ATT. Key findings include the identification of two distinctive user groups (i.e., consistent casual users and powers users) among long‐term activity tracker users and an in‐depth portrayal of these groups' PIM behaviors with ATT. These behaviors include concurrent and subsequent PIM practices, 6 types of PIM activities, and the use of a spectrum of PIM tools. This research provides timely theoretical updates to PIM under the background of self‐tracking technologies, outlines empirical implications to improve ATT in support of PIM, and offers recommendations for incorporating participant‐driven photo elicitation as a supplementary method for qualitative interviews in information behavior research.
Neuromorphic is a relatively new interdisciplinary research topic, which employs various fields of science and technology, such as electronic, computer, and biology. Neuromorphic systems consist of ...software/hardware systems, which are utilized to implement the neural networks based on human brain functionalities. The goal of neuromorphic systems is to mimic the biologically inspired concepts of the nervous systems, envisioned to provide advantages, such as lower power consumption, fault tolerance, and massive parallelism for the next generation of computers. This brief presents a neural computing hardware unit and a neuromorphic system architecture based on a modified leaky integrate and fire neuron model in a spiking neural network for a pattern recognition task in register-transfer level. The neuron model and the spiking network are explored, considering digital implementation, targeting low-cost high-speed large-scale systems. Results of the hardware synthesis and implementation on field-programmable gate array are presented as a proof of concept. Accordingly, the maximum frequency of the implemented neuron model and spiking network are 412.371 MHz and 189.071 MHz, respectively.
Trace elements (TE) contamination of foods and beverages constitutes a public health issue. In this context, the main objective of this study was to determine metals and metalloids content in coffee ...and to assess the health risks associated with contaminated coffee consumption. To this end, 44 samples of coffee from different origins, forms, and packaging types were analyzed. TE analysis was performed by ICP-MS after digestion. The data analysis was based on principal components analysis (PCA) and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Health risk assessment was determined by the estimated daily intake (EDI), target hazard quotient (THQ), and hazard index (HI). The findings showed that TE levels in coffee varied widely. The highest levels were related to aluminum (Al) (59.88 ± 54.86 mg/kg), manganese (Mn) (16.26 ± 24.59 mg/kg), copper (Cu) (11.60 ± 11.55 mg/kg), and cadmium (Cd) (9.92 ± 10.32 mg/kg). In terms of coffee form and packaging type, a significant difference (
P
< 0.0001) was observed in nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr), zinc (Zn), cobalt (Co), Cu, Mn, and Al content. The highest EDI was found in Al (0.0109 mg/kg BW/day) in ground coffee packaged in capsules. In terms of chronic daily intake (CDI), Cd and Al were above the reference dose (RfD). THQ of these elements were greater than 1.0, and HI was above the value of 1.0 in different forms of coffee. More interdisciplinary research on the relationships between the metal concentrations in coffee samples and those in feed, water, and soil would be quite interesting.
Generative inference for cultural evolution Kandler, Anne; Powell, Adam
Philosophical transactions - Royal Society. Biological sciences,
04/2018, Volume:
373, Issue:
1743
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
One of the major challenges in cultural evolution is to understand why and how various forms of social learning are used in human populations, both now and in the past. To date, much of the ...theoretical work on social learning has been done in isolation of data, and consequently many insights focus on revealing the learning processes or the distributions of cultural variants that are expected to have evolved in human populations. In population genetics, recent methodological advances have allowed a greater understanding of the explicit demographic and/or selection mechanisms that underlie observed allele frequency distributions across the globe, and their change through time. In particular, generative frameworks—often using coalescent-based simulation coupled with approximate Bayesian computation (ABC)—have provided robust inferences on the human past, with no reliance on a priori assumptions of equilibrium. Here, we demonstrate the applicability and utility of generative inference approaches to the field of cultural evolution. The framework advocated here uses observed population-level frequency data directly to establish the likely presence or absence of particular hypothesized learning strategies. In this context, we discuss the problem of equifinality and argue that, in the light of sparse cultural data and the multiplicity of possible social learning processes, the exclusion of those processes inconsistent with the observed data might be the most instructive outcome. Finally, we summarize the findings of generative inference approaches applied to a number of case studies.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in human cultural evolution’.
Ecosystem services (ES) provided by dryland ecosystems store nearly half and one‐third of the Earth's terrestrial biomass and biodiversity, respectively. Pakistan is a typical dryland region with ...significant land degradation and dramatic changes in ES in recent decades, which has not been sufficiently investigated. This study explored the spatiotemporal variations in ecosystem service values (ESV) over Pakistan (2001–2018) by combining land use/cover data, economic modeling, and hotspot analysis. From the achieved results, the total ESV indicated an improvement in ES before 2012 and then showed a declining trend. The largest contribution was attributed to the increase in forest/shrubland by 16.17% (2001–2006) and 10.36% (2006–2012). However, the ESV decreased to 7.76% from 2012 to 2018, which was mainly attributed to the decrease in cropland and grassland. Heterogeneous changes were observed in ESV. The hotspot of ESV change (approximately an area of 32,578 km2) was mainly located in the southern and southeastern parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), the northeastern part of Balochistan and the central and western parts of Sindh Province. The cold spot (approximately an area of 24,491 km2) showed a distribution in the northern part of KPK and Gilgit Baltistan, northeastern Punjab, coastal regions, and southeastern Sindh Province. We also found that although the total ESV and gross domestic product (GDP) indicated growth, the proportion of ESV from the total ESV and GDP (%ESV) exhibited a negative trend. The Provinces of Punjab and Balochistan retained the highest value of %ESV, while Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan were much lower. These results reflected the spatial imbalance of ecosystem protection and economic development in Pakistan. We recommend that necessary actions for conserving ES are important to strengthen ecological conservation in Pakistan. Additionally, further interdisciplinary research is needed to fully explore synergies in conserving ES and economical conservation.
This original and interdisciplinary volume explores the contemporary semiotic dimensions of the face from both scientific and sociocultural perspectives, putting forward several traditions, aspects, ...and signs of the human utopia of creating a hybrid face. The book semiotically delves into the multifaceted realm of the digital face, exploring its biological and social functions, the concept of masks, the impact of COVID-19, AI systems, digital portraiture, symbolic faces in films, viral communication, alien depictions, personhood in video games, online intimacy, and digital memorials. The human face is increasingly living a life that is not only that of the biological body but also that of its digital avatar, spread through a myriad of new channels and transformable through filters, post-productions, digital cosmetics, all the way to the creation of deepfakes. The digital face expresses new and largely unknown meanings, which this book explores and analyzes through an interdisciplinary but systematic approach. The volume will interest researchers, scholars, and advanced students who are interested in digital humanities, communication studies, semiotics, visual studies, visual anthropology, cultural studies, and, broadly speaking, innovative approaches about the meaning of the face in present-day digital societies.
Sports and the city Koch, Natalie
Geography compass,
March 2018, 2018-03-00, 20180301, Volume:
12, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This article reviews how sport has been engaged in urban geography and related fields. Across the social sciences, there has been an explosion of research on “sporting mega‐events,” such as the ...Olympics and FIFA World Cup. While much of this scholarship has examined the effects of these events for cities and city residents, I emphasize a longer and deeper history of research on sports and the city. I trace three lines of inquiry to illuminate the broader state of the field: (1) sport, (post)colonialism, and modernity; (2) sports, identity, and belonging in the city; and (3) sport, neoliberalism, and urban transformation. Not limited to the work of geographers, this review considers important overlaps between sports geography, urban geography, and a number of other disciplines. I suggest that sports studies has just as much to offer urban geography as the other way around, and in closing, I point to some key directions that might deepen urban geographers' contribution to the interdisciplinary research on sport, as well as critical approaches to urbanism.
Photochromic molecules have remarkable potential in memory and optical devices, as well as in driving and manipulating molecular motors or actuators and many other systems using light. When ...photochromic molecules are introduced into carbon nanomaterials (CNMs), the resulting hybrids provide unique advantages and create new functions that can be employed in specific applications and devices. This review highlights the recent developments in diverse photochromic CNMs. Photochromic molecules and CNMs are also introduced. The fundamentals of different photochromic CNMs are discussed, including design principles and the types of interactions between CNMs and photochromic molecules via covalent interactions and non‐covalent bonding such as π−π stacking, amphiphilic, electrostatic, and hydrogen bonding. Then the properties of photochromic CNMs, e.g., in photopatterning, fluorescence modulation, actuation, and photoinduced surface‐relief gratings, and their applications in energy storage (solar thermal fuels, photothermal batteries, and supercapacitors), nanoelectronics (transistors, molecular junctions, photo‐switchable conductance, and photoinduced electron transfer), sensors, and bioimaging are highlighted. Finally, an outlook on the challenges and opportunities in the future of photochromic CNMs is presented. This review discusses a vibrant interdisciplinary research field and is expected to stimulate further developments in nanoscience, advanced nanotechnology, intelligently responsive materials, and devices.
When carbon nanomaterials are functionalized by photochromic molecules, the resultant hybrids exhibit either new or improved properties and functions that are attractive for diverse device applications. This review summarizes the fabrication methods, properties, and various applications of photochromic carbon nanomaterials.
There has been a growing interest in the "metaverse," and discourse about how this platform may contribute to different fields of science is already beginning to emerge. In this paper, we discuss key ...opportunities and uncertainties about how a metaverse might contribute to advancing knowledge in the interdisciplinary field of the built environment and public health aimed at reducing noncommunicable diseases.
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