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Nonlinear responses in interannual variability of lake ice to climate change
Get PDFAbstract Climate change is contributing to rapid changes in lake ice cover across the Northern Hemisphere, thereby impacting local communities and ecosystems. Using lake ice cover time-series spanning over 87?yr for 43 lakes across the Northern Hemisphere, we found that the interannual variability in ice duration, measured as standard deviation, significantly increased in only half of our studied lakes. We observed that the interannual variability in ice duration peaked when lakes were, on average, covered by ice for about 1?month, while both longer and shorter long-term mean ice cover duration resulted in lower interannual variability in ice duration. These results demonstrate that the ice cover duration can become so short that the interannual variability rapidly declines. The interannual variability in ice duration showed a strong dependency on global temperature anomalies and teleconnections, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation and El Niño?Southern Oscillation. We conclude that many lakes across the Northern Hemisphere will experience a decline in interannual ice cover variability and shift to open water during the winter under a continued global warming trend which will affect lake biological, cultural, and economic processes
Drinking water safety improvement and future challenge of lakes and reservoirs
Get PDFTo meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 6.1, China has undertaken significant initiatives to address the uneven distribution of water resources and to enhance water quality. Since 2000, China has invested heavily in the water infrastructure of numerous reservoirs, with a total storage capacity increase of 4.704 × 1011 m3 (an increase of 90.8%). These reservoirs have significantly enhanced the available freshwater resources for drinking water. Concurrently, efforts to improve water quality in lakes and reservoirs, facilitated by nationwide water quality monitoring, have been successful. As a result, an increasing lakes and reservoirs are designated as centralized drinking water sources (CDWSs) in China. Among the 3441 CDWSs across all provinces, 40.8% are sourced from lakes and reservoirs, 32.6% from rivers, and 26.6% from groundwater in 2023. Notably, from 2016 to 2023, the percentage of lakes and reservoirs categorized as CDWSs has increased consistently across all 29 provinces. This progress has enabled 561.4 million urban residents to access improved drinking water sources in 2022, compared to 303.4 million in 2004. Our findings underscore the pivotal role of water infrastructure construction and water quality improvement jointly promoting lakes and reservoirs as vital drinking water sources. Nevertheless, the nationwide occurrence of algal blooms has surged by 113.7% from the 2000s to the 2010s , which is a considerable challenge to drinking water safety. Fortunately, algal blooms have been markedly alleviated in past four years. However, it is still crucial to acknowledge that lakes and reservoirs face the challenges of algal blooms, and associated toxic microcystin and odor compounds.</p
Electrophysiological Evidence for a Whorfian Double Dissociation of Categorical Perception Across Two Languages
Get PDFTaza in Spanish refers to cups and mugs in English, whereas glass refers to different glass types in Spanish: copa and vaso. It is still unclear whether such categorical distinctions induce early perceptual differences in speakers of different languages. In this study, for the first time, we report symmetrical effects of terminology on preattentive indices of categorical perception across languages. Native speakers of English or Spanish saw arrays of cups, mugs, copas, and vasos flashed in streams. Visual mismatch negativity, an implicit electrophysiological correlate of perceptual change in the peripheral visual field, was modulated for categorical contrasts marked in the participants’ native language but not for objects designated by the same label. Conversely, P3a, an index of attentional orienting, was modulated only for missing contrasts in the participants’ native language. Thus, whereas native labels influenced participants’ preattentive perceptual encoding of objects, nonverbally encoded dissociations reoriented their attention at a later processing stag
Literacy Instruction from Afar: Evidence for the Effectiveness of a Remotely Delivered Language-rich Reading Programme
Get PDFThere is good evidence that high-quality instruction targeting reading-related skills in the classroom leads to gains in reading. However, considerably less is known about the possible efficacy of remote instruction. This study evaluated the efficacy of an interactive evidence-based language-rich literacy programme. 184 children were randomly allocated either to an 8-week remotely delivered language-rich literacy programme or to a wait-list control group. Children in the programme arm (n = 77 at analysis) completed 16-lessons remotely targeting vocabulary, phonemic awareness, reading, spelling, and narrative skills. Children in the wait-list arm (n = 58 at analysis) received business-as-usal from their schools. Children’s word reading accuracy and phonemic awareness was measured prior to and after the programme delivery period. Children receiving the literacy programme made significantly larger gains than the wait-list control group on reading accuracy (d = .32) and phonemic awareness (d = .63). This study demonstrates that a remotely-delivered literacy programme is effective. These findings have important implications for delivering specialist literacy instruction at scale.There is good evidence that high-quality instruction targeting reading-related skills in the classroom leads to gains in reading. However, considerably less is known about the possible efficacy of remote instruction. This study evaluated the efficacy of an interactive evidence-based language-rich literacy programme. 184 children were randomly allocated either to an 8-week remotely delivered language-rich literacy programme or to a wait-list control group. Children in the programme arm (n = 77 at analysis) completed 16-lessons remotely targeting vocabulary, phonemic awareness, reading, spelling, and narrative skills. Children in the wait-list arm (n = 58 at analysis) received business-as-usal from their schools. Children’s word reading accuracy and phonemic awareness was measured prior to and after the programme delivery period. Children receiving the literacy programme made significantly larger gains than the wait-list control group on reading accuracy (d = 0.32) and phonemic awareness (d = 0.63). This study demonstrates that a remotely-delivered literacy programme is effective. These findings have important implications for delivering specialist literacy instruction at scale
Politicians’ connections and sovereign credit ratings
Get PDFUsing a unique hand-collected sample of professional connections between finance ministers and the top executives of the three largest credit rating agencies (CRAs) for 38 European sovereigns between January 2000 and November 2017, we show that professional connections result in higher sovereign ratings. This finding is attributed to ‘favoritism’, which stems from the conflict-of-interest problem in the CRA business model. We also find that the subjective component of ratings, captured by professional connections, has a more pronounced role for developing than developed countries. Our study offers new empirical evidence that unsolicited sovereign ratings are significantly lower than solicited ratings. Our results survive battery of robustness checks including propensity score matching (PSM), two-way fixed-effects, system GMM and various definitions of connection. Our findings offer wide-ranging implications for regulators, governments, market participants and CRAs
Phylosymbiosis shapes skin bacterial communities and pathogen-protective function in Appalachian salamanders
Get PDFPhylosymbiosis is an association between host-associated microbiome composition and host phylogeny. This pattern can arise via the evolution of host traits, habitat preferences, diets, and the co-diversification of hosts and microbes. Understanding the drivers of phylosymbiosis is vital for modelling disease-microbiome interactions and manipulating microbiomes in multi-host systems. This study quantifies phylosymbiosis in Appalachian salamander skin in the context of infection by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), while accounting for environmental microbiome exposure. We sampled ten salamander species representing >150M years of divergence, assessed their Bd infection status, and analysed their skin and environmental microbiomes. Our results reveal a significant signal of phylosymbiosis, whereas the local environmental pool of microbes, climate, geography, and Bd infection load had a smaller impact. Host-microbe co-speciation was not evident, indicating that the effect stems from the evolution of host traits influencing microbiome assembly. Bd infection is correlated with host phylogeny and the abundance of Bd-inhibitory bacterial strains, suggesting that the long-term evolutionary dynamics between salamander hosts and their skin microbiomes affect the present-day distribution of the pathogen, along with habitat-linked exposure risk. Five Bd-inhibitory bacterial strains showed unusual generalism: occurring in most host species and habitats. These generalist strains may enhance the likelihood of probiotic manipulations colonising and persisting on hosts. Our results underscore the substantial influence of host-microbiome eco-evolutionary dynamics on environmental health and disease outcomes
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning: Inter-national Perspectives
Get PDFThis is a composite article which brings together the international perspectives of the editorial board of the Journal of Ad-venture Education and Outdoor Learning to explore the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on the field of adventure education and outdoor learning (AE/OL). Building on the AE/OL profession’s response to the impacts of COVID-19 on outdoor and environmental education in 2020, this article includes authors from 10 countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Ja-pan, Kenya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Wales. The statements discuss the impacts and opportunities of AI for the AE/OL professions, researchers, the nature of being in and with the outdoors, and Indigenous knowledges. The intention of this article is not to present a definitive summary of the state of the profession, but to provide examples of the ways in which diverse people are responding to the challenges and opportunities of AI. By sharing these views, and identifying some commonalities, we hope that AE/OL educators, practitioners, researchers and managers can creatively and cautiously seize the opportunities of this technological revolution
Cardiac cycle oscillatory dynamics in a self-paced precision task
Get PDFPurpose. A gradual and transient lengthening of the cardiac cycle (cardiac deceleration) is typically observed in the few seconds leading to self-paced precision actions and is reported as a feature of expertise. This study aimed to explore the time-frequency dynamics of this phenomenon.Method. Sixteen young adults of varying expertise (novices to experts) performed 60 golf putts at a 4-m distant target on a flat surface while their performance and electrocardiogram were recorded. We measured the intervals between consecutive R waves to examine variations in cardiac cycle length. We then applied continuous Morse wavelet transform to extract time-frequency normalized power and phase, respectively indicating the relative magnitude and the position of cardiac cycle oscillations. We used cluster-based permutation statistics to evaluate the linear correlation between cardiac cycle metrics and variable error of performance outcome as a reverse index of task precision.Results. Greater precision was associated with cardiac cycle lengthening (cardiac deceleration) not only in the final 5 s before movement but also around 10 s before movement and even with cardiac cycle shortening (cardiac acceleration) around 5 and 15 s before movement. Time-frequency analyses revealed that greater precision was associated with (a) lower normalized power for frequency content above 0.2 Hz and below 0.08 Hz, (b) greater cross-trial consistency of both normalized power and phase, and (c) a specific oscillatory phase consistent with a 0.15-Hz cardiac cycle lengthening beginning around 2.5 s before movement.Conclusion. This study provides evidence that the cardiac deceleration expertise effect may be part of a broader peripheral-nervous-system phenomenon consisting of 0.08-0.2 Hz oscillations, positioned in time so that the heart rate decelerates just before and during movement.<br/
Toward Inclusive Fieldwork and Communities of Practice in Physical Geography and Environmental Science: experiences from the CULTIVATE team in the UK.
Get PDFCULTIVATE was a UK-based research project, with the aim of ‘growing an inclusive teaching environment’. Field-based teaching has been viewed as neither inclusive nor accessible to all participants (e.g. people with disabilities or neurodiversity) and educators and institutions (higher education providers) acknowledged this. CULTIVATE engaged with academics and stakeholders via focus groups, and a workshop to explore the issues surrounding barriers to field-based teaching to address diversity, equality, inclusivity and justice (JEDI). Our Community of Practice co-developed a 10-point guide for educators to help them consider the issues and introduce actionable solutions into their everyday teaching practice. To bring about systematic change, we need co-creation and co-operation driven by grassroot actions (students and academics) and top-down (institutional and regulatory) initiatives to support and enable change, such as through the introduction of Charters awarded for Race and Equality, and via guidelines introduced from academic standards oversight bodies and learned societies