2,984 research outputs found
Capacity building for Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Final report. Indo- Norwegian pilot project on capacity building in biodiversity informatics for enhanced decision making, improved nature conservation and sustainable development.
No full textHanssen, F. (editor), Mathur, V.B. (editor), Athreya, V., Barve, V., Bhardwaj, R., Boumans, L., Cadman, M., Chavan, V., Ghosh, M., Lindgaard, A., Lofthus, Ø., Mehlum, Pandav, B., Punjabi, G. A., F., González Talaván, A., Talukdar, G., Valland, N. and Vang, R. Capacity building for Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Final report. Indo- Norwegian pilot project on capacity building in biodiversity informatics for enhanced decision making, improved nature conservation and sustainable development. - NINA Report 1079. 116 pp. Dette pilotprosjektet har vært koordinert av Norsk Institutt for Naturforskning (NINA) i nært
samarbeid med Wildlife Insitutute of India (WII), Artsdatabanken, Naturhistorisk Museum ved
Universitetet i Oslo, Wildlife Conservation Society- India Program (WCS) og Centre for Wildlife
Studies (CWF) i India. Prosjektet er finansiert av den Norske Regjering med støtte fra den og
India.
Prosjektet har samarbeidet med Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) og har
implementert flere av deres kapasitetsbyggende verktøy, standarder og tjenester. I tillegg er WII
og Naturhistorisk Museum nasjonale GBIF- noder. Prosjektet er nært knyttet til indiske og
internasjonale strategier for utvikling av biodiversitetsinfrastruktur.
Prosjektet har fokusert på nasjonale brukerbehov, viltkamerametodikk, dataforvaltning, åpen
datadeling og barrierer for åpen datadeling. Seks casestudier har vist hvordan biodiversitetsinformatikk,
bruk av viltkamera, datamobilisering og strategier for deling av data kan bidra til
forbedrede beslutningsprosesser. Dette har ført til en bedre forståelse for bruk av viltkamera,
occupancy-modellering, DNA-analyser, artsutbredelse, rovvilt/samfunn konflikter, effekter av
menneskelig aktivitet på ville dyr, habitatrestaurering, behov knyttet til forvaltning av tigre, samt
etterforskning av ulovlig jakt på tiger.
Prosjektet har gjennomført en mindre datarepatrieringsøvelse ved de norske naturhistoriske museene.
Kapasitetsbyggingskomponenten i dette arbeidet overfor internasjonale museumssamlinger
ligger primært i beskrivelsen av hvordan repatrierte data kan mobiliseres gjennom GBIF.
WII har utviklet en nasjonal database og en webportal for mobilisering av viltkameradata. Dette
utviklingsarbeidet er et viktig skritt i retning av å utvikle et nasjonalt åpent system for forvaltning
av viltkamerabilder og tilhørende metadata. Prosjektet har også utviklet en Best Practice Guide
(BPG) for publisering av biodiversitetsdata avledet fra viltkamerabilder. Denne guiden vil bli vedlikeholdt
av GBIF i fremtiden.
Dette prosjektet har vist høy relevans i forhold til de kapasitetsbyggingsbehov som er identifisert
av IPBES. Som prosjektet viser er det store internasjonale synergier innen kapasitetsbygging
knyttet til biodiversitetsinformatikk, bruk av viltkamera, datamobilisering, datarepatriering, dataforvaltning
og forbedrede strategier for datadeling. I avslutningsfasen av dette pilotprosjektet har
prosjektpartnerne bestemt seg for å se etter nye samarbeidsmuligheter under IPBES
FINANCING COMMUNITY FACILITIES: A CASE STUDY OF THE PARKS AND RECREATIONAL GENERAL OBLIGATION BOND MEASURE OF SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA
No full textThis study of the City of San Jose’s Parks and Recreation General Obligation (GO) Bond Measure seeks to identify the politics-, management-, and planning-related lessons learned by the City as it developed its community facilities using the GO bonds proceeds. The study finds that these lessons include: be conservative in what you promise the residents; be prepared for changes in economic environment by identifying supplementary funding sources should the primary source not yield adequate funds; make sure that the jurisdiction is organizationally capable of handling the increased workload; and prepare detailed project plans prior to the bond issuance.Community Infrastructure and Services; Municipal Bonds; Public Finance
Feasibility study of geospatial mapping of chronic disease risk to inform public health commissioning
No full textThis final article is available for use under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 2.0 Licence; see http://bmjopen.bmj.co
Electron-impact detachment from negative ions
No full textElectron-impact detachment cross sections have been measured from threshold to about 30 eV for D- and O-. The purpose was to investigate the cross section near threshold and to reinvestigate earlier claims of resonances due to short-lived states of the doubly charged negative ion. Initial results for D- showed no resonances [L. H. Andersen, D. Mathur, H. T. Schmidt, and L. Vejby-Christensen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 892 (1995)]. Here we show that there is no detectable resonance structure for O- either. The applied experimental technique is discussed in detail. Classical and semiclassical models for the detachment process are presented and compared with the data
Land cover classification using multi-temporal MERIS vegetation indices
No full textThe spectral, spatial, and temporal resolutions of Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) data are attractive for regional- to global-scale land cover mapping. Moreover, two novel and operational vegetation indices derived from MERIS data have considerable potential as discriminating variables in land cover classification. Here, the potential of these two vegetation indices (the MERIS global vegetation index (MGVI), MERIS terrestrial chlorophyll index (MTCI)) was evaluated for mapping eleven broad land cover classes in Wisconsin. Data acquired in the high and low chlorophyll seasons were used to increase inter-class separability. The two vegetation indices provided a higher degree of inter-class separability than data acquired in many of the individual MERIS spectral wavebands. The most accurate landcover map (73.2%) was derived from a classification of vegetation index-derived data with a support vector machine (SVM), and was more accurate than the corresponding map derived from a classification using the data acquired in the original spectral wavebands
X-Ray Detection of the Galaxy’s Missing Baryons in the Circumgalactic Medium of L* Galaxies
No full textThe number of baryons hosted in the disks of galaxies is lower than expected based on the mass of their dark matter halos and the fraction of baryon-to-total matter in the Universe, giving rise to the so-called galaxy missing-baryon problem. The presence of cool circumgalactic matter gravitationally bound to its galaxy's halo up to distances of at least 10 times the size of the galaxy's disk mitigates the problem but is far from being sufficient for its solution. It has instead been suggested that the galaxy's missing baryons may hide in a much hotter gaseous phase of the circumgalactic medium, possibly near the halo virial temperature and coexisting with the cool phase. Here we exploit the best available X-ray spectra of known cool circumgalactic absorbers of L* galaxies to report the first direct high statistical significance (best estimates ranging from 4.2σ to 5.6σ, depending on fitting methodology) detection of associated O VII absorption in the stacked XMM-Newton and Chandra spectra of three quasars. We show that these absorbers trace the hot medium in the X-ray halo of these systems at logT(in K) ≃ 5.8-6.3 (comprising the halo virial temperature T vir ≃ 106 K). We estimate masses of the X-ray halo within one virial radius within the interval {M}_{\mathrm{hot}-\mathrm{CGM}}\simeq {(1\mbox{--}1.7)\times {10}^{11}(Z/0.3{Z}_{\odot })}^{-1} M ⊙. For these systems, this corresponds to galaxy missing-baryon fractions in the range {\xi }_{b}={M}_{\mathrm{hot}-\mathrm{CGM}}/{M}_{\mathrm{missing}}\simeq {(0.7\mbox{--}1.2)(Z/0.3{Z}_{\odot })}^{-1} , thus potentially closing the galaxy baryon census in typical L* galaxies. Our measurements contribute significantly to the solution of the long-standing galaxy missing-baryon problem and to the understanding of the continuous cycle of baryons in-and-out of galaxies throughout the life of the Universe
X-Ray Detection of the Galaxy’s Missing Baryons in the Circumgalactic Medium of L* Galaxies
No full textThe number of baryons hosted in the disks of galaxies is lower than expected based on the mass of their dark matter halos and the fraction of baryon-to-total matter in the Universe, giving rise to the so-called galaxy missing-baryon problem. The presence of cool circumgalactic matter gravitationally bound to its galaxy’s halo up to distances of at least 10 times the size of the galaxy’s disk mitigates the problem but is far from being sufficient for its solution. It has instead been suggested that the galaxy’s missing baryons may hide in a much hotter gaseous phase of the circumgalactic medium, possibly near the halo virial temperature and coexisting with the cool phase. Here we exploit the best available X-ray spectra of known cool circumgalactic absorbers of L * galaxies to report the first direct high statistical significance (best estimates ranging from 4.2 σ to 5.6 σ , depending on fitting methodology) detection of associated O vii absorption in the stacked XMM-Newton and Chandra spectra of three quasars. We show that these absorbers trace the hot medium in the X-ray halo of these systems at log T (in K) ≃ 5.8–6.3 (comprising the halo virial temperature T _vir ≃ 10 ^6 K). We estimate masses of the X-ray halo within one virial radius within the interval {M}_{\mathrm{hot}-\mathrm{CGM}}\simeq {(1\mbox{--}1.7)\times {10}^{11}(Z/0.3{Z}_{\odot })}^{-1} M _⊙ . For these systems, this corresponds to galaxy missing-baryon fractions in the range {\xi }_{b}={M}_{\mathrm{hot}-\mathrm{CGM}}/{M}_{\mathrm{missing}}\simeq {(0.7\mbox{--}1.2)(Z/0.3{Z}_{\odot })}^{-1} , thus potentially closing the galaxy baryon census in typical L * galaxies. Our measurements contribute significantly to the solution of the long-standing galaxy missing-baryon problem and to the understanding of the continuous cycle of baryons in-and-out of galaxies throughout the life of the Universe
A genetic analysis of the introgression process from cultivated lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) to wild prickly lettuce (L. serriola L.)
No full text Many plant species can hybridise and produce fertile offspring. Hybridization between cultivated species and their wild relatives has raised concerns with regard to GM crops, as it constitutes a possible route along which the transgene could disperse from crops into related wild species, establish itself in the natural population, and persist under natural conditions. This may cause unintended ecological consequences such as the formation of more invasive weeds and genetic erosion. After crop-wild hybridization, the persistence of the hybrids and of the crop genes (including the transgenes) in later generations depends on their genetic make-up, which consists of specific combinations of wild and crop genomic segments, and on the environmental conditions. Therefore, knowledge on the dynamics of crop-wild hybridization and introgression using conventional crop varieties is needed as it constitutes the baseline for putting into perspective the effects of transgene introgression under natural conditions. This study focused on understanding the genetic process of hybridization and introgression from cultivated to wild relative species using cultivated lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) and its closest wild relative, prickly lettuce (L. serriola L.) as a crop-wild complex model. Natural populations of prickly lettuce in Europe were tested for the occurrence of crop-wild hybrids using Bayesian-based programmes (Structure, InStruct and NewHybrids) which returned a crop-wild hybrid occurrence of 7%. However, the geographical location of the hybrids led to the conclusion that crop-wild hybridization is not the cause of the recent northward spread of L. serriola in Europe. To test for the importance of the crop genomic segments to the performance of lettuce crop-wild hybrids, three hybrid generations were created (F2 as a selfing generation, and BC1 and BC2, backcrossed to the wild genotype to mimick the introgression process) by crossing L. sativa (cv. Dynamite) with L. serriola collected from Eys (the Netherlands). The three populations were genotyped with Single Nucleotide Polymorphism markers for genetic analysis. Because of the importance of the abiotic stresses as selection factors under natural conditions and the prospective of generating GM crop varieties with enhanced abiotic stress tolerance, the three populations were evaluated for vigour at the rosette stage under greenhouse conditions of non-stress, drought, salinity and nutrient deficiency. The BC1 population was also evaluated under field conditions at two locations (Wageningen and Sijbekarspel, the Netherlands) for hybrid germination, vigour, survival and reproduction. Based on the location and allelic effect of the QTLs for germination, vigour, survival and reproductive traits in the current lettuce crop-wild cross, genomic regions were suggested where transgenes could be or could not be located in order to mitigate their persistence in crop-wild hybrids through genetic hitchhiking and background selection. </p
Parent population of flat-spectrum radio-loud narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies
No full textFlat-spectrum radio-loud narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) are a recently discovered class of gamma-ray emitting active galactic nuclei (AGN), that exhibit some blazar-like properties which are explained with the presence of a relativistic jet viewed at small angles. When blazars are observed at larger angles they appear as radio-galaxies, and we expect to observe an analogue parent population for beamed NLS1s. However, the number of known NLS1s with the jet viewed at large angles is not enough. Therefore, we tried to understand the origin of this deficit. Current hypotheses about the nature of parent sources are steep-spectrum radio-loud NLS1s, radio-quiet NLS1s and disk-hosted radio-galaxies. To test these hypotheses we built three samples of candidate sources plus a control sample, and calculated their black hole mass and Eddington ratio using their optical spectra. We then performed a Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical test to investigate the compatibility of our different samples with a beamed population. Our results indicate that, when the inclination angle increases, a beamed source appears as a steep-spectrum radio-loud NLS1, or possibly even as a disk-hosted radio-galaxy with low black hole mass and high Eddington ratio. Further investigations, involving larger complete samples and observations at radio frequency, are needed to understand the incidence of disk-hosted radio-galaxies in the parent population, and to assess whether radio-quiet NLS1s can play a role, as well
The Folio: F. C. C. Magazine
No full textGhei, R. L.-Editorial. pp. 1-2; Ball, P. N.-Essay-Shakespeare's Theatre. pp. 2-9; Romesh-Play-Murdress. pp. 9-13; Rajendra Behari Mathur-Essay-The Laboratory Method in Religion. pp. 14-16; Ghei, R. L.-Up and Down. pp. 16; Essay-virtuous Indignation. pp. 17-18; The Co-Ed's Corner. pp. 19; Our Results. pp. 19; Siraj-ud-Din-The Records of the Lalls. pp. 20-21; Shashpal Singh-Originality. pp. 21-22; Har Narain-Essay-Rural Crisis. pp. 23-24; Wadhwaney Shyam-Fight Against Mr. Theta. pp. 24-25; Story-Wrongs, Injuries, Outrages. pp. 25-27; Aggarwal, M. G.-Essay-English Language and India. pp. 27; W. P. B.. pp. 28-29; Gargoyles. pp. 30-31; Sant Ram Bhatia-Encouraging a Personal Reading. pp. 31-33; A Word Before we Part. pp. 33-34; [Hindi]. 17 p.; Punjabi Phulvari [Punjabi]. 8 p.; The Folio [Urdu]. 23 p
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