Large-scale ecological restoration of high-diversity tropical forests in SE Brazil

The complex interactions among endangered ecosystems, landowners` interests, and different models of land tenure and use, constitute an important series of challenges for those seeking to maintain and restore biodiversity and augment the flow of ecosystem services. Over the past 10 years, we have developed a data-based approach to address these challenges and to achieve medium and large-scale ecological restoration of riparian areas on private lands in the state of Sao Paulo, southeastern Brazil. Given varying motivations for ecological restoration, the location of riparian areas within landholdings, environmental zoning of different riparian areas, and best-practice restoration methods were developed for each situation. A total of 32 ongoing projects, covering 527,982 ha, were evaluated in large sugarcane farms and small mixed farms, and six different restoration techniques have been developed to help upscale the effort. Small mixed farms had higher portions of land requiring protection as riparian areas (13.3%), and lower forest cover of riparian areas (18.3%), than large sugarcane farms (10.0% and 36.9%, respectively for riparian areas and forest cover values). In both types of farms, forest fragments required some degree of restoration. Historical anthropogenic degradation has compromised forest ecosystem structure and functioning, despite their high-diversity of native tree and shrub species. Notably, land use patterns in riparian areas differed markedly. Large sugarcane farms had higher portions of riparian areas occupied by highly mechanized agriculture, abandoned fields, and anthropogenic wet fields created by siltation in water courses. In contrast, in small mixed crop farms, low or non-mechanized agriculture and pasturelands were predominant. Despite these differences, plantations of native tree species covering the entire area was by far the main restoration method needed both by large sugarcane farms (76.0%) and small mixed farms (92.4%), in view of the low resilience of target sites, reduced forest cover, and high fragmentation, all of which limit the potential for autogenic restoration. We propose that plantations should be carried out with a high-diversity of native species in order to create biologically viable restored forests, and to assist long-term biodiversity persistence at the landscape scale. Finally, we propose strategies to integrate the political, socio-economic and methodological aspects needed to upscale restoration efforts in tropical forest regions throughout Latin America and elsewhere. (C) 2010 Elsevier BA/. All rights reserved.

IDENTIFICATION OF THE STATE OF A WET SPOUTED BED THROUGH TIME-FREQUENCY ANALYSIS OF PRESSURE FLUCTUATION TIME SERIES

The feasibility of detecting instability in wet spouted beds via pressure fluctuation (PF) time-series analyses was investigated. Experiments were carried out in a cylindrical Plexiglas column of diameter 150 mm with a conical base of internal angle 60 degrees, an inlet orifice diameter of 25 mm and glass beads of diameter 2.4 mm. Transducers at several axial positions measured PF time series with incremental addition of aqueous sucrose solutions of different concentrations. Liquid addition affected the spouted bed dynamics, causing irregular spouting, increased voidage in the annulus, increased fountain height, irregular annulus height, channelling, agglomeration, and adhesion of particles to the column walls. Autocorrelations indicated the appearance of periodicities in the PF signals with increasing sucrose addition. Dominant peaks in power-spectral density developed at low frequencies with changing system dynamics. The results indicate that PF signals furnish relevant information on system dynamics, useful for monitoring and control of spouted bed operations such as particle coating and drying of paste-like materials.

Synthesis, antichagasic in vitro evaluation, cytotoxicity assays, molecular modeling and SAR/QSAR studies of a 2-phenyl-3-(1-phenyl-1H-pyrazol-4-yl)-acrylic acid benzylidene-carbohydrazide series

Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis) is one of the most important parasitic diseases with serious social and economic impacts mainly on Latin America. This work reports the synthesis, in vitro trypanocidal evaluation, cytotoxicity assays, and molecular modeling and SAR/QSAR studies of a new series of N-phenylpyrazole benzylidene-carbohydrazides. The results pointed 6k (X = H, Y = p-NO(2), pIC(50) = 4.55 M) and 6l (X = F, Y = p-CN, pIC(50) = 4.27 M) as the most potent derivatives compared to crystal violet (pIC(50) = 3.77 M). The halogen-benzylidene-carbohydrazide presented the lowest potency whereas 6l showed the most promising pro. le with low toxicity (0% of cell death). The best equation from the 4D-QSAR analysis (Model 1) was able to explain 85% of the activity variability. The QSAR graphical representation revealed that bulky X-substituents decreased the potency whereas hydrophobic and hydrogen bond acceptor Y-substituents increased it. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Research, knowledge and design

The discussion about relations between research and design has a number of strands, and presumably motivations. Putting aside the question whether or not design or “creative endeavour” should be counted as research, for reasons to do with institutional recognition or reward, the question remains how, if at all, is design research? This question is unlikely to have attracted much interest but for matters external to Architecture within the modern university. But Architecture as a discipline now needs to understand research much better than in the past when ‘research’ was whatever went on in building science, history or people/environment studies. In this paper, I begin with some common assumptions about design, considered in relation to research, and suggest how the former can constitute or be a mode of the latter. Central to this consideration is an understanding of research as the production of publicly available knowledge. The method is that of conceptual analysis which is much more fruitful than is usually appreciated. This work is part of a larger project in philosophy of design, in roughly the analytical tradition.

Useful representations of series solutions for transport problems

Simple techniques are presented for rearrangement of an infinite series in a systematic way such that the convergence of the resulting expression is accelerated. These procedures also allow calculation of required boundary derivatives. Several examples of conduction and diffusion-reaction problems illustrate the methods.

Special issue on advances in data mining and its applications

Data mining is the process to identify valid, implicit, previously unknown, potentially useful and understandable information from large databases. It is an important step in the process of knowledge discovery in databases, (Olaru & Wehenkel, 1999). In a data mining process, input data can be structured, seme-structured, or unstructured. Data can be in text, categorical or numerical values. One of the important characteristics of data mining is its ability to deal data with large volume, distributed, time variant, noisy, and high dimensionality. A large number of data mining algorithms have been developed for different applications. For example, association rules mining can be useful for market basket problems, clustering algorithms can be used to discover trends in unsupervised learning problems, classification algorithms can be applied in decision-making problems, and sequential and time series mining algorithms can be used in predicting events, fault detection, and other supervised learning problems (Vapnik, 1999). Classification is among the most important tasks in the data mining, particularly for data mining applications into engineering fields. Together with regression, classification is mainly for predictive modelling. So far, there have been a number of classification algorithms in practice. According to (Sebastiani, 2002), the main classification algorithms can be categorized as: decision tree and rule based approach such as C4.5 (Quinlan, 1996); probability methods such as Bayesian classifier (Lewis, 1998); on-line methods such as Winnow (Littlestone, 1988) and CVFDT (Hulten 2001), neural networks methods (Rumelhart, Hinton & Wiliams, 1986); example-based methods such as k-nearest neighbors (Duda & Hart, 1973), and SVM (Cortes & Vapnik, 1995). Other important techniques for classification tasks include Associative Classification (Liu et al, 1998) and Ensemble Classification (Tumer, 1996).

Public policy in knowledge-based economies: Foundations and frameworks

Knowledge is a product of human social systems and, therefore, the foundations of the knowledge-based economy are social and cultural. Communication is central to knowledge creation and diffusion, and Public Policy in Knowledge-Based Economies highlights specific social and cultural conditions that can enhance the communication, use and creation of knowledge in a society.The purpose of this book is to illustrate how these social and cultural conditions are identified and analysed through new conceptual frameworks. Such frameworks are necessary to penetrate the surface features of knowledge-based economies - science and technology - and disclose what drives such economies.This book will provide policymakers, analysts and academics with the fundamental tools needed for the development of policy in this little understood and emerging area.

Knowledge and willingness to pay for the conservation of wildlife species: Experimental results evaluating Australian tropical species

The nature of an experiment involving 204 residents is outlined and the results are reported and analysed. Two consecutive surveys of the respondents provide data about their stated knowledge of 23 wildlife species present in tropical Australia, most of which exclusively occur there. In addition, these surveys provide data about the willingness of respondents to pay for the conservation of those species belonging to three taxa; reptiles, mammals, and birds. Thus it is possible to compare the respondents’ stated knowledge of the species with their willingness to pay for their conservation, and to draw relevant inferences from this. From the initial survey and these associations, interesting relationships can be observed between those variables (knowledge and willingness to pay). The second survey was completed after the respondents’ knowledge of the species was experimentally increased and became more balanced. This is shown to result in increased dispersion (greater discrimination) in willingness to contribute to conservation of the different species in the set of wildlife species considered. Both theoretical and policy conclusions are drawn from the results.

Knowledge of birds and willingness to pay for their conservation: An Australian case study

This case study concentrates on the extent of knowledge of members of the Australian public of Australia’s tropical bird species and their willingness to pay for their conservation. In order to place this issue in context, it first provides background information on the status of Australian bird species, focusing attention on species that occur in tropical Australia. Then, using survey results, this study considers the hypothesis that the public’s relative support for the conservation of different bird species depends on its comparative knowledge of their existence and status. Based on experimental results from a sample of residents of Brisbane, Queensland (Australia), it is found that their knowledge of bird species that occur exclusively in the Australian tropics (including tropical Queensland) is very poor compared to those that also occur in the Brisbane area and are relatively common. Experimental results indicate that when respondents in the sample had an option to allocate $1,000 between ten bird species listed in the survey, it resulted in a greater allocation of funds to the better known and more common species than when they were provided with balanced information about all the selected species. With balanced information the average allocation to bird species confined mostly to the Australian tropics, particularly those threatened or endangered, increased. The general consequences of this for policies for the conservation of birds are discussed.

Western Australian primary school teachers knowledge about childhood asthma and its management

A total of 164 primary school teachers from Perth, Western Australia anonymously completed a survey of their knowledge and attitudes about asthma. These teachers were active in assisting children with asthma management but most (91.5%) felt that they did not know enough about asthma. Attitudes toward children with asthma were positive; 97% agreed that such children should be encouraged to participate in sporting activities. Specific knowledge about asthma management and medications was, however, poor. This large sample of Western Australian teachers knew more than their European counterparts but asthma training is needed and should be targeted at improving knowledge of both regular and emergency treatments for asthma.

Free volume and water uptake in a copolymer hydrogel series

A copolymer of X-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) with 2-ethoxy ethyl methacrylate (EEMA) was synthesized and the molecular mobility, free volume, and density properties examined as a function of composition. These properties were correlated with the equilibrium water uptake in order to determine which of the properties were most influential in causing high water sorption, as these materials are suitable candidates for hydrogel systems. It was found that the polar HEMA repeat unit results in a rigid, glassy sample at room temperature due to the high degree of hydrogen bonding between chains whereas high EEMA content leads to rubbery samples with subambient glass transition temperatures. The free volume properties on the molecular scale measured by positron annihilation Lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) showed that higher HEMA content led to smaller, fewer holes and a lower free volume fraction than EEMA. Therefore the high water uptake of HEEMA-containing copolymers is largely related to the high polarity of the HEMA unit compared to EEMA, despite the low content of free volume into which the water can initially diffuse. Trends in density with copolymer composition, as measured on a macroscopic level, differs to that seen by PALS and indicates that the two techniques are measuring different scales of packing. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The structure of quantum Lie algebras for the classical series, B-l, C-l and D-l

The structure constants of quantum Lie algebras depend on a quantum deformation parameter q and they reduce to the classical structure constants of a Lie algebra at q = 1. We explain the relationship between the structure constants of quantum Lie algebras and quantum Clebsch-Gordan coefficients for adjoint x adjoint --> adjoint We present a practical method for the determination of these quantum Clebsch-Gordan coefficients and are thus able to give explicit expressions for the structure constants of the quantum Lie algebras associated to the classical Lie algebras B-l, C-l and D-l. In the quantum case the structure constants of the Cartan subalgebra are non-zero and we observe that they are determined in terms of the simple quantum roots. We introduce an invariant Killing form on the quantum Lie algebras and find that it takes values which are simple q-deformations of the classical ones.

Young children, adolescents and alcohol - Part I: Exploring knowledge and awareness of alcohol and related issues

This article explores young children's and adolescents' views pertaining to: knowledge and awareness of alcohol and alcohol related issues; social situations in which. alcohol use is present; orientation to alcohol risk; perceived and actual alcohol use; social image and reputation; and short and long term health beliefs in relation to alcohol. Forty focus groups were conducted with 240 primary school students (118 males and 122 females) and 24 focus groups were conducted with 192 high school students (90 males and 102 females); the total being 64 focus groups comprising 432 school students. Participants ages ranged from five years three months to 16 years 10 months. The videotaped discussions revealed that approximately 75% of the primary school-aged children and almost all of the high school students reported that they had tasted alcohol. Parents were primarily responsible for providing the alcohol. Virtually all participants recognised and were able to correctly name a selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, and levels of knowledge and awareness of the health and safety aspects of alcohol were relatively mixed. Presentation of bottles and cans was reported as being important in attracting young persons. These data suggest there is an urgent need for research addressed to the development of prevention/intervention education curriculum materials for use with primary school-aged children.