970 resultados para Gillanders, Dave
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Climate change projections are usually presented as 'snapshots' of change at a particular time in the future. Instead, we consider the key question 'when will specific temperature thresholds will be exceeded?'. Framing the question as "when might something happen (either permanently or temporarily)?" rather than "what might happen?" demonstrates that lowering future emissions will delay the crossing of temperature thresholds and buy valuable time for planning adaptation. For example, in higher greenhouse gas emission scenarios, a global average 2°C warming threshold is likely to be crossed by 2060, whereas in a lower emissions scenario, the crossing of this threshold is delayed up to several decades. On regional scales, however, the 2°C threshold will probably be exceeded over large parts of Eurasia, North Africa and Canada by 2040 if emissions continue to increase- well within the lifetime of many people living now.
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In this article Geoff Tennant and Dave Harries report on the early stages of a research project looking to examine the transition from Key Stage (KS) 2 to 3 of children deemed Gifted and Talented (G&T) in mathematics. An examination of relevant literature points towards variation in definition of key terms and underlying rationale for activities. Preliminary fieldwork points towards a lack of meaningful communication between schools, with primary school teachers in particular left to themselves to decide how to work with children deemed G&T. Some pointers for action are given, along with ideas for future research and a request for colleagues interested in working with us to get in touch.
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Russell, J. [Ed., designer & authored chapter]. Including texts by Georges Bataille, Art & Language, Fabienne Audéoud, Dave Beech, Paul Buck, David Burrows, Ccru, Jake Chapman, John Cussans, johnny golding, Inventory, Martin Mcgeown, Lucy Mckenzie, Esther Planas, Graham Ramsay, John Russell, Clara Ursitti and Andrew Williamson. 800 pages.
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Executive summary Nature of the problem • Environmental problems related to nitrogen concern all economic sectors and impact all media: atmosphere, pedosphere, hydrosphere and anthroposphere. • Therefore, the integration of fluxes allows an overall coverage of problems related to reactive nitrogen (Nr) in the environment, which is not accessible from sectoral approaches or by focusing on specific media. Approaches • This chapter presents a set of high resolution maps showing key elements of the N flux budget across Europe, including N2 and Nr fluxes. • Comparative nitrogen budgets are also presented for a range of European countries, highlighting the most efficient strategies for mitigating Nr problems at a national scale. A new European Nitrogen Budget (EU-27) is presented on the basis of state-of-the-art Europe-wide models and databases focusing on different segments of Europe’s society. Key findings • From c. 18 Tg Nr yr −1 input to agriculture in the EU-27, only about 7 Tg Nr yr− 1 find their way to the consumer or are further processed by industry. • Some 3.7 Tg Nr yr−1 is released by the burning of fossil fuels in the EU-27, whereby the contribution of the industry and energy sectors is equal to that of the transport sector. More than 8 Tg Nr yr−1 are disposed of to the hydrosphere, while the EU-27 is a net exporter of reactive nitrogen through atmospheric transport of c. 2.3 Tg Nr yr−1. • The largest single sink for Nr appears to be denitrifi cation to N2 in European coastal shelf regions (potentially as large as the input of mineral fertilizer, about 11 Tg N yr–1 for the EU-27); however, this sink is also the most uncertain, because of the uncertainty of Nr import from the open ocean. Major uncertainties • National nitrogen budgets are diffi cult to compile using a large range of data sources and are currently available only for a limited number of countries. • Modelling approaches have been used to fill in the data gaps in some of these budgets, but it became obvious during this study that further research is needed in order to collect necessary data and make national nitrogen budgets inter-comparable across Europe. • In some countries, due to inconsistent or contradictory information coming from different data sources, closure of the nitrogen budget was not possible. Recommendations • The large variety of problems associated with the excess of Nr in the European environment,including adverse impacts, requires an integrated nitrogen management approach that would allow for creation and closure of N budgets within European environments. • Development of nitrogen budgets nationwide, their assessment and management could become an effective tool to prioritize measures and prevent unwanted side effects.
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This article investigates the relation between stimulus-evoked neural activity and cerebral hemodynamics. Specifically, the hypothesis is tested that hemodynamic responses can be modeled as a linear convolution of experimentally obtained measures of neural activity with a suitable hemodynamic impulse response function. To obtain a range of neural and hemodynamic responses, rat whisker pad was stimulated using brief (less than or equal to2 seconds) electrical stimuli consisting of single pulses (0.3 millisecond, 1.2 mA) combined both at different frequencies and in a paired-pulse design. Hemodynamic responses were measured using concurrent optical imaging spectroscopy and laser Doppler flowmetry, whereas neural responses were assessed through current source density analysis of multielectrode recordings from a single barrel. General linear modeling was used to deconvolve the hemodynamic impulse response to a single "neural event" from the hemodynamic and neural responses to stimulation. The model provided an excellent fit to the empirical data. The implications of these results for modeling schemes and for physiologic systems coupling neural and hemodynamic activity are discussed.
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Calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) are the most abundant group II elements in both plants and animals. Genetic variation in shoot Ca and shoot Mg concentration (shoot Ca and Mg) in plants can be exploited to biofortify food crops and thereby increase dietary Ca and Mg intake for humans and livestock. We present a comprehensive analysis of within-species genetic variation for shoot Ca and Mg, demonstrating that shoot mineral concentration differs significantly between subtaxa (varietas). We established a structured diversity foundation set of 376 accessions to capture a high proportion of species-wide allelic diversity within domesticated Brassica oleracea, including representation of wild relatives (C genome, 1n = 9) from natural populations. These accessions and 74 modern F-1 hybrid cultivars were grown in glasshouse and field environments. Shoot Ca and Mg varied 2- and 2.3-fold, respectively, and was typically not inversely correlated with shoot biomass, within most subtaxa. The closely related capitata (cabbage) and sabauda (Savoy cabbage) subtaxa consistently had the highest mean shoot Ca and Mg. Shoot Ca and Mg in glasshouse-grown plants was highly correlated with data from the field. To understand and dissect the genetic basis of variation in shoot Ca and Mg, we studied homozygous lines from a segregating B. oleracea mapping population. Shoot Ca and Mg was highly heritable (up to 40). Quantitative trait loci (QTL) for shoot Ca and Mg were detected on chromosomes C2, C6, C7, C8, and, in particular, C9, where QTL accounted for 14 to 55 of the total genetic variance. The presence of QTL on C9 was substantiated by scoring recurrent backcross substitution lines, derived from the same parents. This also greatly increased the map resolution, with strong evidence that a 4-cM region on C9 influences shoot Ca. This region corresponds to a 0.41-Mb region on Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) chromosome 5 that includes 106 genes. There is also evidence that pleiotropic loci on C8 and C9 affect shoot Ca and Mg. Map-based cloning of these loci will reveal how shoot-level phenotypes relate to Ca 21 and Mg 21 uptake and homeostasis at the molecular level.
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For the upcoming calls for Horizon 2020 research funding, the European Commission has said that it would prefer bids from open, collaborative consortia rather than the competitive bids seen in previous funding programmes. To this end, the organizers of 18 European biodiversity informatics projects agreed at a meeting in Rome…
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Biodiversity informatics plays a central enabling role in the research community's efforts to address scientific conservation and sustainability issues. Great strides have been made in the past decade establishing a framework for sharing data, where taxonomy and systematics has been perceived as the most prominent discipline involved. To some extent this is inevitable, given the use of species names as the pivot around which information is organised. To address the urgent questions around conservation, land-use, environmental change, sustainability, food security and ecosystem services that are facing Governments worldwide, we need to understand how the ecosystem works. So, we need a systems approach to understanding biodiversity that moves significantly beyond taxonomy and species observations. Such an approach needs to look at the whole system to address species interactions, both with their environment and with other species.It is clear that some barriers to progress are sociological, basically persuading people to use the technological solutions that are already available. This is best addressed by developing more effective systems that deliver immediate benefit to the user, hiding the majority of the technology behind simple user interfaces. An infrastructure should be a space in which activities take place and, as such, should be effectively invisible.This community consultation paper positions the role of biodiversity informatics, for the next decade, presenting the actions needed to link the various biodiversity infrastructures invisibly and to facilitate understanding that can support both business and policy-makers. The community considers the goal in biodiversity informatics to be full integration of the biodiversity research community, including citizens' science, through a commonly-shared, sustainable e-infrastructure across all sub-disciplines that reliably serves science and society alike.
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Factor Inhibiting HIF (FIH) is an oxygen-dependent asparaginyl hydroxylase that regulates the hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs). Several proteins containing ankyrin repeat domains have been characterised as substrates of FIH, although there is little evidence for a functional consequence of hydroxylation on these substrates. This study demonstrates that the transient receptor potential vanilloid 3 (TRPV3) channel is hydroxylated by FIH on asparagine 242 within the cytoplasmic ankyrin repeat domain. Hypoxia, FIH inhibitors and mutation of asparagine 242 all potentiated TRPV3-mediated current, without altering TRPV3 protein levels, indicating that oxygen-dependent hydroxylation inhibits TRPV3 activity. This novel mechanism of channel regulation by oxygendependent asparaginyl hydroxylation is likely to extend to other ion channels.
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The size and complexity of data sets generated within ecosystem-level programmes merits their capture, curation, storage and analysis, synthesis and visualisation using Big Data approaches. This review looks at previous attempts to organise and analyse such data through the International Biological Programme and draws on the mistakes made and the lessons learned for effective Big Data approaches to current Research Councils United Kingdom (RCUK) ecosystem-level programmes, using Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Sustainability (BESS) and Environmental Virtual Observatory Pilot (EVOp) as exemplars. The challenges raised by such data are identified, explored and suggestions are made for the two major issues of extending analyses across different spatio-temporal scales and for the effective integration of quantitative and qualitative data.
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An increasing degree of attention is being given to the ecosystem services which insect pollinators supply, and the economic value of these services. Recent research suggests that a range of factors are contributing to a global decline in pollination services, which are often used as a “headline” ecosystem service in terms of communicating the concept of ecosystem services, and how this ties peoples׳ well-being to the condition of ecosystems and the biodiversity found therein. Our paper offers a conceptual framework for measuring the economic value of changes in insect pollinator populations, and then reviews what evidence exists on the empirical magnitude of these values (both market and non-market). This allows us to highlight where the largest gaps in knowledge are, where the greatest conceptual and empirical challenges remain, and where research is most needed.
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The mechanisms resulting in large daily rainfall events in Northeast Brazil are analyzed using data filtering to exclude periods longer than 30 days. Composites of circulation fields that include all independent events do not reveal any obvious forcing mechanisms as multiple patterns contribute to Northeast Brazil precipitation variability. To isolate coherent patterns, subsets of events are selected based on anomalies that precede the Northeast Brazil precipitation events at different locations. The results indicate that at 10 degrees S, 40 degrees W, the area of lowest annual rainfall in Brazil, precipitation occurs mainly in association with trailing midlatitude synoptic wave trains originating in either hemisphere. Closer to the equator at 5 degrees S, 37.5 degrees W, an additional convection precursor is found to the west, with a spatial structure consistent with that of a Kelvin wave. Although these two sites are located within only several hundred kilometers of each other and the midlatitude patterns that induce precipitation appear to be quite similar, the dates on which large precipitation anomalies occur at each location are almost entirely independent, pointing to separate forcing mechanisms.