JERICO Next. Rules and procedures for TNA. D8.9

The JERICO-NEXT Trans National Access (TNA) activity is built on the successful experience of the previous FP7 JERICO project, G.A. 262584 (Sparnocchia et al., 2014, 2016). However, it will involve a greater number of observatories distributed, as before, in coastal and shelf seas all around Europe, including some dedicated to biological observation (see D7.1 for a detailed description). A limited number of supporting facilities (calibration and research laboratories) and one item of special equipment are also included in the TNA service catalogue. This document relates to WP8 - Outreach, communication and engagement, and in particular to Task 8.8: Implementing Transnational Access to coastal observatories. It describes the procedures adopted for providing TNA during the three planned Calls for proposals, one per year from May 2016 until 2018. These procedures are a review and update of those already used by JERICO. Updates of this report prior to the next Call are possible and will depend on new needs that may emerge while conducting the first Call.

CHRONOMETRY OF LATE ENEOLITHIC AND ‘EARLY BRONZE’ CULTURES IN THE MIDDLE DNIESTER AREA: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE YAMPIL BARROW COMPLEX

The paper discusses the 2010-2015 studies of the radiocarbon chronology of Podolia ‘barrow cultures’ on the left bank of the middle dniester . The studies have relied on series of 14 C dates for the Klembivka 1, Pidlisivka 1, Porohy 3a and Prydnistryanske 1 sites determined in Kyiv and Poznań laboratories . They are the first attempt to construct a regional (‘Yampil’) radiocarbon scale for ‘Early Bronze’ funerary rites (4th/3rd-2nd millennium BC) as practised by barrow builders – the communities of the Tripolye and Yamnaya cultures – and the secondary barrow users – the designers of necropolises located on barrows – belonging to the Catacomb, Babyno and Noua cultures.

Aquisição e construção de modelos estáticos análogos a reservatórios petrolíferos com tecnologia lidar e georadar

The present work develops a methodology to establish a 3D digital static models petroleum reservoir analogue using LIDAR and GEORADAR technologies. Therefore, this work introduce The methodolgy as a new paradigm in the outcrop study, to purpose a consistent way to integrate plani-altimetric data, geophysics data, and remote sensing products, allowing 2D interpretation validation in contrast with 3D, complexes depositional geometry visualization, including in environmental immersive virtual reality. For that reason, it exposes the relevant questions of the theory of two technologies, and developed a case study using TerraSIRch SIR System-3000 made for Geophysical Survey Systems, and HDS3000 Leica Geosystems, using the two technologies, integrating them GOCAD software. The studied outcrop is plain to the view, and it s located at southeast Bacia do Parnaíba, in the Parque Nacional da Serra das Confusões. The methodology embraces every steps of the building process shows a 3D digital static models petroleum reservoir analogue, provide depositional geometry data, in several scales for Simulation petroleum reservoir

FLOOD RISK ASSESSMENT UNDER HISTORICAL AND PREDICTED LAND USE CHANGE USING CONTINUOUS HYDROLOGIC MODELING

Current procedures for flood risk estimation assume flood distributions are stationary over time, meaning annual maximum flood (AMF) series are not affected by climatic variation, land use/land cover (LULC) change, or management practices. Thus, changes in LULC and climate are generally not accounted for in policy and design related to flood risk/control, and historical flood events are deemed representative of future flood risk. These assumptions need to be re-evaluated, however, as climate change and anthropogenic activities have been observed to have large impacts on flood risk in many areas. In particular, understanding the effects of LULC change is essential to the study and understanding of global environmental change and the consequent hydrologic responses. The research presented herein provides possible causation for observed nonstationarity in AMF series with respect to changes in LULC, as well as a means to assess the degree to which future LULC change will impact flood risk. Four watersheds in the Midwest, Northeastern, and Central United States were studied to determine flood risk associated with historical and future projected LULC change. Historical single framed aerial images dating back to the mid-1950s were used along with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing models (SPRING and ERDAS) to create historical land use maps. The Forecasting Scenarios of Future Land Use Change (FORE-SCE) model was applied to generate future LULC maps annually from 2006 to 2100 for the conterminous U.S. based on the four IPCC-SRES future emission scenario conditions. These land use maps were input into previously calibrated Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) models for two case study watersheds. In order to isolate effects of LULC change, the only variable parameter was the Runoff Curve Number associated with the land use layer. All simulations were run with daily climate data from 1978-1999, consistent with the 'base' model which employed the 1992 NLCD to represent 'current' conditions. Output daily maximum flows were converted to instantaneous AMF series and were subsequently modeled using a Log-Pearson Type 3 (LP3) distribution to evaluate flood risk. Analysis of the progression of LULC change over the historic period and associated SWAT outputs revealed that AMF magnitudes tend to increase over time in response to increasing degrees of urbanization. This is consistent with positive trends in the AMF series identified in previous studies, although there are difficulties identifying correlations between LULC change and identified change points due to large time gaps in the generated historical LULC maps, mainly caused by unavailability of sufficient quality historic aerial imagery. Similarly, increases in the mean and median AMF magnitude were observed in response to future LULC change projections, with the tails of the distributions remaining reasonably constant. FORE-SCE scenario A2 was found to have the most dramatic impact on AMF series, consistent with more extreme projections of population growth, demands for growing energy sources, agricultural land, and urban expansion, while AMF outputs based on scenario B2 showed little changes for the future as the focus is on environmental conservation and regional solutions to environmental issues.

Monitoring and modelling the morphodynamic evolution of a breached barrier beach system

Predicting the evolution of a coastal cell requires the identification of the key drivers of morphology. Soft coastlines are naturally dynamic but severe storm events and even human intervention can accelerate any changes that are occurring. However, when erosive events such as barrier breaching occur with no obvious contributory factors, a deeper understanding of the underlying coastal processes is required. Ideally conclusions on morphological drivers should be drawn from field data collection and remote sensing over a long period of time. Unfortunately, when the Rossbeigh barrier beach in Dingle Bay, County Kerry, began to erode rapidly in the early 2000’s, eventually leading to it breaching in 2008, no such baseline data existed. This thesis presents a study of the morphodynamic evolution of the Inner Dingle Bay coastal system. The study combines existing coastal zone analysis approaches with experimental field data collection techniques and a novel approach to long term morphodynamic modelling to predict the evolution of the barrier beach inlet system. A conceptual model describing the long term evolution of Inner Dingle Bay in 5 stages post breaching was developed. The dominant coastal processes driving the evolution of the coastal system were identified and quantified. A new methodology of long term process based numerical modelling approach to coastal evolution was developed. This method was used to predict over 20 years of coastal evolution in Inner Dingle Bay. On a broader context this thesis utilised several experimental coastal zone data collection and analysis methods such as ocean radar and grain size trend analysis. These were applied during the study and their suitability to a dynamic coastal system was assessed.

Efficient and precise interactive hand tracking through joint, continuous optimization of pose and correspondences

Fully articulated hand tracking promises to enable fundamentally new interactions with virtual and augmented worlds, but the limited accuracy and efficiency of current systems has prevented widespread adoption. Today's dominant paradigm uses machine learning for initialization and recovery followed by iterative model-fitting optimization to achieve a detailed pose fit. We follow this paradigm, but make several changes to the model-fitting, namely using: (1) a more discriminative objective function; (2) a smooth-surface model that provides gradients for non-linear optimization; and (3) joint optimization over both the model pose and the correspondences between observed data points and the model surface. While each of these changes may actually increase the cost per fitting iteration, we find a compensating decrease in the number of iterations. Further, the wide basin of convergence means that fewer starting points are needed for successful model fitting. Our system runs in real-time on CPU only, which frees up the commonly over-burdened GPU for experience designers. The hand tracker is efficient enough to run on low-power devices such as tablets. We can track up to several meters from the camera to provide a large working volume for interaction, even using the noisy data from current-generation depth cameras. Quantitative assessments on standard datasets show that the new approach exceeds the state of the art in accuracy. Qualitative results take the form of live recordings of a range of interactive experiences enabled by this new approach.

Memory for public events in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease : the importance of rehearsal

Ribot’s law refers to the better preservation of remote memories compared with recent ones that presumably characterizes retrograde amnesia. Even if Ribot-type temporal gradient has been extensively studied in retrograde amnesia, particularly in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), this pattern has not been consistently found. One explanation for these results may be that rehearsal frequency rather than remoteness accounts for the better preservation of these memories. Thus, the aim of present study was to address this question by studying retrograde semantic memory in subjects with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) (n = 20), mild AD (n = 20) and in healthy older controls (HC; n = 19). In order to evaluate the impact of repetition as well as the impact of remoteness, we used a test assessing memory for enduring and transient public events that occurred in the recent and remote past. Results show no clear temporal gradient across time periods (1960–1975; 1976–1990; 1991–2005; 2006–2011), but a better performance was observed in all three groups for enduring compared with transient events. Moreover, although deficits were globally found in both patients groups compared with HC, more specific analyses revealed that aMCI patients were only impaired on transient events while AD patients were impaired on both transient and enduring events. Exploratory analyses also revealed a tendency suggesting preservation of remote transient events in aMCI. These findings are discussed with regards to memory consolidation models.

Deindustrialisation and industrial communities: the Lanarkshire coalfields c.1947-1983

This thesis examines deindustrialisation, the declining contribution of industrial activities to economic output and employment, in Lanarkshire, Scotland’s largest coalfield between the early nineteenth and mid-twentieth century. It focuses on contraction between the National Coal Board’s (NCB) vesting in 1947 and the closure of Lanarkshire’s last colliery, Cardowan, in 1983. Deindustrialisation was not the natural outcome of either market forces or geological exhaustion. Colliery closures and falling coal employment were the result of policy-makers’ decisions. The thesis consists of four thematic chapters: political economy, moral economy, class and community, and generation and gender. The analysis is based on archival sources including Scottish Office reports and correspondence relating to regional policy, and NCB records. These are supported by National Union of Mineworkers Scottish Area and STUC meeting minutes, and oral history testimonies from over 30 men and women with Lanarkshire coalfield backgrounds, as well as two focus groups. The first two chapters analyse the process of deindustrialisation, with the first offering a top-down perspective and the second a bottom-up viewpoint. In chapter one deindustrialisation is analysed through changes in political economy. Shifts in labour market structure are examined through the development of regional policy and its administration by the Scottish Office. The analysis centres upon a policy network of Scottish business elites and civil servants who shaped a vision of modernisation via industrial diversification through attracting inward investment. In chapter two the perspective shifts to community and workforce. It analyses responses to coalfield contraction through a moral economy of customary rights to colliery employment. A detailed investigation of Lanarkshire colliery closures between the 1940s and 1980s emphasises the protracted nature of deindustrialisation. Chapters three and four consider the social and cultural structures which shaped the moral economy but were heavily altered by deindustrialisation. Chapter three focuses on the dense networks that linked occupation, community, and class consciousness. Increasing coalfield centralisation and remote control of pits from NCB headquarters in London, and mounting hostility to coal closures, contributed to an accentuated sense of Scottish-ness. Chapter four illuminates gender and generational dimensions. The differing experiences of cohorts of men who faced either early retirement, redundancy or transfer to alternative sectors, or those who never attained anticipated industrial employment due to final closures, are analysed in terms of constructions of masculinity and the endurance of cultural as well as material losses. This is counterpoised to women who gained industrial work in assembly plants and the perceived gradual attainment of an improved economic and social position whilst continuing to navigate structures of patriarchy.

Establishment of antibody panels and histochemical techniques in routine tumor diagnosis in Veterinary Pathology

In Portugal, Veterinary Pathology is developing rapidly, and in recent years we assist to the emergence of private laboratories and the restructuring of universities,polytechnics and public laboratories.The Portuguese Society of Animal Pathology,through its actions and its associates has been keeping the discussion among its peers in order to standardizethe criteria of description,classification and evaluation of cases which are the subject of our daily work.One of the last challenges is associated with the use of routine histochemical techniques and immunohistochemistry, in an effort to establish standardized panels for tumour diagnosis, which could eventually reduce each analysis cost.For this purpose a simple survey was built, in which all collaborators answered questions about the markers used for carcinoma, sarcoma and round cell tumour diagnosis, as well as general questions related with the subject. We obtained twenty-one answered to the questions, from public and private laboratories.In general, in most cases immunohistochemical and histochemical methods are used for diagnosis.The wide spectrum cytokeratins are universally used to confirm carcinoma, and vimentin for sarcoma. The CD3 marker is used by all laboratories to identify T lymphocytes. For the diagnosis of B-cell lymphoma, the marker used is not consensual. In each laboratory there are different markers for more specific situations and only two labs perform PCR techniques for diagnosis. These data will be presented to promote extended discussion,namely to reach a consensus when different markers are used.

An R package for simulating metapopulation dynamics and range expansion under environmental change

The metapopulation paradigm is central in ecology and conservation biology to understand the dynamics of spatially-structured populations in fragmented landscapes. Metapopulations are often studied using simulation modelling, and there is an increasing demand of user-friendly software tools to simulate metapopulation responses to environmental change. Here we describe the MetaLandSim R package, mwhich integrates ideas from metapopulation and graph theories to simulate the dynamics of real and virtual metapopulations. The package offers tools to (i) estimate metapopulation parameters from empirical data, (ii) to predict variation in patch occupancy over time in static and dynamic landscapes, either real or virtual, and (iii) to quantify the patterns and speed of metapopulation expansion into empty landscapes. MetaLandSim thus provides detailed information on metapopulation processes, which can be easily combined with land use and climate change scenarios to predict metapopulation dynamics and range expansion for a variety of taxa and ecological systems.

Climate seasonality limits leaf carbon assimilation and wood productivity in tropical forests.

The seasonal climate drivers of the carbon cy- cle in tropical forests remain poorly known, although these forests account for more carbon assimilation and storage than any other terrestrial ecosystem. Based on a unique combina- tion of seasonal pan-tropical data sets from 89 experimental sites (68 include aboveground wood productivity measure- ments and 35 litter productivity measurements), their asso- ciated canopy photosynthetic capacity (enhanced vegetation index, EVI) and climate, we ask how carbon assimilation and aboveground allocation are related to climate seasonal- ity in tropical forests and how they interact in the seasonal carbon cycle. We found that canopy photosynthetic capacity seasonality responds positively to precipitation when rain- fall is < 2000 mm yr-1 (water-limited forests) and to radia- tion otherwise (light-limited forests). On the other hand, in- dependent of climate limitations, wood productivity and lit- terfall are driven by seasonal variation in precipitation and evapotranspiration, respectively. Consequently, light-limited forests present an asynchronism between canopy photosyn- thetic capacity and wood productivity. First-order control by precipitation likely indicates a decrease in tropical forest pro- ductivity in a drier climate in water-limited forest, and in cur- rent light-limited forest with future rainfall < 2000 mm yr-1.

Quarantine facilities and legal issues of the use of biocontrol agents in Brazil.

The objective of this work was to address the classical biological control of pests in Brazil, regarding procedures to import and export native biological material. A brief introduction will be given on the current legal issues on the use of biocontrol agents, as well as some considerations on the existing quarantine pests and actions already carried out in the country. The safety in the introduction of exotic organisms is important for Brazilian phytosanitary defense and for a higher adoption of classical biocontrol, making it available for integrated pest management (IPM). Legal and normative aspects establish the procedures that must to be adopted, not only to protect bioprospecting and native organisms, but also to minimize risks to the national genetic patrimony associated with the introduction of exotic organisms. Furthermore, the import/export procedures adopted for vegetal and useful organisms for pest biological control and for other genetic material must be subjected to phytosanitary measures performed in government?certified quarantine facilities and diagnostic laboratories. Finally, the quarantine activities listed here are strategic for safeguarding the country from potential problems arising from border transit of living organisms.

Consideraciones para la implementación de un modelo de educación virtual: Revisión de áreas estratégicas

Recibido 07 febrero de 2011 • Aceptado 09 de marzo de 2011 • Corregido 23 de agosto de 2011   En este ensayo, a partir de una revisión bibliográfica con respecto a las áreas medulares de un modelo de educación virtual, se proponen algunas orientaciones dirigidas a aquellas personas interesadas en implementar una oferta académica virtual o bimodal, en la Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica. Se razona en función de siete áreas estratégicas sobre las cuales se debe sustentar un modelo de educación virtual: la filosófica; la académica; la profesoral; la estudiantil; la técnica; la legal/jurídica y, la financiera, geográfica y de dirección. Para cada área se presenta: a) un resumen de las tendencias de las mejores prácticas de educación virtual, b) recomendaciones de los expertos para realizar una gestión efectiva de carreras universitarias virtuales o bimodales, c) una breve reseña de las experiencias de la UNA en ese campo. Finalmente, se brindan, para cada área estratégica, algunas sugerencias que la UNA debiera considerar para continuar la ruta que asegure el éxito y la continuidad de sus carreras en modalidades virtuales y bimodales.

Reconsidering the role of recorded audio as a rich, flexible and engaging learning space

Audio needs to be recognised as an integral medium capable of extending education’s formal and informal, virtual and physical learning spaces. This paper reconsiders the value of educational podcasting through a review of literature and a module case study. It argues that a pedagogical understanding is needed and challenges technology-centred or teacher-centred understandings of podcasting. It considers the diverse methods being used that enhance and redefine podcasting as a medium for student-centred active learning. The case study shows how audio created a rich learning space by meaningfully connecting tutors, students and those beyond the existing formal study space. The approaches used can be categorised as new types of learning activity, extended connected activity, relocated activity, and recorded ‘captured’ activity which promote learner replay and re-engagement. The paper concludes that the educational use of the recorded voice needs to be reconsidered and reconceptualised so that audio is valued as a manageable, immediate, flexible, potent and engaging medium.

Planning and assessment techniques for spine surgeries

The rate of diagnosis and treatment of degenerative spine disorders is increasing, increasing the need for surgical intervention. Posterior spine fusion is one surgical intervention used to treat various spine degeneration pathologies To minimize the risk of complications and provide patients with positive outcomes, preoperative planning and postsurgical assessment are necessary. This PhD aimed to investigate techniques for the surgical planning and assessment of spine surgeries. Three main techniques were assessed: stereophotogrammetric motion analysis, 3D printing of complex spine deformities and finite element analysis of the thoracolumbar spine. Upon reviewing the literature on currently available spine kinematics protocol, a comprehensive motion analysis protocol to measure the multi-segmental spine motion was developed. Using this protocol, the patterns of spine motion in patients before and after posterior spine fixation was mapped. The second part investigated the use of virtual and 3D printed spine models for the surgical planning of complex spine deformity correction. Compared to usual radiographic images, the printed model allowed optimal surgical intervention, reduced surgical time and provided better surgeon-patient communication. The third part assessed the use of polyetheretherketone rods auxiliary to titanium rods to reduce the stiffness of posterior spine fusion constructs. Using a finite element model of the thoracolumbar spine, the rods system showed a decrease in the overall stress of the uppermost instrumented vertebra when compared to regular fixation approaches. Finally, a retrospective biomechanical assessment of a lumbopelvic reconstruction technique was investigated to assess the patients' gait following the surgery, the implant deformation over the years and the extent of bony fusion between spine and implant. In conclusion, this thesis highlighted the need to provide surgeons with new planning and assessment techniques to better understand postsurgical complications. The methodologies investigated in this project can be used in the future to establish a patient-specific planning protocol.