STATE-AND-TRANSITION MODELING AND ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT: TOOLS FOR FUTURE CO-DEVELOPMENT OF MADAGASCAR’S NATURAL RESOURCES AND PEOPLE

Madagascar’s terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems have long supported a unique set of ecological communities, many of whom are endemic to the tropical island. Those same ecosystems have been a source of valuable natural resources to some of the poorest people in the world. Nevertheless, with pride, ingenuity and resourcefulness, the Malagasy people of the southwest coast, being of Vezo identity, subsist with low development fishing techniques aimed at an increasingly threatened host of aquatic seascapes. Mangroves, sea grass bed, and coral reefs of the region are under increased pressure from the general populace for both food provisions and support of economic opportunity. Besides purveyors and extractors, the coastal waters are also subject to a number of natural stressors, including cyclones and invasive, predator species of both flora and fauna. In addition, the aquatic ecosystems of the region are undergoing increased nutrient and sediment runoff due, in part, to Madagascar’s heavy reliance on land for agricultural purposes (Scales, 2011). Moreover, its coastal waters, like so many throughout the world, have been proven to be warming at an alarming rate over the past few decades. In recognizing the intimate interconnectedness of the both the social and ecological systems, conservation organizations have invoked a host of complimentary conservation and social development efforts with the dual aim of preserving or restoring the health of both the coastal ecosystems and the people of the region. This paper provides a way of thinking more holistically about the social-ecological system within a resiliency frame of understanding. Secondly, it applies a platform known as state-and-transition modeling to give form to the process. State-and-transition modeling is an iterative investigation into the physical makeup of a system of study as well as the boundaries and influences on that state, and has been used in restorative ecology for more than a decade. Lastly, that model is sited within an adaptive management scheme that provides a structured, cyclical, objective-oriented process for testing stakeholders cognitive understanding of the ecosystem through a pragmatic implementation and monitoring a host of small-scale interventions developed as part of the adaptive management process. Throughout, evidence of the application of the theories and frameworks are offered, with every effort made to retool conservation-minded development practitioners with a comprehensive strategy for addressing the increasingly fragile social-ecological systems of southwest Madagascar. It is offered, in conclusion, that the seascapes of the region would be an excellent case study worthy of future application of state-and-transition modeling and adaptive management as frameworks for conservation-minded development practitioners whose multiple projects, each with its own objective, have been implemented with a single goal in mind: preserve and protect the state of the supporting environment while providing for the basic needs of the local Malagasy people.

Adaptive Rückmeldungen im intelligenten Tutorensystem LARGO

Das intelligente Tutorensystem LARGO für die Rechtswissenschaften soll Jurastudenten helfen, Argumentationsstrategien zu lernen. Im verwendeten Ansatz werden Gerichtsprotokolle als Lernmaterialien verwendet: Studenten annotieren diese und erstellen graphische Repräsentationen des Argumentationsverlaufs. Das System kann dabei zur Reflexion über die von Anwälten vorgebrachten Argumente anregen und Lernende auf mögliche Schwächen in ihrer Analyse des Disputs hinweisen. Zur Erkennung von Schwächen verwendet das System Graphgrammatiken und kollaborative Filtermechanismen. Dieser Artikel stellt dar, wie in LARGO auf Basis der Bestimmung eines „Benutzungskontextes“ die Rückmeldungen im System benutzungsadaptiv gestaltet werden. Weiterhin diskutieren wir auf Basis der Ergebnisse einer kontrollierten Studie mit dem System, welche mit Jurastudierenden an der University of Pittsburgh stattfand, in wie weit der automatisch bestimmte Benutzungskontext zur Vorhersage von Lernerfolgen bei Studenten verwendbar ist.

Experimental evidence for trait utility of gill raker number in adaptive radiation of a north temperate fish

North temperate fish in post-glacial lakes are textbook examples for rapid parallel adaptive radiation into multiple trophic specialists within individual lakes. Speciation repeatedly proceeded along the benthic – limnetic habitat axis, and benthic – limnetic sister species diverge in the number of gill rakers. Yet, the utility of different numbers of gill rakers for consuming benthic vs. limnetic food has only very rarely been experimentally demonstrated. We bred and raised families of a benthic – limnetic species pair of whitefish under common garden conditions to test whether these species (i) show heritable differentiation in feeding efficiency on zooplankton, and (ii) whether varia- tion in feeding efficiency is predicted by variation in gill raker numbers. We used zooplankton of three different size classes to investigate prey size dependency of divergence in feeding efficiency and to investigate the effect strength of variation in the number of gill rakers. Our results show strong interspecific differences in feeding efficiency. These differences are largest when fish were tested with the smallest zooplankton. Importantly, feeding efficiency is significantly positively correlated with the number of gill rakers when using small zooplankton, also when species identity is statistically controlled for. Our results support the hypothesis that a larger number of gill rakers are of adaptive significance for feeding on zooplankton and pro- vide one of the first experimental demonstrations of trait utility of gill raker number when fish feed on zooplankton. These results are consistent with the suggested importance of divergent selection driven feeding adaptation during adaptive radiation of fish in post-glacial lakes.

Relaxed trait covariance in interspecific cichlid hybrids predicts morphological diversity in adaptive radiations

The process of adaptive radiation involves multiple events of speciation in short succession, associated with ecological diversification. Understanding this process requires identifying the origins of heritable phenotypic variation that allows adaptive radiation to progress. Hybridization is one source of genetic and morphological variation that may spur adaptive radiation. We experimentally explored the potential role of hybridization in facilitating the onset of adaptive radiation. We generated first- and second-generation hybrids of four species of African cichlid fish, extant relatives of the putative ancestors of the adaptive radiations of Lakes Victoria and Malawi. We com- pared patterns in hybrid morphological variation with the variation in the lake radiations. We show that significant fractions of the interspecific mor- phological variation and the major trajectories in morphospace that charac- terize whole radiations can be generated in second-generation hybrids. Furthermore, we show that covariation between traits is relaxed in second- generation hybrids, which may facilitate adaptive diversification. These results support the idea that hybridization can provide the heritable pheno- typic diversity necessary to initiate adaptive radiation.

Real-World Evaluation of Sensor Context-aware Adaptive Duty-cycled Opportunistic Routing

Energy is of primary concern in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Low power transmission makes the wireless links unreliable, which leads to frequent topology changes. Resulting packet retransmissions aggravate the energy consumption. Beaconless routing approaches, such as opportunistic routing (OR) choose packet forwarders after data transmissions, and are promising to support dynamic features of WSNs. This paper proposes SCAD - Sensor Context-aware Adaptive Duty-cycled beaconless OR for WSNs. SCAD is a cross-layer routing solution and it brings the concept of beaconless OR into WSNs. SCAD selects packet forwarders based on multiple types of network contexts. To achieve a balance between performance and energy efficiency, SCAD adapts duty-cycles of sensors based on real-time traffic loads and energy drain rates. We implemented SCAD in TinyOS running on top of Tmote Sky sensor motes. Real-world evaluations show that SCAD outperforms other protocols in terms of both throughput and network lifetime.

Adaptive, convergent origins of the pygmy phenotype in African rainforest hunter-gatherers

Tropical rainforest hunter-gatherer populations worldwide share the pygmy phenotype, or small human body size. The evolutionary history of this phenotype is largely unknown. Here we studied DNA from the Batwa, a rainforest hunter-gatherer population from east central Africa, to identify regions of the Batwa genome that underlie the pygmy phenotype. We then performed population genomic analyses to study the evolution of these regions, including comparisons with the Baka, a west central African rainforest hunter-gatherer population. We conclude that the pygmy phenotype likely arose due to positive natural selection and that it arose possibly multiple times within Africa. These results support longstanding anthropological hypotheses that small body size confers an important selective advantage for human rainforest hunter-gatherers.

Adaptive Beaconless Opportunistic Routing for Multimedia Distribution

User experience on watching live videos must be satisfactory even under the inuence of different network conditions and topology changes, such as happening in Flying Ad-Hoc Networks (FANETs). Routing services for video dissemination over FANETs must be able to adapt routing decisions at runtime to meet Quality of Experience (QoE) requirements. In this paper, we introduce an adaptive beaconless opportunistic routing protocol for video dissemination over FANETs with QoE support, by taking into account multiple types of context information, such as link quality, residual energy, buffer state, as well as geographic information and node mobility in a 3D space. The proposed protocol takes into account Bayesian networks to define weight vectors and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to adjust the degree of importance for the context information based on instantaneous values. It also includes a position prediction to monitor the distance between two nodes in order to detect possible route failure.

Acceptance as a coping reaction: Adaptive or not?

Acceptance as a coping reaction to unchangeable negative events has been discussed controversially. While some studies suggest it is adaptive, others report negative effects on mental health. We propose a distinction between two forms of acceptance reactions: active acceptance, which is associated with positive psychological outcomes, and resigning acceptance, which is associated with negative psychological outcomes. In this study, 534 individuals were surveyed with respect to several hypothetical situations. We tested the proposed acceptance model by confirmatory factor analysis, and examined the convergent and discriminant validity using personality and coping measures (Trier Personality Questionnaire, Bernese Bitterness Questionnaire, COPE). The results support the distinction between the two forms of acceptance reactions, and, in particular, that active acceptance is an adaptive reaction to unchangeable situations.

Gene expression profile in newborn rat lungs after two days of recovery of mechanical ventilation.

BACKGROUND Preterm infants having immature lungs often require respiratory support, potentially leading to bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). Conventional BPD rodent models based on mechanical ventilation (MV) present outcome measured at the end of the ventilation period. A reversible intubation and ventilation model in newborn rats recently allowed discovering that different sets of genes modified their expression related to time after MV. In a newborn rat model, the expression profile 48 h after MV was analyzed with gene arrays to detect potentially interesting candidates with an impact on BPD development. METHODS Rat pups were injected P4-5 with 2 mg/kg lipopolysaccharide (LPS). One day later, MV with 21 or 60% oxygen was applied during 6 h. Animals were sacrified 48 h after end of ventilation. Affymetrix gene arrays assessed the total gene expression profile in lung tissue. RESULTS In fully treated animals (LPS + MV + 60% O(2)) vs. controls, 271 genes changed expression significantly. All modified genes could be classified in six pathways: tissue remodeling/wound repair, immune system and inflammatory response, hematopoiesis, vasodilatation, and oxidative stress. Major alterations were found in the MMP and complement system. CONCLUSION MMPs and complement factors play a central role in several of the pathways identified and may represent interesting targets for BPD treatment/prevention.Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a chronic lung disease occurring in ~30% of preterm infants born less than 30 wk of gestation (1). Its main risk factors include lung immaturity due to preterm delivery, mechanical ventilation (MV), oxygen toxicity, chorioamnionitis, and sepsis. The main feature is an arrest of alveolar and capillary formation (2). Models trying to decipher genes involved in the pathophysiology of BPD are mainly based on MV and oxygen application to young mammals with immature lungs of different species (3). In newborn rodent models, analyses of lung structure and gene and protein expression are performed for practical reasons directly at the end of MV (4,5,6). However, later appearing changes of gene expression might also have an impact on lung development and the evolution towards BPD and cannot be discovered by such models. Recently, we developed a newborn rat model of MV using an atraumatic (orotracheal) intubation technique that allows the weaning of the newborn animal off anesthesia and MV, the extubation to spontaneous breathing, and therefore allows the evaluation of effects of MV after a ventilation-free period of recovery (7). Indeed, applying this concept of atraumatic intubation by direct laryngoscopy, we recently were able to show significant differences between gene expression changes appearing directly after MV compared to those measured after a ventilation-free interval of 48 h. Immediately after MV, inflammation-related genes showed a transitory modified expression, while another set of more structurally related genes changed their expression only after a delay of 2 d (7). Lung structure, analyzed by conventional 2D histology and also by 3D reconstruction using synchrotron x-ray tomographic microscopy revealed, 48 h after end of MV, a reduced complexity of lung architecture compared to the nonventilated rat lungs, similar to the typical findings in BPD. To extend these observations about late gene expression modifications, we performed with a similar model a full gene expression profile of lung tissue 48 h after the end of MV with either room air or 60% oxygen. Essentially, we measured changes in the expression of genes related to the MMPs and complement system which played a role in many of the six identified mostly affected pathways.

Cellular Uptake of Neutrohpil Elastase Links Inflammation to Adaptive Immunity

Many tumors arise from sites of inflammation providing evidence that innate immunity is a critical component in the development and progression of cancer. Neutrophils are primary mediators of the innate immune response. Upon activation, an important function of neutrophils is release of an assortment of proteins from their granules including the serine protease neutrophil elastase (NE). The effect of NE on cancer has been attributed primarily to its ability to degrade the extracellular matrix thereby promoting invasion and metastasis. Recently, it was shown that NE could be taken up by lung cancer cells leading to degradation of insulin receptor substrate-1 thereby promoting hyperactivity of the phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) pathway and tumor cell proliferation. To our knowledge, nobody has investigated uptake of NE by other tumor types. In addition, NE has broad substrate specificity suggesting that uptake of NE by tumor cells could impact processes regulating tumorigenensis other than activation of the PI3K pathway. Neutrophil elastase has been identified in breast cancer specimens where high levels of NE have prognostic significance. These studies have assessed NE levels in whole tumor lysates. Because the major source of NE is from activated neutrophils, we hypothesized that breast cancer cells do not have endogenous NE but may take up NE released by tumor associated neutrophils in the tumor microenvironment and that this could provide a link between the innate immune response to tumors and specific adaptive immune responses. In this thesis, we show that breast cancer cells lack endogenous NE expression and that they are able to take up NE resulting in increased generation of low molecular weight cyclin E (CCNE) and enhanced susceptibility to lysis by CCNE-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes. We also show that after taking up NE and proteinase 3 (PR3), a second primary granule protease with significant homology to NE, breast cancer cells cross-present the NE- and PR3-derived peptide PR1 rendering them susceptible to PR1-targeted therapies. Taken together, our data support a role for NE uptake in modulating adaptive immune responses against breast cancer.

Evolvable 2D computing matrix model for intrinsic evolution in commercial FPGAs with native reconfiguration support

This paper addresses the modelling and validation of an evolvable hardware architecture which can be mapped on a 2D systolic structure implemented on commercial reconfigurable FPGAs. The adaptation capabilities of the architecture are exercised to validate its evolvability. The underlying proposal is the use of a library of reconfigurable components characterised by their partial bitstreams, which are used by the Evolutionary Algorithm to find a solution to a given task. Evolution of image noise filters is selected as the proof of concept application. Results show that computation speed of the resulting evolved circuit is higher than with the Virtual Reconfigurable Circuits approach, and this can be exploited on the evolution process by using dynamic reconfiguration

Knowledge-based models for adaptive traffic management systems

This paper describes a general approach for real time traffic management support using knowledge based models. Recognizing that human intervention is usually required to apply the current automatic traffic control systems, it is argued that there is a need for an additional intelligent layer to help operators to understand traffic problems and to make the best choice of strategic control actions that modify the assumption framework of the existing systems.

A framework for adaptive e-learning for continuum mechanics and structural analysis

This paper presents a project for providing the students of Structural Engineering with the flexibility to learn outside classroom schedules. The goal is a framework for adaptive E-learning based on a repository of open educational courseware with a set of basic Structural Engineering concepts and fundamentals. These are paramount for students to expand their technical knowledge and skills in structural analysis and design of tall buildings, arch-type structures as well as bridges. Thus, concepts related to structural behaviour such as linearity, compatibility, stiffness and influence lines have traditionally been elusive for students. The objective is to facilitate the student a teachinglearning process to acquire the necessary intuitive knowledge, cognitive skills and the basis for further technological modules and professional development in this area. As a side effect, the system is expected to help the students improve their preparation for exams on the subject. In this project, a web-based open-source system for studying influence lines on continuous beams is presented. It encompasses a collection of interactive user-friendly applications accessible via Web, written in JavaScript under JQuery and Dygraph Libraries, taking advantage of their efficiency and graphic capabilities. It is performed in both Spanish and English languages. The student is enabled to set the geometric, topologic, boundary and mechanic layout of a continuous beam. While changing the loading and the support conditions, the changes in the beam response prompt on the screen, so that the effects of the several issues involved in structural analysis become apparent. This open interaction with the user allows the student to simulate and virtually infer the structural response. Different levels of complexity can be handled, whereas an ongoing help is at hand for any of them. Students can freely boost their experiential learning on this subject at their own pace, in order to further share, process, generalize and apply the relevant essential concepts of Structural Engineering analysis. Besides, this collection is being added to the "Virtual Lab of Continuum Mechanics" of the UPM, launched in 2013 (http://serviciosgate.upm.es/laboratoriosvirtuales/laboratorios/medios-continuos-en-construcci%C3%B3n)

Self-adaptive strategy based on fuzzy control systems for improving performance in wireless sensors networks

The solutions to cope with new challenges that societies have to face nowadays involve providing smarter daily systems. To achieve this, technology has to evolve and leverage physical systems automatic interactions, with less human intervention. Technological paradigms like Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are providing reference models, architectures, approaches and tools that are to support cross-domain solutions. Thus, CPS based solutions will be applied in different application domains like e-Health, Smart Grid, Smart Transportation and so on, to assure the expected response from a complex system that relies on the smooth interaction and cooperation of diverse networked physical systems. The Wireless Sensors Networks (WSN) are a well-known wireless technology that are part of large CPS. The WSN aims at monitoring a physical system, object, (e.g., the environmental condition of a cargo container), and relaying data to the targeted processing element. The WSN communication reliability, as well as a restrained energy consumption, are expected features in a WSN. This paper shows the results obtained in a real WSN deployment, based on SunSPOT nodes, which carries out a fuzzy based control strategy to improve energy consumption while keeping communication reliability and computational resources usage among boundaries.

Modelling adaptive web applications

Conceptual Modelling approaches for the web need extensions to specify dynamic personalization properties in order to design more powerful web applications. Current approaches provide techniques to support dynamic personalization, usually focused on implementation details. This article presents an extension of the OO-H conceptual modeling approach to address the particulars associated with the design and specification of dynamic personalization. The main benefit is that this specification can be modified without recompile the rest of the application modules. We describe how conventional navigation and presentation diagrams are influenced by personalization properties. In order to model the variable part of the interface logic OO-H has a personalization architecture that leans on a rule engine. Rules are defined based on a User Model and a Reference Model.