The meteorological conditions of the area on the Gas Bay (South Spitsbergen) determined by the investigations in the Summer of 1978 and 1979

In the summers of 1978 and 1979 meteorological observations and measurements were carried out in South Spitsbergen. These investigations gave a characteristic of the summer meteorological conditions in the forefield of the Gas Glacier. Some regularities were found to exist in the distribution of air temperature and other meteorological elements

Investigations of the extreme temperature of the ground surface in the Gashamnoyra region (Spitsbergen)

In the summer of 1979, in South Spitsbergen investigations of the extreme temperatures of the ground surface were carried out. The investigations permitted the determination of the magnitude of the extreme temperatures of the ground surface and their relation to the air temperature. The spatial variability of the extreme temperatures of the ground surface was observed

Loss in CO2 assimilation by forest stands relative to its emissions generated by the economic sector as an indicator of ecological consequences of a windstorm in the municipality of Brusy, NW Poland

The extent of damage to state and private forests as well as roadside and field buffer strips of trees in the urban-rural municipality of Brusy in the Pomerania Province, Poland, following the powerful windstorm on 11–12 August 2017, was calculated based on different data. The size of losses was expressed in m3 of large (merchantable) timber harvested from windsnap or windthrow. The biomass of the destroyed assimilation apparatus was estimated using expansion factors and ratios of individual compartments of damaged trees representing 20 species. By applying conversion factors expressing the amount of carbon dioxide fixed during the year per unit of dry leaf biomass of each tree species, the total loss in net and gross photosynthesis, corresponding to the biomass of the destroyed assimilation apparatus, was estimated. The obtained values were compared with CO2 emissions generated by the commune in 2006, 2013 and 2020. It has been found that the sum of losses in photosynthesis and CO2 emissions generated by economic activity is a good indicator of environmental threats, and the percentage of losses accounted for by photosynthesis is a good indicator of ecological losses caused by the windstorm in the forest stands

Occurrence of Viscum album subsp. album L. on Laburnum anagyroides Medik. in Toruń, Poland

This short note presents two localities of the common mistletoe growing on the common laburnum found in central Poland in the city of Toruń in 2020. The common laburnum is one of the rare hosts of this recently rapidly spreading semi-parasite. The presented relationship between the two species has so far been reported in only several publications, mostly from the late 19th and early 20th century

Mild Adverse Events of Sputnik V Vaccine in Russia: Social Media Content Analysis of Telegram via Deep Learning

Background: There is a limited amount of data on the safety profile of the COVID-19 vector vaccine Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik V). Previous infodemiology studies showed that social media discourse could be analyzed to assess the most concerning adverse events (AE) caused by drugs. Objective: We aimed to investigate mild AEs of Sputnik V based on a participatory trial conducted on Telegram in the Russian language. We compared AEs extracted from Telegram with other limited databases on Sputnik V and other COVID-19 vaccines. We explored symptom co-occurrence patterns and determined how counts of administered doses, age, gender, and sequence of shots could confound the reporting of AEs. Methods: We collected a unique dataset consisting of 11,515 self-reported Sputnik V vaccine AEs posted on the Telegram group, and we utilized natural language processing methods to extract AEs. Specifically, we performed multilabel classifications using the deep neural language model Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) “DeepPavlov,” which was pretrained on a Russian language corpus and applied to the Telegram messages. The resulting area under the curve score was 0.991. We chose symptom classes that represented the following AEs: fever, pain, chills, fatigue, nausea/vomiting, headache, insomnia, lymph node enlargement, erythema, pruritus, swelling, and diarrhea. Results: Telegram users complained mostly about pain (5461/11,515, 47.43%), fever (5363/11,515, 46.57%), fatigue (3862/11,515, 33.54%), and headache (2855/11,515, 24.79%). Women reported more AEs than men (1.2-fold, P<.001). In addition, there were more AEs from the first dose than from the second dose (1.1-fold, P<.001), and the number of AEs decreased with age (β=.05 per year, P<.001). The results also showed that Sputnik V AEs were more similar to other vector vaccines (132 units) than with messenger RNA vaccines (241 units) according to the average Euclidean distance between the vectors of AE frequencies. Elderly Telegram users reported significantly more (5.6-fold on average) systemic AEs than their peers, according to the results of the phase 3 clinical trials published in The Lancet. However, the AEs reported in Telegram posts were consistent (Pearson correlation r=0.94, P=.02) with those reported in the Argentinian postmarketing AE registry. Conclusions: After the Sputnik V vaccination, Russian Telegram users reported mostly pain, fever, and fatigue. The Sputnik V AE profile was comparable with other vector COVID-19 vaccines. Discussion on social media could provide meaningful information about the AE profile of novel vaccines

Resources and dynamics of halophytes in agricultural and industrial landscapes of the western part of Kujawy, Central Poland

This article is dedicated to the memoryof tireless researcher of saline vegetation in KujawyProfessor Jadwiga Wilkoń-Michalska (1921–2005) This paper presents the status and comparison of the halophytic flora on two research plots in the Upper Noteć catchment, distinguished by the intensity of human activity and the type of landscape: 1 – Lake Gopło (G) and 2 – the area located by the Noteć Canal (N) in the western part of the Kujawy region. Fishery on the twelfth largest lake in Poland and agriculture are the main forms of economy in the former plot. A significant part of this plot is a Natura 2000 site, legally protected in compliance with the EU directives. The development of halophytes, mainly facultative ones, in the G plot is conditioned by natural factors, i.e. the inflow of saline groundwater. In the N plot, the agricultural landscape was transformed into the industrial and urbanised landscape following the years of development of two soda factories and the municipal and housing infrastructure of the nearby town of Inowrocław. Strong human impact led to the fact that already several decades ago this plot was classified as one of the most ecologically endangered areas in Poland. The abundance of halophytes in the N plot, including many obligatory ones, is related to the geomorphology of the area and the associated pattern of salt deposit leaching, as well as brine exploitation and soda industry. The species composition and population resources of individual halophyte species at 65 sites on the G plot and 90 sites on the N plot were compared using numerical classification methods. The distribution of the sites and their species richness are presented on the maps of the study area. The results of our analysis were compared with the results of observations made by other authors in the same area at different times. Based on the comparative analysis, we have arrived at conclusions regarding the protection of halophytes and the anticipated effects of technological changes in agriculture, salt and soda industry, as well as spatial management. We believe that the data provided in the tables and the resulting maps will constitute reference points for assessing the effectiveness of undertaken conservation recommendations and the correctness of scenarios formulated by different authors for the development of natural systems in the study area