Importance of complementary approaches for efficient vulture conservation : reply to Efrat et al

Non peer reviewe

Stellenbosch Media Forum 2008

Stellenbosch Media Forum is an annual publication written and produced by the BPhil (Journalism) class of that specific year in the Department of Journalism, Stellenbosch University.Earlier this year Koos Bekker, owner of Media24, said he would not buy the New York Times even though his company could afford it. According to Moneyweb.co.za Bekker said the days of print media are numbered and the New York Times is old news. Die afgelope klompie jare het die media 'n transformasie ondergaan. In Suid-Afrika spesifiek is talle beperkinge op die media in die post-94-era opgehef. Die media funksioneer in 'n vryemark-stelsel en die algemene persepsie is dat dit meer fokus op die kommersiele as tevore. Met die ekonomiese afplatting is daar boonop gerugte van personeelverminderings en word selfs meer verwag van die Gideonsbende wat in die nuuskantore oorbly. Exposure to a variety of TV channels and internet websites is increasing the visual stimulation of media audiences. Media products are being redesigned to satisfy specific needs, in specific niches. One big change in terms of design is that more - and bigger - visuals and less text are being used. Vanjaar het e.tv die eerste 24-uur-nuuskanaal in Suid-Afrika geloods en al hoe meer drukmediaprodukte fokus op hul aanlyn-teenwoordigheid. Die Mail & Guardian het in Junie sy webtuiste herontwerp en sy groepblog, Thoughtleader, het die prys vir die Beste Suid-Afrikaanse Blog in die 2008 Suid-Afrikaanse Blogtoekennnings gekry. The Times, die Sunday Times se interaktiewe dagblad, het vanjaar sy eerste verjaarsdag gevier en bewys (sover) dat die konsep van 'n koerant wat met 'n webblad geintegreer is, wel werk. We are living in exciting times as far as development in the media is concerned. And that is why this year's edition of SMF has as its theme "Change in the media". Die veranderende media is hoofsaaklik te danke aan die ontwikkeling van tegnologie, soos dat jy jou nuus op jou selfoon kan kry. Nuttig, veral in Suid-Afrika waar die toegang tot breebandinternet gebrekkig is. Die koms van blogs noop koerante nou om onmiddellikheid en interaksie na te volg. These developments also influence journalists, sources and their audiences. With the advent of democracy in South Africa, changes in the consumer demographics of certain media products have occurred. And, oh yes, women have also advanced in the media since 1994, both as producers of media, and how they are represented. And then there is the youth, who "owns" new media technologies. And the disabled, who can get access to a new world through media technology. But, there are still many people in South Africa who do not have access to media, because of socio-economic circumstances: too poor to own the latest technology; illiterate and forgotten by the media elites. Die rol van die media, om debat te stimuleer, as waghond op te tree en die stem van die stemloses te wees, word deur al hierdie veranderings uitgedaag. Toenemende kommersialisering kan mediavryheid van binne erodeer. En dan is daar steeds die moontlikheid van politieke inmenging, al is mediavryheid grondwetlik verskans. Tradisionele kunsvorme in die media, soos kortverhale, radiodramas en boekresensies word gemarginaliseer, maar tog is daar die moontlikheid dat hulle kan aanpas en bly voortbestaan. Another challenge is the media's coverage of environmental issues, which has to be in sync with the phenomenon of global warming. Sport reporting also has to adapt to new developments, with sport writers now needing to have a knowledge of economics and politics as well. Een ding is seker: maatskappye, mense, produkte en onderwerpe wat by die media betrokke is, sal soos 'n verkleurmannetjie moet aanpas om te kan oorleef

Priority areas for conservation of Old World vultures

The prosperity and well-being of human societies relies on healthy ecosystems and the services they provide. However, the biodiversity crisis is undermining ecosystems services and functions. Vultures are among the most imperiled taxonomic groups on Earth, yet they have a fundamental ecosystem function. These obligate scavengers rapidly consume large amounts of carrion and human waste, a service that may aid in both disease prevention and control of mammalian scavengers, including feral dogs, which in turn threaten humans. We combined information about the distribution of all 15 vulture species found in Europe, Asia, and Africa with their threats and used detailed expert knowledge on threat intensity to prioritize critical areas for conserving vultures in Africa and Eurasia. Threats we identified included poisoning, mortality due to collision with wind energy infrastructures, and other anthropogenic activities related to human land use and influence. Areas important for vulture conservation were concentrated in southern and eastern Africa, South Asia, and the Iberian Peninsula, and over 80% of these areas were unprotected. Some vulture species required larger areas for protection than others. Finally, countries that had the largest share of all identified important priority areas for vulture conservation were those with the largest expenditures related to rabies burden (e.g., India, China, and Myanmar). Vulture populations have declined markedly in most of these countries. Restoring healthy vulture populations through targeted actions in the priority areas we identified may help restore the ecosystem services vultures provide, including sanitation and potentially prevention of diseases, such as rabies, a heavy burden afflicting fragile societies. Our findings may guide stakeholders to prioritize actions where they are needed most in order to achieve international goals for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.Peer reviewe

Priority areas for conserving obligate scavengers and preventing bottom-up ecosystem disruptions

Biodiversity conservation lacks sufficient funding and the evidence-base on what works and where efforts should be focused. Vultures are the sole obligate vertebrate scavengers and play a key role in maintaining the ecosystem in balance, e.g. by rapidly removing decomposing organic matter, aiding in sanitation and prevention in the spread of diseases. Vultures are the most threatened avian functional group, owing to poisoning, collision with wind turbines and transmission lines, electrocution, anthropogenic disturbance and habitat degradation, among other threats. Recent international commitments to halt the decline of African and Eurasian vultures have been formalized (CMS-Multi-species Action Plan to conserve Africa-Eurasian vultures), whereby the threats, and the actions to revert them, have been identified. Given the vast range covered by vultures, there is a need to identify priority areas for vulture conservation where efforts should be concentrated. We run a spatial prioritization analysis aimed to identify priority areas for conserving the 15 vulture species occurring across Africa-Eurasia. We performed species distribution modeling to refine vulture occurrence within their IUCN range. Next we obtained spatial threat layers. A layer for unintentional poisoning, whereby farmers attempt to control carnivores using poisons which also kill vultures, was obtained by mapping the human-carnivore conflict, i.e. by interacting carnivore and livestock co-occurrence. Similarly, we mapped intentional poisoning, whereby poachers in Africa use poisons to kill vultures, by first identifying the ungulate and carnivore species target of poisoning, then mapping this threat using the selected species ranges across Africa. We used a spatial layer of wind energy potential as proxy for collision with wind turbines, and the global human influence index map as a proxy for multiple anthropogenic threats, such as electrocution, human disturbance, collision with transmission lines. The intensity of these threats was regionally assessed by local experts as part of the CMS. We use this expert information to regionally weight the threats according to their intensity. Similarly, we weighted each vulture species according to its IUCN threat, so that highly endangered species receive higher weight in the prioritization. We then prioritized areas representing core distributions of the vultures and where the intensity of their threats is highest. The aggregate weight of the threats was set to equal that of the vultures to obtain a balanced prioritization between vultures and their threats. The resulting priority map indicates that large swaths of Southern and Eastern Africa, as well as southern Europe, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent emerge as high priorities. These are the areas where conservation efforts should be concentrated, and where individual or multiple threats to vultures should be tackled with high urgency.peerReviewe

West Nile Virus Lineage 2 in Horses and Other Animals with Neurologic Disease, South Africa, 2008–2015

During 2008–2015 in South Africa, we conducted West Nile virus surveillance in 1,407 animals with neurologic disease and identified mostly lineage 2 cases in horses (7.4%, 79/1,069), livestock (1.5%, 2/132), and wildlife (0.5%, 1/206); 35% were fatal. Geographic correlation of horse cases with seropositive veterinarians suggests disease in horses can predict risk in humans

The online anatomical human:anatomical knowledge exchange on the web

Human anatomy is complex and as early as the late bronze age, people have been trying to gain insights in the functioning of the human body. Nowadays, resources such as books and software are available to educate medical students, but these media usually have some restrictions; anatomical images in books present information from fixed views and do not allow readers to freely explore the information, while software tools often present an idealized average human anatomy.\u3cbr/\u3eIn this work, we introduce the Online Anatomical Human (OAH), an online viewer and annotation system for anatomical in- formation. It is based on real human anatomy and incorporates medical image data in linked 2D and 3D views. The goals of this anatomical online resource are two-fold. First of all, the OAH will serve as an educational platform available to anyone that has access to a modern web browser. Secondly, by making our work accessible to medical experts, we can ensure an increasing amount of information and, hereby, a gain in educational value of our tool

Substrate Cleaning Processes and Their Influence on the Laser Resistance of Anti-Reflective Coatings

Substrate cleaning prior to coating has a strong influence on the performance of the optical component. Exemplary, none or inadequate cleaning reduces the resistance against laser irradiation drastically. Especially in laser components coated with anti-reflective layers, the interface between substrate and coating is one of the most limiting factors. This study investigates different precision cleaning processes and their influence on the laser resistance of ion-beam sputtered anti-reflective coatings. Therefore, a SiO2/Ta2O5 multilayer anti-reflective coating for a wavelength of 1064 nm and a normal angle of incidence was deposited onto high-quality fused silica substrates. Prior to deposition, the substrates were cleaned with various cleaning processes using different solutions and ultrasonic frequencies. To characterize the cleaned surface quality, the surfaces were analyzed with respect to root-mean-square (RMS) roughness and particle density. Laser damage was measured using a 1064 nm ns-pulsed laser test bench. It was found that an alcoholic pre-clean is recommendable to prevent laser damage caused by organic films remaining from the polishing process. The applied ultrasonic frequencies strongly influenced the particle density down to the sub-micrometer range and in consequence, the laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT). Ultrasonic cleaning at excessive power levels can reduce laser resistance

DevOps: Final Shibboleth-v2 Identity Provider Release

This release contains several contributions, but focusses on the stabilisation of the playbook and roles providing the Shibboleth IdP (V2) functionality. Several fixes have been made to ensure that the Ansible code in the roles is updated to Ansible-2.x syntax. Work has also been done to put in place commerical certificates if they are present, right from the start, and deploying self-signed certificates as a default fall-back approach. Some work has been done to move the sensitive ldap role variables to the vault-encrypted passwords file for the group (site) that the services fall under. The release is not "containerised", meaning that there is no use yet of Ansible-Container

Community Engagement newsletter, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Summer, February 2019

A fruitful experience / Byron Gopper, Kira-Lee Manne & Dr Ester Botha -- Insight to prevent a bite: Mmammudu Primary School / Marco Wasserman, Bronwen van Tonder, Frederik Loggenberg, Bethany Damonse & Elana Smit -- MaVERIC - the initiative continues / Nabeelah Rajah -- Vet Books for Africa: crossing borders one book at a time / Cormé Randlehoff -- A day that changed our lives / Johan Moolman, Kabelo Ramolotja, Kirsti Addison, Elanie van Wyk & Marné Oosthuysen -- Taking a stand against rabies / Philip van Tonder.News articles with colour photos about the various community engagement projects of the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria.ab201

A chromospheric resonance cavity in a sunspot mapped with seismology

Sunspots are intense collections of magnetic fields that pierce through the Sun’s photosphere, with their signatures extending upwards into the outermost extremities of the solar corona1. Cutting-edge observations and simulations are providing insights into the underlying wave generation2, configuration3,4 and damping5 mechanisms found in sunspot atmospheres. However, the in situ amplification of magnetohydrodynamic waves6, rising from a few hundreds of metres per second in the photosphere to several kilometres per second in the chromosphere7, has, until now, proved difficult to explain. Theory predicts that the enhanced umbral wave power found at chromospheric heights may come from the existence of an acoustic resonator8,9,10, which is created due to the substantial temperature gradients experienced at photospheric and transition region heights11. Here, we provide strong observational evidence of a resonance cavity existing above a highly magnetic sunspot. Through a combination of spectropolarimetric inversions and comparisons with high-resolution numerical simulations, we provide a new seismological approach to mapping the geometry of the inherent temperature stratifications across the diameter of the underlying sunspot, with the upper boundaries of the chromosphere ranging between 1,300 ± 200 km and 2,300 ± 250 km. Our findings will allow the three-dimensional structure of solar active regions to be conclusively determined from relatively commonplace two-dimensional Fourier power spectra. The techniques presented are also readily suitable for investigating temperature-dependent resonance effects in other areas of astrophysics, including the examination of Earth–ionosphere wave cavities12