Functional connectivity network between terrestrial and aquatic habitats by a generalist waterbird, and implications for biovectoring

Birds are vectors of dispersal of propagules of plants and other organisms including pathogens, as well as nutrients and contaminants. Thus, through their movements they create functional connectivity between habitat patches. Most studies on connectivity provided by animals to date have focused on movements within similar habitat types. However, some waterbirds regularly switch between terrestrial, coastal and freshwater habitats throughout their daily routines. Lesser black-backed gulls that overwinter in Andalusia use different habitat types for roosting and foraging. In order to reveal their potential role in biovectoring among habitats, we created an inter-habitat connectivity network based on GPS tracking data. We applied connectivity measures by considering frequently visited sites as nodes, and flights as links, to determine the strength of connections in the network between habitats, and identify functional units where connections are more likely to happen. We acquired data for 42 tagged individuals (from five breeding colonies), and identified 5676 direct flights that connected 37 nodes. These 37 sites were classified into seven habitat types: reservoirs, natural lakes, ports, coastal marshes, fish ponds, rubbish dumps and ricefields. The Donana ricefields acted as the central node in the network based on centrality measures. Furthermore, during the first half of winter when rice was harvested, ricefields were the most important habitat type in terms of total time spent. Overall, 90% of all direct flights between nodes were between rubbish dumps (for foraging) and roosts in other habitats, thereby connecting terrestrial and various wetland habitats. The strength of connections decreased between nodes as the distance between them increased, and was concentrated within ten independent spatial and functional units, especially between December and February. The pivotal role for ricefields and rubbish dumps in the network, and their high connectivity with aquatic habitats in general, have important implications for biovectoring into their surroundings. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V

City Blueprints: Baseline Assessments of Sustainable Water Management in 11 Cities of the Future

The necessity of Urban Water Cycle Services (UWCS) adapting to future stresses calls for changes that take sustainability into account. Megatrends (e.g. population growth, water scarcity, pollution and climate change) pose urgent water challenges in cities. In a previous paper, a set of indicators, i.e., the City Blueprint has been developed to assess the sustainability ofUWCS (Van Leeuwen et al.,Wat Resour Manage 26:2177¿2197, 2012). In this paper this approach has been applied in 9 cities and regions in Europe (Amsterdam, Algarve, Athens, Bucharest, Hamburg, Reggio Emilia, Rotterdam, Oslo and Cities of Scotland) and in 2 African cities in Angola (Kilamba Kiaxi) and Tanzania (Dar es Salaam). The assessments showed that cities vary considerably with regard to the sustainability of theUWCS. This is also captured in the Blue City Index (BCI), the arithmetic mean of 24 indicators comprising the City Blueprint (Van Leeuwen et al., Wat Resour Manage 26:2177¿2197, 2012). Theoretically, the BCI has a minimum score of 0 and a maximum score of 10. The actual BCIs in the 11 cities studied varied from 3.31 (Kilamba Kiaxi) to 7.72 (Hamburg). The BCI was positively correlated with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person, the ambitions of the local authorities regarding the sustainability of the UWCS, the voluntary participation index (VPI) and all governance indicators according to the World Bank. The study demonstrated that the variability in sustainability among the UWCS of cities offers great opportunities for short-term and long-term improvements, provided that cities share their best practices.Van Leeuwen, CJ. (2013). City Blueprints: Baseline Assessments of Sustainable Water Management in 11 Cities of the Future. Water resources management. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-013-0462-5Bai X (2007) Industrial ecology and the global impacts of cities. J Industr Ecol 11:1–6Brown RR, Keath N, Wong THF (2009) Urban water management in cities: Historical, current and future regimes. Water Sci Technol 59:847–855De Graaf R, van de Giessen N, van de Ven F (2007a) Alternative water management options to reduce vulnerability for climate change in the Netherlands. Nat Hazards 5:407–422De Graaf RE, van de Giessen NC, van de Ven FHM (2007b) The closed city as a strategy to reduce vulnerability of urban areas for climate change. Water Sci Technol 56:165–173EEA (2010) European Environment Agency. The European environment. State and outlook 2010. Synthesis. Copenhagen, DenmarkEEA (2012) European Environment Agency. Urban adaptation to climate change in Europe. Challenges and opportunities for cities together with supportive national and European policies. Synthesis, Copenhagen, DenmarkEFILWC (2006) First European quality of life survey: participation in civil society. European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Dublin. http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/htmlfiles/ef0676.htm . Accessed 21 February 2011Engel K, Jokiel D, Kraljevic A, Geiger M, Smith K (2011) Big cities. Big water. Big challenges. Water in an urbanizing world. World wildlife fund, KoberichEnvironmental Performance Index (2010) http://www.epi2010.yale.edu/Metrics/WaterEffectsOnEcosystem . Accessed 30 March 2012European Commission (2012) Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. A Blueprint to Safeguard Europe’s Water Resources. COM (2012)673 finalEuropean Commission (2013) European Innovation Partnership on water (EIP Water). http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/innovationpartnership/European green city index (2009) Assessing the environmental impact of Europe’s major cities. A research project conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, http://www.siemens.com/press/pool/de/events/corporate/2009-12-Cop15/European_Green_City_Index.pdf . Accessed 20 February 2011Grimm NB, Faeth SH, Golubiewski NE, Redman CL, Wu J, Bai X, Briggs JM (2008) Global change and the ecology of cities. Science 319(5864):756–760Hoekstra AY, Mekonnen MM, Chapagain AK, Mathews RE, Richter BD (2012) Global monthly water scarcity: Blue water footprints versus blue water availability. PLoS ONE 7(2):e32688. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0032688IMF (2012) Gross Domestic Product (international dollars) as provided by the International Monetary Fund for 2010–2011: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita . Accessed October 2012Kaufman D, Kraay A, Mastruzzi M (2010) The worldwide governance indicators. Methodology and analytical issues. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 5430. World Bank, Washington DCLange P, Driessen PJ, Sauer A, Borneman B, Burger P (2013) Governing towards sustainability – conceptualizing modes of governance. J Environ Policy Planning 15:403–425Makropoulos CK, Butler D (2010) Distributed water infrastructure for sustainable communities. Water Resour Manag 24(11):2795–2816Mekonnen MM, Hoekstra AY (2011) National water footprint accounts: the green, blue and grey water footprint of production and consumption. Volumes 1 and 2. Value of Water Research Report Series No. 50. UNESCO-IHE, Delft, the NetherlandsNorman E, Bakker K, Cook C, Dunn G, Allen D (2010) Water security: A primer. Policy report. Fostering water security in Canada Project www.watergovernance.ca Accessed 20 September 2013Philip R, Anton B, van der Steen P (2011) SWITCH training kit. Integrated urban water management in the city of the future. Module 1. Strategic planning, ICLEI, Freiburg, GermanyPrüss-Üstün A, Bos R, Gore F, Bartram J (2008) Safer water, better health: Costs, benefits and sustainability of interventions to protect and promote health. World Health Organization, GenevaRozos E, Makropoulos C (2013) Source to tap urban water cycle modelling. Environ Model Softw 41:139–150SIWI (2012) Stockholm International Water Institute. Statistics. http://www.siwi.org/sa/node.asp?node=159 Accessed 20 December, 2012Ugarelli R, Pachioli M, Di Federico V (2009) Planning maintenance strategies for Italian urban drainage systems applying CARE-S. In: Allegre H, do Céu Almeida M (eds) Strategic asset management of water supply and wastewater infrastructures. IWA Publishing, London, pp 471–486UN (2012) World urbanization prospects: The 2011 revision. UN, New York, USA. http://esa.un.org/unup/ . Accessed 30 November 2012UNDP (2004) Water governance for poverty reduction. USA, New YorkUNEP (2008) Every drop counts; environmentally sound technologies for urban and domestic water use efficiency. Switzerland, GenevaUNEP (2012) Fifth global environment outlook: Environment for the future we want. Switzerland, GenevaUNESCO (2012) Managing water under uncertainty and risk. Facts and figures from the UN world water development report 4. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002154/215492e.pdf . Accessed 20 December 2012UN-Habitat (2010). Climate change strategy 2010–2013. Urban Environmental Planning Branch, Nairobi, Kenia. http://www.google.nl/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4MXGB_enNL512NL512&q=Climate+change+strategy+2010-2013 . Accessed 20 December 2012Van Leeuwen CJ (2007) Introduction. In: Van Leeuwen CJ, Vermeire TG (eds) Risk Assessment of Chemicals. An Introduction. 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The impact of Cochrane Systematic Reviews : a mixed method evaluation of outputs from Cochrane Review Groups supported by the UK National Institute for Health Research

© 2014 Bunn et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background: There has been a growing emphasis on evidence-informed decision making in health care. Systematic reviews, such as those produced by the Cochrane Collaboration, have been a key component of this movement. The UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Systematic Review Programme currently supports 20 Cochrane Review Groups (CRGs). The aim of this study was to identify the impacts of Cochrane reviews published by NIHR funded CRGs during the years 2007-11. Methods: We sent questionnaires to CRGs and review authors, interviewed guideline developers and used bibliometrics and documentary review to get an overview of CRG impact and to evaluate the impact of a sample of 60 Cochrane reviews. We used a framework with four categories (knowledge production, research targeting, informing policy development, and impact on practice/services). Results: A total of 1502 new and updated reviews were produced by the 20 NIHR funded CRGs between 2007-11. The clearest impacts were on policy with a total of 483 systematic reviews cited in 247 sets of guidance; 62 were international, 175 national (87 from the UK) and 10 local. Review authors and CRGs provided some examples of impact on practice or services, for example safer use of medication, the identification of new effective drugs or treatments and potential economic benefits through the reduction in the use of unproven or unnecessary procedures. However, such impacts are difficult to objectively document and the majority of reviewers were unsure if their review had produced specific impacts. Qualitative data suggested that Cochrane reviews often play an instrumental role in informing guidance although a poor fit with guideline scope or methods, reviews being out of date and a lack of communication between CRGs and guideline developers were barriers to their use. Conclusions: Health and economic impacts of research are generally difficult to measure. We found that to be the case with this evaluation. Impacts on knowledge production and clinical guidance were easier to identify and substantiate than those on clinical practice. Questions remain about how we define and measure impact and more work is needed to develop suitable methods for impact analysis.Peer reviewe

Haplotype reference consortium panel: Practical implications of imputations with large reference panels

Recently, the Haplotype Reference Consortium (HRC) released a large imputation panel that allows more accurate imputation of genetic variants. In this study, we compared a set of directly assayed common and rare variants from an exome array to imputed genotypes, that is, 1000 genomes project (1000GP) and HRC. We showed that imputation using the HRC panel improved the concordance between assayed and imputed genotypes at common, and especially, low-frequency variants. Furthermore, we performed a genome-wide association meta-analysis of vertical cup-disc ratio, a highly heritable endophenotype of glaucoma, in four cohorts using 1000GP and HRC imputations. We compared the results of the meta-analysis using 1000GP to the meta-analysis results using HRC. Overall, we found that using HRC imputation significantly improved P values (P = 3.07 × 10(-61) ), particularly for suggestive variants. Both meta-analyses were performed in the same sample size, yet we found eight genome-wide significant loci in the HRC-based meta-analysis versus seven genome-wide significant loci in the 1000GP-based meta-analysis. This study provides supporting evidence of the new avenues for gene discovery and fine mapping that the HRC imputation panel offers

Making sense of violence risk predictions using clinical notes

Violence risk assessment in psychiatric institutions enables interventions to avoid violence incidents. Clinical notes written by practitioners and available in electronic health records (EHR) are valuable resources that are seldom used to their full potential. Previous studies have attempted to assess violence risk in psychiatric patients using such notes, with acceptable performance. However, they do not explain why classification works and how it can be improved. We explore two methods to better understand the quality of a classifier in the context of clinical note analysis: random forests using topic models, and choice of evaluation metric. These methods allow us to understand both our data and our methodology more profoundly, setting up the groundwork for improved models that build upon this understanding. This is particularly important when it comes to the generalizability of evaluated classifiers to new data, a trustworthiness problem that is of great interest due to the increased availability of new data in electronic format

The Energy & Raw Materials Factory: Role and Potential Contribution to the Circular Economy of the Netherlands

Water is an abundant resource worldwide, but fresh and clean water is scarce in many areas of the world. Increases in water consumption and climate change will affect global water security even further in the near future. With increasing numbers of people living in metropolitan areas, water, energy, and materials need to be used carefully, reused and renewed. Resource scarcity is the driver behind the circular economy. The recovery of materials and energy can add significant new value streams and improve cost recovery and water quality. In this paper, we present the creation of the Energy & Raw Materials Factory (ERMF) of the Dutch Water Authorities, also known as the Resource Factory, as one of the solutions to this global challenge of water in the circular economy. Resources like cellulose, bioplastics, phosphate, alginate-like exopolymers from aerobic granular sludge (bio-ALE), and biomass can be recovered. Bio-ALE is an alginate-like polymer of sugars and proteins and can be used in agriculture and horticulture, the paper industry, medical, and construction industries. The ERMF demands significant investments but the return on investment is high both from a financial and environmental perspective, provided that markets can be realized. Experiences in the Netherlands show that the concept of the ERMF is viable and adds to the creation of a circular economy. Achieving climate neutrality and production of new and promising resources like bio-ALE are possible. The ERMF can contribute to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations on water and sanitation, once fully operational