DEVELOPMENT OF A FRAMEWORK FOR IMPLEMENTING 3D SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE IN OMAN – ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

The paper reviews that there are several issues and challenges in order to implement full 2D and 3D Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) in Oman. The state of current 2D SDI and 3D geospatial data has been investigated. Currently, Oman has made noticeable progress in 2D SDI but not yet in 3D domain. To date, there are no serious efforts and initiatives by the authority to materialize the 3D SDI. This paper ends by describing a framework for implementing the 3D SDI. We expect, these issues and challenges of 3D SDI in Oman can prompt better services for several potential users

Current state of social media utilization in neurosurgery amongst European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS) member countries.

BACKGROUND Social Media (SoMe) is becoming increasingly used in the medical community, and its use has been related with academic productivity. However, utilization of SoMe in the European neurosurgical community has not been assessed systematically. METHODS An online search was undertaken to discover SoMe accounts of (1) national and related neurosurgical societies listed on the EANS website, (2) neurosurgical journals present on EANS website, (3) neurosurgery centers within EANS member countries, as listed on their website. SoMe accounts of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram were searched for journals and societies, and Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for neurosurgery departments. The number of likes/followers/subscribers was recorded. RESULTS Five (31%) neurosurgery journals had a SoMe presence. The highest number of followers, likes, and tweets was found for JNNP, and Journal of Neurological Surgery Part B had the most subscribers and video views. SoMe usage was identified for 11 national (28.2%) and 2 multi-national neurosurgical societies. From these, the French Society of Neurosurgery had the largest number of Facebook followers (> 2800) and Likes (> 2700), the Society of British Neurological Surgeons had the largest number of Twitter followers (> 2850), whereas EANS overall had the most followers on Twitter > 5100 and Facebook > 5450. A total of 87 SoMe neurosurgery center accounts were found on either Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, for 64 of 1000 centers (6.4%) in 22 of 40 different countries (55%). Of these 67% (n = 43/64) arose from 6 countries (England, Germany, Italy, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine). There were more Facebook accounts (n = 42) than Instagram accounts (n = 23) or Twitter accounts (n = 22). CONCLUSION SoMe use amongst neurosurgical societies and departments in Europe is very limited. From our perspective, explanations are lacking for the correlated numbers to the market shares of SoMe in the respective countries. Further research, including a survey, to follow up on this important topic should be undertaken among EANS members

Nocturnal Surface Urban Heat Island over Greater Cairo: Spatial Morphology, Temporal Trends and Links to Land-Atmosphere Influences

This study assesses the spatial and temporal characteristics of nighttime surface urban heat island (SUHI) effects over Greater Cairo: the largest metropolitan area in Africa. This study employed nighttime land surface temperature (LST) data at 1 km resolution from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua sensor for the period 2003–2019. We presented a new spatial anomaly algorithm, which allowed to define SUHI using the most anomalous hotspot and cold spot of LST for each time step over Greater Cairo between 2003 and 2019. Results demonstrate that although there is a significant increase in the spatial extent of SUHI over the past two decades, a significant decrease in the mean and maximum intensities of SUHI was noted. Moreover, we examined the dependency between SUHI characteristics and related factors that influence energy and heat fluxes between atmosphere and land in urban environments (e.g., surface albedo, vegetation cover, climate variability, and land cover/use changes). Results demonstrate that the decrease in the intensity of SUHI was mainly guided by a stronger warming in daytime and nighttime LST in the neighborhood of urban localities. This warming was accompanied by a decrease in surface albedo and diurnal temperature range (DTR) over these areas. Results of this study can provide guidance to local urban planners and decision-makers to adopt more effective mitigation strategies to diminish the negative impacts of urban warming on natural and human environments.</jats:p

Phylogenetic Detection of Recombination with a Bayesian Prior on the Distance between Trees

Genomic regions participating in recombination events may support distinct topologies, and phylogenetic analyses should incorporate this heterogeneity. Existing phylogenetic methods for recombination detection are challenged by the enormous number of possible topologies, even for a moderate number of taxa. If, however, the detection analysis is conducted independently between each putative recombinant sequence and a set of reference parentals, potential recombinations between the recombinants are neglected. In this context, a recombination hotspot can be inferred in phylogenetic analyses if we observe several consecutive breakpoints. We developed a distance measure between unrooted topologies that closely resembles the number of recombinations. By introducing a prior distribution on these recombination distances, a Bayesian hierarchical model was devised to detect phylogenetic inconsistencies occurring due to recombinations. This model relaxes the assumption of known parental sequences, still common in HIV analysis, allowing the entire dataset to be analyzed at once. On simulated datasets with up to 16 taxa, our method correctly detected recombination breakpoints and the number of recombination events for each breakpoint. The procedure is robust to rate and transition∶transversion heterogeneities for simulations with and without recombination. This recombination distance is related to recombination hotspots. Applying this procedure to a genomic HIV-1 dataset, we found evidence for hotspots and de novo recombination

The variable influence of dispersant on degradation of oil hydrocarbons in subarctic deep-sea sediments at low temperatures (0-5 °C)

The microbial degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons at low temperatures was investigated in subarctic deep-sea sediments in th e Faroe Shetland Channel (FSC). The effect of the marine oil dispersant, Superdispersant 25 on hydrocarbon degradation was also examined. Sediments collected at 500 and 1000 m depth were spiked with a model oil containing 20 hydrocarbons and incubated at ambient temperature (5 and 0 °C, respectively) with and without marine dispersant. Treatment of sediments with hydrocarbons resulted in the enrichment of Gammaproteobacteria, and specifically the genera Pseudoalteromonas, Pseudomonas, Halomonas, and Cobetia. Hydrocarbon degradation was faster at 5 °C (500 m) with 65-89% of each component degraded after 50 days compared to 0-47% degradation at 0 °C (1000 m), where the aromatic hydrocarbons fluoranthene, anthracene, and Dibenzothiophene showed no degradation. Dispersant significantly increased the rate of degradation at 1000 m, but had no effect at 500 m. There was no statistically significant effect of Superdispersant 25 on the bacterial community structure at either station. These results show that the indigenous bacterial community in the FSC has the capacity to mitigate some of the effects of a potential oil spill, however, the effect of dispersant is ambiguous and further research is needed to understand the implications of its use