Drain blocking has limited short-term effects on greenhouse gas fluxes in a Molinia caerulea dominated shallow peatland (article)

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordThe dataset associated with this article is available in ORE at https://doi.org/10.24378/exe.2723Drained peatlands dominated by purple moor grass (Molinia caerulea) are widespread in the UK and Western Europe. Although substantial carbon stores may be present in these peatlands, in this degraded state they are not currently acting as carbon sinks. Therefore, M.caerulea dominated peatlands have been identified as potential sites for ecohydrological restoration to tackle the current climate emergency. However, at present little is known about whether ditch blocking can raise water tables and promote the recovery of bog plant species, and the subsequent effects on carbon sequestration in these peatlands. To investigate the potential for restoration, we measured changes in water table depth, vegetation composition, photosynthesis at 1000 μmol Photons m−2 s−1 (PG1000), ecosystem respiration (REco) and partitioned below-ground respiration in two M.caerulea dominated peatlands in which drainage ditches had been blocked located in Exmoor National Park, southwest England. Measurements were made in two headwater catchments at ⅛, ¼ and ½ of the distance between adjacent drainage ditches at four control-restored paired sites, during the growing seasons pre- (2012) and post- (2014, 2016 & 2018) restoration. Restoration had a small but significant (p = 0.009) effect on water table depths however, this did not result in a significant change in vegetation composition (p > 0.350). Ecosystem respiration increased in both the control and restored locations following restoration however, this increase was significantly smaller (p = 0.010) at the restored locations, possibly due to a similarly reduced increase in photosynthesis, although this change was not significant (p = 0.116). Below-ground respiration showed no significant changes following restoration. This research illustrates how degraded these shallow peatlands are, and raises concerns that ditch blocking alone may not bring about the high and stable water tables required to perturb the existing Molinia caerulea-dominated ecosystem and substantially alter the carbon balance. Additional restoration measures may be required.South West Water (SWW)University of ExeterTechnology Strategy Board CouncilNatural Environment Research Council (NERC

What technology for autism needs to be invented? Idea generation from the autism community via the ASCmeI.T. App

In autism and technology research, technologies are often developed by researchers targeting specific social and communication difficulties experienced by individuals with autism. In some technology-based projects, children and adults with autism as well as parents, carers, teachers, and other professionals, are involved as users, informers, and (more rarely) as co-designers. However, much less is known about the views of the autism community about the needs they identify as areas that could be addressed through innovative technological solutions. This paper describes the ASCmeI.T. project which encourages members of the autism community to download a free app to answer the question: If there was one new technology to help people with autism, what would it be? This project provides a model of e-participation in which people from the autism community are involved from the start so that new developments in digital technologies can be better matched to support the needs of users

Similarity solutions for unsteady shear-stress-driven flow of Newtonian and power-law fluids : slender rivulets and dry patches

Unsteady flow of a thin film of a Newtonian fluid or a non-Newtonian power-law fluid with power-law index N driven by a constant shear stress applied at the free surface, on a plane inclined at an angle α to the horizontal, is considered. Unsteady similarity solutions representing flow of slender rivulets and flow around slender dry patches are obtained. Specifically, solutions are obtained for converging sessile rivulets (0 < α < π/2) and converging dry patches in a pendent film (π/2 < α < π), as well as for diverging pendent rivulets and diverging dry patches in a sessile film. These solutions predict that at any time t, the rivulet and dry patch widen or narrow according to |x|3/2, and the film thickens or thins according to |x|, where x denotes distance down the plane, and that at any station x, the rivulet and dry patch widen or narrow like |t|−1, and the film thickens or thins like |t|−1, independent of N

Are autistic traits in the general population stable across development?

There is accumulating evidence that autistic traits (AT) are on a continuum in the general population, with clinical autism representing the extreme end of a quantitative distribution. While the nature and severity of symptoms in clinical autism are known to persist over time, no study has examined the long-term stability of AT among typically developing toddlers. The current investigation measured AT in 360 males and 400 males from the general population close to two decades apart, using the Pervasive Developmental Disorder subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist in early childhood (M = 2.14 years; SD = 0.15), and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient in early adulthood (M = 19.50 years; SD = 0.70). Items from each scale were further divided into social (difficulties with social interaction and communication) and non-social (restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests) AT. The association between child and adult measurements of AT as well the influence of potentially confounding sociodemographic, antenatal and obstetric variables were assessed using Pearson's correlations and linear regression. For males, Total AT in early childhood were positively correlated with total AT (r = .16, p = .002) and social AT (r = .16, p = .002) in adulthood. There was also a positive correlation for males between social AT measured in early childhood and Total (r = .17, p = .001) and social AT (r = .16, p = .002) measured in adulthood. Correlations for non-social AT did not achieve significance in males. Furthermore, there was no significant longitudinal association in AT observed for males or females. Despite the constraints of using different measures and different raters at the two ages, this study found modest developmental stability of social AT from early childhood to adulthood in boys

Impacts of organic and conventional crop management on diversity and activity of free-living nitrogen fixing bacteria and total bacteria are subsidiary to temporal effects

A three year field study (2007-2009) of the diversity and numbers of the total and metabolically active free-living diazotophic bacteria and total bacterial communities in organic and conventionally managed agricultural soil was conducted at the Nafferton Factorial Systems Comparison (NFSC) study, in northeast England. The result demonstrated that there was no consistent effect of either organic or conventional soil management across the three years on the diversity or quantity of either diazotrophic or total bacterial communities. However, ordination analyses carried out on data from each individual year showed that factors associated with the different fertility management measures including availability of nitrogen species, organic carbon and pH, did exert significant effects on the structure of both diazotrophic and total bacterial communities. It appeared that the dominant drivers of qualitative and quantitative changes in both communities were annual and seasonal effects. Moreover, regression analyses showed activity of both communities was significantly affected by soil temperature and climatic conditions. The diazotrophic community showed no significant change in diversity across the three years, however, the total bacterial community significantly increased in diversity year on year. Diversity was always greatest during March for both diazotrophic and total bacterial communities. Quantitative analyses using qPCR of each community indicated that metabolically active diazotrophs were highest in year 1 but the population significantly declined in year 2 before recovering somewhat in the final year. The total bacterial population in contrast increased significantly each year. Seasonal effects were less consistent in this quantitative study

Diarrhea incidence in low- and middle-income countries in 1990 and 2010: a systematic review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Diarrhea is recognized as a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children under 5 years of age in low- and middle-income countries yet updated estimates of diarrhea incidence by age for these countries are greatly needed. We conducted a systematic literature review to identify cohort studies that sought to quantify diarrhea incidence among any age group of children 0-59 mo of age.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We used the Expectation-Maximization algorithm as a part of a two-stage regression model to handle diverse age data and overall incidence rate variation by study to generate country specific incidence rates for low- and middle-income countries for 1990 and 2010. We then calculated regional incidence rates and uncertainty ranges using the bootstrap method, and estimated the total number of episodes for children 0-59 mo of age in 1990 and 2010.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We estimate that incidence has declined from 3.4 episodes/child year in 1990 to 2.9 episodes/child year in 2010. As was the case previously, incidence rates are highest among infants 6-11 mo of age; 4.5 episodes/child year in 2010. Among these 139 countries there were nearly 1.9 billion episodes of childhood diarrhea in 1990 and nearly 1.7 billion episodes in 2010.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Although our results indicate that diarrhea incidence rates may be declining slightly, the total burden on the health of each child due to multiple episodes per year is tremendous and additional funds are needed to improve both prevention and treatment practices in low- and middle-income countries.</p

Practitioner insights as a means of setting a context for conservation

A key obstacle to conservation success is the tendency of conservation professionals to tackle each challenge individually rather than collectively and in context. We sought to prioritize barriers to conservation previously described in the conservation literature. We undertook an online survey of 154 practitioners from over 70 countries to ascertain the most important barriers to conservation they faced. We used statistical analyses to identify the key impediments to conservation success and to examine whether these were affected by organizational attributes. Twenty‐one barriers were identified. The importance ascribed to those was influenced by continent of operation and organization size, but not by organization age or autonomy (from larger parent organizations). We found the most important barriers to consider when undertaking conservation action were wider issues (e.g., population growth, consumerism, favoring development, and industrial‐scale activity), operating environment (e.g., lack of political will, ineffective law enforcement, weak governments, corruption, safety and security), community attributes (e.g., dynamics, conflicts, and education levels), and the way conservation is undertaken (overconfidence, lack of funding, and externally set agendas). However, we advise against applying a one‐size‐fits‐all approach. We propose that conservationists account for the complex socioecological systems they operate in if they are to achieve success

Multi-individual Microsatellite identification: a multiple genome approach to microsatellite design (MiMi)

Bespoke microsatellite marker panels are increasingly affordable and tractable to researchers and conservationists. The rate of microsatellite discovery is very high within a shotgun genomic dataset, but extensive laboratory testing of markers is required for confirmation of amplification and polymorphism. By incorporating shotgun next-generation sequencing datasets from multiple individuals of the same species, we have developed a new method for the optimal design of microsatellite markers. This new tool allows us to increase the rate at which suitable candidate markers are selected by 58% in direct comparisons and facilitate an estimated 16% reduction in costs associated with producing a novel microsatellite panel. Our method enables the visualisation of each microsatellite locus in a multiple sequence alignment allowing several important quality checks to be made. Polymorphic loci can be identified and prioritised. Loci containing fragment-length-altering mutations in the flanking regions, which may invalidate assumptions regarding the model of evolution underlying variation at the microsatellite, can be avoided. Priming regions containing point mutations can be detected and avoided, helping to reduce sample-site-marker specificity arising from genetic isolation, and the likelihood of null alleles occurring. We demonstrate the utility of this new approach in two species: an echinoderm and a bird. Our method makes a valuable contribution towards minimising genotyping errors and reducing costs associated with developing a novel marker panel. The Python script to perform our method of multi-individual microsatellite identification (MiMi) is freely available from GitHub (https://github.com/graemefox/mimi)

Towards a framework for attention cueing in instructional animations: Guidelines for research and design

This paper examines the transferability of successful cueing approaches from text and static visualization research to animations. Theories of visual attention and learning as well as empirical evidence for the instructional effectiveness of attention cueing are reviewed and, based on Mayer’s theory of multimedia learning, a framework was developed for classifying three functions for cueing: (1) selection—cues guide attention to specific locations, (2) organization—cues emphasize structure, and (3) integration—cues explicate relations between and within elements. The framework was used to structure the discussion of studies on cueing in animations. It is concluded that attentional cues may facilitate the selection of information in animations and sometimes improve learning, whereas organizational and relational cueing requires more consideration on how to enhance understanding. Consequently, it is suggested to develop cues that work in animations rather than borrowing effective cues from static representations. Guidelines for future research on attention cueing in animations are presented