Impact of climate change on potential distribution of Quercus suber in the conditions of North Africa

Climate change, which is expected to continue in the future, is increasingly becoming a major concern affecting many components of the biodiversity and human society. Understanding its impacts on forest ecosystems is essential for undertaking long-term management and conservation strategies. This study was focused on modeling the potential distribution of Quercus suber in the Maamora Forest, the world’s largest lowland cork oak forest, under actual and future climate conditions and identifying the environmental factors associated with this distribution. Maximum Entropy approach was used to train a Species Distribution Model and future predictions were based on different greenhouse gas emission scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathway RCPs). The results showed that the trained model was highly reliable and reflected the actual and future distributions of Maamora’s cork oak. It showed that the precipitation of the coldest and wettest quarter and the annual temperature range are the environmental factors that provide the most useful information for Q. suber distribution in the study area. The computed results of cork oak’s habitat suitability showed that predicted suitable areas are site-specific and seem to be highly dependent on climate change. The predicted changes are significant and expected to vary (decline of habitat suitability) in the future under the different emissions pathways. It indicates that climate change may reduce the suitable area for Q. suber under all the climate scenarios and the severity of projected impacts is closely linked to the magnitude of the climate change. The percent variation in habitat suitability indicates negative values for all the scenarios, ranging –23% to –100%. These regressions are projected to be more important under pessimist scenario RCP8.5. Given these results, we recommend including the future climate scenarios in the existing management strategies and highlight the usefulness of the produced predictive suitability maps under actual and future climate for the protection of this sensitive forest and its key species – cork oak, as well as for other forest species

A hysteretic multiscale formulation for validating computational models of heterogeneous structures

A framework for the development of accurate yet computationally efficient numerical models is proposed in this work, within the context of computational model validation. The accelerated computation achieved herein relies on the implementation of a recently derived multiscale finite element formulation, able to alternate between scales of different complexity. In such a scheme, the micro-scale is modelled using a hysteretic finite elements formulation. In the micro-level, nonlinearity is captured via a set of additional hysteretic degrees of freedom compactly described by an appropriate hysteric law, which gravely simplifies the dynamic analysis task. The computational efficiency of the scheme is rooted in the interaction between the micro- and a macro-mesh level, defined through suitable interpolation fields that map the finer mesh displacement field to the coarser mesh displacement field. Furthermore, damage related phenomena that are manifested at the micro-level are accounted for, using a set of additional evolution equations corresponding to the stiffness degradation and strength deterioration of the underlying material. The developed modelling approach is utilized for the purpose of model validation; firstly, in the context of reliability analysis; and secondly, within an inverse problem formulation where the identification of constitutive parameters via availability of acceleration response data is sought

Hepatoprotective and antioxidant activities of stem bark extract of Khaya grandifoliola (Welw) CDC and Entada africana Guill. et Perr

ABSTRACT Khaya grandifoliola (Meliaceae) and Entada africana (Fabaceae) are traditionally used as source of medicines against liver related diseases. But the most efficient solvent to extract the plants bioactive compounds has not yet been found. This work aimed at evaluating and comparing the hepatoprotective and antioxidant activities of Hexane (HE), methylenechloride-methanol (MCME) and water (WE) extracts of the plants stem bark. The hepatoprotective activity was evaluated by acetaminopheninduced damage in rat liver slices in measuring lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) leakage as toxicity marker. The antioxidant activity was assessed by using 2, 4-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazil (DPPH), β-carotene-linoleic acid system (β-CLAMS) and microsomal lipid peroxidation (MLP) assays. The MCME extract of both plants efficiently decreased LDH leakage from liver slices. At the tested concentration of 100µg/ml, the hepatoprotective percentage of the extract of K. grandifoliola (87.15%) and that of silymarine (93.73%) were comparable. In the antioxidant study, the MCME and WE extracts of both plants performed well in inhibiting MLP assay but, the MCME extracts were the more antioxidant with IC 50 values of 2.7±0.05µg/ml and 0.50±0.07µg/ml comparable with Trolox (2.27±0.52µg/ml) for K. grandifoliola and E. africana, respectively. Phytochemically, many classes of compounds including polyphenols were tested positive in the MCME extracts. From the interesting activity of these extracts, it might be concluded that methylenechloride-methanol (1:1v/v) mixture is the most efficient solvent to extract hepatoprotective and antioxidant active principles from K. grandifoliola and E. africana stem bark

Communication Research

Contains reports on nine research projects.Bell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporate

Microseismic Full Waveform Modeling in Anisotropic Media with Moment Tensor Implementation

Seismic anisotropy which is common in shale and fractured rocks will cause travel-time and amplitude discrepancy in different propagation directions. For microseismic monitoring which is often implemented in shale or fractured rocks, seismic anisotropy needs to be carefully accounted for in source location and mechanism determination. We have developed an efficient finite-difference full waveform modeling tool with an arbitrary moment tensor source. The modeling tool is suitable for simulating wave propagation in anisotropic media for microseismic monitoring. As both dislocation and non-double-couple source are often observed in microseismic monitoring, an arbitrary moment tensor source is implemented in our forward modeling tool. The increments of shear stress are equally distributed on the staggered grid to implement an accurate and symmetric moment tensor source. Our modeling tool provides an efficient way to obtain the Green’s function in anisotropic media, which is the key of anisotropic moment tensor inversion and source mechanism characterization in microseismic monitoring. In our research, wavefields in anisotropic media have been carefully simulated and analyzed in both surface array and downhole array. The variation characteristics of travel-time and amplitude of direct P- and S-wave in vertical transverse isotropic media and horizontal transverse isotropic media are distinct, thus providing a feasible way to distinguish and identify the anisotropic type of the subsurface. Analyzing the travel-times and amplitudes of the microseismic data is a feasible way to estimate the orientation and density of the induced cracks in hydraulic fracturing. Our anisotropic modeling tool can be used to generate and analyze microseismic full wavefield with full moment tensor source in anisotropic media, which can help promote the anisotropic interpretation and inversion of field data