Carabid beetle and spider assemblages along a forested urban–rural gradient in southern Finland

To investigate the effects of urbanization on carabid beetles (Carabidae) and ground dwelling spiders (Araneae) a study was completed along a 20 kmurban–rural forest gradient in the Helsinki–Espoo area of southern Finland. To study changes in assemblage structure, abundance and species richness, these taxa were collected in the year 2000 using pitfall traps, which had been placed in four forest sites within each of the urban, suburban and rural zones.We expected to find changes in the abundances and species richnesses in the two taxa across the urban–rural gradient, but did not find any. Our second and third hypotheses, stating that generalist species and small-bodied species should gain dominance along the gradient from rural to urban sites, were partly supported as carabid specialists were more characteristic of suburban and rural environments whereas generalists were more likely to be collected from rural areas compared to suburban or urban sites. Furthermore, medium to large-sized carabid individuals were more likely to be collected in the rural sites compared to urban forests. We found no evidence for significant changes in spider abundance or species richness across the urban–rural gradient in relation to body size or habitat specialization. We suggest that urbanization does not have significant effects on the total abundances and species richnesses in these two taxa. However, individual species responded differently to urbanization, and there were significant differences in the specialization and body sizes of carabids across the gradient

Changes in carabid beetle assemblages across an urban-rural gradient in Japan

As part of the international Globenet project, carabid beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) were collected using pitfall traps from four urban, four suburban and four rural sites in Hiroshima City, Japan, during the 2001 summer season. In agreement with expectation, carabid abundance and species richness decreased significantly from rural to urban sites. Furthermore, no large, and only few individuals of medium-sized specialist species were collected from the urban environment, while many specimens of medium-sized and some large-sized specialist species were collected from the suburban and rural sites. Hiroshima city was characterised by medium-sized generalist carabids, while the suburbs and the rural environments were characterised by small-sized generalist beetles. These results did not apply at the species level. To summarise, we found a significant effect of urbanisation on the composition of carabid beetle assemblages in Hiroshima City. These changes were similar to those found in previous studies performed in Sofia (Bulgaria), Edmonton (Canada) and Helsinki (Finland). Thus, it appears that urbanisation has some similar and predictable effects on carabid assemblages in various parts of the world

Estimating net ideal cycle time for body-in-white production lines

In the automotive industry, a Body-in-White (BIW) refers to the rst step, the basic structure, in the production of a vehicle. Once a BIW production line has been built, the (maximum) capacity is xed and throughput is therefore limited by the equipment speci ed during the design phase. The main metric used to inform the production line design is the Net Ideal Cycle Time (NICT). Unfortunately the state of practice to estimate the NICT is a basic heuristic that does not account for production variation. In this paper we challenge the current estimation approach by proposing an alternative that assumes actual production to follow a Weibull distribution. The proposed model is derived and estimated from empirical data. The results suggest that BIW production lines have traditionally been designed with too low a capacity, resulting in planned throughput rarely being achieved. On the other hand, increasing the design capacity implies higher initial investment. In this paper it is demonstrated that the higher investment required is o set by reduced losses, resulting in more reliable planning and returns.http://orion.journals.ac.zaam2022Industrial and Systems Engineerin

Soil biota in boreal urban greenspace : Responses to plant type and age

Plant functional type influences the abundance and distribution of soil biota. With time, as root systems develop, such effects become more apparent. The relationship of plant type and time with the structure and abundance of soil microbial and invertebrate communities has been widely investigated in a variety of systems. However, much less is known about long-term soil community dynamics within the context of urban environments. In this study, we investigated how soil microbes, nematodes and earthworms respond to different plant functional types (lawns only and lawns with deciduous or evergreen trees) and park age in 41 urban parks in southern Finland. As non-urban controls we included deciduous and evergreen trees in 5 forest sites. We expected that microbial biomass and the relative abundance of fungi over bacteria would increase with time. We also expected major differences in soil microbial and nematode communities depending on vegetation: we hypothesized that i) the presence of trees, and evergreens in particular, would support a greater abundance of fungi and fungal-feeding nematodes over bacteria and bacterial-feeding nematodes and ii) the fungi to bacteria ratio would be lowest in lawns, with deciduous trees showing intermediate values. In contrast to our predictions, we showed that old deciduous trees, rather than evergreens, supported the highest fungal abundances and fungal-feeding nematodes in the soil. Consistent with our predictions, microbial biomass in urban park soils tended to increase with time, whereas - in contrast to our hypotheses - fungal-feeding nematode abundance declined. Even in the oldest parks included in the current study, microbial biomass estimates never approximated those in the minimally managed natural forests, where biomass estimates were three times higher. Anecic earthworm abundance also increased with time in urban parks, whereas abundances of fungal-feeding, plant-feeding and omnivorous nematodes, as well as those of epigeic and endogeic earthworms remained constant with time and without any distinct differences between urban parks and the control forests. Our findings highlight that although urban park soils harbor diverse soil communities and considerable microbial biomass, they are distinct from adjacent natural sites in community composition and biomass.Peer reviewe

The MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey: I. Survey overview and highlights

Please abstract in the article.The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), the National Research Foundation (NRF), the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, US National Science Foundation, the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the DSI/NRF, the SARAO HCD programme, the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation.http://www.aanda.orghj2022Physic

Spirituality and health : a narrative-pastoral approach

Health is much more than the absence of illness; it is rather a “high level wellness” and a life with “meaningful life-possibilities”. This article indicates how meaningful life-possibilities and a high level of wellness can be socially constructed within a process of narrative-pastoral therapy for a patient who is chronically ill and therefore cannot be cured. Pastoral care as a spiritual and religious act can play an important role in giving sense and meaning to people’s lives, and can play a preventive role in living with illness. This article furthermore shows how patients’ stories of illness can be centralised by means of narrative therapy and how a pastoral and ethical attitude of love and respect can create a climate conducive to better health and well being. We share how patients’ richer descriptions of their illness can produce a spiritual climate which can contribute to their better health.Spine cut of Journal binding and pages scanned on flatbed EPSON Expression 10000 XL; 400dpi; text/lineart - black and white - stored to Tiff Derivation: Abbyy Fine Reader v.9 work with PNG-format (black and white); Photoshop CS3; Adobe Acrobat v.9 Web display format PDFhttp://explore.up.ac.za/record=b100134

Solving the buffer allocation problem using simulation-based optimisation

In production lines, buffers function as a means to decouple stations, which reduce the effect that station failures and varying process times have on the complete line's throughput. However, adding larger buffers can be costly, for example, in the automotive industry where it results in increased working capital. This manuscript addresses the buffer allocation problem (BAP), seeking the smallest total buffer size while meeting a prescribed throughput by employing a simulation-based optimisation approach. A Tabu Search algorithm searches the solution space for the optimal buffer configuration while a discrete event simulation model evaluates each configuration, accounting for the machine (un)reliability. Since the multiple simulations add a sizeable computational burden, our approach introduces a novel neighbourhood search mechanism, which borrows from the Theory of Constrains. Solving test sets available in the literature suggest that this approach is 18 times faster than prior Adaptive Tabu Search approaches for small problems, and more than five times faster for medium-sized problems.http://orion.journals.ac.za/pubam2021Industrial and Systems Engineerin