Phenological shifts of abiotic events, producers and consumers across a continent

Ongoing climate change can shift organism phenology in ways that vary depending on species, habitats and climate factors studied. To probe for large-scale patterns in associated phenological change, we use 70,709 observations from six decades of systematic monitoring across the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Among 110 phenological events related to plants, birds, insects, amphibians and fungi, we find a mosaic of change, defying simple predictions of earlier springs, later autumns and stronger changes at higher latitudes and elevations. Site mean temperature emerged as a strong predictor of local phenology, but the magnitude and direction of change varied with trophic level and the relative timing of an event. Beyond temperature-associated variation, we uncover high variation among both sites and years, with some sites being characterized by disproportionately long seasons and others by short ones. Our findings emphasize concerns regarding ecosystem integrity and highlight the difficulty of predicting climate change outcomes. The authors use systematic monitoring across the former USSR to investigate phenological changes across taxa. The long-term mean temperature of a site emerged as a strong predictor of phenological change, with further imprints of trophic level, event timing, site, year and biotic interactions.Peer reviewe

Chronicles of nature calendar, a long-term and large-scale multitaxon database on phenology

We present an extensive, large-scale, long-term and multitaxon database on phenological and climatic variation, involving 506,186 observation dates acquired in 471 localities in Russian Federation, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan. The data cover the period 1890-2018, with 96% of the data being from 1960 onwards. The database is rich in plants, birds and climatic events, but also includes insects, amphibians, reptiles and fungi. The database includes multiple events per species, such as the onset days of leaf unfolding and leaf fall for plants, and the days for first spring and last autumn occurrences for birds. The data were acquired using standardized methods by permanent staff of national parks and nature reserves (87% of the data) and members of a phenological observation network (13% of the data). The database is valuable for exploring how species respond in their phenology to climate change. Large-scale analyses of spatial variation in phenological response can help to better predict the consequences of species and community responses to climate change.Peer reviewe

AUTOMATIC DETERMINING OF TOKEN SEQUENCE ERRORS IN RESPONSES TO OPEN ANSWER QUESTION IN MOODLE LMS

The paper reviews the problem of automatic analysis, grading and hinting to the student in the questions, where correct answer must be the correct sentence in the target language in which order of words (tokens) is important. Proposed solution consists of combination of lexical analysis and editing distance analysis. Proposed solution was implemented as a CorrectWriting question type to a popular Moodle LMS. Such question type is useful when teaching programming languages and English as foreign language

DEFINITION OF TYPOS IN ANSWER OF STUDENT IN KNOWN CORRECT ANSWER

The paper describes method of typo detection in the answers for the questions with open answers. In such questions we know one or several correct answers defining relatively small dictionary of correct words contrasting the usual case of looking for typos in arbitrary text. This fact allows using more complex analysis methods and finding more possible typos, such as extra or missing separators. A typo correction module for the Correct Writing question type (for Moodle LMS) was developed using proposed methods

Intraoperative Imaging of Cortical Blood Flow by Camera-Based Photoplethysmography at Green Light

Intraoperative evaluation of blood perfusion in the brain cortex is an important but hitherto unresolved problem. Our aim was to demonstrate the feasibility of cerebral microcirculation assessment during open brain surgery by using camera-based photoplethysmography (cbPPG) synchronized with an electrocardiograph. Cortical blood flow was monitored in five patients with different diagnoses. Two cases (tumor resection and extra-intracranial bypass grafting) are presented in detail. Blood-flow parameters were visualized after processing cortex images recorded under green-light illumination before and after surgical intervention. In all cases, blood flow was successfully visualized in >95% of open brain. Distributions of blood pulsation amplitude, a parameter related to cortical blood perfusion; pulse arrival time; and blood-pressure-pulse shape were calculated with high spatial resolution (in every pixel). Changes in cerebral blood supply caused by surgical intervention were clearly revealed. We have shown that the temporal spread of pulse arrival time and the spatiotemporal variability of pulse shape are very sensitive markers of brain circulatory disturbances. The green-light cbPPG system offers a new approach to objective assessment of blood-flow changes in the brain during surgical intervention. The proposed system allows for contactless monitoring of cortex blood flow in real time with high resolution, thus providing useful information for surgery optimization and minimization of brain tissue damage

The effect of transition metal substitution in the perovskite-type oxides on the physicochemical properties and the catalytic performance in diesel soot oxidation

The paper is focused on the Fe for Co substitution effect on the redox and catalytic properties in the perovskite structure of GdFeO3. The solid oxides with the composition GdFe1xCoxO3 (x = 0; 0.2; 0.5; 0.8; 1) were obtained by the sol-gel method and characterized by various methods: Xray diffraction (XRD), temperature-programmed reduction (H2-TPR), N2 sorption, temperatureprogrammed desorption of oxygen (TPD-O2), simultaneous thermal analysis (STA), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The H2-TPR results showed that an increase in the cobalt content in the GdFe1xCoxO3 (x = 0; 0.2; 0.5; 0.8; 1) leads to a decrease in the reduction temperature. Using the TPD-O2 and STA methods, the lattice oxygen mobility is increasing in the course of the substitution of Fe for Co. Thus, the Fe substitution in the perovskite leads to an improvement in the oxygen reaction ability. Experiments on the soot oxidation reveal that catalytic oxidation ability increases in the series: GdFe0.5Co0.5O3 < GdFe0.2Co0.8O3 < GdCoO3, which is in good correlation with the increasing oxygen mobility according to H2-TPR, TPD-O2, and STA results. The soot oxidation over GdFeO3 and GdFe0.8Co0.2O3 is not in this range due to the impurities of iron oxides and higher specific surface area