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Assessing the climate vulnerability of the world’s natural and cultural heritage
Climate change is the fastest-growing global threat to the world’s natural and cultural heritage. No systematic approach to assess climate vulnerability of protected areas and their associated communities has existed—until now. The Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) is scientifically robust, transparent, and repeatable, and has now been applied to various World Heritage properties. The CVI builds upon an established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) framework to systematically assess vulnerability through a risk assessment approach that considers the key values of the World Heritage property in question and identifies key climate stressors. The CVI process is then used to assess the climate-related vulnerability of the community (including local residents, domestic visitors, and international tourists) associated with the World Heritage property considering economic, social, and cultural connections. Climate impacts are increasingly adding to a wide range of compounding pressures (e.g., increasing tourism, infrastructure development, changing land use practices) that are affecting places, people, customs, and values. Applications of the CVI to date have led to commitments to integrate outcomes into relevant management plans, and to periodically repeat the process, enabling responsive management to changing future circumstances. The CVI has also demonstrated its potential applicability for protected areas beyond World Heritage properties. The CVI process engages local community members in determining impacts, provides opportunities for identifying adaptation and impact mitigation within the community, and aids broader communication about key climate issues
Evaluating Wildlife Vulnerability to Mercury Pollution From Artisinal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Madre de Dios, Peru
“Illegal, artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) often occurs in remote highly biodiverse areas, such as the Madre de Dios region of Peru. Mercury used in gold mining bioaccumulates in the environment and poses developmental, hormonal, and neurological threats to wildlife. The impact of ASGM on biodiversity remains largely unknown. We used geographic information science to create a spatial model of pollution risk from mining sites, in order to predict locations and species assemblages at risk. Multicriteria evaluation was used to determine how flow accumulation, distance from mining areas, total suspended sediment load, and soil porosity influenced the vulnerability of regions to mercury pollution. Results suggest that there is considerable opportunity for protection of areas with high biodiversity and vulnerability north of the Madre de Dios River where much of the land is not protected. Our study highlights the need for future ASGM research to consider more than deforestation risk alone while protecting the areas’ unmatched biodiversity.
Full stress tensor measurement using colour centres in diamond
Stress and strain are important factors in determining the mechanical,
electronic, and optical properties of materials, relating to each other by the
material's elasticity or stiffness. Both are represented by second rank field
tensors with, in general, six independent components. Measurements of these
quantities are usually achieved by measuring a property that depends on the
translational symmetry and periodicity of the crystal lattice, such as optical
phonon energies using Raman spectroscopy, the electronic band gap using
cathodoluminescence, photoelasticity via the optical birefringence, or Electron
Back Scattering Diffraction (EBSD). A reciprocal relationship therefore exists
between the maximum sensitivity of the measurements and the spatial resolution.
Furthermore, of these techniques, only EBSD and off-axis Raman spectroscopy
allow measurement of all six components of the stress tensor, but neither is
able to provide full 3D maps. Here we demonstrate a method for measuring the
full stress tensor in diamond, using the spectral and optical polarization
properties of the photoluminescence from individual nitrogen vacancy (NV)
colour centres. We demonstrate a sensitivity of order 10 MPa, limited by local
fluctuations in the stress in the sample, and corresponding to a strain of
about 10^-5, comparable with the best sensitivity provided by other techniques.
By using the colour centres as built-in local sensors, the technique overcomes
the reciprocal relationship between spatial resolution and sensitivity and
offers the potential for measuring strains as small as 10^-9 at spatial
resolution of order 10 nm. Furthermore it provides a straightforward route to
volumetric stress mapping. Aside from its value in understanding strain
distributions in diamond, this new approach to stress and strain measurement
could be adapted for use in micro or nanoscale sensors.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures - supplementary informations included in appendi
Integrated Diamond Optics for Single Photon Detection
Optical detection of single defect centers in the solid state is a key
element of novel quantum technologies. This includes the generation of single
photons and quantum information processing. Unfortunately the brightness of
such atomic emitters is limited. Therefore we experimentally demonstrate a
novel and simple approach that uses off-the-shelf optical elements. The key
component is a solid immersion lens made of diamond, the host material for
single color centers. We improve the excitation and detection of single
emitters by one order of magnitude, as predicted by theory.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
It is Not Black and White: A Comparison of Skin Tone by Playing Position in the Premier League and English Football
Within the present manuscript we explore the role of skin tone on playing position within English football’s top four professional leagues. Player data (N = 4,515) was collected across five seasons (2010-2015). Results indicate that in general, darker skin toned players are more likely to operate within peripheral rather than central positions. Using both one and two-way ANOVAs, results suggest significant differences between skin tone and individual playing positions. Between league differences were, however, non-significant. Although darker skin toned players are still more likely to occupy peripheral positions, the situation is more nuanced than first thought. Instead of segregating players by central versus peripheral roles, it appears that darker skin toned players occupy positions associated with athleticism and strength. In contrast, lighter skin toned players appear to fulfill positions requiring organizational skills and creativity
Remarks on Duality Transformations and Generalized Stabilizer States
We consider the transformation of Hamilton operators under various sets of
quantum operations acting simultaneously on all adjacent pairs of particles. We
find mappings between Hamilton operators analogous to duality transformations
as well as exact characterizations of ground states employing non-Hermitean
eigenvalue equations and use this to motivate a generalization of the
stabilizer formalism to non-Hermitean operators. The resulting class of states
is larger than that of standard stabilizer states and allows for example for
continuous variation of local entropies rather than the discrete values taken
on stabilizer states and the exact description of certain ground states of
Hamilton operators.Comment: Contribution to Special Issue in Journal of Modern Optics celebrating
the 60th birthday of Peter Knigh
First complete genome sequence of infectious laryngotracheitis virus
BACKGROUND: Infectious laryngotracheitis virus (ILTV) is an alphaherpesvirus that causes acute respiratory disease in chickens worldwide. To date, only one complete genomic sequence of ILTV has been reported. This sequence was generated by concatenating partial sequences from six different ILTV strains. Thus, the full genomic sequence of a single (individual) strain of ILTV has not been determined previously. This study aimed to use high throughput sequencing technology to determine the complete genomic sequence of a live attenuated vaccine strain of ILTV. RESULTS: The complete genomic sequence of the Serva vaccine strain of ILTV was determined, annotated and compared to the concatenated ILTV reference sequence. The genome size of the Serva strain was 152,628 bp, with a G + C content of 48%. A total of 80 predicted open reading frames were identified. The Serva strain had 96.5% DNA sequence identity with the concatenated ILTV sequence. Notably, the concatenated ILTV sequence was found to lack four large regions of sequence, including 528 bp and 594 bp of sequence in the UL29 and UL36 genes, respectively, and two copies of a 1,563 bp sequence in the repeat regions. Considerable differences in the size of the predicted translation products of 4 other genes (UL54, UL30, UL37 and UL38) were also identified. More than 530 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified. Most SNPs were located within three genomic regions, corresponding to sequence from the SA-2 ILTV vaccine strain in the concatenated ILTV sequence. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first complete genomic sequence of an individual ILTV strain. This sequence will facilitate future comparative genomic studies of ILTV by providing an appropriate reference sequence for the sequence analysis of other ILTV strains
Deterministic delivery of remote entanglement on a quantum network
Large-scale quantum networks promise to enable secure communication,
distributed quantum computing, enhanced sensing and fundamental tests of
quantum mechanics through the distribution of entanglement across nodes. Moving
beyond current two-node networks requires the rate of entanglement generation
between nodes to exceed their decoherence rates. Beyond this critical
threshold, intrinsically probabilistic entangling protocols can be subsumed
into a powerful building block that deterministically provides remote entangled
links at pre-specified times. Here we surpass this threshold using diamond spin
qubit nodes separated by 2 metres. We realise a fully heralded single-photon
entanglement protocol that achieves entangling rates up to 39 Hz, three orders
of magnitude higher than previously demonstrated two-photon protocols on this
platform. At the same time, we suppress the decoherence rate of remote
entangled states to 5 Hz by dynamical decoupling. By combining these results
with efficient charge-state control and mitigation of spectral diffusion, we
are able to deterministically deliver a fresh remote state with average
entanglement fidelity exceeding 0.5 at every clock cycle of 100 ms
without any pre- or post-selection. These results demonstrate a key building
block for extended quantum networks and open the door to entanglement
distribution across multiple remote nodes.Comment: v2 - updated to include relevant citatio
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