Distributed service orchestration : eventually consistent cloud operation and integration

Both researchers and industry players are facing the same obstacles when entering the big data field. Deploying and testing distributed data technologies requires a big up-front investment of both time and knowledge. Existing cloud automation solutions are not well suited for managing complex distributed data solutions. This paper proposes a distributed service orchestration architecture to better handle the complex orchestration logic needed in these cases. A novel service-engine based approach is proposed to cope with the versatility of the individual components. A hybrid integration approach bridges the gap between cloud modeling languages, automation artifacts, image-based schedulers and PaaS solutions. This approach is integrated in the distributed data experimentation platform Tengu, making it more flexible and robust

The value of eco-volunteer projects for biodiversity conservation - butterfly monitoring in Krka National Park (Croatia) with an updated checklist

The biogeographical importance of Dalmatia, bordered by the Dinaric Alps and the Adriatic Sea, is evident through the rich biodiversity of this region and its network of protected areas. One of those areas, Krka National Park (NP), supports a wide range of natural habitats, but rapidly increasing tourism puts high pressure on its ecosystems, despite its protected status. Accurate knowledge of species and their distributions within natural places such as Krka is essential to direct and prioritize future conservation efforts. As collecting biodiversity data is time and resource-intensive, alternative ways to obtain this information are needed. One possibility is monitoring based on eco-volunteering. From June to August of 2019, an Operation Wallacea/BIOTA scientific team surveyed a section of Krka NP and its surrounding boundaries, within the vicinity of the village of Puljane, to study its butterfly richness and abundance. Pollard walks and static count surveys were conducted with the help of eco-volunteers, testing the effectiveness of gathering field data through this approach. Overall, 57 butterfly species were found throughout the study, including four new records for Krka NP. Three further new species for the park were detected close to its boundaries and are also expected to occur within its borders. Here, we present an updated butterfly checklist for Krka NP, highlighting the positive impact of eco-volunteering initiatives and the importance of combined research efforts to study and protect the rich biodiversity and ecosystems of protected areas.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

City of things : enabling resource provisioning in smart cities

In the last few years, traffic over wireless networks has been increasing exponentially due to the impact of IoT. IoT is transforming a wide range of services in different domains of urban life, such as environmental monitoring, home automation, and public transportation. The so-called smart city applications will introduce a set of stringent requirements, such as low latency and high mobility, since services must be allocated and instantiated on demand, simultaneously, close to multiple devices at different locations. Efficient resource provisioning functionalities are needed to address these demanding constraints introduced by smart city applications while minimizing resource costs and maximizing QoS. In this article, the CoT framework is presented, which provides not only data collection and analysis functionalities but also automated resource provisioning mechanisms for future smart city applications. CoT is deployed as a smart city test-bed in Antwerp, Belgium, which allows researchers and developers to easily set up and validate IoT experiments. A smart city use case of air quality monitoring through the deployment of air quality sensors in moving cars is presented showing the full applicability of the CoT framework for a flexible and scalable resource provisioning in the smart city ecosystem

Extending the dynamic temperature range of Boltzmann thermometers

Lanthanide-doped (nano)crystals are an important class of materials in luminescence thermometry. The working mechanism of these thermometers is diverse but most often relies on variation of the ratio of emission intensities from two thermally coupled excited states with temperature. At low temperatures, nonradiative coupling between the states can be slow compared to radiative decay, but, at higher temperatures, the two states reach thermal equilibrium due to faster nonradiative coupling. In thermal equilibrium, the intensity ratio follows Boltzmann statistics, which gives a convenient model to calibrate the thermometer. Here, we investigate multiple strategies to shift the onset of thermal equilibrium to lower temperatures, which enables Boltzmann thermometry in a wider dynamic range. We use Eu3+-doped microcrystals as a model system and find that the nonradiative coupling rates increase for host lattices with higher vibrational energies and shorter lanthanide–ligand distances, which reduces the onset temperature of thermal equilibrium by more than 400 K. We additionally reveal that thermometers with excited states coupled by electric-dipole transitions have lower onset temperatures than those with magnetic-dipole-coupled states due to selection rules. These insights provide essential guidelines for the optimization of Boltzmann thermometers to operate in an extended temperature range

A review of the ecological value of Cusuco National Park an urgent call forconservation action in a highly threatened Mesoamerican cloud forest

Cloud forests are amongst the most biologically unique, yet threatened, ecosystems in Mesoamerica. We summarize the ecological value and conservation status of a well-studied cloud forest site: Cusuco National Park (CNP), a 23,440 ha protected area in the Merendón mountains, northwest Honduras. We show CNP to have exceptional biodiversity; of 966 taxa identified to a species-level to date, 362 (37.5%) are Mesoamerican endemics, 67 are red-listed by the IUCN, and at least 49 are micro-endemics known only from the Merendón range. CNP also provides key ecosystem services including provision of drinking water and downstream flood mitigation, as well as carbon sequestration, with an estimated stock of 3.5 million megagrams of carbon in 2000. Despite its ecological importance, CNP faces multiple environmental threats and associated stresses, including deforestation (1,759 ha since 2000 equating to 7% of total forest area), poaching (7% loss of mammal relative abundance per year), amphibian declines due to chytridiomycosis (70% of species threatened or near-threatened), and climate change (a mean 2.6 °C increase in temperature and 112 mm decrease in rainfall by 2100). Despite conservation actions, including community ranger patrols, captive-breeding programmes, and ecotourism initiatives, environmental degradation of CNP continues. Further action is urgently required, including reinforcement and expansion of ranger programmes, greater stakeholder engagement, community education programmes, development of alternative livelihood projects, and legislative enforcement and prosecution. Without a thorough and rapid response to understand and mitigate illegal activities, the extirpation and extinction of species and the loss of vital ecosystem services are inevitable in the coming decades

Initiating a collaborative monitoring system to survey Maltese orchids

Orchids have always garnered the interest of enthusiastic amateurs and nonprofessional researchers as a charismatic species group and have become a flagship for Mediterranean flora. At the same time they are a decent indicator for biodiversity and environmental quality through their association with specific pollinators and mycorrhizal fungi. Historical records for orchids occurring in the Maltese Islands number some 30 different species, but there is little to no comprehensive data on their abundance and distribution.peer-reviewe

How useful are volunteers for visual biodiversity surveys? An evaluation of skill level and group size during a conservation expedition

The ability of volunteers to undertake different tasks and accurately collect data is critical for the success of many conservation projects. In this study, a simulated herpetofauna visual encounter survey was used to compare the detection and distance estimation accuracy of volunteers and more experienced observers. Experience had a positive effect on individual detection accuracy. However, lower detection performance of less experienced volunteers was not found in the group data, with larger groups being more successful overall, suggesting that working in groups facilitates detection accuracy of those with less experience. This study supports the idea that by optimizing survey protocols according to the available resources (time and volunteer numbers), the sampling efficiency of monitoring programs can be improved and that non-expert volunteers can provide valuable contributions to visual encounter-based biodiversity surveys. Recommendations are made for the improvement of survey methodology involving non-expert volunteers

A meta-analysis of previous falls and subsequent fracture risk in cohort studies

NC Harvey acknowledges funding from the UK Medical Research Council (MC_PC_21003; MC_PC_21001). The WHI program is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through 75N92021D00001, 75N92021D00002, 75N92021D00003, 75N92021D00004, and 75N92021D00005. Funding for the MrOS USA study comes from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), and NIH Roadmap for Medical Research under the following grant numbers: U01 AG027810, U01 AG042124, U01 AG042139, U01 AG042140, U01 AG042143, U01 AG042145, U01 AG042168, U01 AR066160, and UL1 TR000128. Funding for the SOF study comes from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), supported by grants (AG05407, AR35582, AG05394, AR35584, and AR35583). Funding for the Health ABC study was from the Intramural research program at the National Institute on Aging under the following contract numbers: NO1-AG-6–2101, NO1-AG-6–2103, and NO1-AG-6–2106.Peer reviewedPostprin

Testing a global standard for quantifying species recovery and assessing conservation impact.

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a "Green List of Species" (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species' progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 separate but interlinked components: a standardized method (i.e., measurement against benchmarks of species' viability, functionality, and preimpact distribution) to determine current species recovery status (herein species recovery score) and application of that method to estimate past and potential future impacts of conservation based on 4 metrics (conservation legacy, conservation dependence, conservation gain, and recovery potential). We tested the framework with 181 species representing diverse taxa, life histories, biomes, and IUCN Red List categories (extinction risk). Based on the observed distribution of species' recovery scores, we propose the following species recovery categories: fully recovered, slightly depleted, moderately depleted, largely depleted, critically depleted, extinct in the wild, and indeterminate. Fifty-nine percent of tested species were considered largely or critically depleted. Although there was a negative relationship between extinction risk and species recovery score, variation was considerable. Some species in lower risk categories were assessed as farther from recovery than those at higher risk. This emphasizes that species recovery is conceptually different from extinction risk and reinforces the utility of the IUCN Green Status of Species to more fully understand species conservation status. Although extinction risk did not predict conservation legacy, conservation dependence, or conservation gain, it was positively correlated with recovery potential. Only 1.7% of tested species were categorized as zero across all 4 of these conservation impact metrics, indicating that conservation has, or will, play a role in improving or maintaining species status for the vast majority of these species. Based on our results, we devised an updated assessment framework that introduces the option of using a dynamic baseline to assess future impacts of conservation over the short term to avoid misleading results which were generated in a small number of cases, and redefines short term as 10 years to better align with conservation planning. These changes are reflected in the IUCN Green Status of Species Standard