Om djur i bur - några funderingar angfiende tillvaron under konstanta betingelser

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Spending time with money: from shared values to social connectivity

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.There is a rapidly growing momentum driving the development of mobile payment systems for co-present interactions, using near-field communication on smartphones and contactless payment systems. The design (and marketing) imperative for this is to enable faster, simpler, effortless and secure transactions, yet our evidence shows that this focus on reducing transactional friction may ignore other important features around making payments. We draw from empirical data to consider user interactions around financial exchanges made on mobile phones. Our findings examine how the practices around making payments support people in making connections, to other people, to their communities, to the places they move through, to their environment, and to what they consume. While these social and community bonds shape the kinds of interactions that become possible, they also shape how users feel about, and act on, the values that they hold with their co-users. We draw implications for future payment systems that make use of community connections, build trust, leverage transactional latency, and generate opportunities for rich social interactions

Sweet Summer Breeze

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/2937/thumbnail.jp

The polar expression of ENSO and sea-ice variability as recorded in a South Pole ice core

An annually dated ice core recovered from South Pole (2850 m a.s.l.) in 1995, that covers the period 1487–1992, was analyzed for the marine biogenic sulfur species methanesulfonate (MS). Empirical orthogonal function analysis is used to calibrate the high-resolution MS series with associated environmental series for the period of overlap (1973–92). Utilizing this calibration we present a ~500 year long proxy record of the polar expression of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and southeastern Pacific sea-ice extent variations. These records reveal short-term periods of increased (1800–50, 1900–40) and decreased sea-ice extent (1550–1610, 1660–1710, 1760–1800). In general, increased (decreased) sea-ice extent is associated with a higher (lower) frequency of El Niño events

High dimensional decision dilemmas in climate models

An important source of uncertainty in climate models is linked to the calibration of model parameters. Interest in systematic and automated parameter optimization procedures stems from the desire to improve the model climatology and to quantify the average sensitivity associated with potential changes in the climate system. Building upon on the smoothness of the response of an atmospheric circulation model (AGCM) to changes of four adjustable parameters, Neelin et al. (2010) used a quadratic metamodel to objectively calibrate the AGCM. The metamodel accurately estimates global spatial averages of common fields of climatic interest, from precipitation, to low and high level winds, from temperature at various levels to sea level pressure and geopotential height, while providing a computationally cheap strategy to explore the influence of parameter settings. Here, guided by the metamodel, the ambiguities or dilemmas related to the decision making process in relation to model sensitivity and optimization are examined. Simulations of current climate are subject to considerable regional-scale biases. Those biases may vary substantially depending on the climate variable considered, and/or on the performance metric adopted. Common dilemmas are associated with model revisions yielding improvement in one field or regional pattern or season, but degradation in another, or improvement in the model climatology but degradation in the interannual variability representation. Challenges are posed to the modeler by the high dimensionality of the model output fields and by the large number of adjustable parameters. The use of the metamodel in the optimization strategy helps visualize trade-offs at a regional level, e.g., how mismatches between sensitivity and error spatial fields yield regional errors under minimization of global objective functions

Short-Term Relapse Quantitation as a Fully Surrogate Endpoint for Long-Term Sustained Progression of Disability in RRMS Patients Treated with Natalizumab

Time to sustained worsening in the expanded disability status scale as the standard for evaluating the accumulation of disability has been used as a measure of clinical efficacy in many relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) clinical trials. However, this measurement usually requires a large sample and long-term study to demonstrate the treatment effect. Annualized relapse rate or time to first relapse is also widely used as alternative measurements of clinical efficacy. A formal statistical validation of short-term relapse activity as a surrogate endpoint for long-term sustained progression of disability could potentially permit smaller, shorter, and less expensive clinical trials in RRMS. Four statistical validation/evaluation approaches consistently showed that relapse activity through one year of treatment serves as statistically valid surrogate endpoint for time to sustained progression of disability. The analysis demonstrates that long-term sustained progression of disability can be predicted by short-term relapse measures with 4 consistent validations of statistical approaches, including a formal statistical hypothesis test. This was demonstrated in a large phase III trial of natalizumab and showed that the beneficial clinical effect of natalizumab on sustained progression of disability at 2 years in patients with RRMS can be predicted by the total number of relapses at 1 year

Biogeography of a Plant Invasion: Plant–Herbivore Interactions

Theory predicts that native plant species should exhibit latitudinal gradients in the strength of their interactions with herbivores. We hypothesize that if an invasive plant species exhibits a different latitudinal gradient in response to herbivores (e.g., a nonparallel gradient), it can create large-scale heterogeneities in community resistance/susceptibility to the invasive species. We conducted a study of latitudinal variation in the strength of herbivory and defenses of native genotypes of Phragmites australis in North America (NA) and Europe (EU) and European invasive genotypes in NA. Within NA, we tested whether (1) invasive genotypes are better defended and suffer less herbivory than co-occurring native genotypes, (2) herbivory and defenses of native P. australis decreases with increasing latitude; and (3) invasive genotypes exhibit either no latitudinal gradient, or a nonparallel latitudinal gradient in herbivory and defenses compared to native genotypes. For the European genotypes, we tested two additional hypotheses: (4) defenses, nutritional condition, and herbivory would differ between the native (EU) and invasive ranges (NA) and (5) latitudinal gradients in defenses and herbivory would be similar between ranges. Within NA, chewing damage, internal stem-feeding incidence, and aphid abundance were 650%, 300%, and 70% lower, respectively, on invasive than native P. australis genotypes. Genotypes in NA also differed in nutritional condition (percent N, C:N ratio), but there was little support for invasive genotypes being better defended than native genotypes. For the European genotypes, herbivory was significantly lower in the invaded than native range, supporting the enemy-release hypothesis. Defense levels (leaf toughness and total phenolics) and tissue percent C and percent N were higher in the invaded than native range for European genotypes. Overall, latitudinal gradients in P. australis nutritional condition, defenses, and herbivory were common. Interestingly, chewing damage and stem-feeder incidence decreased with latitude for native P. australis genotypes in NA and EU, but no latitudinal gradients in response to herbivores were evident for invasive genotypes in NA. Nonparallel latitudinal gradients in herbivory between invasive and native P. australis suggest that the community may be more susceptible to invasion at lower than at higher latitudes. Our study points to the need for invasion biology to include a biogeographic perspective

Relationship between Continuous Aerosol Measurements and Firn Core Chemistry over a 10‐year Period at the South Pole

Before ice core chemistry can be used to estimate past atmospheric chemistry it is necessary to establish an unambiguous link between concentrations of chemical species in the air and snow. For the first time a continuous long‐term record of aerosol properties (aerosol light scattering coefficient, σsp , and Ångström exponent, å) at the South Pole are compared with the chemical record from a high resolution firn core (∼10 samples per year) covering the period from 1981 to 1991. Seasonal signals in å, associated with winter minima due to coarse mode seasalt and summer maxima due to accumulation mode sulfate aerosol, are reflected in the firn core SO42−/Na+ concentration ratio. Summertime ratios of σsp and aerosol optical depth, τ to corresponding firn core sulfur concentrations are determined and the ‘calibrations’ are applied to sulfur concentrations in snowpits from a previous study. Results show that σsp estimates from snowpit sulfur concentrations are in agreement with atmospheric measurements while τ estimates are significantly different, which is likely due to the lack of understanding of the processes that mix surface air with air aloft

Biological control of invasive Phragmites australis will be detrimental to native P. australis

Phragmites australis biological control is intended to address a major invasion in North America and is likely to change the ecology of vast areas of coastal and inland wetlands. However, the real risks to the native North American genotypes of P. australis (as indicated by recent research summarized above) may not have been fully considered, particularly the extirpation of native populations or the eventual extinction of the native North American lineage altogether. The concerns we raise need to be considered in the process of developing and approving the release of biological control agents and the entire approval process would benefit from greater transparency and wider input from Phragmites researchers globally

Response to Blossey and Casagrande: ecological and evolutionary processes make host specificity at the subspecies level exceedingly unlikely

We agree with Blossey and Casagrande (2016) that absolute host-specificity is a necessity for successful biological control of invasive plants without unintended consequences for native species. However, inclusion of non-target native species in the diet of a biological control agent is a relatively common phenomenon with native congeners of the target plant species at greatest risk (Pemberton 2000)