Beyond “yesterday’s tomorrow”: future-focused mobile interaction design by and for emergent users

Mobile and ubiquitous computing researchers have long envisioned future worlds for users in developed regions. Steered by such visions, they have innovated devices and services exploring the value of alternative propositions with and for individuals, groups and communities. Meanwhile, such radical and long-term explorations are uncommon for what have been termed emergent users; users, that is, for whom advanced technologies are just within grasp. Rather, a driving assumption is that today’s high-end mobile technologies will “trickle down” to these user groups in due course. In this paper, we open the debate about what mobile technologies might be like if emergent users were directly involved in creating their visions for the future 5–10 years from now. To do this, we report on a set of envisioning workshops in India, South Africa and Kenya that provide a roadmap for valued, effective devices and services for these regions in the next decade. © 2016, The Author(s)

Variable water input controls evolution of the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc

Oceanic lithosphere carries volatiles, notably water, into the mantle through subduction at convergent plate boundaries. This subducted water exercises control on the production of magma, earthquakes, formation of continental crust and mineral resources. Identifying different potential fluid sources (sediments, crust and mantle lithosphere) and tracing fluids from their release to the surface has proved challenging1. Atlantic subduction zones are a valuable endmember when studying this deep water cycle because hydration in Atlantic lithosphere, produced by slow spreading, is expected to be highly non-uniform2. Here, as part of a multi-disciplinary project in the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc3, we studied boron trace element and isotopic fingerprints of melt inclusions. These reveal that serpentine—that is, hydrated mantle rather than crust or sediments—is a dominant supplier of subducted water to the central arc. This serpentine is most likely to reside in a set of major fracture zones subducted beneath the central arc over approximately the past ten million years. The current dehydration of these fracture zones coincides with the current locations of the highest rates of earthquakes and prominent low shear velocities, whereas the preceding history of dehydration is consistent with the locations of higher volcanic productivity and thicker arc crust. These combined geochemical and geophysical data indicate that the structure and hydration of the subducted plate are directly connected to the evolution of the arc and its associated seismic and volcanic hazards

The relative importance of COVID‐19 pandemic impacts on biodiversity conservation globally

Abstract: The COVID‐19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on almost all aspects of human society and endeavor; the natural world and its conservation have not been spared. Through a process of expert consultation, we identified and categorized, into 19 themes and 70 subthemes, the ways in which biodiversity and its conservation have been or could be affected by the pandemic globally. Nearly 60% of the effects have been broadly negative. Subsequently, we created a compendium of all themes and subthemes, each with explanatory text, and in August 2020 a diverse group of experienced conservationists with expertise from across sectors and geographies assessed each subtheme for its likely impact on biodiversity conservation globally. The 9 subthemes ranked highest all have a negative impact. These were, in rank order, governments sidelining the environment during their economic recovery, reduced wildlife‐based tourism income, increased habitat destruction, reduced government funding, increased plastic and other solid waste pollution, weakening of nature‐friendly regulations and their enforcement, increased illegal harvest of wild animals, reduced philanthropy, and threats to survival of conservation organizations. In combination, these impacts present a worrying future of increased threats to biodiversity conservation but reduced capacity to counter them. The highest ranking positive impact, at 10, was the beneficial impact of wildlife‐trade restrictions. More optimistically, among impacts ranked 11‐20, 6 were positive and 4 were negative. We hope our assessment will draw attention to the impacts of the pandemic and, thus, improve the conservation community's ability to respond to such threats in the future

‘Drivin' with your eyes closed’: Results from an international, blinded simulation experiment to evaluate spatial stock assessments

Spatial models enable understanding potential redistribution of marine resources associated with ecosystem drivers and climate change. Stock assessment platforms can incorporate spatial processes, but have not been widely implemented or simulation tested. To address this research gap, an international simulation experiment was organized. The study design was blinded to replicate uncertainty similar to a real-world stock assessment process, and a data-conditioned, high-resolution operating model (OM) was used to emulate the spatial dynamics and data for Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares). Six analyst groups developed both single-region and spatial stock assessment models using an assessment platform of their choice, and then applied each model to the simulated data. Results indicated that across all spatial structures and platforms, assessments were able to adequately recreate the population trends from the OM. Additionally, spatial models were able to estimate regional population trends that generally reflected the true dynamics from the OM, particularly for the regions with higher biomass and fishing pressure. However, a consistent population biomass scaling pattern emerged, where spatial models estimated higher population scale than single-region models within a given assessment platform. Balancing parsimony and complexity trade-offs were difficult, but adequate complexity in spatial parametrizations (e.g., allowing time- and age-variation in movement and appropriate tag mixing periods) was critical to model performance. We recommend expanded use of high-resolution OMs and blinded studies, given their ability to portray realistic performance of assessment models. Moreover, increased support for international simulation experiments is warranted to facilitate dissemination of methodology across organizations.Peer reviewe

A toxic diet:transfer of contaminants to offspring through a parental care mechanism

The transfer of maternal contaminants to offspring during oogenesis and gestation is documented in many animals, and in mammals, contaminants may pass from mother to offspring during lactation. Although other non-mammalian vertebrates provide parental care in the form of nutritive secretions for offspring to feed from, the potential for toxicant transfer during non-mammalian parental care is rarely considered. The discus fish, Symphysodon spp., employs an unusual parental care strategy where fry feed on parental epidermal mucus for several weeks after hatching. This strategy has the potential to act as a method of contaminant transfer. In discus adults, both waterborne and dietary toxicants are sequestered and secreted into their epidermal mucus, the food on which fry depend. To determine whether parents could channel these contaminants directly to offspring, we exposed parents to aqueous cadmium (Cd) and recorded the subsequent feeding behaviour and Cd content of fry. Fry continued to feed normally from contaminated mucus and accumulated significant tissue concentrations of Cd. In conclusion, this parental care mechanism of the discus fish can expose offspring to harmful contaminants during the sensitive early stages of life and highlights that parent to offspring contaminant transfer after birth may be more widespread than previously thought

Accumulation of dietary and aqueous cadmium into the epidermal mucus of the discus fish Symphysodon sp.

The discus fish Symphysodon sp. is an Amazonian cichlid with a unusual form of parental care where fry obligately feed from parental mucus for the first few weeks of life. Here, we investigated the possible impact of environmental cadmium on this species, particularly with respect to mucus contamination. We exposed groups of fish to cadmium either through their food (400mgkg-1) or through the water (3μgl-1) for 4weeks, and measured tissue concentrations and ATPase activities at weekly intervals. Cadmium significantly accumulated in all tissues (except for muscle) after 7days, and tissue concentrations increased until the end of the experiment. Significant alterations in ATPase activities of intestine and kidney were observed at day 7 and 14, but no alterations in gill ATPase activities occurred. The epidermal mucus showed a high accumulation of cadmium from both exposures, but particularly from the diet, indicating that dietary cadmium can be transferred from gut to mucus. Combining this data with approximations of fry bite volumes and bite frequencies, we constructed daily estimates of the cadmium that could potentially be consumed by newly hatched fry feeding on this mucus. These calculations suggest that feeding fry might consume up to 11μgg-1day-1, and hence indicate that this species' dependency on parental mucus feeding of fry could make them particularly susceptible to cadmium contamination of their native habitat. © 2011 Elsevier B.V

Combination of decisions from a multiple neural network classifier system

In this paper, a study of the effectiveness of a multiple classifier system (MCS) in a medical diagnostic task is described. A hybrid network, based on the integration of a fuzzy ARTMAP and the probabilistic neural network, is employed as the basis of the MCS. Outputs from multiple networks are combined using some decision combination method to reach a final prediction. By using a real medical database, a set of experiments has been conducted to evaluate the performance of the MSC with different network configurations. The experimental results reveal the potential of the MCS as a useful decision support tool in the medical field.<br /