A Conceptual Model of Impacts of Environmental Change on Human Well-Being

Human well-being is dependent on goods and services provided by well-functioning ecosystems. Changes in ecosystem status and integrity can therefore impact directly and indirectly on human well-being. However, neither current measures of ecosystem health nor methods to value ecosystem services incorporate methods to assess impacts of changes in ecosystem health on human well-being. Assessment of these impacts is potentially useful in improving the sustainability of coastal management decision making. This paper presents a conceptual model developed to identify the potential links between ecosystem condition and human well-being. Based on existing literature, it is hypothesised that changes in coastal ecosystem condition may affect aspects of social and community relations through affecting people's sense of place, degree of involvement in the community and the extent to which they undertake recreation in the coastal environment. Changes in these aspects of social relations can have flow-on impacts on social capital, social networks, levels of trust and physical and mental health. Changes in ecosystem condition may also have more direct impacts on human health, through bacterial contamination of recreational waters, the presence of toxicants in seafood, or through the presence of toxic algal blooms in recreational waters. Regional economic production is also affected by changes in coastal ecosystems, through changes in the production of fishing, aquaculture and tourism industries. The conceptual model provides a basis for the development of a dynamic systems model to assess the impacts of changes in ecosystem health on human well-being. This information is necessary to ensure that decisions regarding the use of natural ecosystems are well-informed and therefore appropriate

Natural hazards in Australia : sea level and coastal extremes

The Australian coastal zone encompasses tropical, sub- and extra-tropical climates and accommodates about 80 % of Australia’s population. Sea level extremes and their physical impacts in the coastal zone arise from a complex set of atmospheric, oceanic and terrestrial processes that interact on a range of spatial and temporal scales and will be modified by a changing climate, including sea level rise. This review details significant progress over recent years in understanding the causes of past and projections of future changes in sea level and coastal extremes, yet a number of research questions, knowledge gaps and challenges remain. These include efforts to improve knowledge on past sea level extremes, integrate a wider range of processes in projections of future changes to sea level extremes, and focus efforts on understanding long-term coastline response from the combination of contributing factors

Emerging Technologies and Approaches for In Situ, Autonomous Observing in the Arctic

Understanding and predicting Arctic change and its impacts on global climate requires broad, sustained observations of the atmosphere-ice-ocean system, yet technological and logistical challenges severely restrict the temporal and spatial scope of observing efforts. Satellite remote sensing provides unprecedented, pan-Arctic measurements of the surface, but complementary in situ observations are required to complete the picture. Over the past few decades, a diverse range of autonomous platforms have been developed to make broad, sustained observations of the ice-free ocean, often with near-real-time data delivery. Though these technologies are well suited to the difficult environmental conditions and remote logistics that complicate Arctic observing, they face a suite of additional challenges, such as limited access to satellite services that make geolocation and communication possible. This paper reviews new platform and sensor developments, adaptations of mature technologies, and approaches for their use, placed within the framework of Arctic Ocean observing needs

Peer Review of the Christchurch Coastal Hazard Assessment Report

This review reports findings from the peer review panel (‘the Panel’) assessment of the Tonkin & Taylor Ltd (2015) report: Coastal Hazard Assessment – Stage Two (‘the Report’). The Panel were asked to address four overarching questions in this review (‘the Review’), covering both the science and legal context of the report. These were (i) Does the report represent good science?; (ii) Are the findings still relevant in terms of new research?; (iii) Has the report taken account of relevant statutory policy documents in providing technical or expert advice (refer to Appendix E GHD TOR as a guide)?; and (iv) Is the report and its findings appropriate for its intended purpose - to inform planning for future land use decisions (all referred to as Appendix E GHD Bundle of Documents for full purpose statements)? The Panel found that the Report’s purpose went beyond the technical assessment of areas subject to coastal hazards as required under Policy 24 of the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (2010) (‘NZCPS’). Requiring mapping suitable to be included in the district plan should have required draft mapping. Such a technical exercise constitutes the first scientific stage in the process of eventually producing maps which are suitable for inclusion in the Proposed Christchurch Replacement District Plan (CRDP). This technical stage should be followed by adaptive planning and application of a precautionary approach identified in Policies 3, 25 and 26 NZCPS before such maps are finalised. Notwithstanding, the Panel finds that the Report could, and should, constitute a suitable and robust technical basis on which to proceed towards the next stage of development of coastal hazard maps for the district of Christchurch after recommended modifications are made. This Review outlines recommendations for work that should be completed before the results of the Report are used to inform the next stages in establishing coastal hazard provisions for the CRDP. We also make suggestions for future work that could be incorporated into the first reassessment of the coastal hazard zones (planned to occur in around 10 years’ time). To be clear, the recommendations are the only work that the Panel indicates needs to be done now. Positive aspects of the Report included spatial data as requested by CCC on areas susceptible to coastal hazards, including the future timeframes of 2065 and 2115. It included the coastal settlements located on unconsolidated shorelines within CCC’s jurisdictional boundaries. The Report also gave close attention to the documents that are directly relevant to an exercise of this technical kind, namely MfE (2008b) (shortly to be updated), and Ramsay et al (2012). The Report met with what might be considered truncated time frames for a technical exercise encompassing coastal erosion and inundation over many open coast and harbour sites. The Report did not consult the community, nor was this within its Terms of Reference. Community consultation is not a requirement in Table I of the Ramsay et al (2012) good practice guide for this technical stage but rather is a requirement for the subsequent adaptive planning stage. Page 1 of 75 The Report was based on a single IPCC scenario RCP8.5, which is commonly used in hazard assessments. However, the subsequent adaptive stage of coastal hazard zone mapping will benefit from considering a range of scenarios. Thus, the Panel recommends that additional work is conducted to produce coastal hazard assessments for more than one IPCC scenario. Regarding the open coast Coastal Erosion Hazard Zones (CEHZ), the Panel endorses a probabilistic approach, but recommends that the analysis use more appropriate probability distributions than the triangular distributions used in the Report. The open coast CEHZ is also dependent on the Waimakariri River sediment supply. The Panel recommends that the open coast CEHZ is reassessed for a range of sediment budget scenarios - with the current ‘no change’ scenario forming the middle scenario. This can readily be done with the probabilistic modelling approach. In assessing the Coastal Inundation Hazard Zone (CIHZ) for the Open Coast (New Brighton, Sumner, Taylors Mistake) and for the harbour environments of Lyttelton and Akaroa, overall the Panel conclude that the simple ‘building block bathtub’ approach used is acceptable. In assessing the harbour CIHZ, however, the Panel acknowledges that the assumption that all components concurrently reach extreme values is conservative. The Panel suggests that the likelihood of concurrence of extreme waves and coincidence of peak wave setup and wind setup be investigated for inclusion in the next (i.e. ‘10 years’ into the future) reassessment. For the Avon- Heathcote Estuary and Brooklands Lagoon CIHZ, TUFLOW hydrodynamic modelling is used in the Report, but does not consider the effects of river baseflows and concurrent rainfall. The Panel suggests that river baseflows and rainfall, and the influence of climate change on them, be incorporated in the next reassessment. The indicated coastal erosion hazard zone CEHZ for all harbour sites is not a robust indication of the likely erosion hazard for these specific areas. The Panel recommends that they are re-assessed with more attention to detail and on-ground inspections. The ‘high tide translation’ method approach should not be used and only the ‘equilibrium profile’ values considered. The Report acknowledged the occurrence of ground elevation changes with the earthquakes and appropriately uses the 2011 LiDAR survey for baseline ground elevations. The Report did not assess earthquake-induced changes in groundwater depths and should not do so as this separate exercise is in the area of responsibility of EQC. NZCPS Policy 24(1)(a)-(h) is the only NZCPS provision relevant to a technical exercise at the first stage in identifying the coastal environment potentially affected by coastal hazard risk and the likely effects of climate change including sea level rise. It was not identified in the Tonkin & Taylor Terms of Reference for the Report, and should have been. Page 2 of 75 NZCPS Objective 5 and other relevant policies – Policy 3 Precautionary approach, Policy 25 Subdivision, use and development in areas of coastal hazard risk, and Policy 27 Strategies for protecting significant existing development from coastal hazard risk, and its consequences, are all relevant to the next stages of providing mapping of such areas to a sufficient standard to be included in the CRDP – stages and mapping to be defined with the involvement of the community and stakeholders. An evaluation required under s 32 RMA is only undertaken after information provided by CCC and other experts are brought together to further inform the community, stakeholders and CCC officials on such matters as cost, benefit and the other issues identified in Appendix B. This is to inform through a process of adaptive management the evaluation report for CCC to approve under s 32 sometime in the future. The hazard maps generated from the results of the Report should be withdrawn for now until the final mapping is concluded. The hazard lines may end up being reinforced after this stage but in the meantime the Coastal Hazard Zones (CHZ) formerly established by ECan may suffice as an interim measure for the open coast, but these do not apply to most of the harbour coasts. Overall, it is recommended that CCC and ECan work more closely together to develop such information resources as are needed for the coastal hazard assessment and community considerations of adaptive management pathways as part of an integrated approach to coastal management

Learning deterministic probabilistic automata from a model checking perspective

Probabilistic automata models play an important role in the formal design and analysis of hard- and software systems. In this area of applications, one is often interested in formal model-checking procedures for verifying critical system properties. Since adequate system models are often difficult to design manually, we are interested in learning models from observed system behaviors. To this end we adopt techniques for learning finite probabilistic automata, notably the Alergia algorithm. In this paper we show how to extend the basic algorithm to also learn automata models for both reactive and timed systems. A key question of our investigation is to what extent one can expect a learned model to be a good approximation for the kind of probabilistic properties one wants to verify by model checking. We establish theoretical convergence properties for the learning algorithm as well as for probability estimates of system properties expressed in linear time temporal logic and linear continuous stochastic logic. We empirically compare the learning algorithm with statistical model checking and demonstrate the feasibility of the approach for practical system verification

The added value of H-2 antagonists in premedication regimens during paclitaxel treatment

BACKGROUND: Ranitidine, a histamine 2 blocker, is the standard of care to prevent hypersensitivity reactions (HSRs) caused by paclitaxel infusion. However, the added value of ranitidine in this premedication regimen is controversial. Therefore, we compared the incidence of HSRs during paclitaxel treatment between a standard regimen including ranitidine and a regimen without ranitidine. METHODS: This prospective, pre-post interventional, non-inferiority study compared the standard premedication regimen (N = 183) with dexamethasone, clemastine and ranitidine with a premedication regimen without ranitidine (N = 183). The primary outcome was the incidence of HSR grade >= 3. Non-inferiority was determined by checking whether the upper bound of the twosided 90% confidence interval (CI) for the difference in HSR rates excluded the +6% non-inferiority margin. RESULTS: In both the pre-intervention (with ranitidine) and post-intervention (without ranitidine) group 183 patients were included. The incidence of HSR grade >= 3 was 4.4% (N = 8) in the pre-intervention group and 1.6% (N = 3) in the post-intervention group: difference -2.7% (90% CI: -6.2 to 0.1). CONCLUSIONS: As the upper boundary of the 90% CI does not exceed the predefined non-inferiority margin of +6%, it can be concluded that a premedication regimen without ranitidine is non-inferior to a premedication regimen with ranitidine

Air Data Boom System Development for the Max Launch Abort System (MLAS) Flight Experiment

In 2007, the NASA Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) chartered the NASA Engineering Safety Center (NESC) to demonstrate an alternate launch abort concept as risk mitigation for the Orion project's baseline "tower" design. On July 8, 2009, a full scale and passively, aerodynamically stabilized MLAS launch abort demonstrator was successfully launched from Wallops Flight Facility following nearly two years of development work on the launch abort concept: from a napkin sketch to a flight demonstration of the full-scale flight test vehicle. The MLAS flight test vehicle was instrumented with a suite of aerodynamic sensors. The purpose was to obtain sufficient data to demonstrate that the vehicle demonstrated the behavior predicted by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis and wind tunnel testing. This paper describes development of the Air Data Boom (ADB) component of the aerodynamic sensor suite

Security of data science and data science for security

In this chapter, we present a brief overview of important topics regarding the connection of data science and security. In the first part, we focus on the security of data science and discuss a selection of security aspects that data scientists should consider to make their services and products more secure. In the second part about security for data science, we switch sides and present some applications where data science plays a critical role in pushing the state-of-the-art in securing information systems. This includes a detailed look at the potential and challenges of applying machine learning to the problem of detecting obfuscated JavaScripts