Ecosystem Services in Decision Making: Time to Deliver

Over the past decade, efforts to value and protect ecosystem services have been promoted by many as the last, best hope for making conservation mainstream – attractive and commonplace worldwide. In theory, if we can help individuals and institutions to recognize the value of nature, then this should greatly increase investments in conservation, while at the same time fostering human well-being. In practice, however, we have not yet developed the scientific basis, nor the policy and finance mechanisms, for incorporating natural capital into resource- and land-use decisions on a large scale. Here, we propose a conceptual framework and sketch out a strategic plan for delivering on the promise of ecosystem services, drawing on emerging examples from Hawai‘i. We describe key advances in the science and practice of accounting for natural capital in the decisions of individuals, communities, corporations, and governments

Ecosystem Services in Decision Making: Time to Deliver

Over the past decade, efforts to value and protect ecosystem services have been promoted by many as the last, best hope for making conservation mainstream – attractive and commonplace worldwide. In theory, if we can help individuals and institutions to recognize the value of nature, then this should greatly increase investments in conservation, while at the same time fostering human well-being. In practice, however, we have not yet developed the scientific basis, nor the policy and finance mechanisms, for incorporating natural capital into resource- and land-use decisions on a large scale. Here, we propose a conceptual framework and sketch out a strategic plan for delivering on the promise of ecosystem services, drawing on emerging examples from Hawai‘i. We describe key advances in the science and practice of accounting for natural capital in the decisions of individuals, communities, corporations, and governments

Restoring native forest understory: The influence of ferns and light in a hawaiian experiment

Ecological restoration is an increasingly important component of sustainable land management. We explore potential facilitative relationships for enhancing the cost-effectiveness of restoring native forest understory, focusing on two factors: (1) overstory shade and (2) possible facilitation by a fern (Dryopteris wallichiana), one of few native colonists of pasture in our montane Hawai\u27i study system. We planted 720 understory tree seedlings and over 4000 seeds of six species under six planting treatments: a full factorial combination of low, medium and high light, situating plantings in either the presence or absence of a mature fern. After three years, 75% of outplanted seedlings survived. Seedling survivorship was significantly higher in the presence of a fern (79% vs. 71% without a fern) and in medium and low light conditions (81% vs. 64% in high light). Relative height was highest at low to medium light levels. After 2.2 years, 2.8% of the planted seeds germinated. We observed no significant differences in seed germination relative to light level or fern presence. Analyzing several approaches, we found nursery germination of seeds followed by outplanting ca. 20% less costly than direct seeding in the field. This study opens new questions about facilitation mechanisms that have the potential to increase the extent and effectiveness of restoration efforts. © 2013 by the authors

100 Years of Scientific Evolution of Work and Organizational Psychology: A Bibliometric Network Analysis From 1919 to 2019

In this study, we explore a 100 years of Work and Organizational Psychology (WOP). To do this, we carry out a bibliometric performance and network analysis (BPNA) to understand the evolution structure and the most important themes in the field of study. To perform the BNPA, 8,966 documents published since 1919 were exported from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The SciMAT software was used to process data and to create the evolution structure, the strategic diagram, and the thematic network structure of the strategic themes of the field of WOP. We identified 29 strategic clusters and discuss the most important themes (motor themes) and their relationship with other clusters. This research presents the complete evolution of the field of study, identifying emerging themes and others with a high degree of development. We hope that this work will support researchers and future research in the field of WOP

Forest bird populations on O'ahu

Western Region, National Park Servic

Free sugars in fruits and vegetables

With the rapidly developing role of individual specific sugars in metabolic processes, it is becoming increasingly imperative that the specific sugars in foods be identified and their concentration tabulated. The specific purpose of this study was to identify and determine the concentration of the major free sugars which occur in common foods of plant origin

Multisource Causal Data Mining

Analysts are faced with mountains of data, and finding that relevant piece of information is the proverbial needle in a haystack, only with dozens of haystacks. Analysis tools that facilitate identifying causal relationships across multiple data sets are sorely needed. 21st Century Systems, Inc. (21CSi) has initiated research called Causal-View, a causal datamining visualization tool, to address this challenge. Causal-View is built on an agent-enabled framework. Much of the processing that Causal-View will do is in the background. When a user requests information, Data Extraction Agents launch to gather information. This initial search is a raw, Monte Carlo type search designed to gather everything available that may have relevance to an individual, location, associations, and more. This data is then processed by Data-Mining Agents. The Data-Mining Agents are driven by user supplied feature parameters. If the analyst is looking to see if the individual frequents a known haven for insurgents he may request information on his last known locations. Or, if the analyst is trying to see if there is a pattern in the individual\u27s contacts, the mining agent can be instructed with the type and relevance of the information fields to look at. The same data is extracted from the database, but the Data Mining Agents customize the feature set to determine causal relationships the user is interested in. At this point, a Hypothesis Generation and Data Reasoning Agents take over to form conditional hypotheses about the data and pare the data, respectively. The newly formed information is then published to the agent communication backbone of Causal-View to be displayed. Causal-View provides causal analysis tools to fill the gaps in the causal chain. We present here the Causal-View concept, the initial research into data mining tools that assist in forming the causal relationships, and our initial findings