Internet of Things for Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change

Our world is vulnerable to climate change risks such as glacier retreat, rising temperatures, more variable and intense weather events (e.g., floods, droughts, and frosts), deteriorating mountain ecosystems, soil degradation, and increasing water scarcity. However, there are big gaps in our understanding of changes in regional climate and how these changes will impact human and natural systems, making it difficult to anticipate, plan, and adapt to the coming changes. The IoT paradigm in this area can enhance our understanding of regional climate by using technology solutions, while providing the dynamic climate elements based on integrated environmental sensing and communications that is necessary to support climate change impacts assessments in each of the related areas (e.g., environmental quality and monitoring, sustainable energy, agricultural systems, cultural preservation, and sustainable mining). In the IoT in Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change chapter, a framework for informed creation, interpretation and use of climate change projections and for continued innovations in climate and environmental science driven by key societal and economic stakeholders is presented. In addition, the IoT cyberinfrastructure to support the development of continued innovations in climate and environmental science is discussed

Data Descriptor: A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era

Reproducible climate reconstructions of the Common Era (1 CE to present) are key to placing industrial-era warming into the context of natural climatic variability. Here we present a community-sourced database of temperature-sensitive proxy records from the PAGES2k initiative. The database gathers 692 records from 648 locations, including all continental regions and major ocean basins. The records are from trees, ice, sediment, corals, speleothems, documentary evidence, and other archives. They range in length from 50 to 2000 years, with a median of 547 years, while temporal resolution ranges from biweekly to centennial. Nearly half of the proxy time series are significantly correlated with HadCRUT4.2 surface temperature over the period 1850-2014. Global temperature composites show a remarkable degree of coherence between high-and low-resolution archives, with broadly similar patterns across archive types, terrestrial versus marine locations, and screening criteria. The database is suited to investigations of global and regional temperature variability over the Common Era, and is shared in the Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) format, including serializations in Matlab, R and Python.(TABLE)Since the pioneering work of D'Arrigo and Jacoby1-3, as well as Mann et al. 4,5, temperature reconstructions of the Common Era have become a key component of climate assessments6-9. Such reconstructions depend strongly on the composition of the underlying network of climate proxies10, and it is therefore critical for the climate community to have access to a community-vetted, quality-controlled database of temperature-sensitive records stored in a self-describing format. The Past Global Changes (PAGES) 2k consortium, a self-organized, international group of experts, recently assembled such a database, and used it to reconstruct surface temperature over continental-scale regions11 (hereafter, ` PAGES2k-2013').This data descriptor presents version 2.0.0 of the PAGES2k proxy temperature database (Data Citation 1). It augments the PAGES2k-2013 collection of terrestrial records with marine records assembled by the Ocean2k working group at centennial12 and annual13 time scales. In addition to these previously published data compilations, this version includes substantially more records, extensive new metadata, and validation. Furthermore, the selection criteria for records included in this version are applied more uniformly and transparently across regions, resulting in a more cohesive data product.This data descriptor describes the contents of the database, the criteria for inclusion, and quantifies the relation of each record with instrumental temperature. In addition, the paleotemperature time series are summarized as composites to highlight the most salient decadal-to centennial-scale behaviour of the dataset and check mutual consistency between paleoclimate archives. We provide extensive Matlab code to probe the database-processing, filtering and aggregating it in various ways to investigate temperature variability over the Common Era. The unique approach to data stewardship and code-sharing employed here is designed to enable an unprecedented scale of investigation of the temperature history of the Common Era, by the scientific community and citizen-scientists alike

Possible use of natural zeolites in animal production and environment protection

Natural zeolites contain micro- and macroelements such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and copper. The aim of the following study has been to determine changes in poultry production induced by adding naturally occurring zeolites as dietary supplements. The study was carried out on 20,000 one-day chicks of the fattening breed called Ross. The birds were divided into two groups: the control group (group C) and the group supplemented with 5% of zeolite added to the feed (group E). Observations lasted for 45 days. Weekly measurements of the body weight of randomly chosen chicks were taken in both groups, and dead birds were counted. The composition of faeces was analyzed with an absorbance test. The air composition was determined with an instrument specially designed for that purpose. Differences in the body weight between groups C and E reached approximately 10%. A decrease in the mortality rate among chicks was observed in the treatment versus the control group. Mineral substances such as calcium and phosphorus were higher by about 4.4% and 9.5%, respectively, in the experimental group. Less ash in faeces (by about 20.4%) and less ammonia in the air (by about 33%) were determined for the experimental group, too. The present results may have important implications for poultry production, especially the fact that zeolite supplementation increased the body weight gain and reduced the number of falls. In conclusion, it is recommended to include zeolite in feed additives

Possibile use of natural zeolites in animal production and environment protection

Natural zeolites contain micro- and macroelements such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and copper. The aim of the following study has been to determine changes in poultry production induced by adding naturally occurring zeolites as dietary supplements. The study was carried out on 20,000 one-day chicks of the fattening breed called Ross. The birds were divided into two groups: the control group (group C) and the group supplemented with 5% of zeolite added to the feed (group E). Observations lasted for 45 days. Weekly measurements of the body weight of randomly chosen chicks were taken in both groups, and dead birds were counted. The composition of faeces was analyzed with an absorbance test. The air composition was determined with an instrument specially designed for that purpose. Differences in the body weight between groups C and E reached approximately 10%. A decrease in the mortality rate among chicks was observed in the treatment versus the control group. Mineral substances such as calcium and phosphorus were higher by about 4.4% and 9.5%, respectively, in the experimental group. Less ash in faeces (by about 20.4%) and less ammonia in the air (by about 33%) were determined for the experimental group, too. The present results may have important implications for poultry production, especially the fact that zeolite supplementation increased the body weight gain and reduced the number of falls. In conclusion, it is recommended to include zeolite in feed additives

Diurnal and seasonal changes in endogenous melatonin levels in the blood plasma in dogs

This paper describes research on the levels of endogenous melatonin (MLT) in the blood serum in dogs in different seasons (March, June, September, December) and at different times of day (11:00, 12:00, 23:00, 24:00 and 1:00), using immunoassay method. Blood samples were collected in the diurnal cycle, in consecutive seasons. The conducted studies show that MLT levels undergo clear changes in both the diurnal cycle, as well as in seasonal one in this species

Visual short-term memory deficits in REM sleep behaviour disorder mirror those in Parkinson's disease.

Individuals with REM sleep behaviour disorder are at significantly higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease. Here we examined visual short-term memory deficits-long associated with Parkinson's disease-in patients with REM sleep behaviour disorder without Parkinson's disease using a novel task that measures recall precision. Visual short-term memory for sequentially presented coloured bars of different orientation was assessed in 21 patients with polysomnography-proven idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder, 26 cases with early Parkinson's disease and 26 healthy controls. Three tasks using the same stimuli controlled for attentional filtering ability, sensorimotor and temporal decay factors. Both patients with REM sleep behaviour disorder and Parkinson's disease demonstrated a deficit in visual short-term memory, with recall precision significantly worse than in healthy controls with no deficit observed in any of the control tasks. Importantly, the pattern of memory deficit in both patient groups was specifically explained by an increase in random responses. These results demonstrate that it is possible to detect the signature of memory impairment associated with Parkinson's disease in individuals with REM sleep behaviour disorder, a condition associated with a high risk of developing Parkinson's disease. The pattern of visual short-term memory deficit potentially provides a cognitive marker of 'prodromal' Parkinson's disease that might be useful in tracking disease progression and for disease-modifying intervention trials

Apathy in rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder is common and under-recognized.

Background Apathy is an important neuropsychiatric feature of Parkinson’s disease (PD), which often emerges before the onset of motor symptoms. Patients with rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) have a high probability of developing Parkinson’s disease in future. Neuropsychiatric problems are common in RBD, but apathy has not previously been detailed in this key prodromal population. Methods 88 patients with polysomnographically proven RBD, 65 patients with PD and 33 controls were assessed for apathy using the Lille Apathy Rating Scale (LARS). Cognition and depression were also quantified. The sensitivity of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale screening questions for apathy and depression was calculated. Results 46% of Patients with RBD were apathetic, compared with 31% of Parkinson’s patients in our sample. Most RBD patients with depression were apathetic but more than half of apathetic patients were not depressed. The sensitivity of the single UPDRS screening question was only 33% for mild apathy and 50% for severe apathy. Conclusions Apathy is common in RBD and is underestimated by a single self-report question. Recognition of apathy as a distinct neuropsychiatric feature in RBD could aid targeted treatment interventions and might contribute to understanding of prodromal Parkinson’s disease.</p