A theory of evaluation applied to human-environment systems

1. 1. The writers present the general theory of evaluation that is being developed by their group.

2. 2. The evaluation of a human environment is a complex mental process.

3. 3. In an effort to express numerically the quality of an environment, one tends to oversimplify the complex aspects of it and the entailing problems in relation to its inhabitants.

4. 4. In this paper, some examples are taken in the evaluation of thermal environments, wherein much has been said and done in setting up numerical scales to express human comfort, and yet neither clear-cut explanations nor convincing logic seem to exist to terminate the argument over the widely scattered and sometimes seemingly contradicting experimental data.

5. 5. The writers suggest that many of the reasons for this confusion may be traced back to the oversimplified notion of evaluation.

6. 6. It is shown that there are various possibilities when looking at the scales of evaluation.

7. 7.|The nominal scale, least studied of all the four traditional scales, may be given a prominent place in evaluating a thermal environment. The pseudo-interval order scale is another example.

Climatic adaptations in the Drosophila immigrans species group: seasonal migration and thermal tolerance

Abstract. 1. In central Japan, Drosophila curviceps Okada and Kurokawa was collected in spring and autumn but not in summer at lowlands (alt. 500–1200 m), while it was collected only in summer at highlands (1500–2000 m). Experiments on its thermal tolerance suggested that summer heat at the lowlands and winter low temperatures at the highlands were adverse to this species. It is considered that this species escapes from these extreme temperatures by undergoing seasonal migration between the lowlands and the highlands. This species had no photo-periodic diapause and bred at both lowlands and highlands.
2. D.immigrans Sturtevant was less cold-hardy but more heat-tolerant than D.curviceps. It is considered that this species is unable to overwinter outdoors at least in the study areas (i.e. alt. 500m or higher in central Japan) and its populations in these areas originate with migrants from warmer areas.
3. D.albomicans Duda, a subtropical species, was less cold-hardy but more heat-tolerant than the above two species.
4. Climatic adaptations and distributions of these species are discussed with reference to their thermal tolerance.     

Heat tolerance of marine ectotherms in a warming Antarctica

Global warming is affecting the Antarctic continent in complex ways. Because Antarctic organisms are specialized to living in the cold, they are vulnerable to increasing temperatures, although quantitative analyses of this issue are currently lacking. Here we compiled a total of 184 estimates of heat tolerance belonging to 39 marine species and quantified how survival is affected concomitantly by the intensity and duration of thermal stress. Species exhibit thermal limits displaced toward colder temperatures, with contrasting strategies between arthropods and fish that exhibit low tolerance to acute heat challenges, and brachiopods, echinoderms, and molluscs that tend to be more sensitive to chronic exposure. These differences might be associated with mobility. A dynamic mortality model suggests that Antarctic organisms already encounter temperatures that might be physiologically stressful and indicate that these ecological communities are indeed vulnerable to ongoing rising temperatures.     

Thermal biology and locomotor performance of the Andean lizard Liolaemus fitzgeraldi (Liolaemidae) in Argentina

Ectotherms thermoregulate to maintain their body temperature within the optimal range needed for performing vital functions. The effect of climate change on lizards has been studied as regards the sensitivity of locomotor performance to environmental temperatures. We studied thermoregulatory efficiency and locomotor performance for Liolaemus fitzgeraldi in the Central Andes of Argentina. We determined body temperature, micro-environmental temperatures and operative temperatures in the field. In the laboratory, we measured preferred temperatures and calculated the index of thermoregulatory efficiency. We estimated the thermal sensitivity of locomotion by measuring sprint speed (initial velocity and long sprint) and endurance at five different body temperatures. Body temperature was not associated with either micro-environmental temperature, nor did it show differences with preferred temperatures. Thermoregulatory efficiency was moderate (0.61). Initial velocity and long sprint trials showed differences at different temperatures; however, endurance did not. Moreover, the optimal temperatures for the performance trials showed no significant differences among themselves. We conclude that Liolaemus fitzgeraldi has thermal sensitivity in locomotor performance with respect to body temperature and that it is an eurythermic lizard that experiences a large variation in body temperature and that has thermal flexibility in the cold.     

Purification and Characterization of Phospholipase C Preferentially Hydrolysing Phosphatidylcholine in Tetrahymena Membranes

A phospholipase C (PLC) activity that preferentially hydrolyses phosphatidylcholine to diacylglycerol and phosphorylcholine was found to be present in Tetrahymena pyriformis, strain W and most of its activity was recovered in the membrane fraction. This enzyme was extracted with 1% Triton X-100 from the membrane fraction and purified to apparent homogeneity by sequential chromatographies on Fast Q-Sepharose, hydroxyapatite HCA-100S, Mono Q and Superose 12 gel filtration columns. The purified enzyme had specific activity of 2083 nmol of diacylglycerol released/mg of protein/min for dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine hydrolysis. Its apparent molecular mass was 128 kDa as determined by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and was 127 kDa by gel filtration chromatography, indicating that the enzyme is present in a monomeric form. The enzyme exhibited an optimum pH 7.0 and the apparent K_m value was determined to be 166 μM for dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine. A marked increase was observed in phosphatidylcholine hydrolytic activity in the presence of 0.05% (1.2 mM) deoxycholate. Ca²⁺ but not Mg²⁺ enhanced the activity at a concentration of 2 mM. This purified phospholipase C exhibited a preferential hydrolytic activity for phosphatidylcholine but much less activity was observed for phosphatidylinositol (～ 9%) and phosphatidylethanolamine (～ 2%).     

Combined effect of ambient temperature and solar radiation on maned sloths' behaviour and detectability

Changes in ambient temperature and solar radiation may affect sloths' metabolic rate and body temperature, with consequent changes in activities, postures and microhabitat selection. Although the separate effect of temperature and solar radiation on sloth's behaviour have been previously studied, the combined effect of these climatic factors on behavioural aspects of sloths has never been systematically evaluated in field conditions. Here we evaluated the influence of hourly ambient temperature variation on maned sloth (Bradypus torquatus) activities, postures and tree crown positions, under sunny and cloudy conditions; and tested if any of the animal posture and position increase their exposure to human detection. We performed 350 h of visual observation on eight maned sloths, equipped with radio-backpacks, in northern Bahia, Brazil, recording their activities, and their resting postures and positions on tree crowns. We also recorded the time taken to visualize the sloths on 58 days to analyse if sloths' detection is affected by posture and position. Higher ambient temperature, within a range of 21–33°C, increased the sloths' activity levels in cloudy conditions but reduced their activity in sunny conditions. Increasing ambient temperature also reduced the frequency of huddled posture and increased the frequency of extended posture and permanence in the inner tree crown. Lastly, the postures and positions did not influence sloths' detectability. Thus, the direction of the temperature–activity relationship depends on climatic conditions (sunny/cloudy), and individuals rely on resting postures and positions to thermoregulate. The warmer and drier future climate, expected to occur in the northern Atlantic Forest, may impose change in the diurnal activity levels and postural pattern for this threatened species, leading maned sloths to reduce its activity on sunny and warmer days and adopting an extended posture.     

Eu3+-activated red phosphor Ca3YAl3B4O15 with low thermal quenching behaviour

This paper reports a sequence of a Ca₃YAl₃B₄O₁₅:xEu³⁺ red phosphor prepared using a high-temperature solid-state reaction. At the excitation of 396 nm, the samples emitted intense red emission centred at ~623 nm, which could be attributed to the ⁵D₀→⁷F₂ transition of the Eu³⁺ ion. The results showed that the optimum Eu³⁺ doping concentration of Ca₃YAl₃B₄O₁₅:Eu³⁺ phosphor was x = 80 mol%, and the concentration quenching mechanism of Ca₃YAl₃B₄O₁₅:Eu³⁺ red phosphor belonged to the exchange coupling between Eu³⁺ ions. The Commission Internationale de l'éclairage (CIE) coordinates and colour purity of Ca₃Y_0.2Al₃B₄O₁₅:0.8Eu³⁺ were calculated as (0.6375, 0.3476) and 95.5%, respectively. Moreover, the red emission of the obtained phosphor Ca₃YAl₃B₄O₁₅:0.8Eu³⁺ exhibited a low thermal quenching behaviour with an intensity retention rate of 92.85% at 150°C. The above results manifest that the Eu³⁺-activated Ca₃YAl₃B₄O₁₅ phosphor is predicted to be a promising red luminescent component for white light-emitting diodes.     

Thermal unfolding of staphylococcal nuclease and several mutant forms thereof studied by differential scanning calorimetry.

The effects of eight mutations on the thermodynamics of the reversible thermal unfolding of staphylococcal nuclease have been determined over a range of pH and protein concentration by means of differential scanning calorimetry. Variation of the protein concentration was included in our study because we found a significant dependence of the thermodynamics of protein unfolding on concentration. Values for the change in the standard free energy of unfolding, delta delta G0d, produced by the mutations in the pH range 5.0-7.0 varied from 1.9 kcal mol-1 (apparent stabilization) for H124L to -2.8 kcal mol-1 (apparent destabilization) for L25A. As has been observed in numerous other cases, there is no correlation in magnitude or sign between delta delta G0d and the corresponding values for delta delta Hd and T delta delta S0d, the latter quantities being in most cases much larger in magnitude than delta delta G0d. This fact emphasizes the difficulty in attempting to correlate the thermodynamic changes with structural changes observed by X-ray crystallography.     

Structural engineering of the HIV-1 protease molecule with a beta-turn mimic of fixed geometry.

An important goal in the de novo design of enzymes is the control of molecular geometry. To this end, an analog of the protease from human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1 protease) was prepared by total chemical synthesis, containing a constrained, nonpeptidic type II' beta-turn mimic of predetermined three-dimensional structure. The mimic beta-turn replaced residues Gly16,17 in each subunit of the homodimeric molecule. These residues constitute the central amino acids of two symmetry-related type I' beta-turns in the native, unliganded enzyme. The beta-turn mimic-containing enzyme analog was fully active, possessed the same substrate specificity as the Gly16,17-containing enzyme, and showed enhanced resistance to thermal inactivation. These results indicate that the precise geometry of the beta-turn at residues 15-18 in each subunit is not critical for activity, and that replacement of the native sequence with a rigid beta-turn mimic can lead to enhanced protein stability. Finally, the successful incorporation of a fixed element of secondary structure illustrates the potential of a "molecular kit set" approach to protein design and synthesis.     

Upper thermal limits predict herpetofaunal responses to forest edge and cover

Amphibians and reptiles are sensitive to changes in the thermal environment, which varies considerably in human-modified landscapes. Although it is known that thermal traits of species influence their distribution in modified landscapes, how herpetofauna respond specifically to shifts in ambient temperature along forest edges remains unclear. This may be because most studies focus on local-scale metrics of edge exposure, which only account for a single edge or habitat patch. We predicted that accounting for the combined effect of multiple habitat edges in a landscape would best explain herpetofaunal response to thermally mediated edge effects. We (1) surveyed herpetofauna at two lowland, fragmented forest sites in central Colombia, (2) measured the critical thermal maximum (CT_max) of the species sampled, (3) measured their edge exposure at both local and landscape scales, and (4) created a thermal profile of the landscape itself. We found that species with low CT_max occurred both further from forest edges and in areas of denser vegetation, but were unaffected by the landscape-scale configuration of habitat edges. Variation in the thermal landscape was driven primarily by changes in vegetation density. Our results suggest that amphibians and reptiles with low CT_max are limited by both canopy gaps and proximity to edge, making them especially vulnerable to human modification of tropical forest. Abstract in Spanish is available with online material.