Fox‐baiting in agricultural landscapes in south‐eastern Australia: a case‐study appraisal and suggestions for improvement

Summary In south‐eastern Australia, the introduced Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) is a major predator of native wildlife and livestock. Fox control in agricultural landscapes is heavily reliant on the laying of poisoned baits by private landholders, yet there have been few assessments of the application or success of landholder‐baiting practices. We evaluated a community‐based fox‐baiting campaign, typical of programs employed throughout the agricultural regions of south‐eastern Australia to control foxes. We recorded the spatial coverage of 1080 baits deployed by landholders, assessed baiting procedures, monitored the survival of six radio‐collared foxes during and after baiting, and compared the spatial coverage and likely effectiveness of the baiting program with two alternative (theoretical) baiting strategies. Relative to other baiting programs, coordination among neighbours was reasonably high, with 37.5% of baited properties (n = 40) adjoining ≥3 neighbouring properties that also contained baits. Nevertheless, the maximum distance from the centre of a baited property to the nearest edge of an unbaited property was <750 m (mean = 380 m ± 147 m SD). On average, 33% (±17% SD) of each fox’s home range overlapped with baited properties, but only two foxes died during the baiting program. The remaining four foxes were still alive 10 weeks after baiting ceased. Modelling of simulated fox home ranges showed that 13.5% contained no bait stations based on the community baiting program, whereas alternative roadside‐ and grid‐baiting strategies (theoretically) delivered baits to all simulated home ranges. Some landholders employed practices that could reduce the effectiveness of baiting programs such as not removing decayed baits before deploying new ones or placing bait stations too close together. Our research illustrates the difficulties of managing a coordinated baiting program on private land that effectively controls foxes. Alternative baiting strategies such as roadside baiting need to be considered to improve fox control in agricultural landscapes.     

转基因植物环境安全评价策略

构建完善的转基因植物环境安全评价技术体系是保障转基因生物产业健康发展的重要组成部分。本文综述了转基因植物环境安全评价技术发展历程与趋势,归纳了转基因植物环境安全评价的思路与内容。转基因植物环境安全评价应分为潜在风险分析、风险假设验证、风险特征描述等3个步骤,并采用逐层评价模式;安全评价应贯穿转基因植物新品种研发与产业化全程,包括应用前预测、研发中筛选、推广前评价、推广后监测。此外,基于科学性和个案分析原则,本文对复合性状、非生物胁迫抗性等新型转基因植物环境安全评价策略进行了探讨。     

Study on coastal wetland habitat quality evaluation in Quanzhou Bay, Fujian, China

Coastal wetland is located in the active interface between land and sea, which is one of the richest biodiversity habitats, while it is seriously disturbed and destroyed by anthropogenic activities in both terrestrial and marine parts. Habitat serves as the basis for organism survival, providing food, shelter, water, space and so on, and habitat degradation and loss caused by intense anthropogenic activities is widely considered as the main reason for biodiversity decline and loss. However, there is still limited study on the evaluating methods of coastal wetland habitats, especially for those in a large scale. In this study, methods for evaluating coastal wetland habitat quality, including selecting indicators, setting value assignment criteria and weights were discussed systematically, a method of coastal wetland habitat quality evaluation was established, and the habitat quality in Quanzhou Bay was also evaluated as a case study. The present study provided a new concept and method to assess quantitatively habitat status, indicate the ecological status and its change, and also reflect and predict indirectly the ecological impact of human activities.
Referring to the habitat evaluation system (HES) developed by United States in the mid 1970s, the evaluation method was established by thorough analysis of the characteristics of coastal wetland. The habitat indicators were selected in terms of three habitat factors as follows: chemical factors, including dissolved oxygen (DO), phosphate in seawater, sulfide in sediment, and regional priority pollutants; physical factors, including landscape naturalness index and coastline artificialization index; biological factors, including invasive species risk and area ratio of invasive alien species. Weights were established by Analytic Hierarchy Process, combined with several-round expert evaluation. Evaluation criteria providing principles for value assignment of each indicator, were established referring to previous standards and related researches. The final result for assessing habitat quality was indicated and stated by the value of Habitat Quality Index (HQI), which is the weighted sum of each indicator. Habitat quality increased with the HQI value, with value ranging from 0 to 100.
The established evaluating method was applied to assess the habitat quality of Quanzhou Bay, located in the southeast coastal zone of Fujian Province, with a total area of 136.4 km², which is an important bay in Fujian. Quanzhou Bay wetland is a typical coastal wetland with diverse wetland habitats, including mangrove, estuary, island, aquaculture ponds, salt pan, shallow sea, mud flat and so on. The Quanzhou Bay is now seriously suffering environmental problems, e.g. eutrophication due to great discharge of domestic, agricultural and industrial wastewater, rapid urbanization and reclamation resulting in decreased wetland area, and the invasion of alien species. The evaluation results showed that the habitat quality index value was 68.13, 57.99 and 51.23 in 1989, 2002 and 2008, respectively, indicating that the habitat degraded gradually. The five major factors that led to decline of HQI value were phosphate in seawater, lead in sediment, landscape naturalness index and coastline artificialization index and area ratio of invasive alien species. Therefore, in order to improve and maintain habitat quality, it is urgent to control pollution, large-scale reclamation and Spartina invasion in Quzhou Bay.     

急性生理功能和慢性健康状况评分在医院感染目标性监测中的意义

急性生理功能和慢性健康状况评分不仅对评估ICU患者的预后有着重要作用,而且在医院感染目标性监测中起到不可或缺的作用。综述了这方面的最新研究进展,旨在推荐在医院感染目标性监测中用急性生理功能和慢性健康状况评分评估患者病情严重程度,用其调整ICU目标性监测的医院感染发生率,为各家医院比较医院感染发生率提供客观、统一的评价标准。     

Risk Assessment and Class-Based Evaluation of Three Phosphate Esters

A category approach was used in the evaluation of a group of chemicals (triethyl phosphate, tripropyl phosphate, and tributyl phosphate) in drinking water, in support of determination of safe-harbor level for use by a standard-setting organization. Both non-cancer and cancer endpoints were considered, and risk assessment methodology developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) was used to determine a class-based evaluation level (CBEL) and a total allowable concentration (TAC) in drinking water considered adequately protective of human health. The critical study was a chronic oncogenicity study on tributyl phosphate, with a no-observed-adverse-effect-level (NOAEL) of 9 mg/kg-day. The critical effect, combined incidence of bladder papilloma/transitional cell carcinoma, was likely non-genetic in nature, as supported by the lack of genetic toxicity observed in tributyl phosphate. The effect thus demonstrated a threshold, and this study used an oral reference dose approach and a total uncertainty factor of 100. This conservative analysis demonstrated the TAC should be twenty times greater than the default value of 0.01 mg/L.     

汉江中下游浮游植物群落结构及水质评价

南水北调中线工程调水后,汉江中下游水华频发引起社会关注。为掌握调水后汉江中下游浮游植物的群落结构特征,于2017年11月、2018年2月、4月和8月在汉江中下游的8个断面对浮游植物进行了定量调查。调查结果显示:共鉴定浮游植物163种,群落组成以硅藻门(Bacillariophyta)、绿藻门(Chlorophyta)为主,其次是蓝藻门(Cyanophyta)。浮游植物优势种主要为硅藻门的梅尼小环藻(Cyclotella meneghiniana)、颗粒直链藻最窄变种(Melosira granulata var.)、变异直链藻(Melosira varians)、颗粒直链藻(Melosira granulata),隐藻门的卵形隐藻(Cryptomonas ovata),蓝藻门的弯曲颤藻(Oscillatoria sp.)和伪鱼腥藻(Pseudoanabaena sp.),且都有较高的优势度。浮游植物密度和生物量的季节变化范围分别为0. 33×106cells/L～1. 82×106cells/L和0. 49 mg/L～7. 38 mg/L。基于Shannon-Weaver多样性指数和Pielou均匀度指数以及优势种评价法对汉江中下游的水质进行评价,判断汉江中下游水质整体处于中污状态。     

Detailed evaluation of Mobius3D dose calculation accuracy for volumetric-modulated arc therapy

PurposeTo perform a detailed evaluation of dose calculation accuracy and clinical feasibility of Mobius3D. Of particular importance, multileaf collimator (MLC) modeling accuracy in the Mobius3D dose calculation algorithm was investigated.MethodsMobius3D was fully commissioned by following the vendor-suggested procedures, including dosimetric leaf gap (DLG) optimization. The DLG optimization determined an optimal DLG correction factor which minimized the average difference between calculated and measured doses for 13 patient volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) plans. Two sets of step-and-shoot plans were created to examine MLC and off-axis open fields modeling accuracy of the Mobius3D dose calculation algorithm: MLC test set and off-axis open field test set. The test plans were delivered to MapCHECK for the MLC tests and an ionization chamber for the off-axis open field test, and these measured doses were compared to Mobius3D-calculated doses.ResultsThe mean difference between the calculated and measured doses across the 13 VMAT plans was 0.6% with an optimal DLG correction factor of 1.0. The mean percentage of pixels passing gamma from a 3%/1 mm gamma analysis for the MLC test set was 43.5% across the MLC tests. For the off-axis open field tests, the Mobius3D-calculated dose for 1.5 cm square field was −4.6% lower than the chamber-measured dose.ConclusionsIt was demonstrated that Mobius3D has dose calculation uncertainties for small fields and MLC tongue-and-groove design is not adequately taken into consideration in Mobius3D. Careful consideration of DLG correction factor, which affects the resulting dose distributions, is required when commissioning Mobius3D for patient-specific QA.     

Comparison of forest above‐ground biomass from dynamic global vegetation models with spatially explicit remotely sensed observation‐based estimates

Gaps in our current understanding and quantification of biomass carbon stocks, particularly in tropics, lead to large uncertainty in future projections of the terrestrial carbon balance. We use the recently published GlobBiomass data set of forest above‐ground biomass (AGB) density for the year 2010, obtained from multiple remote sensing and in situ observations at 100 m spatial resolution to evaluate AGB estimated by nine dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs). The global total forest AGB of the nine DGVMs is 365 ± 66 Pg C, the spread corresponding to the standard deviation between models, compared to 275 Pg C with an uncertainty of ~13.5% from GlobBiomass. Model‐data discrepancy in total forest AGB can be attributed to their discrepancies in the AGB density and/or forest area. While DGVMs represent the global spatial gradients of AGB density reasonably well, they only have modest ability to reproduce the regional spatial gradients of AGB density at scales below 1000 km. The 95th percentile of AGB density (AGB₉₅) in tropics can be considered as the potential maximum of AGB density which can be reached for a given annual precipitation. GlobBiomass data show local deficits of AGB density compared to the AGB₉₅, particularly in transitional and/or wet regions in tropics. We hypothesize that local human disturbances cause more AGB density deficits from GlobBiomass than from DGVMs, which rarely represent human disturbances. We then analyse empirical relationships between AGB density deficits and forest cover changes, population density, burned areas and livestock density. Regression analysis indicated that more than 40% of the spatial variance of AGB density deficits in South America and Africa can be explained; in Southeast Asia, these factors explain only ~25%. This result suggests TRENDY v6 DGVMs tend to underestimate biomass loss from diverse and widespread anthropogenic disturbances, and as a result overestimate turnover time in AGB.     

Determination of inflection points of CyberKnife dose profiles within acceptability criteria of deviations in measurements

AimThe aim of this study was to determine the Inflection Points (IPs) of flattening filter free (FFF) CyberKnife dose profiles for cone-based streotactic radiotherapy. In addition, dosimetric field sizes were determined.BackgroundThe increased need for treatment in the early stages of cancer necessitated the treatment of smaller tumors. However, efforts in that direction required the modeling accuracy of the beam. Removal of the flattening filter (FF) from the path of x-ray beam has provided the solution to those efforts, but required a different normalization approach for the beam to ensure the delivery of the dose accurately. As a solution, researchers proposed a normalization factor based on IPs.Materials and methodsMeasurements using microDiamond (PTW 60019), Diode SRS (PTW 60018) and Monte Carlo (MC) calculations of dose profiles were completed at SAD 80 cm and 5 cm depth for 15–60 mm cones. Performance analysis of detectors with respect to MC calculation was carried out. Gamma evaluation method was used to determine achievable acceptability criteria for FFF CyberKnife beams.ResultsAcceptability within (3%–0.5 mm) was found to be anachievable criterion for all dose profile measurements of the cone beams used in this study. To determine the IP, the first and second derivatives of the dose profile were determined via the cubic spline interpolation technique.ConclusionDerivatives of the interpolated profiles showed that locations of IPs and 50% isodose points coincide.     

基于景观地形的小流域单元减灾调控评价研究

近年来,中国诸多大中城市内涝灾害频发。武汉市作为城市内涝频发的典型城市,其建成区地表高度（20.0~24.0 m）大多低于外江常年所处的洪水位高度（23.9 m）,在区域性暴雨条件下,极易引发内涝灾害。武汉由于其内涝典型性,2013年被列为全国31个重点防洪城市之一,2015年被列入首批海绵城市试点城市之一。从城市内涝发生机理出发,以水文角度的小流域单元作为内涝风险区划的基本单元,利用小流域单元分析武汉市景观地形要素（地表高程、地表起伏度、地表粗糙度）与城市内涝积水密度的相关性及其影响程度,量算统计出小流域单元的内涝风险等级。基于此,提出武汉市小流域单元减灾地形调控评价。以武汉市作为城市内涝问题的研究案例,以期为武汉市内涝缓解提供新的思考路径,具有典型性和必要性。