Theoretical exploration for the combination of the ecological,energy, carbon,and water footprints: Overview of a footprint family

Over the past two decades, a continuously expanding list of footprint-style indicators has been introduced to the scientific community with the aim of raising public awareness of how humanity exerts pressures on the environment. A deeper understanding of the connections and interactions between different footprints is required in an attempt to support policy makers in the measurement and choice of environmental impact mitigation strategies. Combining a selection of footprints that address different aspects of environmental issues into an integrated system is, therefore, a natural step. This paper starts with the idea of developing a footprint family from which most important footprints can be compared and integrated. On the basis of literature review in related fields, the ecological, energy, carbon, and water footprints are employed as selected indicators to define a footprint family. A brief survey is presented to provide background information on each of the footprints with an emphasis on their main characteristics in a comparative sense; that is, the footprints differ in many aspects more than just the impacts they are addressed. This allows the four footprints to be complementarily used in assessing environmental impacts associated with natural resource use and waste discharge. We evaluate the performance of the footprint family in terms of data availability, coverage complementarity, methodological consistency, and policy relevance and propose solutions and suggestions for further improvement. The key conclusions are that the footprint family, which captures a broad spectrum of sustainability issues, is able to offer a more complete picture of environmental complexity for policy makers and, in particular, in national-level studies. The research provides new insights into the distinction between environmental impact assessment and sustainability evaluation, properly serving as a reference for multidisciplinary efforts in estimating planetary boundaries for global sustainability.     

Aerial powdering of bees inside mobile cages and the extent of neonicotinoid cloud surrounding corn drillers

Sudden losses of bees have been observed in spring during maize sowing. The death of bees has been correlated with the use of neonicotinoid‐coated seed and the toxic particulates emitted by pneumatic drilling machines. The contamination of foragers in flight over the ploughed fields has been hypothesized. The airborne contamination has been proven, both with bees inside fixed cages around the field and in free flight near the driller. A new trial involving mobile cages has been established and consists of making rapid passes with single bees inside cages fixed to an aluminium bar. The bar was moved by two operators at different distances from the working drilling machine. A single pass was shown as sufficient to kill all the bees exposed to exhaust air on the emission side of the drill, when bees were subsequently held in high relative humidity. The extent of toxic cloud around driller was evaluated at the height of 0.5, 1.8 and 3.5 m and proved to be about 20 m in diameter, with an ellipsoidal shape. The shape may be influenced by working speed of the drill and environmental parameters, and is easily shown by adding talc powder to the seed in the machine hopper. A new driller equipment was evaluated consisting of two tubes inclined towards the soil that direct the exhaust air towards the ground. The survival rate of the bees was not substantially increased using the modified drill and was lower than 50%. Chemical analyses show up to 4000 ng of insecticide in single bees with an average content around 300 ng. Similar quantities were observed at increased distances from the modified or unmodified drillers. This new evaluation of bee mortality in the field is an innovative biological test to verify the hypothetical efficiency (or not) of driller modifications.     

海岸带城市生态承载力综合评价——以连云港市为例

海岸带是人类聚居和海洋资源开发利用的重点区域。海岸带城市综合生态承载力体现了海岸带生态系统对人类社会经济活动的承受能力,是判断海岸带城市生态系统健康程度和制定海岸带环境管理政策的重要依据。基于"压力(P)-状态(S)-响应(R)"概念模型,以连云港市为例,构建海岸带综合生态承载力评价指标体系,并对2005—2014年间连云港市的综合生态承载力进行评价。结果显示:连云港市海岸带综合生态承载力呈现逻辑斯蒂式波动上升趋势,2005—2007年处于超载状态,2008—2011年基本处于平衡状态,2012年后处于可载状态。对影响承载力的主要因素进行贡献度分析的结果表明:负向指标中,海岸带环境压力大于人口压力;正向指标中,海岸带经济发展水平及科技支撑条件的贡献呈上升趋势,海岸带可利用资源波动下降。结合相关分析和因子分析,得出海岸带环境压力、科技支撑条件及经济发展水平是制约综合承载力的关键因素。研究结果对海岸带地区环境管理及可持续发展政策制定具有重要意义。     

面向可持续城市生态系统管理的国土空间开发适宜性评价——以烟台市为例

国土空间开发适宜性评价是国土空间规划编制的基础和前提。面向可持续城市生态系统管理目标,基于生态保护红线和永久基本农田的"底线"思维,以资源环境禀赋为基础,构建了本底约束—综合限制—承载力评价-多空间适宜评价的资源环境承载力和国土空间开发适宜性评价的逻辑框架和指标体系,并以烟台为例,设置城市生态系统保护的不同情景,综合运用特尔斐法及多要素空间叠置等方法,开展了城市资源环境承载力与国土空间开发适宜性评价的实践应用。研究结果表明:①资源环境对烟台经济社会发展的阻碍与限制总体较小,高限制区面积仅占烟台国土面积的6.09%。②烟台市不同区县之间的资源环境承载力差异较大。从西北部向东南,烟台市资源环境承载力呈现出逐渐提高的变化趋势。③面向可持续城市生态系统管理情景,烟台市各县市国土空间开发建设适宜性差异显著,适宜建设区范围为2380 km~2。面向城市生态系统一般保护情景,烟台市适宜建设区面积达2610 km~2,不适宜建设开发区与适宜建设开发区数量结构为1.12∶1,未来国土空间开发利用潜力较大。两种情景下烟台市国土空间开发适宜性适宜建设区面积均大于现状建设用地面积,为城市未来发展提供了用地保障,同时确保了烟台市水资源安全和生态安全。研究结果可为烟台市国土空间优化以及相关地区政府部门重大决策、战略部署等提供决策信息支持和技术服务。     

Judging the social value of controlled human infection studies

In controlled human infection (CHI) studies, investigators deliberately infect healthy individuals with pathogens in order to study mechanisms of disease or obtain preliminary efficacy data on investigational vaccines and medicines. CHI studies offer a fast and cost-effective way of generating new scientific insights, prioritizing investigational products for clinical testing, and reducing the risk that large numbers of people are exposed to ineffective or harmful substances in research or in practice. Yet depending on the pathogen, CHI studies can involve significant risks or burdens for participants, pose risks to individuals or communities not involved in the research, and lead to public controversy. It is therefore essential to ensure that the risks of CHI studies are justified by their social value—that is, their potential to generate benefits for society—and that public trust can be maintained. In this paper, we aim to clarify how research sponsors, research ethics committees and other reviewers should judge the social value of CHI studies. We develop a list of relevant considerations for making social value judgments based on the standard view of social value. We then use this list to discuss the example of potentially conducting dengue virus CHI studies in endemic settings. We argue that dengue virus CHI studies in endemic settings would fall on the higher end of the spectrum of social value, mostly because of their potential to redirect all fields of future dengue research. Drawing on this discussion, we derive several general recommendations for how reviewers should judge the social value of CHI studies.     

急性心肌梗死患者合并恶性室性心律失常的危险因素及QRS-T夹角对其的诊断价值分析

摘要 目的：探讨急性心肌梗死（AMI）患者合并恶性室性心律失常的危险因素，分析QRS-T夹角对其诊断价值。方法：对2015年8月~2019年8月我院收治的AMI患者120例的临床资料进行回顾性分析，其中合并恶性室性心律失常者作为研究组（n=42），未合并恶性室性心律失常者作为对照组（n=78），应用单因素及多因素Logistic回归分析AMI合并恶性室性心律失常的危险因素，并分析QRS-T夹角对AMI合并恶性室性心律失常的诊断价值。结果：120例患者中42例合并恶性室性心律失常，发生率为35.00%。多因素Logistic回归分析显示，年龄≥70岁、低血钾、Killip分级>II级、肌钙蛋白I（TnI）≥12 ng/mL、左室射血分数（LVEF）<50%、心脏下后壁梗死、窦性心律RR间期标准差（SDNN）≥90 ms、QRS-T夹角>90°是AMI患者合并恶性室性心律失常的危险因素（P<0.05），QRS-T夹角>90°对AMI患者合并恶性室性心律失常诊断的灵敏度为83.33%（35/42）、特异性为93.59%（73/78），准确度为90.00%（108/120）。结论：年龄≥70岁、低血钾、Killip分级>II级、TnI≥12 ng/mL、LVEF<50%、心脏下后壁梗死、SDNN≥90 ms、QRS-T夹角>90°是AMI患者合并恶性室性心律失常的危险因素，QRS-T夹角>90°对AMI患者合并恶性室性心律失常的诊断价值较高。     

Demand for sucrose in the genetically obese Zucker (fa/fa) rat

Obese Zucker rats (fa/fa) eat more food than lean controls in free-feeding conditions, which strongly influences their phenotypic expression. Few studies, however, characterize their food consumption in environments that are more representative of foraging conditions, e.g., how effort plays a role in food procurement. This study examined the reinforcing efficacy of sucrose in obese Zucker rats by varying the responses required to obtain single sucrose pellets. Male Zucker rats (15 lean, 14 obese) lever-pressed under eight fixed ratio (FR) schedules of sucrose reinforcement, in which the number of lever-presses required to gain access to a single sucrose pellet varied from 1 to 300. Linear and exponential demand equations, which characterize the value of a reinforcer by its sensitivity to price (FR), were fit to the number of food reinforcers and responses made. Free food consumption was also examined. Obese Zuckers, compared to leans, consumed more food under free-feeding conditions. Moreover, they had higher levels of consumption and response output, but only at low FR values. Both groups were equally sensitive to price increases at higher FR values. This suggests that environmental conditions may interact with genes in the expression of food reinforcer efficacy.     

A Method to Rank Multiple Trait Performance of Biological Entities

Performance of biological entities are defined, in general by k inter-dependent traits whose error variances are heterogeneous. A method of arriving at “Performance Scores” for the entities along with a multivariate test of significance of k-trait differences is described. They are used to compute, for each entity, a “Performance Index” on which a ranking of the relative performance is obtained. The improvement in the present method over an earlier one is illustrated with a numerical example.     

Men’s reproductive investment decisions

Using questionnaire data completed by 170 men, we examine variation in paternal investment in relation to the trade-off between mating and parenting. We found that as men’s self-perceived mate value increases, so does their mating effort, and in turn, as mating effort increases, paternal investment decreases. This study also simultaneously examined the influence on parental investment of men’s mating effort, men’s perception of their mates’ fidelity, and their perceived resemblance to their offspring. All predicted investment. The predictors of investment are also tested independently for men who are still in a relationship with the mother of their children and those that are separated from her. Finally we examine how self-perceived mate value affects how men respond to variation in paternity confidence. Men with a self-perceived low mate value were less likely to respond to lowered mate fidelity by reducing their parental investment compared with men with a self-perceived high mate value.