城市湿地公园建成后综合效绩评估——以广州大观湿地为例

以广州大观湿地公园为研究对象,在建立了综合指标评价体系的基础上,通过水质监测、问卷调研、植被样方调查等方法,对大观湿地公园的生态绩效和社会绩效进行评估,并为未来的湿地公园设计提供指导。评估结果显示:湿地公园初步达到了生态和社会效益兼顾的目标。公园内生境类型多样,植物种类达32科54属66种,Shannon-Wiener指数分析表明,草本植物多样性丰富,乔木层由于人工种植原因多样性较差。公园的串联式坑塘系统具有显著的污染物净化效果,可以明显降低汇流区的氮素含量,但其水质净化效果并未达到最大化。公园建成后吸引了大量周边居民的来访,整体满意度较高,但由于有外界污水持续混入上游坑塘,导致游客对上游坑塘水质的评价较差。在以上分析基础上,提出对未来的城市湿地公园设计的指导建议。     

国内外城市生物多样性评价与提升研究综述

城市生物多样性水平是反映人与自然和谐共处水平的重要指标,对促进城市可持续发展有着重要意义。城市及其基础设施的扩张改变了土地原有的生态系统、水文状况和地表结构,不断加快的城市化进程对生物多样性造成了严重影响,城市生物多样性保护已成为当下城市生态建设中重要且紧迫的工作。与传统的生物多样性研究不同,城市生物多样性保护工作以保护生物多样性为前提,争取科学利用生物多样性为城市带来更广泛的经济效益和社会效益。当前城市生物多样性研究成果丰富且涉及层面多元,但仍面临缺乏系统性、整体性评价框架以及跨界、多尺度管理等关键问题。故对国内外城市生物多样性的状况评价、效益评价和提升路径三方面的相关研究进行综述,总结当前城市生物多样性评价的标准与方法,并从城市生物多样性保护面对的主要挑战出发,梳理介绍国际合作、国家政策、城市规划、专项保护以及基于自然的解决方案等角度的城市生物多样性提升路径。讨论了城市生物多样性的关注点与未来研究方向,并对城市生物多样性保护提出政策建议,为各地编制生物多样性保护规划和开展城市生物多样性保护工作提供借鉴,以期促进城市生物多样性保护和人与自然的协调发展。     

Relationships between exhibit naturalism,animal visibility and visitor interest in a Chinese Zoo

Efforts to meet the welfare needs of captive animals (such as the provision of environmental enrichment and naturalistic furnishings) often compromise visitors’ needs (naturalistic exhibits often decrease the visibility of animals on display even though visitors pay to view them). The literature offers different predictions about how zoo visitors respond to decreased animal visibility in naturalistic exhibits but they require further evaluation. Further, visitor research is currently confined to Europe and America and studies outside these areas are limited. This paper investigates the relationships between exhibit naturalism, animal visibility and visitor interest in a Chinese Zoo. Visitor interest was observed at both naturalistic and barren exhibit designs. The study showed that the influence of animal presence on visitor behaviours was similar at both exhibit designs. Further, visitor interest was not compromised at the naturalistic exhibit when animals were not visible. The results demonstrate that the needs of animals and visitors can be balanced at naturalistic exhibits and support the transformation of exhibits to those representing naturalistic environments.     

Research advances by using interoperable e-science infrastructures

Computational simulations and thus scientific computing is the third pillar alongside theory and experiment in todays science. The term e-science evolved as a new research field that focuses on collaboration in key areas of science using next generation computing infrastructures (i.e. co-called e-science infrastructures) to extend the potential of scientific computing. During the past years, significant international and broader interdisciplinary research is increasingly carried out by global collaborations that often share a single e-science infrastructure. More recently, increasing complexity of e-science applications that embrace multiple physical models (i.e. multi-physics) and consider a larger range of scales (i.e. multi-scale) is creating a steadily growing demand for world-wide interoperable infrastructures that allow for new innovative types of e-science by jointly using different kinds of e-science infrastructures. But interoperable infrastructures are still not seamlessly provided today and we argue that this is due to the absence of a realistically implementable infrastructure reference model. Therefore, the fundamental goal of this paper is to provide insights into our proposed infrastructure reference model that represents a trimmed down version of ogsa in terms of functionality and complexity, while on the other hand being more specific and thus easier to implement. The proposed reference model is underpinned with experiences gained from e-science applications that achieve research advances by using interoperable e-science infrastructures.     

A pragmatic cluster randomised trial evaluating three implementation interventions

Background

One of the most consistent findings from clinical and health services research is the failure to translate research into practice and policy. As a result of these evidence-practice and policy gaps, patients fail to benefit optimally from advances in healthcare and are exposed to unnecessary risks of iatrogenic harms, and healthcare systems are exposed to unnecessary expenditure resulting in significant opportunity costs. Over the last decade, there has been increasing international policy and research attention on how to reduce the evidence-practice and policy gap. In this paper, we summarise the current concepts and evidence to guide knowledge translation activities, defined as T2 research (the translation of new clinical knowledge into improved health). We structure the article around five key questions: what should be transferred; to whom should research knowledge be transferred; by whom should research knowledge be transferred; how should research knowledge be transferred; and, with what effect should research knowledge be transferred?

Discussion

We suggest that the basic unit of knowledge translation should usually be up-to-date systematic reviews or other syntheses of research findings. Knowledge translators need to identify the key messages for different target audiences and to fashion these in language and knowledge translation products that are easily assimilated by different audiences. The relative importance of knowledge translation to different target audiences will vary by the type of research and appropriate endpoints of knowledge translation may vary across different stakeholder groups. There are a large number of planned knowledge translation models, derived from different disciplinary, contextual (i.e., setting), and target audience viewpoints. Most of these suggest that planned knowledge translation for healthcare professionals and consumers is more likely to be successful if the choice of knowledge translation strategy is informed by an assessment of the likely barriers and facilitators. Although our evidence on the likely effectiveness of different strategies to overcome specific barriers remains incomplete, there is a range of informative systematic reviews of interventions aimed at healthcare professionals and consumers (i.e., patients, family members, and informal carers) and of factors important to research use by policy makers.

Summary

There is a substantial (if incomplete) evidence base to guide choice of knowledge translation activities targeting healthcare professionals and consumers. The evidence base on the effects of different knowledge translation approaches targeting healthcare policy makers and senior managers is much weaker but there are a profusion of innovative approaches that warrant further evaluation.     

Wild Minds: What People Think about Animal Thinking

ABSTRACT

The question of how nonhuman animals think is pervasive in the scientific and popular media, yet there is an apparent lack of concordance between findings from research in animal cognition and how this information emerges in popular discourse. The present study investigated the way people conceive of animal thinking, in order to inform the development of an exhibit on animal minds that will address this issue and foster a deeper connection between people and animals. This two-part, sequential study of perceptions of animal thinking used qualitative interviews of visitors to the New York Hall of Science and Staten Island Zoo to develop a quantitative, online consumer survey of American museum visitors. The results show that American museum visitors vary in their perceptions of animal thinking, but appear to be open to new ideas about how animals might think. Participants' responses to the interviews revealed they could easily recognize survival strategies in wild animals, but had reservations about discussions of empathy, deception, and awareness. In addition, animals kept as pets or companion animals in Western culture were commonly perceived to have higher cognitive capacities for thinking than food or other domestic animals. Participants' responses to the online consumer survey appeared to focus on an overall concept of animal thinking, rather than different cognitive dimensions. Although participants were generally neutral in their responses, demographic analysis revealed participants who had dogs and/or cats, a college education, or watched nature shows were more likely to support the belief that animals can think. Participants who had children at home were less likely to support this belief. Further research is needed to determine how different kinds of thought processes are understood by general audiences and how demographic factors might influence perceptions of animal thinking.     

家畜类腔前卵泡体外分离方法及其影响因素研究进展

回顾腔前卵泡体外分离方法的研究历史,着重论述牛、羊、猪等家畜的腔前卵泡体外分离方法及其影响因素,以期为建立一种更为有效的分离方法提供理论基础.     

Extending the Life Cycle Methodology to Cover Impacts of Land Use Systems on the Water Balance (7 pp)

Goal, Scope and Background Whilst initially designed for industrial production systems, environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) has recently been increasingly applied to agriculture and forestry projects. Several authors suggested that the standard LCA methodology needs to be refined to cover the particularities of agri- and silvicultural production systems. Until now, water quantity received little attention in these methodological revisions, notwithstanding the well-known impact of agriculture and forestry on issues like water availability, drought and flood risk. This paper proposes an add-on to existing LCA methods in the form of an indicator set that integrates water quantity impacts of agri- and silvicultural production. Method First, system boundaries are discussed in order to identify the water flows between the production system and the environment. These flows are attributed to impact categories, linked to environmental burdens and to the areas of protection. Appropriate indicators are selected for each potential burden. Results and Discussion At the present, two input related impact categories deal with water quantity: Abiotic resource depletion and land use. The list of output related impact categories presented by Udo de Haes et al. (1999) does not include water quantity impacts like flood and drought risk. A new impact category “regional water balance” is introduced to cover these risks. Exceedance probabilities are used as indicators for these temporal variations in streamflow. Conclusion and Outlook The method presented in this paper can bring a life cycle assessment closer to real world concerns. The main drawback, however, is the increasing data requirement that might hinder the feasibility of the method. Future research should focus on this problem, for instance by applying a relatively simple numerical model that can calculate the indicator scores from more easily accessible data.     

Communicating Phylogeny: Evolutionary Tree Diagrams in Museums

Tree of life diagrams are graphic representations of phylogeny—the evolutionary history and relationships of lineages—and as such these graphics have the potential to convey key evolutionary ideas and principles to a variety of audiences. Museums play a significant role in teaching about evolution to the public, and tree graphics form a common element in many exhibits even though little is known about their impact on visitor understanding. How phylogenies are depicted and used in informal science settings impacts their accessibility and effectiveness in communicating about evolution to visitors. In this paper, we summarize the analysis of 185 tree of life graphics collected from museum exhibits at 52 institutions and highlight some potential implications of how trees are presented that may support or hinder visitors’ understanding about evolution. While further work is needed, existing learning research suggests that common elements among the diversity of museum trees such as the inclusion of anagenesis and absence of time and shared characters might represent potential barriers to visitor understanding.     

Fitting the message to the location: engaging adults with antimicrobial resistance in a World War 2 air raid shelter

Aims

There are many different initiatives, global and local, designed to raise awareness of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and change audience behaviour. However, it is not possible to assess the impact of specific, small‐scale events on national and international outcomes—although one might acknowledge some contribution to the individual and collective knowledge and experience‐focused ‘science capital’ As with any research, in preparation for a public engagement event, it is important to identify aims, and appropriate methods whose results might help satisfy those aims. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to develop, deliver and evaluate an event designed to engage an adult audience with AMR.

Methods and Results

The venue was a World War 2 air raid shelter, enabling comparison of the pre‐ and postantibiotic eras via three different activity stations, focusing on nursing, the search for new antibiotics and investigations into novel antimicrobials. The use of observers released the presenters from evaluation duties, enabling them to focus on their specific activities. Qualitative measures of audience engagement were combined with quantitative data.

Conclusions

The evaluation revealed that adult audiences can easily be absorbed into an activity—particularly if hands‐on—after a brief introduction.

Significance and Impact of the Study

This research demonstrates that hands‐on practical engagement with AMR can enable high‐level interaction and learning in an informal and enjoyable environment.     

Molecular expressions: exploring the world of optics and microscopy. http://microscopy.fsu.edu

Our knowledge of the structure, dynamics and physiology of a cell has increased significantly in the last ten years through the emergence of new optical imaging modalities such as optical sectioning microscopy, computer- enhanced video microscopy and laser-scanning microscopy. These techniques together with the use of genetically engineered fluorophores have helped scientists visualize the 3-dimensional dynamic processes of living cells. However as powerful as these imaging tools are, they can often be difficult to understand and fully utilize. Below I will discuss my favorite website: The Molecular Expressions Web Site that endeavors to present the power of microscopy to its visitors. The Molecular Expressions group does a remarkable job of not only clearly presenting the principles behind these techniques in a manner approachable by lay and scientific audiences alike but also provides representative data from each as well.     

Open Data in Global Environmental Research: The Belmont Forum’s Open Data Survey

This paper presents the findings of the Belmont Forum’s survey on Open Data which targeted the global environmental research and data infrastructure community. It highlights users’ perceptions of the term “open data”, expectations of infrastructure functionalities, and barriers and enablers for the sharing of data. A wide range of good practice examples was pointed out by the respondents which demonstrates a substantial uptake of data sharing through e-infrastructures and a further need for enhancement and consolidation. Among all policy responses, funder policies seem to be the most important motivator. This supports the conclusion that stronger mandates will strengthen the case for data sharing.     

Life-LCA: assessing the environmental impacts of a human being—challenges and perspectives

Purpose

The life-cycle assessment (LCA) method is typically applied to products, but the potential and demand for extending its use also to other applications are high. In this respect, this paper proposes an LCA concept to be used for the assessment of human beings as new study objects, namely Life-LCA. Key challenges of such a new approach and potential solutions for those are identified and discussed.

Methods

The Life-LCA concept was developed based on a detailed desktop research. Several Life-LCA-specific challenges were identified and categorized under three research questions. One of these questions focusses on the conceptual design of a Life-LCA method while the others are addressing operational issues, which are the definition of the new study system and the practical assessment of complex human consumption behaviors. Methodological solutions are proposed, e.g., based on suggestions provided in the existing methods product LCA and organizational LCA (O-LCA).

Results and discussion

Conceptual challenges arise from the general diversity, complexity, and temporal development of human lives and consumption behaviors. We introduce Life-LCA as a two-dimensional method that covers both, the new human life cycle (dimension 1) and the life cycle of the consumed products (dimension 2). Furthermore, the two types Individual Life-LCA and Lifestyle-LCA are differentiated. Especially, the definition of a general system boundary for Life-LCA and data collection and evaluation face many operational challenges. For example, the social behavior of human beings is a new factor to be considered which causes new allocation problems in LCA. Moreover, the high demand for aggregated LCA data requires specific rules for data collection and evaluation as well as a new bottom-up product clustering scheme.

Conclusions

Life-LCA, either used for the assessment of individual lives or lifestyles, has the potential to raise environmental awareness of people by making their specific environmental impacts comprehensively measurable and thus, tangible. However, many challenges need to be solved in future interdisciplinary research to develop a robust and applicable method. This paper conceptualizes such an approach and proposes solutions that can serve as a framework for ongoing method development.

     

The Role of Zoos in Modern Society—A Comparison of Zoos' Reported Priorities and What Visitors Believe They Should Be

Modern zoos are required to fulfill a growing number of responsibilities including scientific research, wildlife conservation, public recreation, and education. With so many roles and responsibilities and limited funds, zoos have to prioritize their activities in relation to their own specified goals, objectives, and mission statements. Given their desire to nurture community relations and educational opportunities, it is important to determine the extent to which zoos are prioritizing their activities, according to visitors' expectations. This paper presents empirical research of a two staged mixed-methods investigation into zoo priorities from both zoos' and visitors' perspectives. The first stage involved an online questionnaire to which more than 190 zoos across 52 countries reported their priorities and activities. We then undertook in-depth case studies in nine institutions, enabling direct observation of each site within its context, including face-to-face visitor interviews. Our research contrasts the priority given to zoo activities from each perspective and indicates that educating visitors, including school children, is the highest priority activity from the zoos' perspective and that of their visitors. The findings also show that visitors place high value on learning about actions they can take to help conservation efforts. Some inconsistencies between zoos' and visitors' priorities were also evident, such as the different emphasis placed on viewing endemic species, and zoos being a place for people to relax and socialize. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Publish and Perish?

The publishing of research has implications for the evaluation of research careers, research departments, and funding for research projects. Researchers' academic evaluation relies heavily on the status of the journals in which they publish. The inclusion of one's work in the Science Citation Index (SCI) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) is often used as an indicator of academic quality. This is unfortunate for many environmental researchers, as their journals are not represented in the SCI and SSCI. Two investigations were carried out to determine the reasons for this. The first investigation identified 352 existing environmental academic journals, classified into seven categories (and several subcategories). Of these, two categories were not represented in the SCI or SSCI: environmental systems analysis journals and corporate environmental management journals. The second survey investigated the publishing patterns of interdisciplinary research groups and the characteristics of the journals in which they publish. In spite of acceptable citation levels, interdisciplinary environmental journals are excluded from the SCI and SSCI. A major reason seems to be that citations of their articles are uncounted by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), the organization producing the SCI and SSCI, because citations mostly take place in a group of journals completely unrepresented in ISI's database.     

European research infrastructures for the development of nanobiotechnologies

Research infrastructures are essential for top-level academic and industrial research activities. Throughout the successive framework programmes (FPs) of the EU, actions have been gradually developed to support researchers in accessing top-level European research infrastructures located outside their own country and also to better coordinate and integrate these infrastructures Europe-wide, enabling better research services. At the same time, research infrastructures pave the way for the development of scientific and technological advances. Under the sixth Framework Programme (FP6; 2002-2006), for example, nanobiotechnologies have benefited from these European actions through three approaches: the support of multi-disciplinary pan-European infrastructures; the support of pan-European infrastructures dedicated to biology but with usage in multiple domains of biology; and the funding of integrated centers for nanobiotechnologies. The seventh Framework Programme (FP7; 2007-2013) will reinforce these actions toward research infrastructures, with particular attention to the emergence of new ones as well as to the provision of important strategic research services in fields such as nanobiotechnologies.     

Federated ontology-based queries over cancer data

BACKGROUND: Personalised medicine provides patients with treatments that are specific to their genetic profiles. It requires efficient data sharing of disparate data types across a variety of scientific disciplines, such as molecular biology, pathology, radiology and clinical practice. Personalised medicine aims to offer the safest and most effective therapeutic strategy based on the gene variations of each subject. In particular, this is valid in oncology, where knowledge about genetic mutations has already led to new therapies. Current molecular biology techniques (microarrays, proteomics, epigenetic technology and improved DNA sequencing technology) enable better characterisation of cancer tumours. The vast amounts of data, however, coupled with the use of different terms - or semantic heterogeneity - in each discipline makes the retrieval and integration of information difficult. RESULTS: Existing software infrastructures for data-sharing in the cancer domain, such as caGrid, support access to distributed information. caGrid follows a service-oriented model-driven architecture. Each data source in caGrid is associated with metadata at increasing levels of abstraction, including syntactic, structural, reference and domain metadata. The domain metadata consists of ontology-based annotations associated with the structural information of each data source. However, caGrid's current querying functionality is given at the structural metadata level, without capitalising on the ontology-based annotations. This paper presents the design of and theoretical foundations for distributed ontology-based queries over cancer research data. Concept-based queries are reformulated to the target query language, where join conditions between multiple data sources are found by exploiting the semantic annotations. The system has been implemented, as a proof of concept, over the caGrid infrastructure. The approach is applicable to other model-driven architectures. A graphical user interface has been developed, supporting ontology-based queries over caGrid data sources. An extensive evaluation of the query reformulation technique is included. CONCLUSIONS: To support personalised medicine in oncology, it is crucial to retrieve and integrate molecular, pathology, radiology and clinical data in an efficient manner. The semantic heterogeneity of the data makes this a challenging task. Ontologies provide a formal framework to support querying and integration. This paper provides an ontology-based solution for querying distributed databases over service-oriented, model-driven infrastructures.     

动物园展馆评估系统的建立及应用

在全面阐述动物园展馆评估方法的基础上,建立了从游客、动物和员工三个角度评估展馆的新的指标体系,并在搬迁前哈尔滨动物园的象馆、猩猩馆和水禽馆应用了该方法。评估结果显示：象馆的综合评估总分为84．1分,水禽馆为83．5分,猩猩馆为58．8分。象馆和水禽馆的总体使用效果稍好,而猩猩馆在平面布局、通风、采光和排水设施等方面存在问题,未能很好地吸引游客、保障动物健康和方便员工操作。最后针对评估结果提出了新展馆设计的几点建议。     

Assessing public engagement with science in a university primate research centre in a national zoo

Recent years have seen increasing encouragement by research institutions and funding bodies for scientists to actively engage with the public, who ultimately finance their work. Animal behaviour as a discipline possesses several features, including its inherent accessibility and appeal to the public, that may help it occupy a particularly successful niche within these developments. It has also established a repertoire of quantitative behavioural methodologies that can be used to document the public's responses to engagement initiatives. This kind of assessment is becoming increasingly important considering the enormous effort now being put into public engagement projects, whose effects are more often assumed than demonstrated. Here we report our first attempts to quantify relevant aspects of the behaviour of a sample of the hundreds of thousands of visitors who pass through the 'Living Links to Human Evolution Research Centre' in Edinburgh Zoo. This University research centre actively encourages the public to view ongoing primate research and associated science engagement activities. Focal follows of visitors and scan sampling showed substantial 'dwell times' in the Centre by common zoo standards and the addition of new engagement elements in a second year was accompanied by significantly increased overall dwell times, tripling for the most committed two thirds of visitors. Larger groups of visitors were found to spend more time in the Centre than smaller ones. Viewing live, active science was the most effective activity, shown to be enhanced by novel presentations of carefully constructed explanatory materials. The findings emphasise the importance and potential of zoos as public engagement centres for the biological sciences.     

LUCAS - A New LCIA Method Used for a Canadian-Specific Context

Goal, Scope and Background Canadian LCA practitioners currently use European or American methodologies when conducting comprehensive impact assessments, despite the fact that these methods may not be appropriate for Canadian conditions. Due to the lack of suitable models that are currently available, work has been undertaken to develop an LCIA method by adapting existing LCIA models to the Canadian context. This new method allows the characterization of 10 impact categories. Methods This project is strongly based on preliminary outcomes from SETAC recommendations for the best available practices in LCIA. Models from 3 recent LCIA site-dependent methods, EDIP2003, IMPACT2002+ and TRACI, were used in this midpoint Canadian-specific method. Characterization models were chosen based on their level of comprehensiveness, scientific sophistication and the possibility of integrating site-specific values in the models. Results and Discussion All regional and local impact categories in the method are site-differentiated. For aquatic eutrophication, (eco)toxicity and land-use impact categories, regionally-differentiated models taking into account fate and effect were already available: the parameters of these models were modified for the Canadian context. For acidification, aquatic and terrestrial eutrophication, existing models were spatially differentiated for fate: regionalization of the effect factor was also included, based on the level of sensitivity of each ecozone assessed with vulnerability factors. The default spatial resolution selected for this method was Canadian ecozones, which define spaces in an ecologically meaningful way where organisms and their physical environment evolve as a system. For each ecozone, 2334 site-dependent characterization factors have been calculated. Conclusion This LCIA methodology proposes an attractive and useful set of site-dependent characterization factors for the 15 Canadian terrestrial ecozones. Recommendation and Outlook Efforts are being carried out to extend the specificity of some factors used in eutrophication modelization. Finally, the transparency of the methodology will allow to re-calculate site-dependent characterization factors for different regions and for additional substances.