Swansonkennedy1546

Overall, the native silver fir showed a higher resilience to severe drought events than the two introduced pine species. Furthermore, and unlike the native silver fir, black pine and Scots pine species do not successfully regenerate. A high diversity of native broadleaf species sprouts and develops instead under them suggesting that we might be witnessing a process of ecological succession, with broadleaves recovering their habitats. As native species seem to perform better in terms of resilience and regeneration than introduced species, the overall effect of the black pine and Scots pine mortality might be compensated. Legacies of past forest management should be taken into account in order to better understand current responses of different tree species to ongoing climate change.Conventional interpolation methods, such as spatial averaging, nearest neighbor, inverse distance weight and ordinary Kriging (OK); for estimating the spatial distribution of ground-level particulate matter (PM) data, do not account for the wind direction for estimating the spatial distribution of PM2.5. In this work, an interpolation algorithm, Win-OK accounting for the wind direction, is developed. In contrast to ordinary Kriging where all locations (irrespective of the wind direction) in the vicinity of a site is considered, the new algorithm (Win-OK) predicts the value at a certain location based on the measured values at locations upwind as determined by the wind direction. This new methodology, Win-OK is validated by applying it to analyze the hourly spatial distribution of ground-level PM2.5 concentrations during Chinese New Year and Chinese National Day in 2017 in Xinxiang city, China. The performance of OK and Win-OK are compared by using them to build PM2.5 concentration heat-maps. Doxycycline A "leave-one-out" cross validation methodology is used to calculate the root-mean-square error (RMSE) and standard deviation for evaluating both algorithms. The results show that OK sometimes gives an extremely high RMSE value using a Gaussian semi-variance model, and the standard deviation significantly deviates from the measured values. Win-OK was found to more accurately predict the PM2.5 spatial distribution in a specific sector. The performance of Win-OK is more stable than OK as established by comparing the calculated RMSE and standard deviation from predictions of both algorithms. Win-OK with a spherical semi-variance model is the most accurate method investigated here for deriving the spatial distribution of ground-level PM2.5. The new algorithm developed here could improve the prediction accuracy of PM2.5 spatial distribution by considering the effect of wind direction.The pollution due to marine debris is a serious environmental threat in many parts of the world. The abundance of marine debris, composition and its distribution over the seafloor along north-east coast of Arabian coast was studied through trawl based swept method. Experimental fishing was conducted fortnightly using shrimp bottom trawl and collected debris was categorized as per standard protocols. A total of 1077 pieces of debris (11.7 kg dry weight) were collected from 25 hauls. The average number and weight of debris were 943 items/km2 and 10.2 kg/km2 respectively. The estimated total marine debris along this coast was 379 t (dry weight). Plastic-based debris contributed maximum (87.1%) to the total debris collected in numbers and among this, plastic bags and food wrappers were dominant. Debris produced by shoreline/recreational activities comprised the major source of debris (88.6%) along this coast. This study provides the evidence that the effective use of available fishing trawlers and co-management practices ("Make fishers friend") can help to remove the seabed debris. The base data generated through this study would facilitate region-based effective control and management of plastic debris pollution.Aquatic centres (ACs) are becoming exceedingly popular in the urban agglomerations of cold climate countries like Canada but functioning without assessing the state of their sustainability performance. Previous studies examined health and safety, water and indoor air quality, and energy consumption aspects without aiming at the holistic sustainability performance assessment. The present research is the first systematic effort for benchmarking of ACs. A hierarchical-based framework arranged 81 performance indicators to appraise the key components, including water management, indoor environment, personnel, service quality, energy, social, and operations. Fuzzy AHP and fuzzy mean clustering methods evaluated the identified PIs based on the opinion of experts (from Canadian aquatic centres) on their importance, measurability, and understandability. Finally, the selection process ranked a set of 63 most suitable PIs under 14 sub-criteria. Fuzzy-based methods efficiently handled the subjective scoring process and the difference of opinion among the experts. The criteria performance indices inform the top-level management while the sub-indices stipulate the operations management for honing in the lacking indicators. Using the selected PIs, the AC's management can allocate the available resources for both the short-term (e.g., efficient response to complaints) and long-term (e.g., replacing failed manually operated fixtures with the sensor-operated ones) improvement actions. The selected PIs will enhance the sustainability of ACs in Canada and other cold regions around the globe through a structured benchmarking process.

The aim of the study was to provide an overview of the prevalence, risk factors, burden, and current and emerging pharmacologic treatments for seizure clusters in patients with epilepsy.

Close to half of patients with active epilepsy experience seizure clusters, and the clinical, social, and financial burdens of seizure clusters are high. However, there is no widely accepted definition of seizure clusters; their prevalence is underappreciated, contingencies for addressing them (seizure action plans) are often lacking, and their effects are not well-studied. These issues have resulted in an insufficient number of investigations and approved medications for this condition. Novel formulations are in late-stage development to meet this unmet need.

Close to half of patients with active epilepsy experience seizure clusters, and the clinical, social, and financial burdens of seizure clusters are high. However, there is no widely accepted definition of seizure clusters; their prevalence is underappreciated, contingencies for addressing them (seizure action plans) are often lacking, and their effects are not well-studied.