scholarly journals Implementing and Monitoring the Use of Artificial Canopy Bridges by Mammals and Birds in an Indonesian Agroforestry Environment

Diversity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 399
Author(s):  
K. A. I. Nekaris ◽  
Victoria Handby ◽  
Marco Campera ◽  
Hélène Birot ◽  
Katherine Hedger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Fragmentation ◽  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Animal Movement ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Camera Traps ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Rubber Hose ◽  
Major Threat ◽  
The World ◽  
Forest Habitats

Deforestation is a major threat to biodiversity, particularly within tropical forest habitats. Some of the fastest diminishing tropical forest habitats in the world occur in Indonesia, where fragmentation is severely impacting biodiversity, including on the island of Java, which holds many endemic species. Extreme fragmentation on the western part of the island, especially due to small-scale agriculture, impacts animal movement and increases mortality risk for mainly arboreal taxa. To mitigate this risk in an agroforest environment in Garut District, West Java, we installed 10 canopy bridges and monitored them through camera trapping between 2017 and 2019. Five of the monitored bridges were made of waterlines and five of rubber hose. We recorded Javan palm civets using the waterline bridges 938 times, while Javan slow lorises used the waterlines 1079 times and the rubber bridges 358 times. At least 19 other species used the bridges for crossing or perching. Our results demonstrate that relatively simple and cost-effective materials can be used to mitigate the effects of habitat fragmentation. We also recommend the use of camera traps to monitor the effectiveness of these interventions.

scholarly journals Automatic detection of fish and tracking of movement for ecology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Lopez-Marcano ◽  
Eric Jinks ◽  
Christina Buelow ◽  
Christopher J Brown ◽  
Dadong Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Computer Vision ◽  
Animal Movement ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Field Conditions ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Fish Movement ◽  
Monitoring Methods ◽  
Non Invasive ◽  
Detection And Tracking

1. Animal movement studies are conducted to monitor ecosystem health, understand ecological dynamics and address management and conservation questions. In marine environments, traditional sampling and monitoring methods to measure animal movement are invasive, labour intensive, costly, and measuring movement of many individuals is challenging. Automated detection and tracking of small-scale movements of many animals through cameras are possible. However, automated techniques are largely untested in field conditions, and this is hampering applications to ecological questions. 2. Here, we aimed to test the ability of computer vision algorithms to track small-scale movement of many individuals in videos. We apply the method to track fish movement in the field and characterize movement behaviour. First, we automated the detection of a common fisheries species (yellowfin bream, Acanthopagrus australis) from underwater videos of individuals swimming along a known movement corridor. We then tracked fish movement with three types of tracking algorithms (MOSSE, Seq-NMS and SiamMask), and evaluated their accuracy at characterizing movement. 3. We successfully detected yellowfin bream in a multi-species assemblage (F1 score = 91%). At least 120 of the 169 individual bream present in videos were correctly identified and tracked. The accuracies among the three tracking architectures varied, with MOSSE and SiamMask achieving an accuracy of 78%, and Seq-NMS 84%. 4. By employing these emerging computer vision technologies, we demonstrated a non-invasive and reliable approach to studying fish behaviour by tracking their movement under field conditions. These cost-effective technologies potentially will allow future studies to scale-up analysis of movement across many underwater visual monitoring systems.

scholarly journals The historical range and drivers of decline of the Tapanuli orangutan

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. e0238087
Author(s):  
Erik Meijaard ◽  
Safwanah Ni’matullah ◽  
Rona Dennis ◽  
Julie Sherman ◽  
Onrizal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Historical Ecology ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Forest Conversion ◽  
Combined Effects ◽  
Great Ape ◽  
Concerted Action ◽  
Habitat Types ◽  
The World ◽  
Forest Habitats ◽  
Historical Range

The Tapanuli Orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) is the most threatened great ape species in the world. It is restricted to an area of about 1,000 km2 of upland forest where fewer than 800 animals survive in three declining subpopulations. Through a historical ecology approach involving analysis of newspaper, journals, books and museum records from the early 1800s to 2009, we demonstrate that historically Pongo tapanuliensis inhabited a much larger area, and occurred across a much wider range of habitat types and at lower elevations than now. Its current Extent of Occurrence is 2.5% and 5.0% of the historical range in the 1890s and 1940s respectively. A combination of historical fragmentation of forest habitats, mostly for small-scale agriculture, and unsustainable hunting likely drove various populations to the south, east and west of the current population to extinction. This happened prior to the industrial-scale forest conversion that started in the 1970s. Our findings indicate how sensitive P. tapanuliensis is to the combined effects of habitat fragmentation and unsustainable take-off rates. Saving this species will require prevention of any further fragmentation and killings or other removal of animals from the remaining population. Without concerted action to achieve this, the remaining populations of P. tapanuliensis are doomed to become extinct within several orangutan generations.

scholarly journals A threat assessment of Three-striped Palm Squirrel Funambulus palmarum (Mammalia: Rodentia: Sciuridae) from roadkills in Sigur Plateau, Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu, India

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 16347-16351
Author(s):  
Arockianathan Samson ◽  
Balasundaram Ramakrishnan ◽  
Jabamalainathan Leonaprincy
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
Deciduous Forest ◽  
Threat Assessment ◽  
Southern India ◽  
Major Threat ◽  
State Highway ◽  
Tiger Reserve ◽  
Dry Deciduous Forest ◽  
Forest Habitats

This study was undertaken to assess the threat from road kills for three-striped palm squirrels in the tropical forest of Sigur plateau, Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu, and Southern India from January 2014 to December 2016.  Road kills were recorded along the Udhagamandalam to Masinagudi state highway passing through Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (40 km). Four visits per month were carried out mostly on weekends (Saturday or Sunday).  A total of 497 three-striped palm squirrel kills were recorded, with an overall rate of 0.09/km of the roadway. Habitat wise 387 kills were observed in the thorn forest and 110 in dry deciduous forest habitats. Season wise 176 kills were recorded in winter, 156 in summer, 83 post-monsoon, and 82 during the monsoon.  The study distinguished the ongoing major threat on the three-striped palm squirrel in the present scenario.

scholarly journals Investigation of the Use of Low Temperature Geothermal Organic Rankine Cycle Engine in an Autonomous Polygeneration Microgrid

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10475
Author(s):  
George Kyriakarakos ◽  
Erika Ntavou ◽  
Dimitris Manolakos
Keyword(s):  
Low Temperature ◽  
Low Power ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Organic Rankine Cycle ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Rankine Cycle ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Low Grade ◽  
Geothermal Resources ◽  
The World

Low-enthalpy geothermal resources (<150 °C) can be used for electricity generation and are widespread around the world, occurring at shallow depths. At the same time, in many parts of the world, there are existing low-enthalpy geothermal wells that are used for a multitude of applications such as for buildings’ heating and agriculture-related applications. The dominant technology to convert low-grade heat (<150 °C) to electricity is the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC). The autonomous polygeneration microgrid (APM) concept aims to holistically meet in a sustainable way the needs of an off-grid community in terms of electrical loads, space heating and cooling, potable water production through desalination, and the use of hydrogen as fuel for transportation, in the most cost-effective manner possible. Photovoltaics (PVs) and wind turbines have been investigated extensively, since PVs can be installed practically anywhere in the world and wind turbines in areas with sufficient wind potential. The aim of this paper is to investigate techno-economically the potential of utilizing low-enthalpy geothermal resources in small-scale APMs through an ORC engine to fully satisfy the needs of small settlements. In order to accomplish this task with confidence, a case study for the Greek island of Milos has been developed and a typical settlement has been considered. It is worth mentioning that experimental results from a realized low-power (<10 kWe) ORC engine manufactured to operate at temperatures up to 140 °C are used to add reliability in the calculations. In order to meet the needs of the people, four different APMs based on PVs, wind turbines, and geothermal ORC of different but appropriate configurations were designed and sized through optimization. The optimization process was based on particle swarm optimization (PSO). The comparative examination of the results shows that the use of a low-power, low-temperature ORC engine in an APM is technically feasible; more cost effective than the configurations based on PVs, wind turbines, or combination of both; and has increased environmental sustainability.

scholarly journals The historic range and drivers of decline of the Tapanuli orangutan

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Meijaard ◽  
Safwanah Ni'matullah ◽  
Rona Dennis ◽  
Julie Sherman ◽  
O. Onrizal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Historical Ecology ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Forest Conversion ◽  
Combined Effects ◽  
Great Ape ◽  
Concerted Action ◽  
Habitat Types ◽  
The World ◽  
Forest Habitats ◽  
Historical Range

The Tapanuli Orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) is the most threatened great ape species in the world. It is restricted to an area of about 1,000 km2 of upland forest where fewer than 800 animals survive in three declining subpopulations. Through a historical ecology approach involving analysis of newspaper, journals, books and museum records from the early 1800s to 2009, we demonstrate that historically Pongo tapanuliensis inhabited a much larger area, and across a much wider range of habitat types than now. Its current Extent of Occurrence is between 2.5% and 5.0% of the historical range in the 1890s and 1940s respectively. A combination of historical fragmentation of forest habitats, mostly for small-scale agriculture, and unsustainable hunting likely drove various populations to the south, east and west of the current population to extinction. This happened prior to the industrial-scale forest conversion that started in the 1970s. Our findings indicate how sensitive P. tapanuliensis is to the combined effects of habitat fragmentation and unsustainable take-off rates. Saving this species will require prevention of any further fragmentation and killings or other removal of animals from the remaining population. Without concerted action to achieve this, the remaining populations of P. tapanuliensis are doomed to become extinct within several orangutan generations.

Urban pollution control strategy: SBR technology to treat agricultural waste from pig farm in Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Lindawati Lindawati
Keyword(s):  
Cost Estimation ◽  
Batch Reactor ◽  
Agricultural Waste ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Land Application ◽  
Pig Manure ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Piggery Wastewater ◽  
Pig Farm ◽  
Number Of Customers

Reduction of food rations and shortages is one of the impacts of the increasing human population. Food sector industries then try to cope with the fast growing number of customers. Agribusiness sector gains its popularity in these recent years, including pig farm. The increase trend of animal farming industry is likely to bring increasing pollution problem unless effective treatment methods are used. The main problems related to the pig farm include odor nuisance and pig manure disposal. The existing land application of piggery wastewater is the traditional way to discharge the wastewater. This may yield in land and water contamination, due to the accumulation of unused nutrients by crop plant. A case study of a large commercial pig farm from Australia is proposed to apply in smaller scale in Indonesia. Operational strategies for the small-scale SBR (Sequencing Batch Reactor) treating piggery effluent were developed based on lab-scale experiments. Due to SBR characteristics, which are money-saving and space-saving, it is very suitable to be applied in urban area. An economic evaluation was made of various process options. The cost estimation showed that SBR is a cost effective process, allowing operational batches to be adjusted to reduce unnecessary aeration cost. A reduction in the aeration cost was achieved by shortening the batch time from 24-h to 8-h. A comparison of three different SBR options showed that smaller size reactors could be more flexible and cost effective when compared with the larger ones.

Yoga in the management of Diabetes Mellitus

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sreeharsha N. ◽  
Bargale Sushant Sukumar ◽  
Divyasree C. H.
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Diabetes Mellitus ◽  
Eating Habits ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
The Body ◽  
Positive Thinking ◽  
The World ◽  
Diabetic Population ◽  
Major Factors ◽  
Excess Glucose

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder in which the body is unable to make proper utilisation of glucose, resulting in the condition of hyperglycaemia. Excess glucose in the blood ultimately results in high levels of glucose being present in the urine (glycosuria). This increase the urine output, which leads to dehydration and increase thirst. India has the largest diabetic population in the world. Changes in eating habits, increasing weight and decreased physical activity are major factors leading to increased incidence of Diabetes. Lifestyle plays an important role in the development of Diabetes. Yoga offers natural and effective remedies without toxic side-effects, and with benefits that extend far beyond the physical. This system of Yoga is a simple, natural programme involving five main principles: proper exercise, proper breathing, proper relaxation, proper diet and positive thinking and meditation. It is a cost effective lifestyle intervention technique.

scholarly journals Informed consent and informed intervention: SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations not just call for disclosure of newly emerging safety data but also for hypothesis generation and testing

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes C. Fischer ◽  
Albrecht G. Schmidt ◽  
Edwin Bölke ◽  
Verena Keitel ◽  
Torsten Feldt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Viral Infections ◽  
Safety Data ◽  
Hypothesis Generation ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Vaccination Programs ◽  
Major Threat ◽  
The World ◽  
Population Scale

Abstract Background COVID-19 infection is a major threat to patients and health care providers around the world. One solution is the vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. Methods We performed a comprehensive query of the latest publications on the prevention of viral infections including the recent vaccination program and its side effects. Results The situation is evolving rapidly and there is no reasonable alternative to population-scale vaccination programs as currently enrolled. Conclusion Therefore, regulatory authorities should consider supplementing their conventional mandate of post-approval pharmacovigilance, which is based on the collection, assessment, and regulatory response to emerging safety findings.

scholarly journals Diversity minimization through part combination – a Portuguese railway infrastructure case study

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-94
Author(s):  
Diogo Rechena ◽  
Luís Sousa ◽  
Virgínia Infante ◽  
Elsa Henriques
Keyword(s):  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Railway Infrastructure ◽  
Sustainable Services ◽  
Market Needs ◽  
Design Diversity ◽  
Requirement Changes

Abstract With increasing market needs for product and service variety, companies struggle to provide diversity in cost-effective ways. Through standardization of components with a low perceived added value, companies can take advantage of economies of scale while maintaining product diversity. Railway infrastructure managers face similar challenges of providing economically sustainable services while dealing with the costs of maintaining the system diversity. Typically, unintended design diversity stems from design practices in which existing solutions are not reused for new problems and new solutions are rarely planned considering the dynamics of requirement changes. In this paper we provide a methodology to assess how to standardize different designs to minimize design diversity and to assess design divergence in a product family. The developed methodology is able to take into account any set of standardization compatibility constraints that the user can define. The methodology was applied in the context of a small-scale railway infrastructure manager using a dataset of 223 unique designs of functionally similar components from its electrification system. Depending on the activated compatibility constraints, results indicate that over 60% of components can be reduced to a set of 86 unique designs.

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