Associations Between Climate, Ecosystems, and Ecosystem Services in the Pre-Sahara

This chapter focuses on the richness and wide variety of Sub-Saharan ecosystems particularly in the region of Tafilalet, Morocco. The Tafilalet ecosystems provide an extensive list of goods (see below) to the region, as well as “ecosystem services” for the inhabitants. However, in the last 30 years, these ecosystems are threatened by conjugated impacts of climate change and human overuse of the nature resources. The primary objective of this chapter is to evaluate both the damage inflicted on Tafilalet ecosystems and the associated ecosystem services due to climate change. Adaptation to climate change is of paramount importance to keep the survival of the diversity of Tafilalet ecosystems including agro-ecosystems, forests, and inland waters. Adaptation is a process to reduce the vulnerability of people to prevent displacement and conflict for scarce ecosystem services. The findings of this chapter show that a large number of ecosystem services of the region are limited by climatic conditions that affect the resilience of the whole oasis of Tafilalet.

Bruce Chatwin

This article is an attempt to answer the question Bruce Chatwin posed in the title of the last book published during his life: What Am I Doing Here. A critical focus on Chatwin’s masterwork, The Songlines, and its exploration of nomadism paired with wandering, leads to an exploration of his lifelong quest for spiritual renewal and ascension. Part literary criticism, part personal essay, the article makes personal connections with Chatwin’s life and work. Included here are several book lists, featuring an extensive list of books that Chatwin read and references in his own writing, assembled possibly for the first time.

An updated checklist of marine copepoda from Peninsular Malaysia with notes on their functional traits and distributional records

An up-to-date checklist of marine zooplankton copepods from the water of Peninsular Malaysia is presented, there are 235 species of copepods which consists of 89 genera and 44 families. Extensive list of bibliographical references with synonymy, detailed information on their functional groups, and distributional data are provided for each species. The checklist is based on taxonomic and ecological literature until 28 May 2020. Calanoida recorded the most diverse order with 101 species in total, followed by Harpacticoida with 70 species and 61 species from Cyclopoida. As for Canuelloida, Monstrilloida and Siphonostomatoida all recorded with 1 species respectively. There are 192 species of copepod recorded along the west coast (Malacca Strait) and 123 species on the east coast (South China Sea). Endemicity at species level attains 1% for the whole Peninsular Malaysian coast, with 2 genera restricted to the east coast (Kensakia parva and Brachiella malayensis) and one genus to the west coast (Labidocera jaafari). There are six dominant species that can be found along the coast of Peninsular Malaysia (Acartia erythraea, Acartia pacifica, Bestiolina similis, Euterpina acutifrons, Microsetella norvegica, Paracalanus aculeatus, Oithona nana, Oithona simplex and Temora discaudata).

FUZZY-BASED FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING INTER-ENTERPRISE COLLABORATIONS IN PSS CONTEXT

One of the biggest challenges of companies developing new solutions is how to properly manage the different relationships with external partners, especially in the case of Product-Service Systems (PSS). Developing a PSS requires for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) to rethink the organization and roles of the different stakeholders regarding the characteristics of such environments. This paper aims to introduce a methodology to build a framework for inter-enterprise collaboration performance assessment and its corresponding Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). An extensive list of KPIs is established from key factors of collaboration performance and organizational characteristics in PSS context. Finally, further steps of the methodology are discussed where fuzzy techniques are used.

Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein and his Russian Publishers

The article presents a focused look at the professional relations of the composer and pianist Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein (1829—1894) with his main Russian publishers — V.V. Bessel and P.I. Jurgenson. The article is based on musical and historical research concerning the history of the Bessel and Jurgenson publishing houses, works on copyright, A.G. Rubinstein’s epistolary, and archival documents from the Russian National Museum of Music. For the first time in music science, there are revealed some pages of the history of personal and business contacts of the three named persons, primarily the conflicts related to the rights to publish the composer’s works in Russia. The first documented contract for the publications of A.G. Rubinstein was received by P.I. Jurgenson (for op. 82, 1868). However, the contract of A.G. Rubinstein with the trading house “Bessel and Co.”, concluded in 1871 (though Rubinstein’s first work had been published by Bessel two years earlier), was much more extensive and significant. Under this contract, it was supposed to publish more than fifty A.G. Rubinstein’s works of various genres, so in the 1870s, V.V. Bessel became the main Russian publisher of the composer. However, in 1879, A.G. Rubinstein unexpectedly changed his main publisher in Russia. This position was taken by P.I. Jurgenson, whose trading house also published an extensive list of Rubinstein’s compositions, as well as his literary works. This is evidenced by several notarized contracts, stored in the Russian National Museum of Music, between Rubinstein and “P.I. Jurgenson” company. Thus, the two leading Russian publishers of A.G. Rubinstein legally formalized their relations with the composer, which allows us to follow, in a reasoned and substantive way, the process of maturation of the institution of copyright for music publications in Russia in the last third of the 19th century.Using the example of A.G. Rubinstein, in comparison with the position of M.A. Balakirev, the article also raises the issue of granting copyright to a publisher not only in Russia, but also “forever and for all countries”. The comparative analysis of publications of the same composer by different publishing companies is also new to Russian musicology, this helps identify certain accents that publishers put in popularizing A.G. Rubinstein’s works. The publication of the composer’s works by various publishers also highlights new aspects in his creative process, in the history of the creation, receipt of the opus number, and the titles of some of his works.

Contamination detection and microbiome exploration with GRIMER

Exploring microbiome data is a time-consuming task that can be only partially automated due to the specific requirements and goals of each project. Visualizations and analysis platforms are crucial to better guide this step. Best practices in the field are constantly evolving and many pitfalls can lead to biased outcomes. Compositionality of data and sample contamination are two important points that should be carefully considered in early stages of microbiome studies. Detecting contamination can be a challenging task, especially in low-biomass samples or in studies lacking proper controls by design. However, external evidences and commonly identified contaminant taxa can be used to discover and mitigate contamination. We propose GRIMER, a tool that automates analysis, generates plots and runs external tools to create a portable dashboard integrating annotation, taxonomy and metadata. It unifies several sources of evidence towards contamination detection. GRIMER is independent of quantification methods and directly analyses contingency tables to create an interactive and offline report. GRIMER reports can be created in seconds and are accessible for non-specialists, providing an intuitive set of charts to explore data distribution among observations and samples and its connections with external sources. Further, we compiled an extensive list of common contaminants and possible external contaminant taxa reported in the literature and use it to annotate data. GRIMER is open-source and available at: https://gitlab.com/dacs-hpi/grimer

Mental Health Determinants in Turkey: Investigating an Extensive List of Variables

Bu çalışma ruh sağlığı belirleyicilerini; sosyodemografik faktörleri, bireylerin sağlık ve yaşam tarzı seçimlerini,ev ve çevresel faktörleri, sosyal sermayeyi ve çalışma ortamını da işin içerisine katarak geniş bir perspektifle elealmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, lineer regresyon modelleri kullanılarak ruh sağlığıyla ilişkili faktörler yetişkin bireyleriçin incelenmektedir. Bunun için Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu tarafından yapılan, 2008-2012 yılları arasını kapsayanve bütün Türkiye için temsil gücü bulunan Türkiye Sağlık Araştırması anketi verileri temel alınmıştır. Bulgularımızagöre, erkeklerin kadınlara kıyasla ruh sağlığı bakımından daha yüksek skora sahip oldukları ortaya çıkmaktadır.Çevredeki ses ve gürültü, ev veya çevredeki şiddet ve suçların özellikle kadınlarda düşük ruh sağlığı skoruyla ilişkiliolduğu gözlemlenmiştir. Bunun yanında iş sahibi olmanın sadece erkeklerin ruh sağlığını olumlu etkilediği görülmüştür. Diğer önemli bir sonuç ise, hane halkı gelirinin, kişinin sağlığı ve çevresinde güvenebileceği insanlarınolması gibi parasal olmayan faktörlere nazaran ruh sağlığını çok az ölçüde etkilediğinin gözlemlenmesidir. Ayrıcaişyerinde maruz kalınan ayrımcılık ve kaba davranışların her iki cinsiyetin ruh sağlığını olumsuz yönde etkilediğigözlemlenmiştir. Araştırmamızdan çıkan sonuçlar başkalarına güven, sağlık, evde, iş yerinde ve çevrede huzurlubir ortamın oluşturulması gibi maddi olmayan değerlerin kişilerin hayatında fark yaratacağı sonucuna işaret eder.

Educating PhD students for knowledge-driven society

Universities educate students for working in knowledge-driven societies. Whereas subject-related knowledge is part of every curriculum, institutions of higher education fail to teach systematically how to utilize and benefit from today’s variety of digital tools. Students and researchers are mostly unaware of what they lack to work more effectively and efficiently and to benefit from existing knowledge. Since this lack of awareness is not obvious to students and researchers (unknown unknowns; you cannot miss something that you do not know), it is difficult to convince them that there is a gap that needs to be filled. In 2014, we decided to tackle this problem by creating and developing the course “Scientific Information Retrieval & Management in Life Sciences and Chemistry”. The unique 2 ECTS course features a multi-level approach to obtain and employ scientific information and to get students information savvy. On one hand, the course demonstrates the bigger picture: We discuss the aspects of scientific writing and publishing, critical choice of data sources, patents, visualisation and design, text mining and data pipelining, knowledge generation, outreach and impact of publications. On the other hand, we highlight an extensive list of field-proven tools that can assist researchers in their daily activities. We also wanted to foster a lasting impact on how students utilize databases, tools, software,and web services. Thus, at the end of the course students have to write an essay describing their current information workflow or their (un)met information needs. These essays confirm and explain how the students changed their information use, and which parts of the course they may have not understood. Moreover, essays that describe unmet information needs allow us to explore possible solutions and to work with our vendors. In our talk, we will share the concept for the course and report on our experiences.

Clinical presentation and diagnosis of pneumonia in HIV-infected patients

Pulmonary infections remain one of the most important causes of morbidity and mortality in HIV-infected people, and one of the most common causes of hospital admission of these persons. It is often difficult to diagnose pneumonia in patients with compromised immunity, with a wide range of opportunistic infections (bacterial, fungal, viral, parasitic, tuberculosis, etc.), but also an extensive list of other causes of fever and lung imaging changes, such as pulmonary embolism, tumors, atelectasis, or the simultaneous development of infections in other systems (digestive, renal), requiring more tests to confirm the diagnosis in immunocompromised patient compared to the immunocompetent.

Self-consistent dielectric functions of materials: Toward accurate computation of Casimir–van der Waals forces

Research on theoretical calculation of Casimir–van der Waals (vdW) forces is characterized by a great number of inconsistencies and conflicting reports with widely differing results for many known materials, including water, contradicting experimental measurements. Despite its importance for conceptual advances in both fundamental aspects and practical applications, a universal framework for the accurate determination of Casimir-vdW forces is lacking. Here, we propose a universal theoretical platform for computing Casimir-vdW forces, accounting for the electronic dielectric constant, optical bandgap, density, and chemical composition. Using this methodology, we determine the dielectric function for 55 materials, over a wide range of photon energies, covering an extensive list of common metals, organic and inorganic semiconductors, and insulators. Internal consistency of the compiled data is validated using optical sum rules and Kramers-Kronig relations. We demonstrate that the calculated vdW forces based on these data match remarkably well with the experimentally measured vdW forces.