Response of single benthic metrics and multi-metric methods to anthropogenic pressure gradients, in five distinct European coastal and transitional ecosystems

In recent times many benthic indices have been proposed to assess the ecological quality of marine waters worldwide. In this study we compared single metrics and multi-metric methods to assess coastal and transitional benthic status along human pressure gradients in five distinct environments across Europe: Varna bay and lake (Bulgaria), Lesina lagoon (Italy), Mondego estuary (Portugal), Basque coast (Spain) and Oslofjord (Norway). Hence, 13 single metrics (abundance, number of taxa, and several diversity and sensitivity indices) and eight of the most common indices used within the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) for benthic assessment were selected: index of size spectra (ISS), Benthic assessment tool (BAT), Norwegian quality index (NQI), Multivariate AMBI (M-AMBI), Benthic quality index (BQI), (Benthic ecosystem quality index (BEQI), Benthic index based on taxonomic sufficiency (BITS), and infaunal quality index (IQI). Within each system, sampling sites were ordered in an increasing pressure gradient according to a preliminary classification based on professional judgement. The different indices are largely consistent in their response to pressure gradient, except in some particular cases (i.e. BITS, in all cases, or ISS when a low number of individuals is present). Inconsistencies between indicator responses were most pronounced in transitional waters (i.e. IQI, BEQI), highlighting the difficulties of the generic application of indicators to all marine, estuarine and lagoonal environments. However, some of the single (i.e. ecological groups approach, diversity, richness) and multi-metric methods (i.e. BAT, M-AMBI, NQI) were able to detect such gradients both in transitional and coastal environments, being these multi-metric methods more consistent in the detection than single indices. This study highlights the importance of survey design and good reference conditions for some indicators. The agreement observed between different methodologies and their ability to detect quality trends across distinct environments constitutes a promising result for the implementation of the WFD’s monitoring plans. Moreover, these results have management implications, regarding the dangers of misclassification, uncertainty in the assessment, use of conflicting indices, and testing and validation of indices.     

Internal shocks in a relativistic wind as a source for gamma-ray bursts?

We investigate the recent proposal made by Rees and Mészáros (1994) that GRBs result from internal shocks in the relativistic wind emerging from two coalesced neutron stars. Using a simple model of that wind, where a large number of layers with different Lorentz factors interact through a series of mildly relativistic shocks we compute the efficiency of the process and the time profile of the resulting burst. We show that a great variety of profiles can be obtained using plausible initial distributions of Lorentz factors in the wind. However, the rather low overall efficiency (< 10%) of the process and limits imposed on the burst duration can be used to put severe constraints on the nature of the energy source.     

Incorporation of trivalent actinides into calcite: A time resolved laser fluorescence spectroscopy (TRLFS) study

In order to characterize and quantify the substitution of Ca(II) by Cm(III) (coordination, charge compensation), homogeneous Cm(III) coprecipitated calcite was synthesized in a mixed-flow-through experiment. Two sets of experiments were conducted at pH 8.1 and at pH 12.5.At pH 8.1 two calcites, a calcite with a low Cm³⁺ concentration (LCMpH8.1) and a calcite with a high M³⁺ (Gd³⁺ and Cm³⁺) concentration (HCMpH8.1) were grown and investigated by time resolved laser fluorescence spectroscopy. The Cm(III) emission spectra of LCMpH8.1 and HCMpH8.1 show the same Cm(III) fluorescence signals for two Cm(III) species; Cm(III) species (1) with a peak maximum at 606.2 nm and Cm(III) species (2) with a peak maximum at 620.3 nm. Cm(III) species (1) has a mean lifetime of τ = 386 ± 40 μs and Cm(III) species (2) has a mean lifetime of τ = 1874 ± 200 μs. A lifetime of 386 μs correlates with 1.3 water molecule in the first coordination sphere of the Cm ion whereas a lifetime of 1874 μs indicates the total loss of the Cm(III) hydration sphere. According to the fluorescence emission peak position and the fluorescence emission lifetime, Cm(III) species (1) is identified as a surface sorbed species whereas Cm(III) species (2) is identified as a Cm(III) incorporated into the calcite lattice.Cm(III) fluorescence emission spectra of Cm(III) doped calcite grown at pH 12.5 (LCMpH12.5) show the same peak maxima which are found for LCMpH8.1 and HCMpH8.1 grown at pH 8.1 but an additional emission band at 608.2 nm (3) is found, which can be assigned to a further Cm(III) species. Fluorescence emission lifetime measurements show that this Cm(III) species (3) has a lifetime of τ = 477 ± 25 μs, which correlates with 0.9 water molecules in the first coordination sphere. Cm(III) species (3) is suggested to be a CmOH²⁺ incorporated species.     

Reference data enhancement for geographic information retrieval using linked data

Gazetteers are instrumental in recognizing place names in documents such as Web pages, news, and social media messages. However, creating and maintaining gazetteers is still a complex task. Even though some online gazetteers provide rich sets of geographic names in planetary scale (e.g. GeoNames), other sources must be used to recognize references to urban locations, such as street names, neighborhood names or landmarks. We propose integrating Linked Data sources to create a gazetteer that combines a broad coverage of places with urban detail, including content on geographic and semantic relationships involving places, their multiple names and related non‐geographic entities. Our final goal is to expand the possibilities for recognizing, disambiguating and filtering references to places in texts for geographic information retrieval (GIR) and related applications. The resulting ontological gazetteer, named LoG (Linked OntoGazetteer), is accessible through Web services by applications and research initiatives on GIR, text processing, named entity recognition and others. The gazetteer currently contains over 13 million places, 140 million attributes and relationships, and 4.5 million non‐geographic entities. Data sources include GeoNames, Freebase, DBPedia and LinkedGeoData, which is based on OpenStreetMap data. An analysis on how these datasets overlap and complement one another is also presented.     

Spatio-temporal patterns of coral recruitment at Vamizi Island,Quirimbas Archipelago,Mozambique

Spatial and temporal patterns of recruitment of reef corals were assessed for the first time in Mozambique by deploying settlement plates at various spatio-temporal scales between October 2012 and October 2013. The abundance of juvenile corals (5?50?mm in diameter) was assessed along transects. Settlement of acroporids was highly seasonal, with 97% of spat settling between July and October 2013. Pocilloporids settled throughout the year, peaking slightly between October 2012 and January 2013. The annual mean larval settlement of up to 1 135 spat m^?2 was comparable to that on other East African reefs, but was dominated by acroporids, which constituted over 80% of all spat, whereas pocilloporids settle in higher densities in Kenya and South Africa. The peak settlement season also differed from other African locations. A greater proportion of variance in settlement rates occurred at the spatial scale of kilometres (between sites) and centimetres (between settlement plates) than at the scale of metres (between subsites), implying that most patchiness occurs at those scales. The peak in acroporid settlement coincided with the period of multispecific spawning, with settlement occurring as early as nine days after a spawning event. As no similar spawning events have been reported for other reefs in the area, our results suggest that these spawning events strongly influence overall annual settlement rates and promote high levels of self-seeding at Vamizi. There was no relationship between settlement of larvae to settlement plates and juvenile density on adjacent reefs, suggesting either variable levels of early post-settlement mortality or high interannual variability in settlement.     

Influence of a low-viscosity layer between rigid inclusion and viscous matrix on inclusion rotation and matrix flow: A numerical study

We have used 2-D finite element modelling to investigate the influence of a permanent low-viscosity layer between matrix and inclusion on matrix flow and inclusion rotation under viscous simple shear flow. Rigid inclusions of different shape (circle, square, ellipse, lozenge, rectangle and skewed rectangles) and aspect ratio (R) were used. The calculated matrix flow pattern is neither bow tie nor eye-shaped. It is a new flow pattern that we call cat eyes-shaped, which is characterized by: (i) straight streamlines that slightly bend inwards at the inclusion's crests; (ii) elongate eye-shaped streamlines on each side of the inclusion; (iii) stagnation points in the centre of the eyes; (iv) absence of closed streamlines surrounding the inclusion; (v) changes in flow configuration with inclusion orientation; the lines of flow reversal bend and tilt, closed streamline circuits may disappear, and streamlines may bend outwards at the inclusion's crests.Concerning inclusion rotation, the numerical results show that: (i) a low-viscosity layer (LVL) makes inclusions with R = 1 rotate synthetically, but the rotation rate depends upon shape (circle or square) and orientation. Therefore, shape matters in the slipping mode. (ii) All studied shapes with R > 1 rotate antithetically when starting with the greatest principal axis (e₁) parallel to the shear direction ( = 0°); (iii) rotation is limited because there is a stable equilibrium orientation (_se) for all studied shapes with R > 1. (iii) There is also an unstable equilibrium orientation (_ue), and both _se and _ue depend upon inclusion's R and shape.The present numerical results closely agree with previous results of analogue experiments with a permanent low viscosity interface. Only minor deviations related with small shape differences were detected.     

Paleomagnetism, geochemistry and Ar/Ar dating of the North-eastern Paraná Magmatic Province: tectonic implications

Seventy sites of sills, flows and dikes from Northeastern Paraná Magmatic Province (PMP), were submitted to paleomagnetic, chemical and radiometric analyses. The rocks are high in TiO₂ content, and similar in composition to the rocks from the northern region of PMP. The sills intrude mainly Paleozoic sediments, and can be subdivided into two domains; the northern being characterized by sills showing reversed polarities, and the southern essentially by sills of normal polarities. ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating of three distinct sills gave plateau ages (129.9 ± 0.1, 130.3 ± 0.1 and 131.9 ± 0.4 Ma) that are similar to surface-outcropping flows of the Northern Paraná Basin, and the Ponta Grossa dikes. The new paleomagnetic data combined with existing data from the northern PMP allowed the calculation of a paleomagnetic pole at 71.4° E and 83.0° S (N = 92; α₉₅=2.4°; k = 39). This pole is in good agreement with poles for central and southern PMP, which are slightly older than the northern PMP, as well as for the contemporaneous Central Alkaline Province (Paraguay) on the western side of PMP. In contrast, the coeval pole for the Ponta Grossa dikes (eastern border of PMP), however, is slightly displaced from that group of poles, suggesting that dikes in that area may have undergone some tectonic tilting.     

On the treatment of uncertainty in seismic vulnerability and portfolio risk assessment

In a related study developed by the authors, building fragility is represented by intensity‐specific distributions of damage exceedance probability of various damage states. The contribution of the latter has been demonstrated in the context of loss estimation of building portfolios, where it is shown that the proposed concept of conditional fragility functions provides the link between seismic intensity and the uncertainty in damage exceedance probabilities. In the present study, this methodology is extended to the definition of building vulnerability, whereby vulnerability functions are characterized by hazard‐consistent distributions of damage ratio per level of primary seismic intensity parameter—Sa(T₁). The latter is further included in a loss assessment framework, in which the impact of variability and spatial correlation of damage ratio in the probabilistic evaluation of seismic loss is accounted for, using test‐bed portfolios of 2, 5, and 8‐story precode reinforced concrete buildings located in the district of Lisbon, Portugal. This methodology is evaluated in comparison with current state‐of‐the‐art methods of vulnerability and loss calculation, highlighting the discrepancies that can arise in loss estimates when the variability and spatial distributions of damage ratio, influenced by ground motion properties other than the considered primary intensity measure, are not taken into account.