scholarly journals Strategies for Successful Mangrove Living Shoreline Stabilizations in Shallow Water Subtropical Estuaries

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 11704
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. Fillyaw ◽  
Melinda J. Donnelly ◽  
Jason W. Litwak ◽  
Julia L. Rifenberg ◽  
Linda J. Walters

By combatting erosion and increasing habitat, mangrove living shorelines are an effective alternative to hard-armoring in tropical and subtropical areas. An experimental red mangrove living shoreline was deployed within Mosquito Lagoon, Florida, using a factorial design to test the impact of mangrove age, breakwater presence, and mangrove placement on mangrove survival within the first year of deployment. Mixed mangrove age treatments were included to identify if seedling (11-month-old) survival could be enhanced by the presence of transitional (23-month-old) and adult (35 to 47-month-old) mangroves. Environmental factors were monitored to detect possible causes of mangrove mortalities. Approximately half (50.6%) of mangroves died, and of those, 90.7% occurred within the annual high-water season, and 88.9% showed signs of flooding stress. Planting seedlings haphazardly among older mangroves did not attenuate enough wave energy to significantly increase seedling survival. Breakwaters alleviated stress through a reduction in water velocity and wave height, increasing the odds of survival by 197% and 437% when mangroves were planted in the landward and seaward rows, respectively. Compared to seedlings, deployment of adult mangroves increased survival odds by 1087%. Collectively, our results indicate that sites with a high-water season should utilize a breakwater structure and mangroves with a woody stem.

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elmakki AMIRI ◽  
Abderrahim El KARFA

It is worth pointing out that learning a foreign language in a multicultural context is a long and complex undertaking. Several factors influence whether or not English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students can accurately perceive and produce the foreign language. These variables can potentially contribute to the success and, or failure in learning and acquiring a foreign language. Given the Moroccan educational system, the research provided minimal insight into the relationship between those factors and language achievement. The present study’s aim, therefore, was to investigate the environmental factors that affect students’ academic performance. It also aimed to find out how these variables affect students’ academic achievements. To achieve this aim, data have been collected via open-ended questionnaires, and interviews addressed mainly to First Year Students of Master Programs, Department of English, FLDM, USMBA-Fez. The findings have shown that students’ academic achievements were significantly positively/negatively linked with the environmental factors, namely societal, home/family and school/classroom variables. The findings also revealed that the more highly sophisticated the social environment is, the more likely it is to foster EFL students’ academic achievements. In addition, the more similarity exists between the students’ cultures, the more successful the learning is. This study also showed that the development of EFL proficiency is a product of contextual factors influence. As such, the study concludes with several implications that brought up for possible effective change in the future to enhance the learning environment atmosphere, boost students’ academic achievements, and, therefore, achieve better results.


2015 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 415 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. A. Chia ◽  
J. M. Koch ◽  
R. Sadler ◽  
S. R. Turner

Persoonia longifolia R.Br. is a common understorey tree that is difficult to re-establish following bauxite extraction and land restoration in parts of the jarrah forest of south-western Western Australia. To improve restoration outcomes for P. longifolia, understanding its phenology is vital for developing methods for returning this plant to rehabilitated areas. The present study investigated in detail different aspects of the phenology of P. longifolia over a 3-year-period. Most vegetative growth occurred during the summer months and flowering and fruiting occurred concurrently. Fruit matured from July through to September, at which time these dropped to the forest floor. Germination occurred in late winter–early spring from fruit that was at least 1-year old, with poor seedling survival in natural bush (<10%) during the first 12 months. Following fire, P. longifolia plants resprouted prolifically in the next growing season, although there was very little fruit production in the first year following fire. Fruit was not produced until at least the second year following a fire, and when dispersed, required at least another year in the soil seed bank before germination commenced (i.e. 3 years post-fire). Results from the present study will improve restoration outcomes for this species, by providing guidance on better seed-collection strategies and baseline information concerning growth rates under natural conditions that can then be used to assess performance of this species in restored environments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-400
Author(s):  
Elmakki AMIRI ◽  
Abderrahim El KARFA

It is worth pointing out that learning a foreign language in a multicultural context is a long and complex undertaking. Several factors influence whether or not English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students can accurately perceive and produce the foreign language. These variables can potentially contribute to the success and, or failure in learning and acquiring a foreign language. Given the Moroccan educational system, the research provided minimal insight into the relationship between those factors and language achievement. The present study’s aim, therefore, was to investigate the environmental factors that affect students’ academic performance. It also aimed to find out how these variables affect students’ academic achievements. To achieve this aim, data have been collected via open-ended questionnaires, and interviews addressed mainly to First Year Students of Master Programs, Department of English, FLDM, USMBA-Fez. The findings have shown that students’ academic achievements were significantly positively/negatively linked with the environmental factors, namely societal, home/family and school/classroom variables. The findings also revealed that the more highly sophisticated the social environment is, the more likely it is to foster EFL students’ academic achievements. In addition, the more similarity exists between the students’ cultures, the more successful the learning is. This study also showed that the development of EFL proficiency is a product of contextual factors influence. As such, the study concludes with several implications that brought up for possible effective change in the future to enhance the learning environment atmosphere, boost students’ academic achievements, and, therefore, achieve better results.


2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 194-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freda-Marie Hartung ◽  
Britta Renner

Humans are social animals; consequently, a lack of social ties affects individuals’ health negatively. However, the desire to belong differs between individuals, raising the question of whether individual differences in the need to belong moderate the impact of perceived social isolation on health. In the present study, 77 first-year university students rated their loneliness and health every 6 weeks for 18 weeks. Individual differences in the need to belong were found to moderate the relationship between loneliness and current health state. Specifically, lonely students with a high need to belong reported more days of illness than those with a low need to belong. In contrast, the strength of the need to belong had no effect on students who did not feel lonely. Thus, people who have a strong need to belong appear to suffer from loneliness and become ill more often, whereas people with a weak need to belong appear to stand loneliness better and are comparatively healthy. The study implies that social isolation does not impact all individuals identically; instead, the fit between the social situation and an individual’s need appears to be crucial for an individual’s functioning.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 891-908
Author(s):  
T.A. Smirnova

Subject. This article deals with the issues of functioning of the region as a system. Objectives. The article aims to identify the problems of the region's functioning as a system, develop methodological tools to monitor the sustainable development of the Siberian Federal District territories, and determine the the impact of socio-economic and environmental factors on the sustainable development of the region as a whole. Methods. For the study, I used the methods of theoretical, statistical, and empirical analyses taking into account an integrated approach. Results. The article reveals the impact of some individual components of regional development on the sustainability of the territorial system as a whole. Relevance. The results of the study can be used to analyze the sustainability of regions' development.


Author(s):  
А. М. Grebennikov ◽  
А. S. Frid ◽  
V. P. Belobrov ◽  
V. А. Isaev ◽  
V. М. Garmashоv ◽  
...  

The article assesses the relationships between the morphological properties of agrochernozems and yield of peas on the plots, experience with different methods of basic treatment (moldboard plowing at the depth of 20 - 22, 25 - 27 and 14 - 16 cm, moldboard plowing to a depth of 14 - 16 cm, combined midwater moldboard, mid-water subsurface, surface to a depth of 6 - 8 cm and zero tillage) is inherent in V.V. Dokuchaev Research Institute of Agriculture of the Central Black Earth strip, in the fall of 2014. The research was conducted in 2015 - 2016, with the application of mineral fertilizers (N60Р60К60) and unfertilized background. The highest pea yields in the fertilized as the background, and without the use of fertilizers was observed in dumping plowing and especially in the variant with deep moldboard plowing, which creates in comparison with other ways of handling the best conditions for the growth and development of peas. The lowest yield of pea was obtained with zero processing. Apparently legalistic migrational-mizelial agrochernozems the Central Chernozem zone of minimum tillage in the cultivation of peas are not effective, what is evident already in the first year after the laying of experience with different basic treatments. As shown by the results of applying multifactor analysis of variance studied the mapping properties of the soil can have the same significant impact on the yield of agricultural crops, as options for the field experiments aimed at assessing the impact of various treatments on yield.


Author(s):  
L.Z. Khalishkhova ◽  
◽  
A. Kh. Temrokova ◽  
I.R. Guchapsheva ◽  
K.A. Bogаtyreva ◽  
...  

Ensuring the sustainable development of agroecosystems requires research into the justification of the impact of environmental factors on the formation of territorial agroecosystems and identifies ways to take them into account in order to justify management decisions and ensure environmental safety. The main goal of the research within the article is to identify the most significant environmental factors in predicting the formation of agroecosystems. Provisions are devoted to the study of the laws governing the functioning of agroecosystems in order to increase their stability. The methods of comparative analysis, generalization, abstraction, logical analysis are applied. A number of provisions are formulated regarding ways to account for the influence of factors on the formation of key elements of agroecosystems.


Author(s):  
Diarmaid Lane ◽  
Sheryl Sorby

AbstractIn recent years, there has been a surge in research in spatial thinking across the international community. We now know that spatial skills are malleable and that they are linked to success across multiple disciplines, most notably Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). While spatial skills have been examined by cognitive scientists in laboratory environments for decades, current research is examining how these skills can be developed in field-based environments. In this paper, we present findings from a study within a Technology Teacher preparation programme where we examined first-year students’ spatial skills on entry to university. We explain why it was necessary to embed a spatial skills intervention into Year 1 of the programme and we describe the impact that this had on students’ spatial scores and on academic performance. The findings from our study highlight a consistent gender gap in spatial scores at the start of the first-year with female students entering the Technology Teacher preparation programme at a lower base level than male students. We describe how we integrated spatial development activities into an existing course and how an improvement in spatial scores and overall course performance was observed. The paper concludes by discussing the long-term sustainability of integrating spatial interventions within teacher preparation programmes while also highlighting the importance of future research to examine spatial skills as a fundamental component of technological capability.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Müller ◽  
Manuela Bombana ◽  
Monika Heinzel-Gutenbrenner ◽  
Nikolaus Kleindienst ◽  
Martin Bohus ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Mental disorders are related to high individual suffering and significant socio-economic burdens. However, it remains unclear to what extent self-reported mental distress is related to individuals’ days of incapacity to work and their medical costs. This study aims to investigate the impact of self-reported mental distress for specific and non-specific days of incapacity to work and specific and non-specific medical costs over a two-year span. Method Within a longitudinal research design, 2287 study participants’ mental distress was assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). HADS scores were included as predictors in generalized linear models with a Tweedie distribution with log link function to predict participants’ days of incapacity to work and medical costs retrieved from their health insurance routine data during the following two-year period. Results Current mental distress was found to be significantly related to the number of specific days absent from work and medical costs. Compared to participants classified as no cases by the HADS (2.6 days), severe case participants showed 27.3-times as many specific days of incapacity to work in the first year (72 days) and 10.3-times as many days in the second year (44 days), and resulted in 11.4-times more medical costs in the first year (2272 EUR) and 6.2-times more in the second year (1319 EUR). The relationship of mental distress to non-specific days of incapacity to work and non-specific medical costs was also significant, but mainly driven from specific absent days and specific medical costs. Our results also indicate that the prevalence of presenteeism is considerably high: 42% of individuals continued to go to work despite severe mental distress. Conclusions Our results show that self-reported mental distress, assessed by the HADS, is highly related to the days of incapacity to work and medical costs in the two-year period. Reducing mental distress by improving preventive structures for at-risk populations and increasing access to evidence-based treatments for individuals with mental disorders might, therefore, pay for itself and could help to reduce public costs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 296
Author(s):  
Imke Matthys ◽  
Justine Defreyne ◽  
Els Elaut ◽  
Alessandra Daphne Fisher ◽  
Baudewijntje P. C. Kreukels ◽  
...  

Improving transgender people’s quality of life (QoL) is the most important goal of gender-affirming care. Prospective changes in affect can influence QoL. We aim to assess the impact of initiating gender-affirming hormonal treatment (HT) on affect. In the European Network for the Investigation of Gender Incongruence (ENIGI) study, we prospectively collected data of 873 participants (451 transwomen (TW) and 422 transmen (TM)). At baseline, psychological questionnaires including the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) were administered. The PANAS, levels of sex steroids and physical changes were registered at each follow-up visit during a 3-year follow-up period, starting at the initiation of hormonal therapy. Data were analyzed cross-sectionally and prospectively. Over the first three months, we observed a decline in positive affect (PA) in both TM and TW. Thereafter, PA reached a steady state in TW, whereas in TM there was also a second decline at 18 months. In both TM and TW there was no persisting difference comparing baseline to the 36-months results. Concerning negative affect (NA), we observed a decline during the first year in TM, which sustained during the second year and was not different anymore at 36 months compared to baseline. In TW though, we did not find any change of NA during the entire follow-up. Even if some of these results show significant differences, they should be considered with caution, since there was no control group and the absolute differences are small. No association between affect and the level of sex steroids was observed. Baseline QoL and psychological burden are related to affect independently from gender but are not necessarily good predictors of the evolution of one’s affect during the gender-affirming process. Further research is necessary to investigate these preliminary results.


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