scholarly journals Modern comprehensive approach to monitor the morphodynamic evolution of a restored river corridor

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 1197-1212 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Pasquale ◽  
P. Perona ◽  
P. Schneider ◽  
J. Shrestha ◽  
A. Wombacher ◽  
...  

Abstract. River restoration has become a common measure to repair anthropogenically-induced alteration of fluvial ecosystems. The inherent complexity of ecohydrologic systems leads to limitations in understanding the response of such systems to restoration over time. Therefore, a significant effort has been dedicated in the recent years worldwide to document the efficiency of restoration actions and to produce new effective guidelines that may help overcoming existing deficiencies. At the same time little attention was paid to illustrate the reasons and the use of certain monitoring and experimental techniques in spite of others, or in relation to the specific ecohydrologic process being investigated. The purpose of this paper is to enrich efforts in this direction by presenting the framework of experimental activities and the related experimental setup that we designed and installed in order to accomplish some of the research tasks of the multidisciplinary scientific project RECORD (Restored Corridor Dynamics). Therein, we studied the morphodynamic evolution of the restored reach of the River Thur near Niederneunforn (Switzerland), also in relation to the role of pioneer vegetation roots in stabilizing the alluvial sediment. In this work we describe the methodology chosen for monitoring the river morphodynamics, the dynamics of riparian and of in-bed vegetation and their mutual interactions, as well as the need of complementing such observations with experiments and with the hydraulic modeling of the site. We also discuss how the designed installation and the experiments integrate with the needs of other research groups within the project, in particular providing data for a number of investigations thereby including surface water and groundwater interactions, soil moisture and vegetation dynamics.

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 8873-8912 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Pasquale ◽  
P. Perona ◽  
P. Schneider ◽  
J. Shrestha ◽  
A. Wombacher ◽  
...  

Abstract. River restoration has become a common measure to repair anthropogenically-induced alteration of fluvial ecosystems. The inherent complexity of ecohydrologic systems, leads to limitations in understanding the response of such systems to restoration over time. Up to now a lot of effort has therefore been dedicated worldwide to document the efficiency of restoration actions and to produce new effective guidelines that may help overcoming our deficiencies. At the same time very few attentions focused on illustrating the reasons and the use of certain monitoring and experimental techniques in spite of others, or in relation to the specific ecohydrologic process being investigated. The purpose of this paper is to enrich efforts in this direction by discussing the experimental setup that we designed and installed in order to accomplish some of the research tasks of the multidisciplinary scientific project RECORD (Restored Corridor Dynamics). Therein, we study the morphodynamic evolution of the restored reaches of River Thur near Niederneunforn (Switzerland), also in relation to the role of pioneer vegetation roots in stabilizing the alluvial sediment. In this work we describe and motivate the methodology chosen for monitoring the river morphodynamics, the dynamics of riparian and of in-bed vegetation and their mutual interactions, as well as the need of complementing such observations with experiments and with the hydraulic modeling of the site. We also discuss how the designed installation and the experiments integrate with the needs of other research groups within the project, in particular providing data for a number of investigations ranging from surface water to groundwater, soil moisture and vegetation dynamics.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
N. V. Litvak

The article considers the scientific diplomacy — a relatively new phenomenon in international practice — as a type of diplomacy which took shape quite recently, in the 21st century, with the advent of both the term itself, and the corresponding concepts, and the Foreign Ministry units of some countries. However, it is necessary to clarify the terminology and essence of this practice, which has a much more long history. At the present time, there is a reassessment of this historical experience, as well as another attempt to put science in the civil service in one more — diplomatic aspect, as it has already happened with the military, educational and some other areas. At the same time, the scientific community itself in this process has the opportunity to play not only the role of an object or a passive performer. The demand for science is clearly manifested in periods of war and conflict, which in various forms do not stop today. This causes the urgency of the problem. At the same time, the conscious activity of politicians and scientists is combined with objective, independently developing, incl. latently, unobviously, by the processes of political struggle and scientific knowledge, which leads to complex combinations of interrelations between politics and science. The study of such events and processes allows us to draw some conclusions regarding relations between science and diplomacy, to determine the trend of consistent “scientification” of diplomacy, like of any other sphere of society, the transition from diplomacy-mail (communication) through diplomacy-art to diplomacy-science, formulate a hypothesis that diplomacy in general is a scientific project.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 1608
Author(s):  
Salvatore Ivo Giano

This Special Issue deals with the role of fluvial geomorphology in landscape evolution and the impact of human activities on fluvial systems, which require river restoration and management [...]


Author(s):  
Valeria Seidita ◽  
Francesco Lanza ◽  
Arianna Pipitone ◽  
Antonio Chella

Abstract Motivation The epidemic at the beginning of this year, due to a new virus in the coronavirus family, is causing many deaths and is bringing the world economy to its knees. Moreover, situations of this kind are historically cyclical. The symptoms and treatment of infected patients are, for better or worse even for new viruses, always the same: more or less severe flu symptoms, isolation and full hygiene. By now man has learned how to manage epidemic situations, but deaths and negative effects continue to occur. What about technology? What effect has the actual technological progress we have achieved? In this review, we wonder about the role of robotics in the fight against COVID. It presents the analysis of scientific articles, industrial initiatives and project calls for applications from March to now highlighting how much robotics was ready to face this situation, what is expected from robots and what remains to do. Results The analysis was made by focusing on what research groups offer as a means of support for therapies and prevention actions. We then reported some remarks on what we think is the state of maturity of robotics in dealing with situations like COVID-19.


Epidemiologia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-324
Author(s):  
Juan M. Banda ◽  
Ramya Tekumalla ◽  
Guanyu Wang ◽  
Jingyuan Yu ◽  
Tuo Liu ◽  
...  

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread worldwide, an unprecedented amount of open data is being generated for medical, genetics, and epidemiological research. The unparalleled rate at which many research groups around the world are releasing data and publications on the ongoing pandemic is allowing other scientists to learn from local experiences and data generated on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is a need to integrate additional data sources that map and measure the role of social dynamics of such a unique worldwide event in biomedical, biological, and epidemiological analyses. For this purpose, we present a large-scale curated dataset of over 1.12 billion tweets, growing daily, related to COVID-19 chatter generated from 1 January 2020 to 27 June 2021 at the time of writing. This data source provides a freely available additional data source for researchers worldwide to conduct a wide and diverse number of research projects, such as epidemiological analyses, emotional and mental responses to social distancing measures, the identification of sources of misinformation, stratified measurement of sentiment towards the pandemic in near real time, among many others.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Hun Park ◽  
Jun-Hwan Park ◽  
Sujin Lee ◽  
Hyuk Hahn

The role of R&D (research and development) intensity on the effect of knowledge services on the business performance of firms has been discussed by using PLS-SEM and PLS-MGA methods. Research groups were divided into two groups, innovative and non-innovative. Respondents were classified into innovative firms if their R&D intensity was over 3% and vice versa. PLS-SEM and PLS-MGA results were compared for two groups and valuable insights were extracted. For innovative firms, knowledge services seemed to be verified and processed by the decision makers and utilized to achieve their business performance. On the other hand, a large number of non-innovative firms seemed to have a stronger tendency to utilize knowledge services directly for their business without sufficient verification by the decision makers.


2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (15) ◽  
pp. 7833-7843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua C. Grieger ◽  
Jarrod S. Johnson ◽  
Brittney Gurda-Whitaker ◽  
Mavis Agbandje-McKenna ◽  
R. Jude Samulski

ABSTRACT Over the past 2 decades, significant effort has been dedicated to the development of adeno-associated virus (AAV) as a vector for human gene therapy. However, understanding of the virus with respect to the functional domains of the capsid remains incomplete. In this study, the goal was to further examine the role of the unique Vp1 N terminus, the N terminus plus the recently identified nuclear localization signal (NLS) (J. C. Grieger, S. Snowdy, and R. J. Samulski, J. Virol 80:5199-5210, 2006), and the virion pore at the fivefold axis in infection. We generated two Vp1 fusion proteins (Vp1 and Vp1NLS) linked to the 8-kDa chemokine domain of rat fractalkine (FKN) for the purpose of surface exposure upon assembly of the virion, as previously described (K. H. Warrington, Jr., O. S. Gorbatyuk, J. K. Harrison, S. R. Opie, S. Zolotukhin, and N. Muzyczka, J. Virol 78:6595-6609, 2004). The unique Vp1 N termini were found to be exposed on the surfaces of these capsids and maintained their phospholipase A2 (PLA2) activity, as determined by native dot blot Western and PLA2 assays, respectively. Incorporation of the fusions into AAV type 2 capsids lacking a wild-type Vp1, i.e., Vp2/Vp3 and Vp3 capsid only, increased infectivity by 3- to 5-fold (Vp1FKN) and 10- to 100-fold (Vp1NLSFKN), respectively. However, the surface-exposed fusions did not restore infectivity to AAV virions containing mutations at a conserved leucine (Leu336Ala, Leu336Cys, or Leu336Trp) located at the base of the fivefold pore. EM analyses suggest that Leu336 may play a role in global structural changes to the virion directly impacting downstream conformational changes essential for infectivity and not only have local effects within the pore, as previously suggested.


2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Linda M. P. Gondim

Este trabalho discute aspectos dos processos decisórios do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), relativos à concessão de bolsas de Produtividade em Pesquisa. Aborda o papel dos Comitês de Assessoramento e dos consultores ad hoc, considerando os critérios para a classificação de pesquisadores em níveis (1 e 2) e categorias (C, B e A), a partir da análise da produção científica nas áreas de Ciências Humanas e Sociais Aplicadas, registrada no Diretório dos Grupos de Pesquisa de 2002. Discute-se o formulário utilizado por consultores ad hoc, apontando-se a necessidade de uma melhor explicitação de critérios avaliativos de projetos de pesquisa, a fim de se obter decisões pautadas por maior rigor e objetividade.Palavras-chave: avaliação; fomento à pesquisa; pesquisa urbana. Abstract: This paper discusses aspects of evaluation processes concerning the concession of research grants by CNPq (Brazil’s funding agency for scientific research and technology). It approaches the role of advisory committees and ad hoc consultants, considering criteria applied to classify researchers in different ranks (1 and 2) and categories (C, B, and A). The discussion of this classificatory system is based on the analysis of researchers’ scientific production presented in the Directory of Research Groups, published in 2002. An analysis of the form used by ad hoc consultants is also presented, pointing out the need for spelling out the criteria applied to assess research proposals, in order to reach more rigorous and objective decisions. Keywords: evaluation; research funding; urban research. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-45
Author(s):  
Marie Jelínková

Abstract Along with other Central and Eastern European counties, Czechia has invested significant effort in deterring refugees from entering the country during the ‘refugee crisis’. This article sheds light on the role of the media in legitimising anti-refugee policies by analysing the politicised discourse on refugees in 900 articles published in Czech newspapers between 2014 and 2016. The findings indicate that refugees were depicted as a security threat and an administrative burden partly imposed by the European Union. The article discusses the policy implications of depicting refugees in this way and thus broadens the literature on European narratives during the refugee emergency in Europe.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-40
Author(s):  
D.A. Bistiakina ◽  
◽  
T.V. Soloveva ◽  
E.G. Pankova ◽  
◽  
...  

the article presents the results of the author’s research carried out within the framework of the scientific project “Transforming the social well-being of war veterans in the context of Russian transformations at the regional level”, analyzing the social well-being of older people during the period of the introduction of the forced self-isolation regime due to the danger of the spread of coronavirus infection. The role of state and public social organizations in mitigating the consequences of forced self-isolation of older people is revealed.


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