Survival is the driver for adaptation: safety engineering changed the future, security engineering prevented disasters and transition engineering navigates the pathway to the climate-safe future

Consider a simple idea describing the time, space and relationship scales of survival. Engineering has been going along with the current paradigm that growth in wealth and material consumption can continue through innovation and technology development. The proposed survival continuum concept represents a new way to think about sustainability that has clear implications for influencing engineering projects in all fields. The argument for survival as the driver for adaptation is developed sequentially, building on theory, definition, examples and history. The key idea is that sustainability will be effectively addressed by a new engineering discipline furthering development of the field of safety engineering with longer time scale, broader space scale and more complex relationship scale. The implication is that the past 100-year development of safety engineering can be leveraged to fast-track the inclusion of sustainability risk management throughout the entire engineering profession. The conclusion is that a new, interdisciplinary field, Transition Engineering, is emerging as the way our society will achieve sustainability-safety through rapid reduction in fossil fuel use and reduction in detrimental social and environmental impacts of industrialization.

A Survey for Machine Learning-Based Control of Continuum Robots

Soft continuum robots have been accepted as a promising category of biomedical robots, accredited to the robots’ inherent compliance that makes them safely interact with their surroundings. In its application of minimally invasive surgery, such a continuum concept shares the same view of robotization for conventional endoscopy/laparoscopy. Different from rigid-link robots with accurate analytical kinematics/dynamics, soft robots encounter modeling uncertainties due to intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which would deteriorate the model-based control performances. However, the trade-off between flexibility and controllability of soft manipulators may not be readily optimized but would be demanded for specific kinds of modeling approaches. To this end, data-driven modeling strategies making use of machine learning algorithms would be an encouraging way out for the control of soft continuum robots. In this article, we attempt to overview the current state of kinematic/dynamic model-free control schemes for continuum manipulators, particularly by learning-based means, and discuss their similarities and differences. Perspectives and trends in the development of new control methods are also investigated through the review of existing limitations and challenges.

RURAL-URBAN CONTINUUM CONCEPT FOR COUNTRY STUDIES (SYRIA)

Цель исследования - анализ сельско-городского расселения Сирии по материалам исследования ФАО (2017 и 2021) с авторскими дополнениями. The purpose of the study is to analyze the rural-urban settlement of Syria based on the materials of the FAO study (2017 and 2021) with the author's additions.

Assessing the Rigidity of the River Continuum Concept to Fish Species in a Fluvially Dominated Southern African Coastal System

A continuous gradient of physical and biological processes exists within a river system from headwaters to mouth, according to the River Continuum Concept. In this study, the River Continuum Concept was used to compare patterns in fish assemblages and diversity trends to Remane predictions. The findings show that species diversity is low near the estuary's mouth and increases upstream. While the presence of several marine and estuarine species increased species diversity upstream in the river due to the dominance of freshwater fishes, it decreased downstream due to the presence of several marine and estuarine species. These patterns are consistent with the biogeographical trend of decreasing species richness along the South African coast from east to west. Based on the findings of this study, the River Continuum Concept ignores plasticity, which is evident in species that use transitional waters. As a result, the concept is insufficiently valid for the Orange River Estuarine Continuum, and a new concept known as the “River-Estuarine Continuum” has been proposed.

Costs, Benefits, Parasites and Mutualists: The Use and Abuse of the Mutualism–Parasitism Continuum Concept for Epichloë Fungi

The species comprising the fungal endophyte genus Epichloë are symbionts of cool season grasses. About half the species in this genus are strictly vertically transmitted, and evolutionary theory suggests that these species must be mutualists. Nevertheless, Faeth and Sullivan (e.g. 2003) have argued that such vertically transmitted endophytes are "usually parasitic," and Müller and Krauss (2005) have argued that such vertically transmitted endophytes fall along a mutualism–parasitism continuum. These papers (and others) have caused confusion in the field. We used a systematic review to show that close to half of the published papers in this field incorrectly categorize the interaction. Here, we develop the argument that advantages and disadvantages are not the same things as mutualism and parasitism and that experimental evidence must be interpreted in the context of theory. We argue that, contra Faeth and Sullivan, it is highly unlikely that such strictly vertically transmit-ted endophytes can be parasites, and that, contra Müller and Krauss, it is inappropriate to apply the continuum concept to strictly vertically transmitted endophytes. We develop a mathematical model to support and illustrate our arguments. We use the model to clarify that parasitism requires some degree of horizontal transmission, and that while it is appropriate to use the continuum concept when referring to the genus as a whole, or to species that possess horizontal transmission, we argue that it is inappropriate to use the concept when referring to species that are strictly vertically transmitted.

Mammal Persistence Along Riparian Forests in Western India Within a Hydropower Reservoir 55 Years Post Construction

While the negative impacts of dam construction on downstream river stretches and riparian forests are well studied, the status of wildlife presence and persistence in upstream reservoir deltas is virtually unknown. We investigated the drivers of terrestrial mammal occupancy and persistence along riparian forests of Koyna reservoir in western India 55 years after its construction. We adopted a catchment-wide field design grounded in the river continuum concept and sampled different stream orders within the reservoir. Camera traps, nested in an occupancy modeling framework, were deployed across 72 riparian sites and replicated for four seasons across all stream types. We recorded a total of nineteen species of terrestrial mammals during the study period. Multi-season occupancy models revealed three key patterns of mammal persistence: (a) ungulates were more frequently photo-captured in riparian forests; gaur and wild pig had the highest proportions of the total sampled area (0.84 ± 0.12 SE; 0.77 ± 0.07 SE, respectively); (b) small-sized ungulates were more vulnerable to local extinction than large-bodied ungulates; extinction probability was highest for barking deer (0.59 ± 0.07) and lowest for sambar (0.15 ± 0.07); and (c) distance from stream played major roles in determining mammal detection. Riparian forests are fundamentally important to ecosystem functioning and biodiversity conservation, and using the data from this study, managers can plan to sustain high mammal persistence along riparian forests at Koyna reservoir or similar Indian reserves. Further, our robust sampling approach, grounded in the terrestrial-riverine continuum concept, can be applied globally to understand species assemblages, aiding in multi-landscape and wildlife management planning.

Patterns in Natural Halophytic Grasslands at the Border of Forest-Steppe and Steppe Zones of South Ural

The patterns (mosaicity) in natural halophytic grasslands at the border of Forest-steppe and Steppe zones of South Ural were characterized by the hierarchical continuum concept theory for the Troitskiy state natural complex preserve example. It was established, that the grass canopy is fragmented by salinization impact, the individual’s random distribution is typical of halophytes and salttolerant steppe species form patterns. Only the micro-patterns (0,8 m) level is statistically significant, parcels (8 m) and coenotics (12 m) are fuzzy and fragmentation of mosaicity is observed. There are two coenotics series defined for parcels – halophytic and steppe, relating to the distribution of halophytes and steppe grasses respectively. There is clear coenosis. Separation is observed by phytodiversity and biotopes descriptions. The intracoenotic interactions between species, soil moistening variability, soil aeration and acidity (alkalinity) and soil mineralization increase (decrease) are significant for parcels and coenosis forming.

Patterns in steppe meadow vegetation at the border of Forest-steppe and Steppe zones of the Southern Ural

The patterns (mosaicity) in steppe meadow vegetation were characterized at the border of Forest-steppe and Steppe zones of the Southern Ural by hierarchical continuum concept theory for Troitskiy state natural complex preserve example. It has been established that the discordant natural region bring about mosaicity destruction micro-patterns are fuzzy, parcels are not formed and coenotics (12,0 m) level is identified only. The steppe meadow vegetation is characterized by coenotic level continuum coenotic patterns have almost identical dominant and co-dominant species composition, phytochorologic units form combination of four meadow grasses with middle and weak contagious spatial distribution and most species have random spatial distribution. But the steppe meadow biotopes are characterized by specifics of abiotic factors. The significant factors, influencing coenotic patterns and biotopes of steppe meadow, are soil calcium and nitrogen regime, soil aeration, moistening and its variability.