Description: Remote Sensing, Vol. 10, Pages 248: The Archaeology and Remote Sensing of Santa Elena’s Four Millennia of Occupation Remote Sensing doi: 10.3390/rs10020248 Authors: Victor Thompson Chester DePratter Jacob Lulewicz Isabelle Lulewicz Amanda Roberts Thompson Justin Cramb Brandon Ritchison Matthew Colvin In this study, we present the results of a comprehensive, landscape-scale remote sensing project at Santa Elena on Parris Island, South Carolina. Substantial occupation at the site extends for over 4000 years and has resulted in a complex array of features dating to different time periods. In addition, there is a 40-year history of archaeological research at the site that includes a large-scale systematic shovel test survey, large block excavations, and scattered test units. Also, modern use of the site included significant alterations to the subsurface deposits. Our goals for this present work are threefold: (1) to explicitly present a logical approach to examine sites with long-term occupations; (2) to examine changes in land use at Santa Elena and its implications for human occupation of this persistent place; and (3) to use the remote sensing program and past archaeological research to make substantive suggestions regarding future research, conservation, and management of the site. Our research provides important insight into the distribution of cultural features at this National Historic Landmark. While the majority of archaeological research at the site has focused on the Spanish period, our work suggests a complex and vast array of archaeological features that can provide insight into over 4000 years of history in the region. At a gross level, we have identified possible Late Archaic structures, Woodland houses and features, Late Prehistoric and early Historic council houses, and a suite of features related to the Spanish occupation which builds on our previous research at the site. In addition to documenting possible cultural features at the site, our work illustrates the value of multiple remote sensing techniques used in conjunction with close-interval shovel test data.

Description: This paper examines the impact of climate change on children’s health, in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Twenty one years climatic data were collected to analyse climatic conditions in the province. The study also employs 12 years hospital records of clinically diagnosed climate-related ailments among children under 13 years to examine the incidence, spatio-temporal, age and sex variations of the diseases. Regression analysis was employed to examine the relationships between climatic parameters and incidence of diseases and also to predict distribution of disease by 2050. The results show that the most prevalent diseases were diarrhea (42.4%), followed by respiratory infection (31.3%), asthma (6.6%) and malaria (6.5%). The incidence varied within city, with the high density areas recording the highest proportion (76.7%), followed by the medium (9.4%) and low (2.5%) density residential areas. The most tropical location, Mussina, had the highest incidence of the most prevalent disease, diarrhea, with 59.4%. Mortality rate was higher for males (54.2%). Analysis of 21 years of climatic data show that maximum temperature is positively correlated with years in four cities with r coefficients of 0.50; 0.56, 0.48 and 0.02, thereby indicating local warming. Similarly rainfall decreased over time in all the cities, with r ranging from −0.02 for Bela Bela to r = 0.18 for Makhado. Results of the regression analysis show that 37.9% of disease incidence is accounted for by the combined influence of temperature and rainfall.

Description: Due to its agricultural origin and function as a fuel oxygenate, ethanol is being promoted as an alternative biomass-based fuel for use in spark ignition engines, with mandates for its use at state and regional levels. While it has been established that the addition of ethanol to a fuel reduces the particulate mass concentration in the exhaust, little attention has been paid to changes in the physicochemical properties of the emitted particles. In this work, a dynamometer-mounted GM Quad-4 spark ignition engine run without aftertreatment at 1,500 RPM and 100% load was used with four different fuel blends, containing 0, 20, 40 and 85 percent ethanol in gasoline. This allowed the effects of the fuel composition to be isolated from other effects. Instrumentation employed included two Aerosol Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometers covering different size ranges for analysis of single particle composition, an Aethalometer for black carbon, a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer for particle size distributions, a Photoelectric Aerosol Sensor for particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) species and gravimetric filter measurements for particulate mass concentrations. It was found that, under the conditions investigated here, additional ethanol content in the fuel changes the particle size distribution, especially in the accumulation mode, and decreases the black carbon and total particulate mass concentrations. The molecular weight distribution of the PAHs was found to decrease with added ethanol. However, PAHs produced from higher ethanol-content fuels are associated with NO2− (m/z—46) in the single-particle mass spectra, indicating the presence of nitro-PAHs. Compounds associated with the gasoline (e.g., sulfur-containing species) are diminished due to dilution as ethanol is added to the fuel relative to those associated with the lubricating oil (e.g., calcium, zinc, phosphate) in the single particle spectra. These changes have potential implications for the health effect impacts of particulate emissions from biofuel blends.

Description: This paper examines the impact of climate change on children’s health, in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Twenty one years climatic data were collected to analyse climatic conditions in the province. The study also employs 12 years hospital records of clinically diagnosed climate-related ailments among children under 13 years to examine the incidence, spatio-temporal, age and sex variations of the diseases. Regression analysis was employed to examine the relationships between climatic parameters and incidence of diseases and also to predict distribution of disease by 2050. The results show that the most prevalent diseases were diarrhea (42.4%), followed by respiratory infection (31.3%), asthma (6.6%) and malaria (6.5%). The incidence varied within city, with the high density areas recording the highest proportion (76.7%), followed by the medium (9.4%) and low (2.5%) density residential areas. The most tropical location, Mussina, had the highest incidence of the most prevalent disease, diarrhea, with 59.4%. Mortality rate was higher for males (54.2%). Analysis of 21 years of climatic data show that maximum temperature is positively correlated with years in four cities with r coefficients of 0.50; 0.56, 0.48 and 0.02, thereby indicating local warming. Similarly rainfall decreased over time in all the cities, with r ranging from −0.02 for Bela Bela to r = 0.18 for Makhado. Results of the regression analysis show that 37.9% of disease incidence is accounted for by the combined influence of temperature and rainfall.

Description: Wildfires can cause significant negative impacts to water quality with resultant consequences for the environment and human health and safety, as well as incurring substantial rehabilitation and water treatment costs. In this paper we will illustrate how state-of-the-art wildfire simulation modeling and geospatial risk assessment methods can be brought to bear to identify and prioritize at-risk watersheds for risk mitigation treatments, in both pre-fire and post-fire planning contexts. Risk assessment results can be particularly useful for prioritizing management of hazardous fuels to lessen the severity and likely impacts of future wildfires, where budgetary and other constraints limit the amount of area that can be treated. Specifically we generate spatially resolved estimates of wildfire likelihood and intensity, and couple that information with spatial data on watershed location and watershed erosion potential to quantify watershed exposure and risk. For a case study location we focus on National Forest System lands in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. The Region houses numerous watersheds that are critically important to drinking water supplies and that have been impacted or threatened by large wildfires in recent years. Assessment results are the culmination of a broader multi-year science-management partnership intended to have direct bearing on wildfire management decision processes in the Region. Our results suggest substantial variation in the exposure of and likely effects to highly valued watersheds throughout the Region, which carry significant implications for prioritization. In particular we identified the San Juan National Forest as having the highest concentration of at-risk highly valued watersheds, as well as the greatest amount of risk that can be mitigated via hazardous fuel reduction treatments. To conclude we describe future opportunities and challenges for management of wildfire-watershed interactions.

Description: Introduction: Limited self-report data suggest that South Asian (SA) women fail to meet physical activity (PA) recommendations. Recent research using objective measures reveals SA women living in the UK have higher PA levels than previously reported, and a pattern of under-reporting PA and sedentary time (ST). There is limited research on SA women’s understanding and experiences of PA/ST, and the cultural contexts and conditions within which they occur. Therefore the aims of this mixed-methods study were to compare perceived PA and ST to objectively measured data and explore PA- and ST-specific contexts, experiences, and sources of PA and ST amongst SA women in the UK. Methods: 24 women were purposively sampled to participate in a semi-structured interview from a larger study of 140 women who wore an accelerometer for 7 days. Demographic and anthropometric data were also collected. Results: Notable qualitative themes on contextualisation were of adequate PA as “keeping busy” or “being healthy”, and of ST as “lazy” or “resting in old age”. Few participants reported being sedentary, and most believed they were sufficiently physically active. Objectively measured PA/ST indicated that 66% women were less active than perceived (with regard to duration and intensity), with none able to estimate duration of ST. Discussion: Findings suggest that overall, SA women have contextualisations of PA/ST that may not coincide with those of researchers, health professionals and policy makers, and lack awareness of the intensity of PA in which they engage and the health risks of high levels of ST. These findings highlight the need for objective measures of PA and ST in this population combined with in-depth qualitative assessments to provide more accurate assessments of these behaviours. This information can subsequently be used to develop health promotion messages and interventions focusing on increasing duration and/or intensity levels of daily activities (e.g., walking, housework) and reducing ST in this population.

Description: Recently, positron emission tomography (PET) is playing an increasingly important role in the diagnosis and staging of cancer. Combined PET and X-ray computed tomography (PET-CT) scanners are now the modality of choice in cancer treatment planning. More recently, the combination of PET and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is being explored in many sites. Combining PET and MRI has presented many challenges since the photo-multiplier tubes (PMT) in PET do not function in high magnetic fields, and conventional PET detectors distort MRI images. Solid state light sensors like avalanche photo-diodes (APDs) and more recently silicon photo-multipliers (SiPMs) are much less sensitive to magnetic fields thus easing the compatibility issues. This paper presents the results of a group of Canadian scientists who are developing a PET detector ring which fits inside a high field small animal MRI scanner with the goal of providing simultaneous PET and MRI images of small rodents used in pre-clinical medical research. We discuss the evolution of both the crystal blocks (which detect annihilation photons from positron decay) and the SiPM array performance in the last four years which together combine to deliver significant system performance in terms of speed, energy and timing resolution.

Description: Diverting food waste away from landfills is one way to minimise its serious environmental impact. Given that over a third of Australian households have at least one pet, the feeding of food waste to dogs constitutes one potentially significant waste diversion path. However, the proportion of dog owners that feed food waste to their pets is unknown. Moreover, there has been no investigation into any relationship between practices of feeding scraps to pets and the animals’ body condition, living arrangements (inside or outside) and exercise regime. To provide some insight, this paper presents findings from three surveys across two Australian studies. The first reports both pet and dog-specific findings from two surveys within a wider food waste research project (n = 1017), establishing that 28% of respondents fed leftovers to pets as a main food waste minimization strategy, yet in only 5% of households did this constitute more than half of the household’s food scraps. This modest diversion of food scraps from landfill to feeding pets was reflected in the finding that there was no significant difference seen in the claimed level of food discards to the waste stream for households feeding food scraps to dogs and those that did not. The second—a dog owner specific study (n = 355)—found that almost half (44%) of respondents reported feeding table scraps to dogs. They were more likely to be females, owners of medium sized dogs, and in larger households. There was no significant difference in self-rated dogs’ body condition scores between respondents who fed table scraps to their dog and those who did not. Further multidisciplinary research is recommended to reconcile the social, veterinary and environmental risks and benefits of feeding food waste to animals.

Description: This paper demonstrates the first single optical fibre tip probe for concurrent detection of both hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) concentration and pH of a solution. The sensor is constructed by embedding two fluorophores: carboxyperoxyfluor-1 (CPF1) and seminaphtharhodafluor-2 (SNARF2) within a polymer matrix located on the tip of the optical fibre. The functionalised fibre probe reproducibly measures pH, and is able to accurately detect H2O2 over a biologically relevant concentration range. This sensor offers potential for non-invasive detection of pH and H2O2 in biological environments using a single optical fibre.

Description: The significance of thermal heterogeneities in small surface water bodies as drivers of mixing and for habitat provision is increasingly recognized, yet obtaining three-dimensionally-resolved observations of the thermal structure of lakes and rivers remains challenging. Remote observations of water temperature from aerial platforms are attractive: such platforms do not require shoreline access; they can be quickly and easily deployed and redeployed to facilitate repeated sampling and can rapidly move between target locations, allowing multiple measurements to be made during a single flight. However, they are also subject to well-known limitations, including payload, operability and a tradeoff between the extent and density over which measurements can be made within restricted flight times. This paper introduces a novel aerial thermal sensing platform that lowers a temperature sensor into the water to record temperature measurements throughout a shallow water column and presents results from initial field experiments comparing \emph{in situ} temperature observations to those made from the UAS platform. These experiments show that with minor improvements, UASs have the potential to enable high-resolution 3D thermal mapping of a \(\sim\)1-ha lake in 2–3 flights (\textit{circa} 2 h), sufficient to resolve diurnal variations. This paper identifies operational constraints and key areas for further development, including the need for the integration of a faster temperature sensor with the aerial vehicle and better control of the sensor depth, especially when near the water surface.