Cenozoic plant relicts are those groups that were once widespread in the Northern Hemisphere but are now restricted to some small isolated areas as a result of drastic climatic changes. They are good proxies to study how plants respond to climatic changes since their modern climatic requirements are known. Herein we look at the modern distribution of 65 palaeoendemic genera in China and compare...

A computer-aided design tool for assisting the designer to set appropriate passive solar systems for heating and cooling is presented. The system is based on a knowledge base oriented design process (KBDP). The knowledge base stores design guidelines and procedural methods for determining the passive systems that best suit the local climatic conditions. This tool is aimed to be used already at ...

There is compelling evidence from glacial and interglacial periods of the Quaternary of the utilization of microrefugia. Microrefugia are sites that support locally favorable climates amidst unfavorable regional climates, which allow populations of species to persist outside of their main distributions. Knowledge of the location of microrefugia has important implications for climate change rese...

Over the last 20 years, climate models have been developed to an impressive level of complexity. They are core tools in the study of the interactions of many climatic processes and justifiably provide an additional strand in the argument that anthropogenic climate change is a critical global problem. Over a similar period, there has been growing interest in the interpretation and probabilistic ...

Land suitability analysis is a prerequisite to achieving optimum utilization of the available land resources. Lack of knowledge on best combination of factors that suit production of rice has contributed to the low production. The aim of this study was to develop a suitability map for rice crop based on physical and climatic factors of production using a Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) & GIS ap...

Phytoplankton-bacteria interactions drive the surface ocean sulfur cycle and local climatic processes through the production and exchange of a key compound: dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP). Despite their large-scale implications, these interactions remain unquantified at the cellular-scale. Here we use secondary-ion mass spectrometry to provide the first visualization of DMSP at sub-cellular ...

A knowledge-based system is presented that has been developed to be used as an advisor in the preliminary design stage of HVAC systems. It enables designers to configure and size HVAC equipment for different climatic conditions, in terms of building type, indoor requirements, outdoor and indoor air pollution. A new approach has been used in building the system, using a modified knowledge engine...

Moving crops outside of their original centers of domestication was sometimes a challenging process. Because of its substantial heat requirements, moving rice agriculture outside of its homelands of domestication was not an easy process for farmers in the past. Using crop niche models, we examine the constraints faced by ancient farmers and foragers as they moved rice to its most northerly exte...

In order to increase food production it is necessary to better understand all the factors underlying short term operations and long term strategies that lead to improve food security. In this regard any good effect deriving from agricultural research is strictly connected to a more accurate estimation of crops resources requirements, to major improvements in the use of irrigation and drainage s...

Puccinia psidii Winter, which causes both guava rust and eucalypt rust, is an important pathogen on eucalypts and other members of the Myrtaceae family in the Neotropics. If introduced into Australia it could represent a major potential threat to eucalypt plantations as well as native vegetation. Observations of the distribution of eucalypt rust epidemics in the Neotropics were analysed to deve...