1. Protected area networks for river ecosystems must account for the highly connected nature of river habitats and the fact that conditions in distant locations can influence downstream habitats and biota. We used Marxan conservation planning software to address the unique constraints of reserve design in river ecosystems and structure a reserve network to overcome key challenges to freshwater ...

Conflicts in coastal zones arise as a result of the variance between divergent interests, within limited and dynamic socio-spatial and ecological dimensions, with little effort at critical consensus. Coastal zones worldwide exhibit three classical internal trademarks – high pressures for development, management weaknesses to protect coastal ecosystems and the deterioration of environmental cond...

A risk assessment of vegetation zone responses to climate change was conducted using the classical Holdridge life zone model on the Loess Plateau of Northwest China. The results show that there are currently ten vegetation zones occurring on the Loess Plateau (1950–2000), including alvar desert, alpine wet tundra, alpine rain tundra, boreal moist forest, boreal wet forest, cool temperate desert...

In a presynaptic nerve terminal, neurotransmitter release is largely restricted to specialized sites called active zones. Active zones consist of a complex protein network, and they organize fusion of synaptic vesicles with the presynaptic plasma membrane in response to action potentials. Rab3-interacting molecules (RIMs) are central components of active zones. In a recent series of experiments...

Straightforward applications of fractional-flow theory and material-balance calculations demonstrate that, if zones are not isolated during gel placement in production wells, gelant can penetrate significantly into all open zones, not just those with high water saturations. Unless oil saturations in the oil-productive zones are extremely high, oil productivity will be damaged even if the gel re...

thermo-elasto-plastic analyses of thick-walled spherical tanks made of functionally graded materials are investigated analytically. these tanks are subjected to positive or negative temperature gradient and internal pressure loadings separately or simultaneously. the power law modeling has been used for through-the-thickness variation of mechanical properties. von mises yield criterion and elas...

Field observations of major earthquake fault zones show that shear deformation is often confined to principal slipping zones that may be of order 1–100 μmwide, located within a broader gouge layer of order 10–100 mm wide. This paper examines the possibility that the extreme strain localization observed may be due to the coupling of shear heating, thermal pressurization, and diffusion. In the ab...