An overview of introduced predator management in inhabited landscapes

The purpose of this study is 1) to determine differences in the characteristics of the spatial thinking ability of students in urban and rural school environments and 2) to determine differences in the characteristics of the spatial thinking ability of the students in the urban and rural school environments in terms of the type of gender. This research uses experiment methods with a population of class XI students of Social Science both in urban and rural schools with a total sample of 31 students from each school. Spatial thinking skills are measured through the test of problem solving using the satellite imagery of Google Earth as a tool of representation. Spatial thinking skills assessment is based on the components of spatial thinking. It includes understanding concepts of spatial, the use of representation tools, and reasoning process. The data analysis uses statistical for different test with SPSS 25.0 for windows. The results showed, first, spatial thinking ability character’s between students in the urban and rural environments are significantly differences. So, the character of environment, i.e., urban and rural is not always consistent in influencing the spatial thinking ability of the students. Second, no differences in the spatial thinking ability in the statistics between male and female students. However, the students in urban environment have the characteristics of spatial thinking better than the students in the rural environment. Female students in urban environment have more powerful character of spatial thinking skills, though it is not proven in male students.

This paper is concerned with a quantitative and comparative analysis of wind velocities in urban and rural environments. It is undertaken to provide a route to the classification of wind energy in a rural and urban setting. This is a common problem and the basis of a significant focus of research into wind energy. In this paper, we use a non-Gaussian statistical model to undertake this task, and, through a further modification of the data analysis algorithms used, extend the model to study the effect of wind turbulence, thereby introducing a new metric for this effect that is arguably superior to a more commonly used and qualitatively derived measure known as the Turbulence Intensity. Starting from Einstein’s evolution equation for an elastic scattering process, we consider a stochastic model for the wind velocity that is based on the Generalised Kolmogorov Feller Equation. For a specific ‘memory function’ - the Mittag-Leffler function - it is shown that, under specified conditions, this model is compatible with a non-Gaussian processes characterised by a L´evy distribution that, although previously used in wind velocity analysis, has been introduced phenomenologically. By computing the L´evy index for a range of wind velocities in both rural and urban environments using industry standard cup anemometers, wind vanes and compatible data collection conditions (in terms of height and sampling rates), we show that the intuitive notion that the ‘quality’ of wind velocity in an urban environment is poor compared to a rural environment is entirely quantifiable. This quantifies the notion that a rural wind resource is, on average, of higher yield when compared to that of the urban environment in the context of the model used. In this respect, results are provided that are based on five rural and urban locations in Ireland and the UK and illustrate the potential value of the model in the consideration of locating suitable sites for the development of wind farms (irrespective of the demarcation between an urban and rural environment). On this basis, the paper explores an approach whereby the same model is used for evaluating wind turbulence based on the Fractal Dimension using the ‘polar wind speed’ obtained from three-dimensional data sets collected in urban environments. Index Terms

Towards a systematic understanding of the dynamic fate of polychlorinated biphenyls in indoor, urban and rural environments

In this research, determination of motivation of 5th grade students living in rural and urban environments towards science learning and their attitudes towards science-technology course is aimed. This research is conducted based on descriptive survey model. Samples are selected through teleological model in accordance with the aim of this research. Samples are formed of 861 5th grade students from a total of 13 schools in rural and urban environments within the provincial borders of Kutahya. Scale of Towards Science Learning developed by Dede and Yaman (2008) and Scale of Attitudes towards Science and Technology Course for 4th and 5th Grade Elementary School Students developed by Kenar and Balci (2012) are utilized as data collection tools. It is identified as a result of this research that it is female students of the rural environment and male students of the urban environment who have better motivation towards science learning. It is determined that students living in rural environments whose families belong to high income group have better motivation towards science learning, while there is no significant difference depending on income groups in the case of students living in urban environments. It is concluded that attitudes of female students compared to male students towards science and technology course are more positive in both environments. No significant difference by family income status is found for students living in rural environment, while in the case of urban environments, an increase in family income status ends up with an increase in their attitudes towards science and technology course.

The soil is an extremely large reservoir for microbial diversity, containing large numbers of resistant microorganisms that possess a variety of antibiotic resistance genes. Determining the composition and distribution of these genes within the soil provides information to further our understandings of antibiotic resistance evolution and development. Profiling the soil resistome can also reveal previously unknown threats to public health. We hypothesize that a larger number of resistance genes would be present in urban environments when compared to rural environments. In this study, soil was collected from twelve locations, with six locations in a rural environment and the other six in an urban environment. Soil gathered from each location was then characterized based entirely on texture and pH, followed by enrichment with tryptic soy broth containing tetracycline and incubated for three days at room temperature. Following DNA extraction from each enrichment, the presence of different tetracycline resistance genes (n = 14) was evaluated. A total of 23 tetracycline resistance genes were found to exist throughout 11 locations and the most frequently detected gene was tet(L) (30%), followed by tet(M) (26%), tetA(P) (22%), tet(O) (9%), tet(B) (9%), and tet(A) (4%). Each sequence from this study had >97% alignment when compared against known sequences of tetracycline resistance genes. In dividing sampling locations into rural and urban environments, only 12 (52%) tetracycline resistance genes were found in rural soils and 11 (48%) tetracycline resistance genes were found in urban soils. Data collected from this study does not seem to indicate any relationship between soil texture or pH versus the amount of genes present in each location. The location having the greatest number of genes (n = 5) is near local septic systems which might explain the large number of genes present. Based on function, 4 efflux and 2 ribosomal protection genes were detected; however, there is no evidence to suggest whether these genes are found more in rural or urban environments. Taken together, our data to‐date suggests that the number of tetracycline resistance genes is equally distributed in the rural and urban environments. This study hopes to continue assessing the soil resistome by analyzing DNA extracts from carbenicillin and chloramphenicol enrichments, in part with a microbial community analysis using next‐generation sequencing.Support or Funding InformationAsher Fund, DePauw University

Currently, there are more than 11 million AIDS-affected orphans that suffer from various adverse effects, most of whom reside in sub-Saharan Africa. The difference between whether a child resides in a rural or urban environment can have a significant role in a child's education, health status and access to healthcare, and social or family relationships. A scoping review was conducted in order to understand any possible environment-based differences on orphans directly affected by HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. There were 233 sources used for this review; however, 164 manuscripts focused more so on a general review of orphans within a rural or urban environment. Thus, after eliminating for various factors, 69 manuscripts wereremoved, which focused primarily on the social aspect of orphans due to HIV/AIDS. Rural environments provided more family support, while urban environments generally had more resources available to orphans (e.g. school fees). Unfortunately, both rural and urban environments were found to be fairly non-supportive of orphans and their development. This scoping review found, in general, that orphans in both urban and rural environments continue to suffer from the consequential effects of low parental support due to AIDS mortality. These conclusions suggest that specific support to orphans through school and social relationships encourage better development outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa.

Which are the factors that may explain the differences in water and energy consumptions in urban and rural environments?

Characterization of aerosols and its radiative impacts over urban and rural environments—a case study from Hyderabad and Srisailam

P20 Effectiveness of Nutrition Interventions in Low-Income Rural and Urban Retail Environments: A Systematic Literature Review

SUMMARY Blood culture and serologic testing were used to study the prevalence of Trypanosoma cruzi infection in a group of 85 dogs from southern Louisiana rural environment. These dogs were known to have been in contact with wild mammalian hosts of the hemoflagellate. Results were compared with blood culture and serologic test results in 103 dogs from a rural environment and with limited known wild mammalian T cruzi host contact. Serologic test results for the 188 dogs from the rural environment were compared with results for 176 dogs from an urban animal shelter and for 100 household pet dogs from an urban southern Louisiana environment. Blood culture was not performed on urban dogs. Culture results were negative in all dogs from rural environments. Serologic evidence of infection was obtained for 4 of the 85 (4.7%) dogs of rural environment with known host contact. Of 176 dogs from the animal shelter, 4 (2.3%) had high antibody titer to T cruzi, and 11 others had low titer (< 2 adjusted elisa units [aEU]). Two and 4 dogs of the housed urban and rural groups, respectively, had antibody titer to T cruzi that was < 2 aEU. Results indicate that prevalence for exposure to T cruzi antigen is higher in dogs with high potential contact with the vector and wild mammalian hosts of T cruzi, whether they are from rural or urban environment. Furthermore, results indicate that similar studies on high-risk human populations may be indicated.

Many studies have indicated numerous nutrition mistakes among school-aged children and adolescents in both urban and rural environments. The aim of this study was to assess the nutritional habits of the Polish population, consisting of 7,974 individuals aged 12-17, from rural and urban environments, as well as to identify environmental variations of these habits and to verify the existing information on the incorrect nutrition of school-age children and adolescents. The research covered a group of 7,974 respondents - school-age adolescents with a similar age structure (12-17 years). The study on subjects from secondary school grades 1 - 3 was conducted in randomly selected schools from 2 random Polish provinces; 5 counties were randomly selected, followed by a choice of 2 communes: one rural and one urban. The research technique was a self-designed survey questionnaire. The obtained results were subjected to statistical analysis using the Pearson Chi 2 and V Cramer test. The research revealed environment-based differences in subjects' nutrition. Breakfast was consumed daily by a statistically significantly fewer subjects from the rural environment (36.31%) than from the urban areas (51.32%); second breakfast was consumed by an insignificantly smaller proportion of respondents from the urban environment (40.00%) than from the rural one (46.00%); dinner was eaten daily by 86.00% of urban subjects and 82.00% of rural respondents; afternoon tea and supper were eaten rarely by respondents from both environments. The diet of respondents was dominated by anti-health behaviours. Most of the respondents displayed incorrect nutritional behaviours. Nutritional mistakes occurred among respondents from both rural and urban environments, with the predominance of the rural areas.

Mobile phone use – effects of conversation on mental workload and driving speed in rural and urban environments

BackgroundHost-associated microbiota are integral to the ecology of their host and may help wildlife species cope with rapid environmental change. Urbanization is a globally replicated form of severe environmental change which we can leverage to better understand wildlife microbiomes. Does the colonization of separate cities result in parallel changes in the intestinal microbiome of wildlife, and if so, does within-city habitat heterogeneity matter? Using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, we quantified the effect of urbanization (across three cities) on the microbiome of eastern grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis). Grey squirrels are ubiquitous in rural and urban environments throughout their native range, across which they display an apparent coat colour polymorphism (agouti, black, intermediate).ResultsGrey squirrel microbiomes differed between rural and city environments; however, comparable variation was explained by habitat heterogeneity within cities. Our analyses suggest that operational taxonomic unit (OTU) community structure was more strongly influenced by local environmental conditions (rural and city forests versus human built habitats) than urbanization of the broader landscape (city versus rural). The bacterial genera characterizing the microbiomes of built-environment squirrels are thought to specialize on host-derived products and have been linked in previous research to low fibre diets. However, despite an effect of urbanization at fine spatial scales, phylogenetic patterns in the microbiome were coat colour phenotype dependent. City and built-environment agouti squirrels displayed greater phylogenetic beta-dispersion than those in rural or forest environments, and null modelling results indicated that the phylogenetic structure of urban agouti squirrels did not differ greatly from stochastic expectations.ConclusionsSquirrel microbiomes differed between city and rural environments, but differences of comparable magnitude were observed between land classes at a within-city scale. We did not observe strong evidence that inter-environmental differences were the result of disparate selective pressures. Rather, our results suggest that microbiota dispersal and ecological drift are integral to shaping the inter-environmental differences we observed. However, these processes were partly mediated by squirrel coat colour phenotype. Given a well-known urban cline in squirrel coat colour melanism, grey squirrels provide a useful free-living system with which to study how host genetics mediate environment x microbiome interactions.

Domestic cats (Felis catus) thrive at high densities alongside humans in urban and rural environments and are responsible for excessive wildlife predation worldwide. As urbanisation and farmland expands, and domestic cats inevitably reach previously unoccupied habitats, management plans will rely on understanding cat ranging behaviours. Cat movements and habitat selection may differ depending on their surroundings, and consequently, we sought to assess how male and female cat behaviours varied during different seasons in urban, suburban, and rural environments. In cities and farmland in the UK, the location of 56 owned cats (26 F:30 M) was recorded every 5 min for a total of 5237 h using GPS collars (454 ± 25 fixes over c. 4 days per individual). Urban and rural cats exhibited similar patterns of home ranges, maximum distances travelled from their owner’s house, and habitat selection, where they selected for built-up areas with good cover and avoided open spaces. Cats spent an average of 75% of their time outside their owners’ house or garden and therefore had great potential to encounter wild prey. Males in rural areas were almost twice as active than other males but all exhibited crepuscular activity patterns compared to cathemeral or diurnal females. In summer, cats had smaller home ranges and were more nocturnal, poentially concentrating their impacts around core areas during hotter months. Similarities in cat ranging behaviours across the urban–rural gradient suggest management plans can be equally applied in areas alongside cities as well as farmland. Buffer or exclusion zones of 750 m around protected areas would exclude 95% of cats, but specialised management, such as periodic confinement during specific active periods, could prove effective during vulnerable prey species’ breeding seasons. These findings improve our understanding of how cat ranging is affected by urbanisation under seasonal variation, and can be used to tailor management strategies as new species and populations are exposed to domestic cat predation.

Introduction: A number of studies suggest that the low incidence of prostate cancer as well as benign prostatic enlargement in Asia depends on the extended consumption of phyto-oestrogens in these parts of the world. In most Asian men, phyto-oestrogen levels are multiple higher compared to Austrian (European) men. The aim of our study was to evaluate, according to the East-West decline, whether there were significant differences within the Austrian population. We compared prostate phyto-oestrogen tissue levels of men living in three different geographical regions of Austria. We further compared men living in rural and urban environments. Material and Methods: Prostatic tissue samples of 103 men undergoing surgery for benign prostatic hyperplasia or prostate cancer were collected and frozen at –40°C. In tissue samples, enterolactone (representative for lignans) and genistein levels (representative for isoflavones) were determined in duplicate by monoclonal antibody-based immunoassays. We subsequently compared tissue levels of men living in rural and urban environments and different geographical regions of Austria. Results: Prostatic enterolactone tissue levels were similar in men living in an urban (median 19.1 ng/g dry weight, range 1.5–76.4) or rural environment (median 15.7 range 0.6–140.6) p = 0.99. The respective values for genistein were 20.5 ng/g dry weight (range 4.6–47.4) and 9.3 (range 0.1–156.7) p = 0.77. Furthermore, enterolactone (p = 0.1) and genistein (p = 0.65) levels were similar in three different geographic regions in Austria. Conclusion: No significant differences regarding genistein and enterolactone were found between our study populations. However, we found a wide variation between individual patients.