New means to communicate population risk assessments among scientists and decision-makers

June 11, 2013 ? Population viability analysis (PVA) is a method used by conservation scientists for a range of purposes -- including advancing conservation theory, planning, policy and management. PVAs are particularly important for assessing the risks of population extinction and for comparing alternative management options to protect species. The fact that so many PVAs are already available, for hundreds of species, offers an exciting opportunity for learning and especially for moving from single-species experience to multi-species knowledge. But this opportunity is often lost in translation: PVAs are usually complex, and many people find them hard to design, apply and communicate. Many PVA descriptions also lack sufficient structure, and are difficult to understand, assess, or even repeat.

In a review now published in the journal Conservation Biology, an international team of 11 researchers have shown that these drawbacks form a true barrier for the use of PVAs as a means of collective learning. As part of the EU project SCALES (http://www.scales-project.net/), Guy Pe'er and colleagues suggest that there is a remedy to this problem: our capacity to learn from PVAs may be greatly improved by applying a common standard for Design, Application and Communication of PVAs -- or, what they called the "DAC-PVA" protocol.

The aim of the DAC-PVA protocol is to enhance communication and repeatability of PVAs, strengthen their credibility and relevance for policy and management. It should further improve the capacity to generalize from PVA findings across studies. The protocol is further accompanied by an interactive website (http://scales.ckff.si/scaletool/dac-pva.php), in order to enhance its usefulness.

Guy Pe'er: "There are many existing guidelines on how to design and implement reliable PVAs. There are also existing communication standards for documenting and communicating ecological models. But somehow, it seems that these two simply didn't manage to meet so far. This is sad because it means that many hundreds of existing PVAs, and many more that are likely to be developed and applied in the future, still do not effectively contribute to collective learning efforts or attempts to move from single-species results to supporting the conservation of biodiversity in its broader sense."

Klaus Henle: "PVAs are used very commonly nowadays. The IUCN suggests PVAs to be conducted for every species where enough data are available, and even offers guidelines on how to apply PVAs. Their use is particularly widespread for birds. We should strive to reach a point where, based on PVA knowledge, we could guess the conservation needs of species also without a PVA, for instance based on traits and ecological requirements. But in the absence of standardized reporting, and a collective effort to learn when such guesses are likely to work or fail, we may never reach this goal."

The idea of the protocol and the website is therefore to create a common template, used by PVA developers, users and readers, that would enhance communication between all of them. Thereby, the authors hope to make PVAs more policy-relevant, and policy-makers more aware of the broad range of potential uses of PVAs for nature conservation.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Pensoft Publishers, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Guy Pe'er, Yiannis G. Matsinos, Karin Johst, Kamila W. Franz, Camille Turlure, Viktoriia Radchuk, Agnieszka H. Malinowska, Janelle M.r. Curtis, Ilona Naujokaitis-Lewis, Brendan A. Wintle, Klaus Henle. A Protocol for Better Design, Application, and Communication of Population Viability Analyses. Conservation Biology, 2013; DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12076

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/KOS1UL_-GA0/130611102202.htm

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Brazil govt to perform crash tests after AP report

SAO PAULO (AP) ? After a decade of spiking fatalities from passenger car wrecks, the Brazilian government said Monday it plans to build its first auto crash test facility in an effort to improve the poor safety record of vehicles built and sold in the world's fourth-largest automobile market.

The decision comes a month after The Associated Press published an investigation that showed many cars built by the world's biggest automakers and sold in Brazil had significantly fewer safeguards than the same or similar models sold in the U.S. and Europe.

The AP found that Brazilians die at four times the rate as Americans in passenger car wrecks and that fatalities rose more than 70 percent in Brazil in the past decade while falling 40 percent in the U.S. Independent tests have been conducted in Germany on Brazil's most popular car models, and the results are bleak. Four of Brazil's five top selling cars failed their crash tests ? the fifth has yet to be tested.

Dr. Dirceu Alves at Abramet, a Brazilian association of doctors who specialize in treating traffic accident victims, said he thinks a crash-test center will improve safety.

"There is no doubt about the importance of this lab. We cannot believe in the quality controls of the automakers alone," he said. "We believe it will be one of the factors in reducing the number of traffic fatalities."

The Brazilian government has recently begun to implement tougher safety standards for its auto industry. But critics have pointed out that without its own crash test center, the government has no means of verifying automaker claims on impact safety.

"Until now, when it came to the auto industry there was nothing the government was testing," said a Brazilian government official, who agreed to discuss the situation only if not quoted by name because he wasn't authorized to talk about the crash-test center plans.

The official said the government hopes to have the $50 million crash test center operating by 2017. He noted it was a "politically sensitive" topic in a nation where the auto industry plays a big role in the economy. Brazil's government has repeatedly slashed consumer taxes on cars in recent years in an effort to bolster the nation's economic outlook.

A second official, from the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, which will oversee the building and operation of the crash-test center, also confirmed plans for its construction.

A ministry document indicating plans for the center indicates that it will be built on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and that automakers could provide part of the funding for its operation and even use the center, which led experts to raise concerns about whether the lab can truly be independent. Further details about the center were not given.

ANFAVEA, Brazil's national association of automakers, said it had no comment about plans for the center. In talking to the AP previously about Brazil's poor safety record, automakers said their cars meet the country's safety laws.

As one example, only next year will Brazil begin requiring frontal air bags and antilock braking systems on all cars ? safety features that have been standard in industrial countries for years.

Brazil, Latin America's biggest economy, will also have new impact regulations, on paper at least. But without a crash-test center, regulators cannot verify automakers' claims about vehicle performance. There are no independent labs in the nation, as there are in Europe, U.S. and other areas.

Auto engineers, some working for big automakers, have said the dangers of Brazilian cars come down to basics: the lack of body reinforcements, lower-quality steel in car bodies, weaker or fewer weld spots to hold the vehicles together and car platforms designed decades before modern safety advances.

Consumer advocates in Brazil have complained about what they say is a double standard in the treatment of carmakers. Manufacturers earn a 10 percent profit on Brazilian-made cars, compared with 3 percent in the U.S. and a global average of 5 percent, according to IHS Automotive, an industry consulting firm.

Despite those profits, cars like the Nissan March compact sold in Brazil received a two-star rating from the Latin New Car Assessment Program, which has carried out crash tests on cars made in Brazil. The version sold for about the same price in Europe, the Micra, scored four stars. Safety experts say that's the difference between dying in or surviving frontal-collision wrecks.

There is cautious hope the planned government crash-test center will begin improving autos, but some experts warned that it isn't a complete solution.

"It's a good thing that there will be an independent crash laboratory, but that doesn't mean that cars will be better or safer," said Alejandro Furas, technical director for the Global NCAP. "A crash laboratory is an incredible tool, but there have to be regulations ? regulations in Brazil are behind."

Most notably, Brazil's auto safety regulation lacks a "conformity of production" clause that requires automobile safety performance be spot checked for the entire time the model is produced. Without that rule, car models in Brazil only have to meet impact regulations once.

Further, Furas said that if automakers helped fund the Brazilian government's facility, then it won't be "really independent at all."

About 40 million Brazilians moved into the middle class during the past decade with more income than ever to buy their first car. But as auto sales boom in Brazil, so have the number of accidents and deaths.

An analysis of Health Ministry data shows that 9,059 car occupants died in vehicle crashes in Brazil in 2010. That same year, 12,435 people in the U.S. were killed in car crashes, although the U.S. passenger car fleet is five times larger than Brazil's. The result: Brazilian automobile crash victims died at four times the rate as those in the U.S.

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Associated Press writers Marco Sibaja in Brasilia and Jill Langlois in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brazil-govt-perform-crash-tests-ap-report-195543570.html

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Lay day called at Volcom Fiji Pro ? Surfing news | bettor.com

Lay day called at Volcom Fiji Pro ? Surfing news

Volcom Fiji Pro, the fourth of ten stops on the 2013 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour, has been called off for today, i.e. Monday, June 10, due to unsatisfactory conditions at the main event venue of Cloudbreak in Tavarua, Fiji.

The event organisers were expecting the swell to have filled in by today, but they were not satisfied with the results of their assessment of the surfing conditions on hand.

As a result, they deemed it fit to call the competition off for the day and wait for the conditions to improve before getting the show back on.

?Unfortunately, conditions didn?t manifest for us today as we would have liked and we?ve called competition off for the afternoon,? Rich Porta, ASP International Head Judge said. ?The swell is meant to fill in overnight and we?ll reconvene tomorrow morning at 6:30am.?

The world?s top surfing talent is currently gathered in Fiji to continue their campaign for the most coveted honours in the sport, the ASP World Title.

So far, the Volcom Fiji Pro has gone through the first-two rounds, as well as the first-three heats of Round 3.

There have already been some pretty huge upsets in the competition so far, with the elimination of Brazil?s Adriano de Souza at the hands of Australia?s Yadin Nicol in Round 2 surely topping the list of upsets.

Young American sensation Kolohe Andino earned himself some massive respect by getting the better of Brazil?s Gabriel Medina in their Round 2 encounter, thus removing the latter from the contention for the event latter.

?11-time ASP World Champion Kelly Slater from America and reigning ASP World Champion Joel Parkinson from Australia had skipped their Round 1 heats, but appeared for their respective Round 2 heats, which they comfortably won to make their way through into the third round.

South Africa?s Jordy Smith also gave his fans a bit of a scare after a dismal Round 1 performance, but bounced back strongly in Round 2 to successfully extend his life in the competition.

Hawaii?s John John Florence, however, has been the main highlight of the event so far. Known for his barrel-prowess, the young talent has treated the spectators to a performance that will surely be staying in their memory for a long time. He is one of the three surfers who have already confirmed their place in Round 4, with Smith and Australia?s Taj Burrow being the other two surfers.

When competition resumes, France?s Jeremy Flores will lock horns with Brazil?s Miguel Pupo in the fourth heat of Round 3.

Source: http://blogs.bettor.com/Lay-day-called-at-Volcom-Fiji-Pro-Surfing-news-a216470

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