Applying systematic conservation planning to constitute a protection strategy for broad-leaved Korean pine forests in Changbai Mountains, China

The broad-leaved Korean pine(Pinus koraiensis) forest is one of the most biodiverse zonal communities in the North Temperate Zone and an important habitat for many endangered species.Broad-leaved Korean pine forests(BKPFs) are shrinking quickly due to deforestation and rapid urbanization. Thus, scientific protection strategies are urgently needed to change this status. Changbai Mountains contains one of the largest BKPFs and is considered a priority biodiversity conservation area in China. Guided by systematic conservation planning(SCP) methods and procedures, we chose representative species and communities in BKPFs ecosystem as priority conservation objects, and set quantitative conservation target, which is in the light of the biodiversity characteristic of BKPFs. The watershed area is used as planning unit. We used CPlan software to calculate the irreplaceability(Ir)value of each planning unit and the contribution value(Ti) of each conservation object to(1) assess the conservation efficiency;(2) identify the conservation gap of the existing conservation network. Then wecalculated a human disturbance index(HDI) for planning units in the conservation gaps and combine this with the Ir value to design three conservation scenarios to optimize the conservation network.Results show that planning units with high conservation value 14.16% of the total area, with3084.36 km2 were covered by the existing conservation network. 79.28% of planning units with high conservation value have not been protected which were concentrated mainly in the eight gap areas.Only 25.3% of protection objects achieved their conservation target with the existing conservation network. Conservation efficiency is low. Three conservation scenarios are constituted, each prioritizing a different aim:(1) ecological value;(2)species rescue; and(3) economical avoidance. The three conservation schemes potentially enable 93%,88% and 51% of conservation objects, respectively, to achieve identified conservation targets, thereby improving conservation efficiency significantly.

Surrogacy of bird species in systematic conservation planning and conservation assessments in Yunnan Province,China

Bird diversity is often used as surrogates for other species diversity,but there is a limited understanding of the extent of this surrogate in identifying representative priority conservation areas(PCAs).We used Yunnan Province in China as a case to measure the surrogacy of birds in systematic conservation planning.Here,we collected distribution records of mammals,amphibians,reptiles,and birds from public databases and literature,and applied systematic conservation planning methods to identify PCAs.We targeted four taxonomic groups at conservation targets of 17%,31%,and 50%of the total study area,and used the Jaccard similarity index to evaluate the surrogate extent of bird PCAs for the other three groups.Then,we overlapped different portfolios of PCAs with six categories of protected areas(PAs)in Yunnan,calculated the protection rates,and evaluated the effect of sustainable-use PAs on improving the protection rate of strict Nature Reserves.The results showed that bird PCAs generally had the highest surrogacy for representing PCAs of the other three taxa.At the 50%conservation target,the Jaccard indices between birds and the other taxa reached about 0.50.Moreover,amphibian PCAs had a good surrogacy for conserving reptiles,with a Jaccard index of 0.30,0.44 and 0.51 at the 17%,31%and 50%conservation targets,respectively.The existing PA system had quite low coverages for PCAs of these four taxa,and the average protection rates were 22.97%,19.78%and 16.52%at the three levels of conservation targets,respectively.The sustainable-use PAs can greatly complement the strict Nature Reserves by achieving average increased PA coverages of 10.00%,9.20%and 7.90%at the three conservation targets.Our findings provide a basis for surrogate-based conservation planning for areas with insufficient biodiversity information.

Approaches to the systematic tourism planning-a case study of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region

The rapid development of tourism makes a further demand for tourism planning in China. It is necessary to find out some new effective approaches and patterns to guarantee the continuity andpracticality of the planning. The approach of systematic tourism planning is a way along this line.This paper advances the theory that the tourism planning is in fact the Systematic tourism planningand that the planning must take into account the operation of the whole tourism system and befocused on the general optimization of all the subjects concerned. Besides, the planning should bemulti-dimensional. must optimize and balance the economic, environmental and social-culturalfactors in achieving sustainable development and must be monitored to ensure the accomplishment ofthe objectives and the implementation of the recommended policy. The systematic planning shouldalso embody a continuity or a guideline of progressiveness, with an adaptability to the possiblechanges in the future . The paper, with the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region as a case, gives a briefpresentation of the overall theoretical pattern of the systematic tourism planning, the essentialelements in the systematic planning and the practicable approaches.

Facilities Planning for a Creative Company

Facilities planning tools have been used by project managers for planning industry spaces for decades now, but applications in creative organizations are still sparse. This happens mainly because of a gap that exists between engineering and psychology fields, with the first developing planning tools for production but with little concern for creativity and the other developing spaces for creativity, but with a lack of tools. Both try to solve the same issue： fostering productivity in the workplace, but they need to be linked first, in order to accomplish it. How to close this gap？ Can a project manager plan the facilities for a creative organizational in the best way possible？ In this paper, a new approach is used for studying the design of physical environments that foster organizational creativity, combining the results of psychological studies on the impact of physical environment on creativity with the facilities planning body of knowledge applied by industrial engineers. In order to test the results, a single case study is developed in a small IT consulting firm. By using the systematic layout planning （SLP） step by step process, it is shown that by acting on the work environment of the company, the developers creative processes can be boosted and facilitated. It is also shown that both industrial engineering and creativity research have much to contribute to each other and future research topics in the field are presented.

Conservation priority for endemic birds of China's Mainland based on a phylogenetic framework

In this report, a conservation priority scenario for endemic birds of China's Mainland is proposed from a phylogenetic perspective. By utilizing and comparing seven phylogenetic diversity (PD) indices, the study shows that the top ifve endemic birds with high conservation priority are Ar-borophila ardens, A. gingica, A. ruifpectus, Lophophorus lhuysii and Alectoris magna respectively. The ranking of species, based on the IUCN Red List and PD indices, were compared by means of a Wilcox signed rank test and Pearson’s correlation, drawing the inference that the PD ranking of endemic birds for China's Mainland shows a distinct and statistically signiifcant difference from the IUCN rank-ing. Therefore, the ranking of conservation priority for endemic birds of China using PD indices might offer new insights on species conservation from an evolutionary-heritage perspective, serving as a complement to the IUCN ranking.

Reserve network planning for fishes in the middle and lower Yangtze River basin by systematic conservation approaches

Although China has established more than 600 wetland nature reserves, conservation gaps still exist for many species, especially for freshwater fishes. Underlying this problem is the fact that top-level planning is missing in the construction of nature reserves. To promote the development of nature reserves for fishes, this study took the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River basin(MLYRB) as an example to carry out top-level reserve network planning for fishes using approaches of systematic conservation planning. Typical fish species living in freshwater habitats were defined and considered in the planning. Based on sample data collected from large quantities of literatures, continuous distribution patterns of 142 fishes were obtained with species distribution modeling and subsequent processing, and the distributions of another eleven species were artificially designated. With the distribution pattern of species, Marxan was used to carry out conservation planning. To obtain ideal solutions with representativeness, persistence, and efficiency, parameters were set with careful consideration regarding existing wetland reserves, human disturbances, hydrological connectivity, and representation targets of species. Marxan produced the selection frequency of planning units(PUs) and a best solution. Selection frequency indicates the relative protection importance of a PU. The best solution is a representative of ideal fish reserve networks. Both of the PUs with high selection frequency and those in the best solution have low proportions included in existing wetland nature reserves, suggesting that there are significant conservation gaps for fish species in MLYRB. The best solution could serve as a reference for establishing a fish reserve network in the MLYRB. There is great flexibility for replacing selected PUs in the solution, and such flexibility facilitates the implementation of the solution in reality in case of unexpected obstacles. Further, we suggested adopting a freshwater management framework in the implementation of such solution.

Two Generative Design Methods of Hospital Operating Department Layouts Based on Healthcare Systematic Layout Planning and Generative Adversarial Network

With the increasing demands of health care,the design of hospital buildings has become increasingly demanding and complicated.However,the traditional layout design method for hospital is labor intensive,time consuming and prone to errors.With the development of artificial intelligence(AI),the intelligent design method has become possible and is considered to be suitable for the layout design of hospital buildings.Two intelli-gent design processes based on healthcare systematic layout planning(HSLP)and generative adversarial network(GAN)are proposed in this paper,which aim to solve the generation problem of the plane functional layout of the operating departments(ODs)of general hospitals.The first design method that is more like a mathemati-cal model with traditional optimization algorithm concerns the following two steps:developing the HSLP model based on the conventional systematic layout planning(SLP)theory,identifying the relationship and flows amongst various departments/units,and arriving at the preliminary plane layout design;establishing mathematical model to optimize the building layout by using the genetic algorithm(GA)to obtain the optimized scheme.The specific process of the second intelligent design based on more than 100 sets of collected OD drawings includes:labelling the corresponding functional layouts of each OD plan;building image-to-image translation with conditional ad-versarial network(pix2pix)for training OD plane layouts,which is one of the most representative GAN models.Finally,the functions and features of the results generated by the two methods are analyzed and compared from an architectural and algorithmic perspective.Comparison of the two design methods shows that the HSLP and GAN models can autonomously generate new OD plane functional layouts.The HSLP layouts have clear functional area adjacencies and optimization goals,but the layouts are relatively rigid and not specific enough.The GAN outputs are the most innovative layouts with strong applicability,but the dataset has strict constraints.The goal of this paper is to help release the heavy load of architects in the early design stage and present the effectiveness of these intelligent design methods in the field of medical architecture.

Investigain:A Productive Asset Management Web Application

The Investigain is a progressive web application to make mutual funds investments through a Systematic Investment Plan.The application utilizes the web’s modern capabilities,such as Asynchronous JavaScript and XML(AJAX),JavaScript,and Hypertext Marker Language(HTML5).The application also uses a powerful relational database management system,such as MySQL,to display asset management information.The application has two portals,one for investors and one for a particular asset manager or asset management company.Each investor has an account in the investor portal.The investor can view his/her profile,current balance,balance history,dividends,the units of mutual funds bought,unit price,the value of each mutual fund,and can pay installments using an embedded online payment gateway.Asset managers can monitor all investments,manage user accounts,and reimburse dividends using the admin portal.This paper also presents the experimental results of using the Investigain application,compares them with existing systems,and details the application’s prospect to improve its socio-economic conditions.The system’s frontend is designed with Bootstrap and jQuery frameworks.The backend is designed using Hypertext Preprocessor(PHP)server-side scripting language.The system demonstrated increased satisfaction from its clients.