University of Lincoln

About: University of Lincoln is a education organization based out in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Higher education. The organization has 2341 authors who have published 7025 publications receiving 124797 citations.

The evolution of viviparity opens opportunities for lizard radiation but drives it into a climatic cul‐de‐sac

Abstract: Aim: Evolutionary radiations into novel areas or niches require innovative adaptations. However, rapid subsequent changes in these novel conditions might demand rapid re-adaptations to secure population persistence and prevent extinction. We propose that reptilian viviparity (live birth) is consistent with such a scenario. Using the Liolaemus lizard radiation, we investigate the hypotheses that historical invasions of cold climates have been permitted by transitions to viviparity, and that this parity mode is irreversible. Then, we investigate whether these combined factors restrict viviparous lizards to cold climates, and hence, whether viviparous species are particularly threatened by climate change. Location: South America. Methods: We employ phylogenetic analyses to investigate evolutionary transitions in reproductive modes and their consequences for environmental restrictions in viviparous lizards. We then employ climatic projections to predict the impact of climate change on the future persistence of these organisms. Results: The oviparity-to-viviparity transition is consistently associated with colonization of cold climates, and appears to be irreversible. Since viviparity seems less viable (compared with oviparity) in warm climates, species that evolve viviparity in cold climates are likely to remain adaptively constrained to such environments. Therefore, upward-poleward advances of climate warming will cause severe shifts and contractions of viviparous species ranges, threatening major extinctions over the next half century. Main conclusions: Viviparity has been largely responsible for the successful radiation of Liolaemus into cold climates, but since this adaptation is predominantly viable in these environments and is unlikely to re-evolve into oviparity, viviparity may prove to be an evolutionary dead-end for lizards facing rapid climate change. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Cathode Design for Aqueous Rechargeable Multivalent Ion Batteries: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract: With the rapid growth in energy consumption, renewable energy is a promising solution. However, renewable energy (e.g., wind, solar, and tidal) is discontinuous and irregular by nature, which poses new challenges to the new generation of large-scale energy storage devices. Rechargeable batteries using aqueous electrolyte and multivalent ion charge are considered more suitable candidates compared to lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries, owing to their low cost, ease of manufacture, good safety, and environmentally benign characteristics. However, some substantial challenges hinder the development of aqueous rechargeable multivalent ion batteries (AMVIBs), including the narrow stable electrochemical window of water (≈1.23 V), sluggish ion diffusion kinetics, and stability issues of electrode materials. To address these challenges, a range of encouraging strategies has been developed in recent years, in the aspects of electrolyte optimization, material structure engineering and theoretical investigations. To inspire new research directions, this review focuses on the latest advances in cathode materials for aqueous batteries based on the multivalent ions (Zn2+, Mg2+, Ca2+, Al3+), their common challenges, and promising strategies for improvement. In addition, further suggestions for development directions and a comparison of the different AMVIBs are covered.

Towards reproducible state-of-the-art energy disaggregation

Abstract: Non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) or energy disaggregation is the task of separating the household energy measured at the aggregate level into constituent appliances. In 2014, the NILM toolkit (NILMTK) was introduced in an effort towards making NILM research reproducible. Despite serving as the reference library for data set parsers and reference benchmark algorithm implementations, few publications presenting algorithmic contributions within the field went on to contribute implementations back to the toolkit. This paper describes two significant contributions to the NILM community in an effort towards reproducible state-of-the-art research: i) a rewrite of the disaggregation API and a new experiment API which lower the barrier to entry for algorithm developers and simplify the definition of algorithm comparison experiments, and ii) the release of NILMTK-contrib; a new repository containing NILMTK-compatible implementations of 3 benchmarks and 9 recent disaggregation algorithms. We have performed an extensive empirical evaluation using a number of publicly available data sets across three important experiment scenarios to showcase the ease of performing reproducible research in NILMTK.