Solar Architecture Integrated Bi-Facial Photovoltaic System as a Shade

Solar architecture is defined as a kind of building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) in which the PV modules are deployed to passive solar concepts, to minimize the heating and cooling load, to upgrade the indoor environment, and to be adjustable for regional weather and to continuously succeed architectural culture. Solar architecture needs to consider the architectural culture and climate of the region through an ecological convergence. The ecological criteria lead to optimizing solar architecture through an ecological convergence of a passive intelligence and renewable energy system. The optimal angle of the bi-facial PV module as a shade is 23.5° considering the physical interaction and the traditional architecture in Korea according to the ecological criteria. The shading concept of the PV module reduces 27.5~34% of the building cooling load. Effective solar irradiance (ESR) is very important not only for PV efficiency but also for the system usage rate. This ESR should be controlled depending on the climate condition to maximize the total energy elimination factor and total energy transmittance factor for a window. The MB-BIPVS play an excellent role to maximize the total energy elimination factor and total energy transmittance factor for a window.

Ecological Convergence in the System of Sustainable Development of the Russian Economy

Currently, studies of the problems of convergence of leading countries in terms of the lean use of natural resources, the reduction of harmful emissions and the transition to using new types of energy carriers are highly relevant, with regard to sustainable development mainstream. At the same time, the majority of authors consider convergent processes from an economic or socio-political point of view. In this regard, the article examines the issues of ecological convergence, as a special structural shift in the economy, leading to radical positive changes in the environmental management system and a decrease in anthropogenic impact on the environment.

State Policy of Environmental Convergence in Economy Transition to Sustainable Development

Structural shifts caused by the expansion of "green" convergent technologies significantly enhance the ecological convergence of the economies in the countries in which they determine the exit to the trajectory of sustainable development. At the same time, in an economy where the commercialization and diffusion of green technologies is constrained by structural problems, the prerequisites for environmental divergence are formed, which can finally consolidate technological lag and a long-term trend of environmental degradation. The transition from environmental divergence to convergence should be carried out in a system of convergentoriented structural policy. It presents a three-level complex: targeted changes in the reproductive structure, the proportion of production factors (the first level); impact on the sectoral, technological, market-competitive, social structures of the economy (the second level), development of research, production and financial infrastructure for the commercialization and transfer of "green" technologies (the third level).

Phylogenomics of piranhas and pacus (Serrasalmidae) uncovers how convergent diets obfuscate traditional morphological taxonomy

ABSTRACTThe Amazon and neighboring South American river basins harbor the world’s most diverse assemblages of freshwater fishes. One of the most prominent South American fish families are the Serrasalmidae (pacus and piranhas), found in nearly every continental basin. Serrasalmids are keystone ecological taxa, being some of the top riverine predators as well as the primary seed dispersers in the flooded forest. Despite their widespread occurrence and notable ecologies, serrasalmid evolutionary history and systematics are controversial. For example, the sister taxon to serrasalmids is contentious, the relationships of major clades within the family are obfuscated by different methodologies, and half of the extant serrasalmid genera are suggested to be non-monophyletic. We used exon capture to explore the evolutionary relationships among 64 (of 99) species across all 16 serrasalmid genera and their nearest outgroups, including multiple individuals per species in order to account for cryptic lineages. To reconstruct the timeline of serrasalmid diversification, we time-calibrated this phylogeny using two different fossil-calibration schemes to account for uncertainty in taxonomy with respect to fossil teeth. Finally, we analyzed diet evolution across the family and comment on associated changes in dentition, highlighting the ecomorphological diversity within serrasalmids. We document widespread non-monophyly within Myleinae, as well as between Serrasalmus and Pristobrycon, and propose that reliance on traits like teeth to distinguish among genera is confounded by ecological convergence, especially among herbivorous and omnivorous taxa. We clarify the relationships among all serrasalmid genera, propose new subfamily affiliations, and support hemiodontids as the sister taxon to Serrasalmidae.

Claw asymmetry in crabs: approaching an old issue from a new point of view

Crabs are considered exceptional examples of antisymmetry resulting from the phenomenon of heterochely. Here we investigate morphometrically both the size and the shape of heterochely in 28 crab species, distributed unequally along a brachyuran phylogeny. We address the importance of investigating claw size and shape for interspecific comparisons by linking geometric morphometric outputs to phylogenetic data for 134 brachyuran species. New indices introduced as new sexual dimorphic characters of size and shape, namely heterometry (right chela size/left chela size) and heteromorphy (Procrustes distance between right and left chelae shape), revealed sexually dimorphic differences in diverse crab species. We demonstrate that both size and shape heterochely occur amongst the examined species, but there are no ecological correlations. Our study demonstrates that claw similarity between two or more species was due mainly to phylogenetic relatedness rather than ecological convergence, suggesting that claw morphological features could be useful morphological markers in phylogenetic studies. Although further investigation is needed, this study represents one of the first to thoroughly analyse the origin and evolution of heterochely within the Brachyura clade.

Extreme diversification of floral volatiles within and among species ofLithophragma(Saxifragaceae)

A major challenge in evolutionary biology is to understand how complex traits of multiple functions have diversified and codiversified across interacting lineages and geographic ranges. We evaluate intra- and interspecific variation in floral scent, which is a complex trait of documented importance for mutualistic and antagonistic interactions between plants, pollinators, and herbivores. We performed a large-scale, phylogenetically structured study of an entire plant genus (Lithophragma, Saxifragaceae), of which several species are coevolving with specialized pollinating floral parasites of the moth genusGreya(Prodoxidae). We sampled 94Lithophragmapopulations distributed across all 12 recognizedLithophragmaspecies and subspecies, and four populations of related saxifragaceous species. Our results reveal an unusually high diversity of floral volatiles among populations, species, and clades within the genus. Moreover, we found unexpectedly major changes at each of these levels in the biosynthetic pathways used by local populations in their floral scents. Finally, we detected significant, but variable, genus- and species-level patterns of ecological convergence in the floral scent signal, including an impact of the presence and absence of two pollinatingGreyamoth species. We propose that one potential key to understanding floral scent variation in this hypervariable genus is its geographically diverse interactions with the obligate specializedGreyamoths and, in some species and sites, more generalized copollinators.