Academic literature on the topic 'Stand structural complexity'

Forest managers are seeking strategies to create stands that can adapt to new climatic conditions and simultaneously help mitigate increases in atmospheric CO2. Adaptation strategies often focus on enhancing resilience by maximizing forest complexity in terms of species composition and size structure, while mitigation involves sustaining carbon storage and sequestration. Altered stand age is a fundamental consequence of forest management, and stand age is a powerful predictor of ecosystem structure and function in even-aged stands. However, the relationship between stand age and either complexity or carbon storage and sequestration, especially trade-offs between the two, are not well characterized. We quantified these relationships in clearcut-origin, unmanaged pine and aspen chronosequences ranging from <10 to >130 years in northern Minnesota. Complexity generally increased with age, although compositional complexity changed more over time in aspen forests and structural complexity changed more over time in pine stands. Although individual carbon pools displayed various relationships with stand age, total carbon storage increased with age, whereas carbon sequestration, inferred from changes in storage, decreased sharply with age. These results illustrate the carbon and complexity consequences of varying forest harvest rotation length to favor younger or older forests and provide insight into trade-offs between these potentially conflicting management objectives.

Typical use of diversity indices in forest stands does not reflect within-stand variation in species and structure. Despite numerous efforts to design stand diversity indices that capture spatial variation in two- or three-dimensional space, the application of these indices is limited due to their complexity or lack of ecological relevance. In this research note, we illustrate the application of diversity indices at the neighbourhood scale using stem mapping data from a boreal mixedwood stand in northeastern Ontario, which was assessed before and after partial harvesting. Among the three diversity indices (Shannon species diversity, Shannon structural diversity by height class distribution, and structural diversity by height variation), neighbourhood structural diversity by height variation was less dependent on neighbourhood size (between 4 and 12 trees) and more sensitive to stand structural change than Shannon structural diversity by height class distribution. Despite general increases in Shannon species diversity and structural diversity by height variation at both stand and neighbourhood scales after the harvest — an indication of higher diversity — within-stand variation (coefficients of variation) in neighbourhood diversity values decreased, suggesting that residual stands were spatially more uniform after the harvest. Therefore, the neighbourhood diversity indices are useful for capturing spatial variation in species and structural diversity, especially in managed stands in which spatial distributions and patterns can be significantly modified by management interventions.

One of the main goals of modern silviculture is to emulate the structural complexity of old-growth forests. In this context, it is of advantage to identify a target state of structural complexity at the stand level and to analyze the spatial characteristics that led to the desired complexity of forest structures in primary forest references. In this study, we used 3D forest scenes captured by terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) to identify spatial patterns of structural complexity of differently managed and unmanaged European forests dominated by beech (Fagus sylvatica L.). We scanned in managed even-aged and uneven-aged stands, as well as in formerly managed forests (National Parks) and primary forests. For three different forest strata, representing the understory, the midstory, and the overstory of a forest stand, we determined the structural complexity mathematically using fractal analysis. Beyond that, we analyzed the density, as well as the horizontal and vertical distribution of plant material. For all three forest strata, we observed differences in structural complexity between the different forest types. Within the lower and middle strata, the investigated primary forests showed a random to regular distribution of plant material, as well as a complex understory structure as a result of pronounced natural decay. Compared to the primary forests, the managed uneven-aged stands showed quite similar spatial patterns of distribution of plant material, but on average a higher space occupation in the lower and middle forest stratum. Our results suggest that single tree or group selection cutting is a useful management tool to imitate old-growth structures of undisturbed beech-dominated forests.

The three-dimensional forest structure is an important driver of several ecosystem functions and services. Recent advancements in laser scanning technologies have set the path to measuring structural complexity directly from 3D point clouds. Here, we show that the box-dimension (Db) from fractal analysis, a measure of structural complexity, can be obtained from airborne laser scanning data. Based on 66 plots across different forest types in Germany, each 1 ha in size, we tested the performance of the Db by evaluating it against conventional ground-based measures of forest structure and commonly used stand characteristics. We found that the Db was related (0.34 < R < 0.51) to stand age, management intensity, microclimatic stability, and several measures characterizing the overall stand structural complexity. For the basal area, we could not find a significant relationship, indicating that structural complexity is not tied to the basal area of a forest. We also showed that Db derived from airborne data holds the potential to distinguish forest types, management types, and the developmental phases of forests. We conclude that the box-dimension is a promising measure to describe the structural complexity of forests in an ecologically meaningful way.

Globally, planted forests are rapidly replacing naturally regenerated stands but the implications for canopy structure, carbon (C) storage, and the linkages between the two are unclear. We investigated the successional dynamics, interlinkages and mechanistic relationships between wood net primary production (NPPw) and canopy structure in planted and naturally regenerated red pine (Pinus resinosa Sol. ex Aiton) stands spanning ≥ 45 years of development. We focused our canopy structural analysis on leaf area index (LAI) and a spatially integrative, terrestrial LiDAR-based complexity measure, canopy rugosity, which is positively correlated with NPPw in several naturally regenerated forests, but which has not been investigated in planted stands. We estimated stand NPPw using a dendrochronological approach and examined whether canopy rugosity relates to light absorption and light–use efficiency. We found that canopy rugosity increased similarly with age in planted and naturally regenerated stands, despite differences in other structural features including LAI and stem density. However, the relationship between canopy rugosity and NPPw was negative in planted and not significant in naturally regenerated stands, indicating structural complexity is not a globally positive driver of NPPw. Underlying the negative NPPw-canopy rugosity relationship in planted stands was a corresponding decline in light-use efficiency, which peaked in the youngest, densely stocked stand with high LAI and low structural complexity. Even with significant differences in the developmental trajectories of canopy structure, NPPw, and light use, planted and naturally regenerated stands stored similar amounts of C in wood over a 45-year period. We conclude that widespread increases in planted forests are likely to affect age-related patterns in canopy structure and NPPw, but planted and naturally regenerated forests may function as comparable long-term C sinks via different structural and mechanistic pathways.

Forest structure, as measured by the physical arrangement of trees and their crowns, is a fundamental attribute of forest ecosystems that changes as forests progress through suc;cessional stages. We examined whether LiDAR data could be used to directly assess the successional stage of forests by determining the degree to which the LiDAR data would show the same relative ranking of structural development among sites as would traditional field measurements. We sampled 94 primary and secondary sites (19–93, 223–350, and 600 years old) from three conifer forest zones in western Washington state, USA, in the field and with small-footprint, discrete return LiDAR. Seven sets of LiDAR metrics were tested to measure canopy structure. Ordinations using the of LiDAR 95th percentile height, rumple, and canopy density metrics had the strongest correlations with ordinations using two sets of field metrics (Procrustes R = 0.72 and 0.78) and a combined set of LiDAR and field metrics (Procrustes R = 0.95). These results suggest that LiDAR can accurately characterize forest successional stage where field measurements are not available. This has important implications for enabling basic and applied studies of forest structure at stand to landscape scales.

LiDAR measurements of canopy structure can be used to classify forest stands into structural stages to study spatial patterns of canopy structure, identify habitat, or plan management actions. A key assumption in this process is that differences in canopy structure based on forest age and elevation are consistent with predictions from models of stand development. Three LiDAR metrics (95th percentile height, rumple, and canopy density) were computed for 59 secondary and 35 primary forest plots in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Hierarchical clustering identified two precanopy closure classes, two low-complexity postcanopy closure classes, and four high-complexity postcanopy closure classes. Forest development models suggest that secondary plots should be characterized by low-complexity classes and primary plots characterized by high-complexity classes. While the most and least complex classes largely confirmed this relationship, intermediate-complexity classes were unexpectedly composed of both secondary and primary forest types. Complexity classes were not associated with elevation, except that primary Tsuga mertensiana (Bong.) Carrière (mountain hemlock) plots were complex. These results suggest that canopy structure does not develop in a linear fashion and emphasize the importance of measuring structural conditions rather than relying on development models to estimate structural complexity across forested landscapes.

Forest dimensional structure and tree species composition strictly define ecosystem resilience, success of its functioning and development. Spatial structure of forest compartments provides an additional information on the forest stand heterogeneity. The aim of this study is to examine structural patterns (both spatial and nonspatial ones) in European oak (Quercus robur L.) urban forests located in Kyiv city, Ukraine. We compared two middle-aged (~ 80 years) and two mature (~ 180 years) oak stands in terms of structural metrics collecting a data from geo-referenced trees on the established permanent sample plots. Younger stands reached similar tree diameter diversity (9.07 and 10.45 vs. 11.42 and 14.05 of Shannon indices), while the compositional diversity was driven by the dominance of either oak or European hornbeam (Carpinus betulus L.). We have not found any differences in the species mingling and deadwood distribution indices except a clear occurrence pattern for the stand located near roads. Herewith, the largest distance between the plot and park pathways was an indicator of changed spatial variation and tree dimensional differentiation within one middle-aged stand. We hypothesize that human impacts can alter structural development in urban deciduous forests providing both positive (gap formation, deadwood occurrence and ecosystem complexity) and negative (shifts in compositional and successional trajectories) effects on such forest stands.

In this thesis I present and test a methodology for developing a stand scale index of structural complexity. If properly designed such an index can act as a summary variable for a larger set of stand structural attributes, providing a means of ranking stands in terms of their structural complexity, and by association, their biodiversity and vegetation condition. This type of index can also facilitate the use of alternative policy instruments for biodiversity conservation, such as mitigation banking, auctions and offsets, that rely on a common currency – the index value – that can be compared or traded between sites. My intention was to establish a clear and documentable methodology for developing a stand scale index of structural complexity, and to test this methodology using data from real stands.¶ As a starting point, I reviewed the literature concerning forest and woodland structure and found there was no clear definition of stand structural complexity, or definitive suite of structural attributes for characterising it. To address this issue, I defined stand structural complexity as a combined measure of the number of different structural attributes present in a stand, and the relative abundance of each of these attributes. This was analogous to approaches that have quantified diversity in terms of the abundance and richness of elements. It was also concluded from the review, that stand structural complexity should be viewed as a relative, rather than absolute concept, because the potential levels of different structural attributes are bound within certain limits determined by the inherent characteristics of the site in question, and the biota of the particular community will have evolved to reflect this range of variation. This implied that vegetation communities with naturally simple structures should have the potential to achieve high scores on an index of structural complexity.¶ I proposed the following five-stage methodology for developing an index of stand structural complexity: 1. Establish a comprehensive suite of stand structural attributes as a starting point for developing the index, by reviewing studies in which there is an established relationship between elements of biodiversity and structural attributes. 2. Develop a measurement system for quantifying the different attributes included in the comprehensive suite. 3. Use this measurement system to collect data from a representative set of stands across the range of vegetation condition (highly modified to unmodified) and developmental stages (regrowth to oldgrowth) occurring in the vegetation communities in which the index is intended to operate. 4. Identify a core set of structural attributes from an analysis of these data. 5. Combine the core attributes in a simple additive index, in which attributes are scored relative to their observed levels in each vegetation community.¶ Stage one of this methodology was addressed by reviewing a representative sample of the literature concerning fauna habitat relationships in temperate Australian forests and woodlands. This review identified fifty-five studies in south-east and south-west Australia, in which the presence or abundance of different fauna were significantly (p<0.05) associated with vegetation structural attributes. The majority of these studies concerned bird, arboreal mammal, and ground mammal habitat requirements, with relatively fewer studies addressing the habitat requirements of reptiles, invertebrates, bats or amphibians. Thirty four key structural attributes were identified from these fifty-five studies, by grouping similar attributes, and then representing each group with a single generic attribute. This set, in combination with structural attributes identified in the earlier review, provided the basis for developing an operational set of stand level attributes for the collection of data from study sites.¶ To address stages two and three of the methodology, data were collected from one woodland community –Yellow Box-Red Gum (E. melliodora-E. Blakelyi ) – and two dry sclerophyll forest communities – Broadleaved Peppermint-Brittle Gum (E. dives-E. mannifera ), Scribbly Gum-Red Stringybark (E. rossii E. macrorhyncha ) – in a 15,000 km2 study area in the South eastern Highlands Bioregion of Australia. A representative set of 48 sites was established within this study area, by identifying 24 strata, on the basis of the three vegetation communities, two catchments, two levels of rainfall and two levels of condition, and then locating two sites (replicates) within each stratum. At each site, three plots were systematically established, to provide an unbiased estimate of stand level means for 75 different structural attributes.¶ I applied a three-stage analysis to identify a core set of attributes from these data. The first stage – a preliminary analysis – indicated that the 48 study sites represented a broad range of condition, and that the two dry sclerophyll communities could be treated as a single community, which was structurally distinct from the woodland community. In the second stage of the analysis, thirteen core attributes were dentified using the criteria that a core attribute should:¶ 1. Be either, evenly or approximately normally distributed amongst study sites; 2. Distinguish between woodland and dry sclerophyll communities; 3. Function as a surrogate for other attributes; 4. Be efficient to measure in the field. The core attributes were: Vegetation cover <0.5m Vegetation cover 0.5-6.0m; Perennial species richness; Lifeform richness; Stand basal area of live trees; Quadratic mean diameter of live stems; ln(number of regenerating stems per ha+1); ln(number of hollow bearing trees per ha+1);ln(number of dead trees per ha+1);sqrt(number of live stems per ha >40cm dbh); sqrt(total log length per ha); sqrt(total largelog length per ha); Litter dry weight per ha. This analysis also demonstrated that the thirteen core attributes could be modelled as continuous variables, and that these variables were indicative of the scale at which the different attributes operated.¶ In the third and final stage of the analysis, Principal Components Analysis was used to test for redundancy amongst the core attributes. Although this analysis highlighted six groupings, within which attributes were correlated to some degree, these relationships were not considered sufficiently robust to justify reducing the number of core attributes.¶ The thirteen core attributes were combined in a simple additive index, in which, each attribute accounted for 10 points in a total index value of 130. Attributes were rescaled as a score from 0-10, using equations that modelled attribute score as a function of the raw attribute data. This maintained a high correlation (r > 0.97, p< 0.0001) between attribute scores and the original attribute data. Sensitivity analysis indicated that the index was not sensitive to attribute weightings, and on this basis attributes carried equal weight. In this form my index was straightforward to apply, and approximately normally distributed amongst study sites.¶ I demonstrated the practical application of the index in a user-friendly spreadsheet, designed to allow landowners and managers to assess the condition of their vegetation, and to identify management options. This spreadsheet calculated an index score from field data, and then used this score to rank the site relative to a set of reference sites. This added a regional context to the operation of the index, and is a potentially useful tool for identifying sites of high conservation value, or for identifying sites where management actions have maintained vegetation quality. The spreadsheet also incorporated the option of calculating an index score using a subset of attributes, and provided a measure of the uncertainty associated with this score.¶ I compared the proposed index with five prominent indices used to quantify vegetation condition or habitat value in temperate Australian ecosystems. These were: Newsome and Catling’s (1979) Habitat Complexity Score, Watson et al.’s (2001) Habitat Complexity Score, the Site Condition Score component of the Habitat Hectares Index of Parkes et al. (2003), the Vegetation Condition Score component of the Biodiversity Benefits Index of Oliver and Parkes (2003), and the Vegetation Condition Score component of the BioMetric Assessment Tool of Gibbons et al. (2004). I found that my index differentiated between study sites better than each of these indices. However, resource and time constraints precluded the use of a new and independent data set for this testing, so that the superior performance of my index must be interpreted cautiously.¶ As a group, the five indices I tested contained attributes describing compositional diversity, coarse woody debris, regeneration, large trees and hollow trees – these were attributes that I also identified as core ones. However, unlike these indices, I quantified weeds indirectly through their effect on indigenous plant diversity, I included the contribution of non-indigenous species to vegetation cover and did not apply a discount to this contribution, I limited the direct assessment of regeneration to long-lived overstorey species, I used stand basal area as a surrogate for canopy cover, I quantified litter in terms of biomass (dry weight) rather than cover, and I included the additional attributes of quadratic mean diameter and the number of dead trees.¶ I also concluded that Parkes et al. (2003), Oliver and Parkes (2003), and Gibbons et al. (2004), misapplied the concept of benchmarking, by characterising attributes in terms of a benchmark range or average level. This ignored processes that underpin variation at the stand level, such as the increased development of some attributes at particular successional stages, and the fact that attributes can respond differently to disturbance agents. It also produced indices that were not particularly sensitive to the differences in attribute levels occurring between stands. I suggested that a more appropriate application of benchmarking would be at the overarching level of stand structural complexity, using a metric such as the index developed in this thesis. These benchmarks could reflect observed levels of structural complexity in unmodified natural stands at different successional stages, or thresholds for structural complexity at which a wide range of biota are present, and would define useful goals for guiding on-ground management.

Temperate forests are an important carbon sink, yet there is uncertainty regarding land-use history effects on biomass accumulation and carbon storage potential in secondary forests. Understanding long-term biomass dynamics is important for managing forests as carbon sinks and for co-benefits such as watershed protection and biodiversity. However there are many unanswered questions regarding these dynamics in northeastern U.S. forests: How have secondary forests of the U.S. Northeast recovered post nineteenth century agricultural abandonment? How has the region's extensive land-use history influenced long-term structural development and aboveground carbon storage? To answer these questions, we employed a longitudinal study based on twelve years of empirical data (2001-2013) from the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller (MBR) National Historical Park in Woodstock, VT. MBR Park was the first parcel of land to actively be reforested in the eastern U.S., and as such, its diverse forest mosaic reflects a history of alternate reforestation approaches and varied successional trajectories indicative of secondary forest recovery occurring across the broader northeastern forest landscape. We also used 150 years of documentary data from park management records. This research evaluates the effects of reforestation approaches (planting vs. natural regeneration), management regimes (long-term low-to-intermediate harvest intensities at varied harvest frequencies), and stand development pathways on biomass outcomes. We generated biometrics representative of stand structural complexity, including the H' structural diversity index, and aboveground biomass (live trees, snags, and downed coarse woody debris pools) estimates. Multivariate analyses evaluated the predictive strength of reforestation approach, management history, and site characteristics relative to aboveground carbon pools and stand structural complexity. Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis ranked reforestation approach (plantation or natural regeneration) as the strongest predictor of long-term mean total aboveground carbon storage, while harvest frequency, and stand age were selected as secondary variables. CART ranked forest percent conifer (a metric closely associated with reforestation approach) as the strongest predictor of H' index, while harvest intensity, and harvest frequency were selected as secondary variables. Increases in harvest intensity can significantly reduce aboveground carbon storage. Our results suggest that a variety of long-term recovery pathways converge on high levels of aboveground carbon storage, including both conifer plantations and naturally regenerated hardwood stands, but choice of silvicultural management approach can dramatically alter those trajectories. Importantly, total aboveground biomass (i.e., carbon) co-varied with H' (r2 = 0.25), and thus, our dataset showed a positive relationship between forest carbon storage and structural complexity, supporting the concept of multifunctional forestry emphasizing late-successional habitats.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
森林環境暨資源學研究所
96
Nowadays, an important objective in managing plantation forests is the maintenance of biodiversity. As it is believed that a structurally more complex stand will harbor more diverse habitats, which in turn will promote species diversity, creating structural complexity is central to the management of plantation forests, and thinning is considered as one of the best methods to achieve that objective. Using a 10-ha sugi (Cryptomeria japonica) plantation located in central Taiwan as an example, this study intended to answer which thinning regime would create the highest structural complexity of that stand, as measured by Structural Complexity Index (SCI). Via Monte Carlo simulations, this study first investigated how a random thinning approach under three stem removal rates (20, 40, and 60%) would affect SCI. This study then proceeded to investigate how the binations of three thinning approaches(thinning-from-top, -middle, and -below) and the three stem removal rates would affect SCI. Thirdly, to mimic the effects of after-thinning understory planting on SCI, this study included Chinese-fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) sproutings in calculating the SCI values. Finally, this study analyzed how the inclusion of topographic variations would affect SCI values. The results showed that a random thinning approach would not enhance structural complexity, and a thinning-from-middle approach would create a structurally more complex stand, due to its effects in increasing the variance of stem diameter. After-thinning understory planting would also increase structural complexity. This study showed that not all thinning regimes would promote structural complexity, some may actually reduce it, and only via detailed inventory and analysis will help us to achieve that objective.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

AbstractDesigning the vibroacoustic properties of thin-walled structures is of particularly high practical relevance in the design of vehicle structures. The vibroacoustic properties of thin-walled structures, e.g., vehicle bodies, are usually designed using finite element models. Additional development effort, e.g., experimental tests, arises if the quality of the model predictions are limited due to inherent model uncertainty. Model uncertainty of finite element models usually occurs in the modeling process due to simplifications of the geometry or boundary conditions. The latter highly affect the vibroacoustic properties of a thin-walled structure. The stiffness of the boundary condition is often assumed to be infinite or zero in the finite element model, which can lead to a discrepancy between the measured and the calculated vibroacoustic behavior. This paper compares two different boundary condition assumptions for the finite element (FE) model of a simply supported rectangular plate in their capability to predict the vibroacoustic behavior. The two different boundary conditions are of increasing complexity in assuming the stiffness. In a first step, a probabilistic model parameter calibration via Bayesian inference for the boundary conditions related parameters for the two FE models is performed. For this purpose, a test stand for simply supported rectangular plates is set up and the experimental data is obtained by measuring the vibrations of the test specimen by means of scanning laser Doppler vibrometry. In a second step, the model uncertainty of the two finite element models is identified. For this purpose, the prediction error of the vibroacoustic behavior is calculated. The prediction error describes the discrepancy between the experimental and the numerical data. Based on the distribution of the prediction error, which is determined from the results of the probabilistic model calibration, the model uncertainty is assessed and the model, which most adequately predicts the vibroacoustic behavior, is identified.

AbstractMexico City is known as one of the largest cities in the world and thought by many to be one of the most unequal. Not surprisingly, it has received more attention than other Mexican urban areas. However, the city’s internal social organization is often misunderstood. Mexico City stands out as a city where segregation is relatively low, and levels of inequality are actually lower than perceptions. Moreover, between 1990 and 2010, both segregation and inequality have declined. This chapter examines these changes. We report on changes in occupational structure and patterns of segregation by educational level. Educational level is different from income or occupation, but these three dimensions of socioeconomic conditions are closely linked. While the overall level of segregation between educational groups in the city has slightly decreased, residential patterns of educational groups have changed significantly. The number of neighborhoods with high concentrations of highly educated people increased significantly and expanded geographically. At the same time, the prevalence of neighborhoods with residents with low and middle educational attainment has diminished and neighborhoods that house people of all educational categories or high and middle categories are more numerous. This chapter illustrates the complexity of segregation patterns in such a large metropolitan area, as well as the challenges of determining why patterns have changed.

This chapter presents an account of Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the body schema as an operative intentionality that is not only opposed to, but also complexly intermingled with, the representation-like grasp of the world and one’s own body, or the body image. The chapter reconstructs Merleau-Ponty’s position primarily based on his preparatory notes for his 1953 lecture ‘The Sensible World and the World of Expression’. Here, Merleau-Ponty elaborates his earlier efforts to show that the body schema is a perceptual ground against which the perceived world stands out as a complex of perceptual figures. The chapter clarifies how Merleau-Ponty’s renewed interpretation of the figure-ground structure makes it possible for him to describe the relationship between body schema and perceptual (body) image as a strictly systematic phenomenon. Subsequently, the chapter shows how Merleau-Ponty understands apraxia, sleep, and perceptual orientation as examples of dedifferentiation and subtler differentiation of the body-schematic system. The last section clarifies how such body-schematic differentiating processes give rise to relatively independent superstructures of vision and symbolic cognition which constitute our body image. It, moreover, explains how, according to Merleau-Ponty, the cognitive superstructures always need to be supported by praxic operative intentionality to maintain their full sense, even though, in some cases, they have the power to compensate for praxic deficiencies.

Hurricanes have a profound effect on many coastal ecosystems. Direct impacts often include wind damage to trees, scouring and flooding of river channels, and salt-water inundation along shorelines (Simpson and Riehl 1981; Diaz and Pulwarty 1997). In some areas, secondary impacts may include landslides triggered by heavy rains (Scatena and Larson 1991) or catastrophic dry-season fires resulting from heavy fuel loading (Whigham in press). This chapter will focus on the longterm impacts of hurricane wind damage at two LTER sites, the Harvard Forest (HFR) in central New England and the Luquillo Experimental Forest (LUQ) in northeastern Puerto Rico. These two sites, both located in the North Atlantic hurricane basin and occasionally subject to the same storms, provide interesting examples of tropical and temperate hurricane disturbance regimes. Wind damage from a single hurricane is often highly variable (Foster 1988). Damage to individual trees can range from loss of leaves and fine branches, which can significantly alter surface nutrient inputs (Lodge et al. 1991), to bole snapping or uprooting, which can significantly alter coarse woody debris and soil microtopography (Carlton and Bazzaz 1998a and b). At the stand level, damage can range from defoliation to individual tree gaps to extensive blowdowns, creating different pathways for regeneration (Lugo 2000). At landscape and regional levels, complex patterns of damage are created by the interaction of meteorological, topographic, and biological factors (Boose et al. 1994). Adding to this spatial complexity is the fact that successive hurricanes are not necessarily independent in terms of their effects. A single storm lasting several hours may have effects that persist for decades (Foster et al. 1998). And forest susceptibility to wind damage is strongly influenced by composition and structure, which in turn are strongly influenced by previous disturbance history (Foster and Boose 1992). Thus, the impacts of a single hurricane may depend in part on the impacts of earlier storms as well as on other previous disturbances and land use. Hurricanes, like other disturbances, both create and respond to spatial heterogeneity (Turner et al. 2003). To understand the long-term ecological role of hurricanes at a given site, we must consider these three sets of questions: (1) What is the hurricane disturbance regime?

Planetary gear trains are presently widely used in various machines owing to their many advantages. They, however, suffer from problems of noise and vibration due to their structural complexity. Moreover, their dynamic characteristics are yet to be fully understood. Although several studies have been conducted on two-axis driving and displacement of planet gear, none has considered three-axis driving. In the present study, the general driving conditions of a planetary gear train, including during three-axis driving, were investigated based on the theory of instant center. Ideal driving condition is proposed based on the experimental result on three-axis driving which was tested on an original fully wireless test stand.

As the recent structures seek lighter weight, damping becomes a more critical issue. Decreasing weight increases flexibility causing vibrations to become more prevalent. Damping treatments to reduce unwanted vibrations are usually classified into three categories: passive, semi active and active depending on the degree to which external energy and complexity is needed to achieve the required reduction in vibration. Here we examine the use of a multifunctional structure’s philosophy to introduce and research the concept of “electronic damping” offering an alternative to traditional damping solutions and a capability of providing uniform energy dissipation across a wide range of ambient frequencies and temperatures. The proposed research addresses increasing the range of effectiveness of damping by addressing the temperature and frequency dependence of material damping by using a multifunctional composite system containing an active element. Our approach is to model the mechanics using Lagrange’s formulation for multi-physics systems and to experimentally validate our models using careful experiments. We propose to examine the strength models and properties of the system and to examine the performance by constructing and testing some prototype systems. The focus is on both the electrical integration and the structural integration of the different material systems required to design a completely stand alone multifunctional composite with superior damping properties useful for suppressing vibrations.

Abstract Corrosion of steel structures in soils has been a topic of industrial research for many decades. The research has shown that the corrosivity of a soil is highly variable and a function of numerous interconnected parameters including soil resistivity, moisture content and pH. Despite the complexity of the soil environment, methods to evaluate soil corrosivity, guidelines for corrosion control during the design phase and lifetime of a structure have been developed. By applying this understanding, an opportunity exists to optimize the corrosion protection and capital expenses for new projects associated with corrosion protection of buried structural steel components. For instance, for new projects, e.g., identifying regions of low corrosivity where coatings are not required could lead to cost savings without compromising the integrity of the structure. However, within the industry, there is no universally accepted method to guide such decisions. This paper is intended to address this issue by presenting a literature review and a case study on the topic. The literature review identifies the factors that influence the corrosion of buried steel structures, the range of corrosion rates observed on buried steel structures and quantitative and qualitative methods for assessing soil corrosivity. In the desktop case study, industry standards identified during the literature review (AASHTO R27-01, DIN50929-3:2018, ANSI/AWWA C105/A21.5 and Eurocode 3-5) are applied to applied to evaluate the soil corrosivity at three meter station sites in Alberta. The results are compared and recommendations for implementation are discussed. DIN 50929-3 stands out among the standards as it provides conservative estimates based on the most comprehensive data set and unlike the other standards, it assesses soil corrosivity both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Abstract Cenit Transporte y Logística de Hidrocarburos (CENIT), operator of about 7000 km of hydrocarbon transport systems, which constitutes it the largest operator in Colombia, has developed a strategic alliance to structure an adaptive geotechnical susceptibility zoning using supervised learning algorithms. Through this exercise, has been implemented operational decision inferences with simple linguistic values. The difficulties proposed by the method considers the hydroclimatology of Colombia, which is conditioned by several phenomena of Climate Variability that affect the atmosphere at different scales such as the Oscillation of the Intertropical Convergence Zone - ITCZ (seasonal scale) and the occurrence of macroclimatic phenomena such as El Niño-La Niña Southern Oscillation (ENSO) (interannual scale). Likewise, it considers the geotechnical complexity derived from the different geological formation environments, the extension and geographical dispersion of the infrastructure, and its interaction with the climatic regimes, to differentiate areas of interest based on the geohazards of hydrometeorological origin, when grouped into five clusters. The results of this exercise stand out the importance of keep a robust record of the events that affect the infrastructure of hydrocarbon transportation systems and using data-guided intelligence techniques to improve the tools that support decision-making in asset management.

The distribution of the interfaces in gas-liquid two-phase flows in pipes can assume several shapes. Amongst those shapes, the slug flow pattern stands out as the most common one and occurs quite often in oil and gas production due to the flow rates and geometries used. This pattern is characterized by the succession of the so-called unit cells, that is, a flow structure composed of an aerated liquid slug and an elongated bubble surrounded by a liquid film. Due to its complexity, the study and understanding of this pattern’s behaviour becomes very important. The main methodologies used to describe slug flows are the steady-state one-dimensional models, based on the slug unit concept, and the transient approach, which takes the flow intermittence into account. The slug tracking model is one such transient approach, which considers slugs and elongated bubbles as separated bodies and analyzes the evolution along the flow and the interaction between those bodies. Whenever this model is numerically implemented, its initial conditions are important parameters that affect the results. The goal of this article is to study the influence of the initial conditions on slug flow simulation using the slug tracking model. A computer program written in Fortran95 using a slug tracking model to provide the characteristic parameters of slug flows such as the bubble and slug lengths and void fraction in the bubble region was built and used. The results were compared to experimental data and showed the important role the initial conditions play on the computational simulation of slug flow.

Abstract Modern high pressure turbine (HPT) blade design stands out due to its high complexity comprising three-dimensional blade features, multi-passage cooling system (MPCS) and film cooling to allow for progressive thermodynamic process parameters. During the last decade, probabilistic design approaches have become increasingly important in turbomachinery to incorporate uncertainties such as geometric variations caused by manufacturing scatter and deterioration. Within this scope, the first part of this two-part paper introduces parametric models for cooled turbine blades that enable probabilistic FE analysis taking geometric variability into account to aim at sensitivity and robustness evaluation. The statistical database is represented by a population of more than 400 blades whose external geometry is captured by optical measurement techniques and 34 blades that are digitized by computed tomography (CT) to record the internal geometry and the associated variability, respectively. Based on this data, parametric models for airfoil, profiled endwall (PEW), wedge surface (WSF) and MPCS are presented. The parametric airfoil model which is based on traditional profile theory is briefly described. In this regard, a methodology is presented that enables to adapt this airfoil model to a given population of blades by means of Monte-Carlo based optimization. The endwall variability of hub and shroud are parametrized by radial offsets that are applied to the respective median endwall geometry. WSFs are analytically represented by planes. Variations of the MPCS are quantified based on the radial distribution of cooling passage centroids. Thus, an individual MPCS can be replicated by applying adapted displacement functions to the core passage centroids. For each feature that is considered within the present study, the accuracy of the parametric model is discussed with respect to the variability that is present in the investigated blade population and the measurement uncertainty. Within the scope of the second part of this paper (cf. Högner et al. [1]), the parametric models are used for a comprehensive statistical analysis to reveal the parameter correlation structure and probability density functions (PDFs). This is required for the subsequent probabilistic finite element analysis involving real geometry effects.

The authors have developed a comprehensive, high frequency (1–100 kHz) vibration monitoring system for incipient fault detection of critical rotating components within engines, drive trains, and generators. The high frequency system collects and analyzes vibration data to estimate the current condition of rotary components; detects and isolates anomalous behavior to a particular bearing, gear, shaft or coupling; and assesses the severity of the fault in the isolated faulty component. The system uses either single/multiple accelerometers, mounted on externally accessible locations, or non-contact vibration monitoring sensors to collect data. While there are published instances of vibration monitoring algorithms for bearing or gear fault detection, there are no comprehensive techniques that provide incipient fault detection and isolation in complex machinery with multiple rotary and drive train components. The author’s techniques provide an algorithm-driven system that fulfills this need. The concept at the core of high frequency vibration monitoring for incipient fault detection is the ability of high frequency regions of the signal to transmit information related to component failures during the fault inception stage. Unlike high frequency regions, the lower frequency regions of vibration data have a high machinery noise floor that often masks the incipient fault signature. The low frequency signal reacts to the fault only when fault levels are high enough for the signal to rise over the machinery noise floor. The developed vibration monitoring system therefore utilizes high frequency vibration data to provide a quantitative assessment of the current health of each component. The system sequentially ascertains sensor validity, extracts multiple statistical, time, and frequency domain features from broadband data, fuses these features, and acts upon this information to isolate faults in a particular gear, bearing, or shaft. The techniques are based on concepts like mechanical transmissibility of structures and sensors, statistical signal processing, demodulation, time synchronous averaging, artificial intelligence, failure modes, and faulty vs. healthy vibration behavior for rotating components. The system exploits common aspects of vibration monitoring algorithms, as applicable to all of the monitored components, to reduce algorithm complexity and computational cost. To isolate anomalous behavior to a particular gear, bearing, shaft, or coupling, the system uses design information and knowledge of the degradation process in these components. This system can function with Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) data acquisition and processing systems or can be adapted to aircraft on-board hardware. The authors have successfully tested this system on a wide variety of test stands and aircraft engine test cells through seeded fault and fault progression tests, as described herein. Verification and Validation (V&V) of the algorithms is also addressed.