The genetic diversity between 23 Moroccan date palm cultivars collected from the National Palm Collection at the INRA  experimental field in Zagora was assessed using SSR markers that are specifically designed for date palm. Among the 16 tested SSR, 13 were successfully amplified, and were selected to carry out this study. 208 bands were amplified, ranging from 10 to 25 bands per cultivar with an average of 16 alleles per cultivar. The value of heterozygosity of the studied markers ranged from 0.11 to 0.30. The pairwise genetic distances between those cultivars ranged from 0.06 to 0.46. The hierarchical cluster analysis distributed the 23 genotypes into four different groups of one to ten cultivars. Phoenix dactylifera), monocotyledonous plants of the Arecaceae family, is cultivated for different reason: its high productivity, its fruits high nutritional value, its preservation of ecosystems threatened by desertification and its ability to create a microclimate suitable for agriculture in arid conditions. Besides, the total number of date palm trees worldwide is over 150 million trees, spread across 3000 varieties  pest that is threatening date palm plantation in Pakistan  reported in date palm plantation in Mexico ; morphological characteristics of the tree and fruit of each cultivar are described in Extraction of genomic DNA was done using the CTAB method  with somSixteen primer pairs of date palm specific SSR  were tesThe band’s molecular weight was measured using Gel Analyzer software and scored for each cultivar as a 0 or 1 (absent or present) in excel sheet. Marker diversity indices such as Effective alleles, Heterozygosity, and Shannon’s index were computed for all the SSR markers to examine their usefulness in dissecting genetic variation in studied genotypes. STRUCTURE 2.3.4 program was used to determine existing population structure and classify our 23 date palm genotypes into an optimum number of populations on the basis of SSR markers data, and estimate population allele frequencies . The resThe SSR data of genotypes along with respective population names  as found by STRUCTURE software was then analyzed in GeneAlex software for analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA). In addition to STRUCTURE-based classification, pairwise genetic distances were computed for all the 23 genotypes based on their SSR markers presence-absence data. R language package “Vegan” was used to calculate Jaccard’s similarity indices. The minimum number between two genotypes means these were similar while the maximum number means that they were diverse.Furthermore, the Jaccard’s similarity index was used to generate a dendrogram using the “Dendextend” package in R language . The pacAmong the 16 studied primers, 13 revealed polymorphic bands and were used to assess genetic relationships within the 23 tested cultivars . Marker Iklane, Bousthammi-noire, Bousthammi-blanche, Boufeggous-oumoussa, Azegzao, Najda, Abouijjou, Bousekri, Oum-nhal, and Majhoul. The second groupe (Pop 2) consisted of four cultivars: Mekt, Race-lahmar, Boucerdoune, and Bouittoub. The third groupe (Pop3) was composed of six cultivars Sair, Tademant, Outoukdim, Aguelid, Belhazit, and Howa. The fourth and last groupe (Pop4) was made up of three cultivars Bouzeggar, Mah-elbaid, and Boufegous. This result was also visualized using biplot analysis in software showing distribution of 23 genotypes into 4 populations represented by colored bars  as found by STRUCTURE software was then analysed in GeneAlex software for analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA). The p < 0.01 showed that there is significant difference between all the populations. The genetic distance between these populations was shown by distance matrix: Pop 2 and Pop 4 were more diverse from each other with a maximum distance of 0.453. The minimum distance of 0.017 was recorded between Population 3 and population 4.Mah-Elbaid is genetically close to cultivars Boufeggous and Bouzeggar with the highest genetic similarity of 0.46 and 0.45 respectively. The most distant cultivars are Howa/ Oumnhal with a similarity index of 0.06 followed by Majhoul/ Oumnhal and Bouzeggar/ Bousthammi noir with an index of 0.07. The pairwise genetic distances were computed for all the 23 genotypes based on their SSR markers presence absence data using R language package to calculate Jaccard’s similarity indexes . IndexesOum-nhal and Azegzao; the second group constituted only by cultivar Bousthammi-noire; the third group consisted of 11 cultivars: Mekt, Sair, Howa, Race-lahmar, Boucerdoune, Aguelid, Tademant, Belhazit, Boufegous, Mah-elbaid, Bouzeggar, and Outoukdim; the last group was constructed by nine cultivars: Iklane, Bousthammi-blanche, Boufeggous-oumoussa, Najda, Abouijjou, Bousekri, Bouittoub, and Majhoul.The dendrogram  was geneBreeding is an important step in the conservation and sustainable development of species. For fruit trees, the breeding is very challenging because of the trees long life cycles and the dioecious characters, as in date palm case; a perennial, dioic, monocotyledon tree; which can live for hundreds of years. In these cases, understanding the genetic relationships between varieties is an important tool in facilitating genetic selection work. This study contributes to this understanding and will be added to the works already carried out to enrich them. The SSR primers used in this study to assess genetic diversity of Moroccan date palm cultivars showed good amplification and polymorphism. A total of 208 bands were detected by thirteen pairs of SSR primers for the 23 cultivars studied. The number of alleles per locus varied from 10 for the locus mPdCIR017 to 25 for the locus mPdCIR032. Previous works showed that these primers have an important variation in alleles per locus numbers. According to Statistical analysis showed that the genetic similarities between cultivars are quite variable (ranging from 0.06 to 0.46). These genetic similarities are lower than those found by The relationships between the studied Moroccan date palm cultivars are shown in the dendrogram . The denThese results will be useful for our work on the study of date palm genetic diversity in the Moroccan oasis. We will be able to use them as a standard to compare randomly sampled date palm trees throughout the Tafilalet Valley.


Aedes japonicus japonicus  and Aedes koreicus  have rapidly spread in Europe over the last decades. Both species are very closely related and occur in sympatry. Females and males are difficult to distinguish. However, the accurate species discrimination is important as both species may differ in their vectorial capacity and spreading behaviour. In this study, we assessed the potential of geometric wing morphometrics as alternative to distinguish the two species.Ae. j. japonicus specimens  and 124 Ae. koreicus specimens  were collected in southwest Germany. The left wing of each specimen was removed, mounted and photographed. The coordinates of 18 landmarks on the vein crosses were digitalised by a single observer. The resulting two-dimensional dataset was used to analyse the differences in the wing size (i.e. centroid size) and wing shape between Ae. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus using geometric morphometrics. To analyse the reproducibility of the analysis, the landmark collection was repeated for 20 specimens per sex and species by two additional observers.A total of 147 Ae. koreicus was significantly greater than in Ae. j. japonicus but did not differ significantly for males. However, the strong overlap in wing size also for the females would not allow to discriminate the two species. In contrast, the wing shape clustering was species specific and a leave-one-out validation resulted in a reclassification accuracy of 96.5% for the females and 91.3% for the males. The data collected by different observers resulted in a similar accuracy, indicating a low observer bias for the landmark collection.The wing size in female Ae. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus.Geometric wing morphometrics provide a reliable and robust tool to distinguish female and male specimens of The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13071-023-06038-y. Aedes albopictus Skuse, 1984), which is an aggressive biter and potential vector of several pathogens. Establishment of the species in the Mediterranean region allowed the local circulation of chikungunya virus (CHIKV) and small outbreaks of dengue virus (DENV) and Zika virus (ZIKV) over the last 15 years [The global spread of mosquito species poses a serious risk for public health, including nuisance and transmission of pathogens –3. The m15 years .Aedes species in Europe: the Japanese bush mosquito (Aedes japonicus japonicus) and Korean bush mosquito (Aedes koreicus). The first established population of Ae. j. japonicus was detected in Belgium in 2002 [Aedes koreicus was first detected outside its native range in Belgium in 2008, where it established and overwintered, but did not seem to spread further [Besides the Asian tiger mosquito, there are two further established exotic  in 2002 . In 2008 in 2002 , where i in 2002 . Within  in 2002 . The spe in 2002 , Sloveni in 2002 , Hungary in 2002 , France  in 2002 , Croatia in 2002 , Bosnia- in 2002 , Serbia  in 2002 , Italy [ in 2002 , Liechte in 2002  and Spai in 2002 . Aedes k further , 28. In  further , 30 and  further . Establi further , 33, Hun further  and the  further .Ae. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus show a high prevalence of mammalian blood meals, including humans, while birds only play a minor role [Ae. j. japonicus, experimental studies confirmed vector competence for several arboviruses, for example, Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), West Nile virus, Saint Louis encephalitis virus, La Crosse virus and CHIKV [Ae. koreicus is even less studied, but the species was experimentally proven to be a competent vector for Dirofilaria immitis, CHIKV and ZIKV [Analysis of the host-feeding patterns demonstrated that nor role , 37. Thend CHIKV –43. The and ZIKV –46. Moreand ZIKV .Ae. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus have the highest morphological similarity. The coloration of the hind femur, the pale basal scales on hind tarsomere IV and the subspiracular patch are considered distinctive characters to morphologically differentiate Ae. koreicus and Ae. j. japonicus [Culex pipiens pipiens biotype pipiens Linnaeus, 1758 (Cx. p. pipiens), and Cx. torrentium Martini, 1925 [Ae. j. japonicus and Ae. albopictus. However, their study did not include Ae. koreicus and was only focused on males. Thus, the aim of the present study was to evaluate whether geometric wing morphometrics represents a reliable tool to differentiate Ae. koreicus and Ae. j. japonicus female and male specimens.A reliable differentiation of exotic mosquito species is important to monitor the spread, initiate early control measurements or understanding the local risk of pathogen transmission. Eradication of exotic mosquito species was only demonstrated to be effective if the populations were detected in an early stage of establishment , 49. Froaponicus , 50, 51.aponicus , 50, 51.aponicus . Howeveraponicus . Geometraponicus  and is eni, 1925 . Martineni, 1925  successfAe. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus from different sites in the southwestern region of Germany (see Table Ovitraps were used to collect eggs of Ae. j. japonicus) and nad4 gene region (Ae. koreicus) was conducted with the protocol published by Fang et al. [https://www.geneious.com) and compared to GenBank sequences (http://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi). Representative sequences for both species have been submitted to GenBank .Identification of all specimens was confirmed by DNA barcoding. DNA isolation was performed from one leg per specimen adapting the protocol described by Blattner et al. . Individg et al.  and Fonsg et al. . All ampAe. j. japonicus specimens  and 124 Ae. koreicus specimens  were included in the study. The left wing of each mosquito was removed and mounted in Euparal  on microscopic slides and dried. Subsequently, the mounted wings were photographed  under 20 × magnification with a stereomicroscope . The collection of landmark coordinates for 18 wing vein crosses was performed with the multi-point tool in Fiji [In total, 147  in Fiji  as biosc in Fiji . The sel in Fiji , 61–63. Ae. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus through an analysis of variance (ANOVA). As mosquitoes are well known for sex-specific differences in their wing size [Ae. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus. Subsequently, the obtained species classification from the LDA was cross-validated (leave-one-out method) to test the classification accuracy. The LDA and cross-validation were also done separately for both sexes since mosquitoes have sex-specific wing shape differences and should not be mixed in the same analyses when researchers are interested in species-specific differences [Ae. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus. In addition, the superimposed shape coordinates of each landmark were plotted individually to visually inspect their importance for species identification.The two-dimensional landmark coordinates were used to calculate the centroid size and the superimposed shape coordinates of each specimen with the “gpagen” function in the R package “geomorph”, version 4.0.1 . The cening size , ANOVA wing size . The varing size  to classferences . The meaA potential observer effect on the centroid size was assessed with an ANOVA by means of the “prcoD.lm” function in gemorph using 500 permutations . Two ANOAe. koreicus specimens was significantly greater than for female Ae. j. japonicus specimens , but no significant difference was observed between the males of both species   and females . The first two principal components of the PCAs explained 50.3% of the wing shape variation in the females  for the males was 91.3%. Thereby, seven of 70 Ae. j. japonicus specimens and four of 57 Ae. koreicus specimens were falsely classified. The highest mean shape variation between both species and both sexes was observed for landmark 18  and males . The mean Procrustes variance for the repeated measurements per specimen was 0.000439 for the females and 0.00034 for the males and thereby considerably smaller than the mean Procrustes variance observed within the two species, Ae. j. japonicus  and Ae. koreicus . This indicates a relatively low observer effect and was also confirmed by the leave-one-out classification with the wing data set of the repeated measurements, which yielded a similar accuracy as the dataset produced by a single observer for the females (95.8%) and an even a higher accuracy for the males (97.5%).The centroid size did not significantly differ among the three observers for both, females , which can otherwise morphologically only be distinguished by very subtle differences [Ae. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus was observed for landmark 18, i.e. where the media bifurcates into M1+2 and M3+4. However, none of the landmarks alone showed enough divergence to clearly distinguish Ae. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus. Hence, the full set of landmarks and geometric morphometric analysis is required to differentiate the two species.However, it has again been shown that the geometric morphometric analysis of the wing shape is a powerful tool for the identification of mosquitoes. Its use is of particular interest when molecular identification cannot be performed or when damaged mosquitoes hinder an accurate morphological identification. Our study provides the first morphometric information about ferences . In bothAe. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus, these scales are less dense in males compared to females, i.e. the vein crosses are more easily visible. This likely increases the reproducibility of landmark collection for males. As demonstrated by Lorenz and Suesdek [Ae. j. japonicus and Ae. koreicus. Nevertheless, when interested in more subtle differences in the wing shape, e.g. intraspecific patterns, the removal of the wing scales and a single observer should still be considered to increase the accuracy of the landmark coordinates.We analysed the repeatability of landmark collection by three different observers with a subset of the mosquito wings. The results demonstrated that the observer bias plays no or only a minor role when studying in the centroid size of mosquito wings. However, an observer effect should be considered in the shape analysis. Thereby, the observer bias was lower for males than for females. Unlike most other Dipteran families, mosquitoes have scales on their wing veins, which can obstruct a clear view on the vein crosses. For  Suesdek , the remAe. j. japonicus and Ae. albopictus [Cx. p. pipiens and Cx. torrentium [Anopheles species [As previously demonstrated for the separation between bopictus , Cx. p. rrentium  or Anoph species , our stu species .Additional file 1. Figure S1: Variation of the superimposed shape coordinates for each landmark of the female specimens. Figure S2: Variation of the superimposed shape coordinates for each landmark of the male specimens.


Transforming resource-based cities into sustainable economic development is a great challenge for policy-makers in many countries. However, the economic-centered evaluation system tends to breed the undesirable view of "GDP only" or “brown growth” in the previous case studies which is inconsistent with the long-run and sustainable development of resource-based cities. To fill in this research gap, this paper takes Jilin province in northeast China as a case study to explore urban development problems faced by major resource-based cities during resource depletion. This research constructs a stratified indicator system and conducts an in-depth analysis of the features and spatial effects of urban decline. For this analysis, this paper jointly uses the methods of entropy-weighted TOPSIS, analytic hierarchical process (AHP), and spatial effect model based on a database from 2000 to 2019. The findings of this study show that the current transformation of resource-based cities in Jilin province is generally ineffective and difficult to maintain long-run and sustainable development due to its historical reasons and industrial development background. According to the results, the resource-based cities in Jilin province show an unstable development because of factors such as barriers to the physical renewal of resources, rigid industrial structure, insufficient backup resources, and institutional and policy constraints. Also, the transformation of these cities into sustainable economic development is still facing demographic, social, and ecological difficulties. A resource-based city is a type of city where the leading industry is extracting and processing natural resources such as minerals and forests . This kiThe industrial transformation of resource-based cities is an unsolved global problem. Previous studies focused on psychology, sociology, economics, and urban development cycles of resource-based cities. For example, Marsh studied the sense of community belonging among residents of coal towns in Pennsylvania, USA, and found that with the mass exodus of people from declining mining areas, about one-third of the people still chose to remain and had a strong sense of community belonging . Also, BIn China, researchers have shown that the resource-based cities in the Northeast significantly contributed to economic development. From the founding of New China to the present, resource-based cities have produced 52.9 billion tons of raw coal, 5.5 billion tons of crude oil, 5.8 billion tons of iron ore, and 2 billion cubic meters of timber. During the "First Five-Year Plan" period, 53 out of 156 national key construction projects were laid out in resource-based cities, accounting for nearly half of the total investment, which made historic contributions to the establishment of China’s independent and complete industrial system and economic development.However, resource-based economies have long suffered from the single industry and unbalanced structure –15. AfteMany researchers have focused on the definition and classification of resource-based cities , 17, sucIn terms of the research scope, these studies mostly consider the national level or a single typical resource-depleted city as the research object, disregarding the northeastern region with broad coverage, complete types, and typical problems, especially in the resource-based cities in Jilin province. Jilin is one of the provinces located in Northeast China, also known as the Northeast Region. The resource-based cities in the Northeast have played a critical role in China’s economic growth since the founding of New China. These cities are rich in natural resources such as coal, oil, iron ore, and timber, which have been instrumental in the establishment of China’s independent and complete industrial system.The selection of Jilin Province as the research subject is primarily due to its unique characteristics of development. In comparison with mining towns in the USA and the Quebec region in Canada, China’s resource-based cities have already experienced economic decline before China became a developed country. This provides an excellent sample for studying the transformation issues of resource-based cities in emerging economies.To fill this research gap, this paper evaluates the development of resource-based cities in Jilin province from 2000 to 2019 by constructing a modern development assessment system. In addition, this paper analyzes the effects, problems, and causes of development in these cities. In this way, this study provides a theoretical basis and practical support for the realization of comprehensive transformation and development of similar resource-based cities not only in Jilin province but also in China and the world.The primary indicators used in the study were population, industry, society, investment, and ecology. These factors were used as primary indicators in the study to evaluate the development of resource-based cities in Jilin province. The study found that these factors are interrelated and contribute to the unstable development of resource-based cities. For example, barriers to the physical renewal of resources, rigid industrial structure, insufficient backup resources, and institutional and policy constraints were identified as factors that hinder the transformation of resource-based cities into sustainable economic development. Ecological difficulties were also identified as a challenge that resource-based cities face in this transformation. For example, Jilin province is home to several major rivers, including the Songhua River, which is an important source of water for both industrial and residential use. Water pollution can lead to the degradation of these resources, impacting both the local environment and wildlife. This can make the area less attractive for tourism and recreation, further contributing to economic decline.The results of the paper show that the current transformation of resource-based cities in Jilin province is generally ineffective and difficult to maintain long-run and sustainable development due to historical reasons and industrial development background. The resource-based cities in Jilin province show an unstable development because of factors such as barriers to the physical renewal of resources, rigid industrial structure, insufficient backup resources, and institutional and policy constraints. The transformation of these cities into sustainable economic development is still facing demographic, social, and ecological difficulties.Based on the urban development cycle, resource-based cities have six development stages: construction, employment, transition, maturity, decline, and complete abandonment . This clBased on global economic integration, researchers have laid a solid research foundation for developing resource-based cities from the perspectives of human resources, natural resources, capital flows, space, and industrial upgrading. For example, Luis Suazervilla  and geolResearch on the development and transformation of resource-based cities has concentrated on case studies and evaluating the effects of transformation development. For example, Yang Shuying et al. studied the comprehensive remediation of the mine subsidence area in Heze, Shandong Province of China . Also, LFurthermore, previous studies explored the evaluation of transition effects on various aspects of economic and social transformation, environmental efficiency, and resource and energy use efficiency. Papyrakis et al. argued that the adverse and indirect effects of natural resources on economic growth outweigh the positive and direct effects . Tonts eThere have been also various studies on the transformation of resource-based cities. Yu, X. (2020) Proposed an evaluation system for sustainable urban spatial development in regions with underdeveloped economies but rich in ecological resources. The system is based on a systematic coupling analysis of collaborative evaluation information and a quantitative analysis of the influences of urban space elements on sustainable urban development. It was found that among the 14 indicators investigated, industrial land had the greatest impact on sustainable urban spatial development. Other factors such as green area, urban built-up land area, forestry area, and others were found to have a secondary effect on sustainable urban spatial development. B. Marsh and O’faircheallaigh C , 41 studAs the transformation of resource-based cities continues to progress, researchers have increasingly concentrated on case studies and comparative analysis of resource-based cities in recent years, specifically in China. Most studies evaluating the transformation effect of resource-based cities focus on economic transformation, while covering environmental efficiency as well as resource and energy use efficiency –46. HoweAccording to the National Sustainable Development Plan for Resource-oriented Cities (2013–2020) and the Report on Sustainable Development of Resource-oriented Cities in Jilin province , 50, thiSelecting indicators for the transformation of cities based on resources has certain special requirements. These indicators should reflect not only the current progress of resource-oriented cities in a comprehensive, scientific, and reasonable manner but also the process and effect of urban transformation in a relatively accurate manner. According to previous studies, constructing the index system of resource-oriented cities’ transformation should follow the principles of systematization, feasibility, quantification, comparability, and dynamism. Accordingly, The industrial indicator system evaluates the effect of economic change in resource-oriented cities. According to the theory of industrial structure and life cycle, the economic transition of resource-oriented cities is mainly the adjustment of the leading industries. This adjustment implies that the industrial structure changes with government intervention and capital investment, and the industrial growth shows a new trend and enters a new cycle. Therefore, the measurement of the effect of economic growth in resource-oriented cities has two secondary indicators: industrial structure and industrial growth indicators.Investment indicators evaluate the impact of external factors, mainly non-spatial factors, received by resource-oriented cities in the stages of transformation and development. Hence, investment indicators have two secondary indicators: direct investment by cities and counties and foreign investment.The indicator system of society and population mainly evaluates the changes in social development in resource-oriented cities within the stages of transformational development. According to sustainable development theory, positive social development means that the overall society develops in an equitable and harmonious way. In other words, sustainable social development infers that the social class structure improves while urban development and people’s living standard are increasing. Therefore, demographic indicators have two secondary indicators: the employment rate and the average wage. Also, social indicators have four secondary indicators: education, healthcare, patents, and social security.The theory of sustainable development implies that economic transformation involves a harmonious development of both the economy and the environment. This sustainable transformation strengthens the protection of the environment in development, and reduces the damage and consumption of the environment. Therefore, the evaluation of environmental development has two secondary indicators: green and non-green ecological indicators.The research data were mainly obtained from the China Urban Statistical Yearbook 2000–2019, the Statistical Bulletin of National Economic and Social Development of Cities, the Chinese government’s State Council on the Issuance of the National Sustainable Development Plan for Resource-oriented Cities (2013–2020), and Development in North East People’s Republic of China: An analysis of enterprise performance 1995–2002. This research estimates the missing data using the average growth rate method.This study uses the entropy-weighted TOPSIS measurement as the main analysis method. Entropy-weighted TOPSIS combines the traditional TOPSIS with entropy method, a commonly used evaluation model for assigning table weights. This approach reflects the contrast and resolution among indicators comprehensively, effectively avoiding difficulties in analysis and evaluation caused by too small data differences, and can reflect the utility of indicator information in a comprehensive and systematic way . Then, tIn 1981, Hwang and Yoon proposed the TOPSIS as a multi-attribute decision-making method. This method focuses on the multi-objective evaluation and decision analysis of finite solutions as a ranking method for approximating ideal solutions. This method ranks solutions according to their closeness to the positive ideal solution and distance from the negative ideal solution. The original TOPSIS method has the same indicator weight, which does not reflect the relative importance of the indicators. The combination of the entropy method, which objectively determines the indicator weight, with the TOPSIS method is an appropriate way of weighting the indicators . This paEstablishing the evaluation matrix: The traditional TOPSIS method can only evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of studied samples, and cannot be compared with objects outside the sample. This paper introduces the data of major cities based on resources in Jilin province between 2000 and 2019 to compare the relative level of transformation development among cities based on resources in Jilin province, as well as to compare the development gap among cities based on resources in the region in different years. X, assuming m evaluation units and n evaluation indicators.(1) Initial data normalization: The extreme value method is used to dimensionless process the initial data to obtain the judgment matrix Q, with the evaluation indicator qij:(2) Determining the indexes’ weights: The information entropy Hj of the index n is collected to determine the weighting wj.(3). Calculating optimal and inferior solutions: R:(4) wj is the weight of evaluation indicator j.Where In Eq , a small(5) Calculating the composite index: Di≤1, and the larger the value, the more appropriate the urban transformation in year i.In Eq , 0≤Di≤1,The basic idea of the hierarchical analysis method of AHP proposed by Professor T. L. Saaty of the University of Pittsburgh is to decompose a complex problem into its constituent elements, determine the relative importance of each element through comparison, and then form a comprehensive judgment of the importance of each element. The AHP method calculates the weight of each indication of the aforementioned urban complete evaluation index system.Constructing a judgment matrix(1) Cij is the relative importance of element i to element j. As specified by the matrix judgment scale, Cij takes values from 1 to 9 and must satisfy: Cii = 1, Cij−1/Cji, Cij>0.In Eq , Cij is Calculating the weights of the first-level indicators(2) MATLAB software calculates the maximum characteristic roots of the judgment matrix. CI is the column normalization index.Where CR.RI is the random consistency index.Where According to the results, the allocation of the weight coefficients is extremely logical, and the hierarchical analysis is thus consistent. MATLAB computes the weight of level 1 indicators.Calculation of weights for secondary indicators(3) S = (uij)p×p can be constructed, and MATLAB software can be used to calculate the maximum characteristic roots of the judgment matrix to obtain, λmax = 2. MATLAB software can calculate the weights of the indicators.The judgment matrix Consistency test(4). λmax = 4.0042, MATLAB software can calculate the maximum eigenvalue of the judgment matrix. In order to conduct the consistency test of the judgment matrix RI = 0.89, According to the average stochastic consistency indicator which is Therefore, the resulted hierarchical analysis is consistent, confirming that the distribution of the weight coefficients is very rational. After the hierarchical analysis method, this study obtains the relative weight values of the 25 indicators for assessing the development level of resource-oriented cities. It is only necessary to obtain the score value of all indicators for each city, then multiply it by the corresponding weight, and sum the scores to obtain the development level scores of the seven resource-oriented cities in Jilin province between 2000 and 2019.Tobler’s first law of geography is the basis of the fundamental starting point of spatial correlation analysis, which states that everything is related to everything else, but things that are close together are more closely related. In order to check the spatial correlation of the declining trend of major cities in Jilin province, this study takes the commonly-used Moran’s index as a statistical measure for analysis. Moran’s index is classified into the global Moran’s I, which reflects whether there is a vital spatial correlation in the whole region, and the Local Moran’s I, which indicates the clustering characteristics of each spatial element in the region.Global Moran index I.(1) The global Moran index, proposed by Moran in 1950, is the correlation coefficient between what can be thought of as an observation and its spatial lag , represeN represents the total number of areas in the study area, Wij is the spatial weight, Xi and Xj are the attributes of area i and area j, respectively, and X is the mean value of the attributes. Global Moran index values range from—1 to 1. The positive values of this index indicate that attributes with similar characteristics are clustered together, while its negative values imply that attributes with different characteristics are clustered together. If the values of this index are close to zero, the attributes have a random distribution without any spatial autocorrelation.Local Moran index I(2) Anselin proposed the local Moran index in 1995 to measure the degree of association between region i and its domain , based oA positive value of the local Moran index infers that a high value is surrounded by a high value (high-high), or a low value is surrounded by a low value (low-low). In contrast, a negative value implies that a low value is surrounded by a high value (low-high), or a high value is surrounded by a low value (high-low).The calculations based on the entropy-weighted method show that Baishan City reached its maximum value in 2019 for the last 20 years, as did the cities of Siping, Songyuan, and Tonghua. However, the difference between the maximum and the corresponding minimum values is very small and fluctuates around 0.01 in the last 20 years, even after reaching the maximum values. Changchun, Jilin, and Liaoyuan all reached their maximum values in 2014 and have been on a downward trend ever since. The maximum value is about twice the minimum value.According to the entropy-weighted TOPSIS model, this research assesses and rates the closeness of the main resource-oriented cities in Jilin province to transformation. In terms of individual city development, According to The primary indicators have the following ranking: population, industry, society, investment, and ecology. Among the population indicators, the average wage has the highest weight; among the industry indicators, the weight of industrial growth is the highest; among the social indicators, the weight of health care is the highest; among the investment indicators, the weight of fixed assets is the highest; and among the ecological indicators, the weight of green ecology is the highest. Using the hierarchical analysis method to reveal the evaluation index system of urban development in Jilin, the weight of each indicator, and the size of its weight is the degree of influence of the indicator on the assessment of urban transformation in Jilin province so that it can target to enhance the ability of the indicators with greater weight, to provide a scientifically theoretical basis for the progress of cities based on resources. According to the AHP results in Analysis of the global Moran index data in This research uses the Moran index scatter diagrams and Lisa cluster diagrams to further explore the local spatial correlation characteristics of Jilin cities. Figs According to Figs Based on As a resource-based province, it is difficult for Jilin to rely on its single and fixed industrial structure to sustain its long-term development. On the whole, the development shows an obvious decline trend in this province.The rise or development of resource-based cities like cities in Jilin is usually due to the exploitation of natural resources, and resource-dependent industries account for a large proportion of their industrial structure . Due to From an investment perspective, the lack of reserve resources is not attractive to capital. In China, some resource-oriented cities have few reserve resources available for development, and some are at the end of their development. Even if some resource-based cities have a large resource potential and are in the formative stage of development or in their heyday, there is still the problem that not all resources have been identified and need to be investigated to increase their resource reserves. Resources cannot serve as a material foundation for sustainable growth since they are ultimately limited, regardless of the reserve size. Some of the cities in Jilin province are of the combined industrial and resource type. Although these cities are able to achieve a relatively stable circular system, they need the integrity of the industrial system and strong product competitiveness to achieve overall coordinated and sustainable development. In the 20th century, however, technology and capital replaced them since the accelerated process of economic globalization has increased competition in the market with the rapid development of the scientific and technological revolution whose main feature is information technology. These changes have sharply declined the demand for resource-based and primary processed products due to internal and external factors such as the depletion of resources and the heavy historical burden. The development of resource-oriented industries and cities which are formed based on resource advantages is inevitably subject to changes in resource reserves and the supply-demand structure in the corresponding market. The development of resource-based industries, activities, and cities, formed on the basis of their resource advantages, is bound to be constrained by changes in resource reserves and the corresponding market supply and demand structures .As Popescu said, human resources have unlimited potential for growth and development . From a From an environmental standpoint, urban pollution is increasingly becoming serious. Pollution is a significant issue brought on by the industrial design of resource-based cities. Cities that rely on natural resources and have an industrial concentration are unable to completely eliminate major air, water, and noise pollution. Today, the Jilin region is also experiencing serious haze, which is related to the emission of soot and exhaust gases from industrial production. In the process of building the city, the initial pursuit of industrial output value did not pay attention to environmental protection, and to a certain extent took the old path of "pollution first, treatment later". The city had a high density of heavy industry, flourishing small workshops with substandard emissions, which had a negative impact on ecological construction. The pollution problem, in general, has a profoundly harmful impact on the health of the city’s inhabitants, and significantly reduces the city’s attractiveness to foreigners and the cohesiveness of the existing population . Also, tFrom a social perspective, people have a growing demand for infrastructure such as healthcare. As the problem of aging becomes more serious, the lack of medical resources in the province will exacerbate social conflicts and reduce the attractiveness of cities, playing a negative role in the transition and progress of new resource-oriented cities.The situation of urban decline in Jilin Province is similar to other countries. Among them, the decline of small towns with mining resources is the most serious. These towns’ economic development relies heavily on mining resources. However, in recent years, the available mining resources in these towns have faced depletion, and alternative industries have not formed. Due to the small scale of the primary industry and the insufficient secondary and tertiary industries, these towns have poor employment absorption capabilities, leading to population loss and economic decline.The scale of the decline in small towns in Jilin Province is not very large, which is consistent with the characteristics of urban decline in developed countries. Small towns in the surrounding areas of Jilin Province have been affected by economic and social decline, while the economic transformation effects of other cities and Changchun City vary greatly. Similar situations also occur in some peripheral small towns in Germany, France, and Japan. These towns often face problems such as population reduction, lack of connection with the national urban network, outdated and homogeneous residential areas, leading to a continuous decrease in "bedroom towns" in the surrounding areas, as people prefer to live in the core urban areas.The public facilities in Jilin Province’s declining small towns are gradually aging, similar to the situation of declining towns in Europe. The population loss in small towns leads to underdeveloped local infrastructure, declining commercial services, and a large number of vacant houses. Some schools are also forced to close because they do not have enough students or teachers. Small towns have fallen into a vicious cycle in terms of tax base and income, requiring more public spending to maintain infrastructure and building environments, while the funds available for investment and maintaining social public services are decreasing.This paper studies the development of major cities based on resources in Jilin province based on the concept of sustainable development. For this aim, this study constructs and analyses an indicator system for city development using the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method, hierarchical analysis, and spatial effect models. The results show that the current transformation effect of each city based on resources in Jilin province is somewhat different from the expected one due to the low average value of the comprehensive proximity of each city. In addition, the transformation effect of other cities in the province differs significantly from that of Changchun. By dimension, the impact of change in cities dependent on natural resources reveals some erratic behavior in the economic benefit dimension. In the social development and ecological environment dimensions, the transformation of cities based on resources has achieved the following results. In the science and technology innovation and resource endowment dimensions, the change in cities based on resources has developed relatively slowly. The main resource-based cities in Jilin province have a tendency to step into decline. Also, urban development is more fragmented and cannot form a scale effect of mutual support due to the lack of agglomeration effect and the scale of gathering and development. Analyzing the statistics of the major cities based on resources in Jilin province from 2000–2019 helps governments at all levels to identify and analyze the reasons for the urban decline in resource-oriented cities in the northeast areas and put forward relevant policy recommendations. This analysis also provides theoretical and practical support for the comprehensive transformation of homogeneous resource-oriented cities across the countries or the world.The findings of this research provide the following recommendations: modernizing the industrial setup and encouraging the green economic growth. The resource-oriented cities should expand the field of resource development and extend the resource industry chain to approach sustainable development. Changchun, for example, can expand its leading industrial chain in the direction of high precision according to its own advantages, so as to accelerate the sustainable transformation of the city.Furthermore, the government should boost the city’s innovation ability to support the transition to a more eco-friendly future. The ability to innovate in science and technology is a major driving force for the sustainable development of local economies. Local governments need to increase the proportion of budgets on science and technology, attach importance to the training of innovative talents, and actively introduce innovative enterprises in science and technology.Moreover, policymakers should improve the social security system to maintain stable social development. The eco-friendly transformation of cities based on resources will inevitably have an impact on some enterprises and lead to a surge in the number of jobs. The local government should provide employment opportunities and job skills training for these people as far as possible to reduce employment pressure and maintain social harmony and stable development.Finally, the decision-makers should strengthen the environmental management and build an ecologically civilized city. The local government should raise the emission standards of the corresponding enterprises and strictly control the most polluting enterprises and projects. Also, the local government should raise awareness of ecological and environmental protection, encourage research and development of environment-protection technologies, and increase the proportion of the budget on energy conservation and environmental protection.There are also some limitations of this paper. Firstly, the study only focuses on resource-based cities in Jilin province, so the findings may not be generalizable to all regions or countries. Second, this paper does not address the potential environmental impacts of the transformation of resource-based cities, which could be an important consideration for sustainable development. Future research can take resource-oriented cities across the country as research objects for comprehensive analysis and comparison, applied to broader urban reforms, and provide a detailed analysis of the policy implications of the findings, which could broaden its usefulness for policymakers.


This article reviews historically significant phenomenological studies of visual mental imagery (VMI), starting with Fechner in 1860 and continuing to the present. This synthesis of diverse VMI phenomenological studies in healthy adults serves as a unique resource for investigators of individual differences, cognitive development and clinical and neurological conditions. The review focuses on two kinds of VMI, “memory imagery” and “eidetic imagery”. Ten primary studies are drawn from three periods of the scholarly literature: early (1860–1929), middle (1930–1999) and recent (2000–2023). It is concluded that memory and eidetic imagery are two forms of constructive imagery, varying along a continuum of intensity or vividness. Vividness is a combination of clarity, colourfulness and liveliness, where clarity is defined by brightness and sharpness, colourfulness by image saturation and liveliness by vivacity, animation, feeling, solidity, projection and metamorphosis. The findings are integrated in a template that specifies, as a tree-like structure, the 16 properties of VMI vividness in healthy adult humans. The template takes into account the weight of evidence drawn from the accounts and reveals an extraordinary degree of consistency in reported VMI characteristics, revealed by specialized studies of healthy adult humans across time, space and culture. Any stable environment of familiar objects evokes sensations, images and feelings that vary by degree across individuals. Accordingly, it is surprising that any pair of individuals is able to reach agreement about what they are perceiving and feeling based on the two sets of fallible conscious experiences. While everyone may have their own unique perspective, there must also exist rules that create consistency. Anyone can experience the “redness” of an apple, the “pointedness” of a stick or “the warm feeling” of a campfire because there is, one must believe, something that it is like to have these experiences. There are particular phenomenological qualities or “qualia” that each of us has with these experiences . The redAlmost every reviewer of mental imagery research starts with Aristotle 384–322 B.C.E.), who stated that “Images belong to the rational soul in the manner of perceptions, and whenever it affirms or denies that something is good or bad, it pursues or avoids. Consequently, the soul never thinks without an image” .KAMBA WOMAN: I see some people and motor cars, one man on top, with goods on top. (What is the color of the bus?) Looks like red and green [brownish and white]. (What else do you see?) Many people.(Do you see any trees?) Yes. (Where?) [Points correctly]. (Do you see anything else?) I see nothing more. (Can you see the license plates on the cars?) No.MASAI HERDER: (Can you see their trousers?) No, I can’t see them. (What do you see on the screen now?) I still can see that person, but it is not now very clear.SWAHILI CULTIVATOR: I see some numbers, an elephant, a man. (Do you see them clearly?) I see them. (Can you see the numbers?) I see the numbers clearly. (Can you read them?) I can read them.  0 [pause of 7 s] 2 [5 s] 2 [4 s] 1 [5 s] 7 [6 s] 0 again [actually: 0714653282760].The incidence of eidetic imagery is not significantly higher or lower in African societies than in European or US samples;(ii)A high degree of variability was evident within each sample and “the attributes and characteristics of eidetic imagery when they do appear do not vary from society to society and, in fact, are no different from those found in Europe and America” ;(iii)As was the case in the Western laboratory studies, the differences within groups appeared much greater than those between groups.Doob reported: “Almost without exception those with eidetic imagery…stated that they had been amazed to see the images on the screen, that this was an experience they had never or seldom previously had ”. However, this latter finding was most likely a consequence of the participants’ unfamiliarity with being tested by looking at pictures on easels because the majority claimed they customarily were used to “seeing pictures in front of my eyes” (projected imagery) . There was no statistically significant relationship between the presence of eidetic imagery and of projected imagery in any of the groups. Likewise, many informants stated that often they have “pictures in my head,” or pictorial images when recalling events or people from the past . Pictorial images were occasionally reported by Somalis to be “in my heart” and by the Swahili to be “in my mind”. No association existed between eidetic imagery and pictorial imagery, nor between eidetic imagery and projected imagery. During or after the tests for eidetic imagery, the accuracy of recall was also found to be unrelated to claims of projected imagery or pictorial imagery for the pictures that had been exposed. A Somali stated that he could see “the bus” in his head but, when asked to describe what he saw on top of the bus, he incorrectly replied that “nothing” was there. From the standpoint of most informants questioned, there was a difference between remembering with eidetic, projected or pictorial imagery on the one hand, and what is ordinarily called “simple memory” or recall on the other . Doob’s  observatImagination and Thinking [https://cir.nii.ac.jp/all?q=Tohoku%20psychologica%20folia. Until now, they have not been widely disseminated and they warrant closer attention. The original purpose was to determine, through the use of VMI, whether Y.K. could fill a empty circle on a small, neutral card spontaneously with mentally imaged colour. The author used what later became known as the “Open Circle Test”, which is described as follows:With the exception of the above-mentioned studies on eidetic imagery, the absence of any new phenomenological studies for almost half a century left a vacuum that remained unfilled until the 1960s and 1970s, when an “explosion” of mental imagery studies occurred. The 1957 book by Peter McKellar, Thinking , presageThinking ,43 publiOne of the twenty subjects, YK, could see inside of the circle vivid images of concrete shape and colour, not mere colour image, at any time when a certain colour name was given to her. She gave a signal by tapping the desk with her right-hand forefinger, every time such an eidetic image appeared or it changed in its figure. She could also scan the images as if she were looking at paintings or photographs.The investigator used a white card (12.5 cm by 20 cm) and a grey card (10 cm by 15 cm). A circle of 5 cm in diameter was drawn in the centre of the white card, and one of 2 cm on the grey one. The investigator asked the participant to imagine a blue colour inside the circle, and then red, yellow and green. With the white card first and then the grey card, 3 min were assigned to each of the four colours . After each occasion, Y.K. was required to state whether a colour image appeared, and if it did, what it looked like. They were requested to draw an image if they saw one, on a sheet of paper with a pencil.tapped the desk with her forefinger to indicate that an image had begun to appear inside the circle or if it transformed its shape. Y.K. produced drawings afterwards, and her responses to nine of the twenty-four tests are reproduced in Two months after the first laboratory visit, Y.K. came to two more sessions using the same methods. Twenty-four tests were carried out. The findings showed that, at each test, Y.K. could project images associated with the appointed colour names; the VMI content changed over the 3 min of the test. Y.K. Hatakeyama’s conclusion was that eidetic imagery is a constructive process similar to those of the other VMI kinds of memory and imagination imagery. Hatakeyama (1975)  stated tVarious experimental evidences given by a twenty-year-old female of extremely high eidetic ability shows that eidetic imagery is possessed of the constructive character. The word “constructive” means not only the fact that different features from the original stimulus appear in the image, but also, more positively speaking, that eidetic imagery has an aspect of being constructed like any other ordinary memory imagery. In this regard, it deserves emphasis that an eidetic image belongs to “imagery” and that it should not be construed merely as a photographic image, that is, an accurate copy of the original stimulus, or as a photographic memory, that is, an accurate retention of the original stimulus in visual memory.Thus, eidetic imagery appears to be a highly flexible and fluid form of VMI that does not necessarily require an evoking stimulus. Hatakeyama ,43 dividAs noted, Y.K. visualized vivid eidetic images inside the circle at any time colour names were given to her. There were some cases when the content of a produced image could not be identified, or when part of the image was discrepant with the original object that had been indicated . When Y.(i)Gradual Development and Fading;(ii)Attentional Effort;(iii)Supplementation: “new features, which the stimulus pictures did not contain, were added to the images”;(iv)Grounding: “where images lacked a particular part, such part was not left entirely blank but suffused as some kind of ground in the image”;(v)Metamorphosis: dramatic and sudden changes in eidetic imagery content;(vi)Re-emergence;(vii)Replication: e.g., “an orange square was presented and the same colour image appeared”;(viii)Figure–Ground Colour Reversal.Observations in  show higEidetic images reproduced after a lapse of time revealed an “exceedingly constructive character”. It took time before the eidetic images were produced. These images tended to appear “little by little”. Details of the image were often initially indistinct and became more distinct. There were instances where motion or activity appeared in the image, e.g., “in the image of one silhouette picture evoked on the following day, a flag on the top of the building in the original picture, was seen fluttering”. When the picture of the “Sparrows’ School” was evoked on the following day, “the sparrows were moving about inside the nest, bobbing their heads; at the same time S sensed them peeping”. There were some cases of divergence between the eidetic image and the memory contents of the original stimulus picture.When the projection cards presented complex designs, such as patterns of chiyogami (rice-paper with coloured figures) or a black-and-white striped pattern, eidetic images were constructed to assimilate elements of the projection surface.Tests with complex, abstract stimuli of Chinese characters used complicated numeral patterns . The eidetic imagery here were far from complete reproductions of the original stimuli, with “extremely constructive features”, which lacked unity with other parts. The “entire image did not appear at the same time, but a restricted part, to which YK directed her eyes on the projection surface, was visualized and, as she shifted her eyes, the missing part appeared”.(i)EI is a constructive process of agency involving the participant’s attentional efforts, force of will and intentions. This point is reminiscent of Fechner’s and Galton’s findings;(ii)EI is a flexible and fluid process with gradual development and fading, attentional effort, supplementation, grounding, metamorphosis and figure–ground colour reversal;(iii)As suggested by Fechner, there is a dynamic interaction between the after-image and the eidetic image.Hatakeyama’s research ,43 led tThis study with a young woman of high eidetic imagery ability indicates the pinnacle of eidetic imagery achievement. Further studies by Hatakeyama  in diffeTwo replication studies of Hatakeyama’s findings were conducted by the author and Peter McKellar at the University of Otago, New Zealand . InitialNext, we presented the Open Circle Test to randomly selected samples from the student population. Thirty of forty-four (68.2%) unselected students gave positive eidetic imagery reports in response to specific colour names . Using l(i)Eidetic imagery is a vivid, fluid and flexible process;(ii)Eidetic imagery is a constructive process, not a reproductive or “photographic” one;(iii)Eidetic imagery can be voluntarily controlled by the participant’s focus of attention;(iv)Like all other kinds of VMI, there are wide individual differences;(v)In its weakest, spontaneous form, eidetic imagery is available to the entire population.Studies of eidetic imagery using unselected student samples suggest these conclusions:There are only a few studies of mental imagery in people with intellectual disabilities. In the recent period, there have been efforts to fill this gap. Brown and Bullitis  exploredVividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire [Another new dataset has been provided by Hewitt et al. , who useionnaire  was presionnaire . The res(i)People with ID experience and engage with mental imagery across different sensory modalities;(ii)The clarity, detail and richness of the images is notable. As well as creating mental images, participants described changing and manipulating these images with VMI metamorphosis as observed by previous investigators described above;(iii)Images could be “surprising, extraordinary and humorous”;(iv)Almost all participants described feelings associated with mental imagery, which “could be strong and powerful and encompassed a wide range of different emotions, such as surprise, delight, disgust and fear”;(v)There is a continuum of “mastery over mental imagery”, with wide individual differences, as observed in all of the VMI studies reviewed here.Hewitt et al.’s study suggests the following conclusions:Another recent study  found noThis review summarizes the findings of a specialized array of phenomenological investigations of VMI covering the entire history of mental imagery research. The review has collated, into a single analysis, a unique database that is drawn from a rich diversity of participants, beginning with Gustav Fechner (1860); then Galton’s (1880) 100 distinguished “men of science’; samples of US university students; German, Japanese and New Zealand eidetic imagers; Africans in five countries on that continent; and groups of contemporary Britons with intellectual disabilities. In each and every group, there existed a widespread variability in the nature and vividness of VMI, but there is no obvious distinction in overall VMI abilities and characteristics between the different participant groups. The reviewed findings indicate an extraordinarily high level of consistency, replicability and coherence in phenomena that were written off for half a century by the behavioural school of psychology as “unscientific”.The purpose remains to synthesize the present findings in the form of a template that specifies the properties of VMI in healthy adult humans. The findings have comprised quantitative and qualitative data of a verbal and graphic nature on VMI phenomenology. This synthesis is inductive in nature, while taking into account the frequency of each of a complex of 16 characteristics across the ten datasets. The entire corpus of findings is synthesized in It can be seen that the template of VMI characteristics ranges from the most general at the top of the hierarchy (“Vividness”) to the most specific at the bottom of the hierarchy . To guide the construction of the template, it was necessary to weigh the relative importance of any descriptive term employed in the VMI phenomenological accounts using the frequency of each term as a proxy measure of a term’s relevance and prominence.The most frequently mentioned attribute of vivid VMI in the research participants’ descriptions across the ten reviewed studies has been “colour”, and the term “Colourfulness” is therefore included in the second tier of the template hierarchy, together with “Clarity” and “Liveliness”.The taxonomic rank at each level has been applied to the phenomenological descriptors of VMI vividness, according to their frequencies in the datasets in combination with their conceptual similarities and differences. The taxonomy started by establishing the taxonomic ranks in broad categories like “Low Vividness,” “Moderate Vividness,” and “High Vividness”, and then proceeded with defining a second tier of specificity: “Clarity”, “Colourfulness” and “Liveliness”, and then a third and a fourth tier in a hierarchy.Next, the content of the data from the reviewed studies suggested many other characteristics for classification that distinguish one level of vividness from another, including “Brightness”, “Sharpness”, “Saturation”, “Vivacity”, “Projected” and “Solidity”. As noted, the categories are arranged hierarchically, with the most general one at the top (“Vividness”) and more specific subcategories below . The fourth row indicates the most specific level of VMI characteristics: “Outline”, “Detail”, “Animation”, “Feeling” and “Metamorphosis”.The present review examines, collates and synthesizes historical and contemporary datasets on the phenomenology of VMI. As suggested in the Introduction, the process of discovering the nature of VMI is reminiscent of the parable of the blind monks inspecting the different part of an elephant . The curThe Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ), refers to colour in eight of its sixteen items [Until now, our understanding of VMI has been fragmentary and piecemeal. The VMI template is a step towards describing the VMI “elephant” in its entirety for the first time. In light of this synthesis, it is possible to provide as comprehensive a specification of VMI vividness as possible using extant data. Previous definitions of VMI vividness had included clarity and liveliness, but not colourfulness ,52. Hoween items .consists of a highly constructive and dynamic process that is both enactive and affective, having its own momentum, and often leading to unpredictable outcomes that can include the metamorphosis of the initial image content. Thus, the present findings on VMI phenomenology are consistent with an enactive approach to perception and mental imagery, such as one proposed by this author [The historical knowledge vacuum left by the neglect of VMI phenomenology led to a variety of incomplete or erroneous theoretical speculations and inadequate clinical applications. To give an example, the “Imagery Debate” ,9 embracs author ,52.Another example of a mismatch between assumptions and practice occurs in research attempting to link VMI content with the clinical condition of depression. Emily A. Holmes et al.  suggest The template of By applying the taxonomic rank to the 16 criteria of phenomenological experiences of mental image vividness, future investigators will be able to create a structured framework that enhances our understanding of mental imagery experiences and contributes to the broader fields of cognitive science, vision science and psychology more generally.The main strengths of this review are: (i) that it integrates for the first time findings from a set of nine largely neglected studies together with a widely-cited, but misinterpreted, study by Galton; (ii) that the selected studies represent highly diverse samples from five continents and 163 years of controlled investigation; and (iii) the impressive degree of consistency between these ten sets of findings. The main limitations are: (i) the relative lack of studies using non-verbal measures of VMI and (ii) the omission of publications in languages other than English, German and French.This review and synthesis of diverse VMI phenomenological studies in healthy adults serves as a unique resource for investigators of individual differences, cognitive development and clinical and neurological conditions. The review has revealed an extraordinary degree of consistency and replicability of VMI characteristics across time, space and culture. VMI is a constructive process, with a continuum of intensity or vividness as its most prominent and frequently reported feature. The discovered template specifies the properties of VMI in healthy adult humans, taking into account the weight of evidence drawn from ten primary studies. Vividness is defined as a combination of clarity, colourfulness and liveliness, where clarity consists of brightness and sharpness, colourfulness consists of saturation, and liveliness consists of vivacity, animation, feeling, solidity, projection in three-dimensional space and metamorphosis. The template provides a schema for further research on the phenomenological properties of VMI. The taxonomic template for the phenomenological experience of mental image vividness enhances our understanding of VMI experience and contributes to the broader fields of cognitive science, vision science and psychology more generally.


The Malalmuerzo individual carried genetic ancestry that directly connects earlier Aurignacian-associated individuals with post-LGM Magdalenian-associated ancestry in western Europe. This scenario differs from Italy, where individuals associated with the transition from pre- and post-LGM carry different genetic ancestries. This suggests different dynamics in the proposed southern refugia of Ice Age Europe and posits Iberia as a potential refugium for western European pre-LGM ancestry. More, individuals from Cueva Ardales, which were thought to be of Palaeolithic origin, date younger than expected and, together with individuals from the Andalusian sites Caserones and Aguilillas, fall within the genetic variation of the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age individuals from southern Iberia.Human populations underwent range contractions during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) which had lasting and dramatic effects on their genetic variation. The genetic ancestry of individuals associated with the post-LGM Magdalenian technocomplex has been interpreted as being derived from groups associated with the pre-LGM Aurignacian. However, both these ancestries differ from that of central European individuals associated with the chronologically intermediate Gravettian. Thus, the genomic transition from pre- to post-LGM remains unclear also in western Europe, where we lack genomic data associated with the intermediate Solutrean, which spans the height of the LGM. Here we present genome-wide data from sites in Andalusia in southern Spain, including from a Solutrean-associated individual from Cueva del Malalmuerzo, directly dated to ~23,000 cal yr  The authors sequence genome-wide data from multiple human individuals in southern Spain and find long-lasting genetic continuity. Here, in contrast to regions elsewhere in Europe, a 23,000-year-old individual from Malalmuerzo carries genetic ancestry that connects earlier Aurignacian-associated individuals with western European hunter-gatherers long after the Last Glacial Maximum. Human presence in the archaeological record is documented predominantly by artifacts, mainly stone tools assigned to so-called technocomplexes, rather than by skeletal remains, which are rare in the Palaeolithic record.The peopling of Europe was marked by human population expansions and contractions associated with major climatic events. Numerous studies indicate a dramatic population contraction in Palaeolithic Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum  retreated to southern latitudes, to regions in today’s Italy and central/southeastern Europe1. In southwestern Europe, a singular Upper Palaeolithic (UP) technocomplex, the Solutrean, emerged in regions of today’s southern France and Iberia by ~24–19 cal kyr bp (refs. 7), which coincides in time with the intensive cold peak of the Heinrich 2 Event and following the LGM8. The Solutrean is defined by a suite of new lithic technologies and implements, with regionally distinct lithic point types11 interpreted as an adaptation in response to the hard climatic conditions1 and more generally as a breakdown of the Gravettian technologies. Some scholars have explained the cultural discontinuity by migratory processes, with putative origins in North Africa on the basis of parallels with Aterian lithic assemblages14. However, the prevailing consensus sees the Solutrean lithic tradition rooted in western European Late Gravettian technologies17, which had undergone cultural drift due to isolation from other groups and the disruption of extended pan-European networks, adaptation to harsh climatic conditions1 and demographic pressure18. Further support for a local development of the Solutrean was seen in the synchronous origin of the new lithic traditions that would culminate in the Solutrean in the French and Iberian territories19.With the onset of the LGM, a population decline is observed in central Europe and human populations associated with the Gravettian technologies  technologies prevailed and the genotyped individuals show a wide variety of ancestry profiles and levels of Neanderthal admixture . Conversely, the oldest genome-wide data available from western Europe come from an Aurignacian-associated individual Goyet Q116-1 in today’s Belgium26. Gravettian-associated individuals from pre-LGM central and southern Europe form a genetic cluster   differ genetically from post-LGM Magdalenian-associated groups from both central and western Europe  (refs. 29), whereas the last had received genetic ancestry first found in an Aurignacian-associated individual Goyet Q116-1 from northwestern Europe. This genomic discontinuity between central European Gravettian-associated individuals and western-central European Magdalenian-associated individuals has been explained by the population contractions during LGM26 and supported by mitochondrial studies, which noted the disappearance of, for example, mitochondrial DNA haplogroup M during the LGM30.The available genome-wide data from archaeological contexts older than the LGM in western Europe is scarce and does not yet allow a detailed study of the genomic transformation of the UP human groups of this part of the continent (Supplementary Table bp), the Goyet Q2 cluster was replaced by the Villabruna cluster in central Europe, named for its oldest Epigravettian-associated individual from northern Italy26, but which also includes most of the Epipalaeolithic- and Mesolithic-associated groups from central and western Europe, all of which are also known as western hunter-gatherers (WHG)31. In this genetic landscape, Iberian hunter-gatherers (HG) stood out as they retained higher proportions of the Goyet Q2-like ancestry during the Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic periods and thus are often considered separate29.Following the Bølling/Allerød warming interstadial   Fig. . Cueva dWe sampled additional prehistoric human remains from various cave and rock shelter sites in Andalucia, Spain  sites  libraries from each sample , concordant with the stylistic rock art found in the cave34 : MLZ003  and MLZ005 . Samples MLZ003 and MLZ005 were found to be contemporaneous and radiocarbon dated to a period when the Solutrean technocomplex prevailed 36, while the more basal mtDNA-haplogroup U2'3'4'7'8’9 is restricted to individuals in southwestern Europe, with Paglicci108 being the oldest Palaeolithic individual 26, followed by Rigney 26, Oriente_C 37, Grotta dell’Uzzo 38 and Balma Guilanyà 29. The geographic distribution of U2'3'4'7'8’9 is consistent with an early spread of human groups into western Europe and was suggested to have survived the LGM in the Iberian and Apennine refugia30.MLZ carries mitochondrial DNA-haplogroup U2'3'4'7'8’9 . The more basal Y-haplogroup C was found in Paglicci_133 , Cioclovina_1  and Kostenki_12 26 and the derived Y-haplogroup C1a2 was found in Goyet Q116-1 26 and Sunghir 39.MLZ carried Y chromosome haplogroup C1 . In the resulting heatmap . Interestingly, MLZ falls between the Aurignacian-associated Goyet Q116-1 and the Magdalenian-associated individuals from the Goyet Q2 cluster, to the exclusion of El Mirón, who falls within the Iberian HG cline that bridges WHG- and Goyet Q2-like ancestries29. We then calculated f4-statistics of the form f4 to test whether Goyet Q116-1 and Magdalenian-associated individuals are cladal with respect to MLZ , we observe an excess of shared drift between MLZ and Goyet Q116-1, for example when HohleFels49, Goyet Q2 and El Mirón are used as proxies for Magdalenian-associated ancestry  of the transformed pairwise-distance MLZ Fig. . We findtry Fig. . These r6-1 Fig. ,c. IdentGoyet Q2 cluster were symmetrically related with respect to the Věstonice cluster using f4-statistics of the form f4  Europe, described as the Věstonice cluster26. Our results match technological studies which suggest that the Solutrean was rooted in western Gravettian technologies19 and the resemblance of the rock art associated with the Gravettian and Solutrean in western Europe43. By contrast, this result renders a monocentric central European origin of the Gravettian unlikely44.We then explored whether MLZ and Aurignacian-associated Goyet Q116-1 or the later ti) Fig.  and 2.4 Věstonice-like ancestry in Iberia before the LGM cannot be ruled out. The last had reached the Italian Peninsula, where it was later replaced by Epigravettian-associated Villabruna-like ancestry26 and a similar replacement scenario could also be possible for Iberia.Given that the Solutrean is restricted to southern France and Iberia and assuming that southwestern Europe was a geographical refugium for UP populations during the LGM, population continuity through time is a parsimonious explanation. However, given the lack of pre-LGM genetic data from Iberia, the presence of bp, Bulgaria), Tianyuan  and Goyet Q116-1  carried ancestry from an IUP population which had inhabited Eurasia before the split of West Eurasian and East Asian populations24  and Kostenki14 as the baseline for European Palaeolithic ancestry26 we show that MLZ shares excess genetic drift with Bacho Kiro IUP, Goyet Q116-1 and Tianyuan , who is more closely related to modern and ancient Europeans but still shares excess affinity to Tianyuan. Others45 have postulated an early pan-Eurasian population, which predated the split time of Europeans and Asians, as opposed to a back migration from Tianyuan-related Asian groups into Europe after the split. The oldest genomic data available from Bacho Kiro cave support the hypothesis of the existence of an Early Eurasian Bacho Kiro-like population that contributed to Ust’ Ishim, Tianyuan, Goyet Q116-1 and now also MLZ, but to the exclusion of other UP populations, including pre-Gravettian-associated Sunghir and Kostenki14, central European Gravettian or Magdalenian-associated individuals (Goyet Q2 cluster)24. Using f4-statistics of the form f4, we observe that Goyet Q116-1 and MLZ share more genetic ancestry with Tianyuan than Bacho Kiro IUP does , which also returns positive f4-statistics in both tests   (Z = 0.282) and f4 (Z = 0.705) , which is consistent with an IUP Bacho Kiro-like group contributing ancestry to Ust’Ishim, Tianyuan, Goyet Q116-1 and, more distantly, to MLZ , while in central (and presumably eastern) Europe, it was superseded and already no longer traceable in pre-Gravettian/Gravettian-associated individuals . These results suggest genetic continuity from a population broadly associated with the Aurignacian and represented by Goyet Q116-1 to a population associated with the Solutrean and represented by MLZ in western Europe.Our results confirm that part of the IUP ancestry present in Bacho Kiro and Tianyuan also survived in Southern Iberia MLZ until 23 cal kyr oes Fig. . We also46. Entering the peninsula from southern France, archaeological remains securely assigned to the Proto or Early Aurignacian are only found in northern Iberia49. For the sites Bajondillo near Málaga50 and Lapa do Picareiro in central Portugal51 the presence of an Early Aurignacian technocomplex has also been reported but challenged by several scholars52.In the case of MLZ, we infer that this type of ancestry must have been brought to southern Iberia by individuals associated with the Aurignacian (sensu lato) as the archaeological record only provides evidence of Early UP industries  in northern Iberia which is broadly attributed to Late Neanderthals and not modern humansf4-statistics of the form f4 to explore the genetic relationship of MLZ to other ancient individuals. We find a subtle, but non-significant, signal of shared drift with individuals that carried Villabruna-like ancestry MLZ (Z = 2.972) which is absent in Goyet Q116 (Z = 1.783)  . However, taking these results into account, a slightly higher amount of Villabruna-like ancestry in MLZ than in Goyet Q116-1 cannot be ruled out  with Z-scores ranging from −9.568 (El Mirón) to −0.091 (Hohle Fels), which suggests excess affinity to Villabruna-like ancestry in the Goyet-Q2 cluster individuals when compared to MLZ, even though the f4-statistics are not always significant (| Z | > 3)  using f4  and Villabruna (Z = 2.972). By contrast, post-LGM populations share substantial ancestry with both Villabruna and Natufian but more with Villabruna than Natufians, in agreement with ref. 26  to Natufian-like ancestry. Of note, MLZ is one of the oldest individuals who shows a positive attraction to both Natufians . By contrast, we neither found an indication for Basal Eurasian ancestry in MLZ using other tests , where we compare MLZ and Goyet Q116-1 directly with Morocco Iberomaurusian, Natufian and Villabruna as test populations  and Morocco Iberomaurusian (Z = 2.46) share more genetic drift with MLZ than Goyet Q116-1. We observe a non-significant shift when comparing Morocco Iberomaurusian with Villabruna or Natufian, which suggests the absence of a direct contribution from Morocco Iberomaurusian-like ancestry  to MLZ  as in Fig. Z = 2.783), which suggests a subtle affinity to East Asian Tianyuan similar to the one found in MLZ and which, consequently, argues for a persistence of this ancestry in southern Portugal since the UP   Fig. . Currente56 Fig. . On the f4-statistics of the form f4  we obtained negative results, indicative of excess affinity to the Near Eastern but not to Sub-Saharan ancestry  individuals associated with farming practices58. To explore the potential genetic legacy of MLZ-like ancestry in later time periods, with a particular focus on southern Iberia, we report and co-analyse two new EN individuals from Cueva de Ardales and Necrópolis de las Aguilillas and two CA individuals from Necrópolis de los Caserones and Cueva de Ardales and one individual from Cueva de Ardales that post-dated the CA period  and Las Aguilillas (AGS001) cluster in principal component analysis (PCA) space with other Neolithic individuals from Iberia and France. With the exception of Murciélagos, the southern Neolithic forms a separate subcluster within the Iberian EN cluster, with a slight shift upwards on PC2 and left on PC1 towards Iberian HGs  period, a new form of ancestry reached IberiaChalcolithic individuals from Necrópolis de los Caserones (CRS002) and Cueva de Ardales (ADS008) cluster with other Southern Iberian CA populations  and post-LGM (Goyet Q2-like ancestry) groups were separated during the LGM as we find no substantial traces of Věstonice-like ancestry contribution in southern Iberia. This suggests a scenario in which Gravettian-associated individuals in western Europe were genetically distinct from those in central Europe. It is also possible that Věstonice-like ancestry in southern Iberia had been replaced when populations retreated further south during the height of the LGM, or had not initially reached the most southernmost parts of the Iberian Peninsula. Individual MLZ also carried ancestry that is shared with Near Eastern Natufian-associated individuals, confirming the presence of this ancestry in Europe before the LGM. The MLZ lineage contributed substantially to post-LGM Magdalenian-associated individuals, which attests to genetic continuity in western Europe that spans the LGM. While more complex scenarios are possible, the observed genetic continuity suggests that the Iberian Peninsula, as a ‘southern genetic refugium’, could have sustained a stable population before, during and after the LGM, with no evidence for significant population turnover events but followed by an early and substantial contribution of Villabruna-like HG ancestry soon after. However, this changed profoundly with the arrival of EN farmers, who brought new ancestry from western Anatolia and the Near East. Southern Iberia in particular retained a higher proportion of HG ancestry related to Solutrean- and Magdalenian-associated individuals than other regions of the peninsula. We refer readers to ref. 62, which reports new genomic data from 116 HG individuals from Palaeolithic to Mesolithic Europe.We can also show that pre-LGM  and the IntCal 20 curve68  of the initial shotgun sequencing data from several DNA libraries from each of the 16 individuals sampled, 8 libraries with >0.08% endogenous DNA or higher were subsequently enriched for ~1,240,000 SNPs69, 26 libraries from 12 individuals were enriched for the complete mitogenome70 and 18 libraries from four males for mappable regions of the non-recombining parts of the Y chromosome71 using independent DNA–DNA hybridization capture techniques. Following DNA capture, libraries were sequenced for 20–40 million reads using single end configuration (1 × 75 base pair (bp) reads) on a Illumina HiSeq4000 platform. The success rate of 50% is explained by the challenging climatic conditions and that we could not select petrous bones that were shown to yield a high amount of endogenous human DNA such as refs. 73 but were limited to the few scattered skeletal elements.We extracted and prepared DNA for next-generation sequencing in two different dedicated aDNA facilities (Jena and Leipzig). All the 16 human samples were teeth. When possible, after cleaning, we split the crown and root by a hand saw and drilled both from inside. Protocols used for aDNA extraction and non-UDG-treated, single-stranded library preparation are described in ref. 74, mapping against the Human Reference Genome hs37d5 with BWA (v.0.7.12)75 using aln and samse commands  and removing duplicates with DeDup (v.0.12.2)76. Genotypes were called using pileupcaller (https://github.com/stschiff/sequenceTools) and the flag -singlestrandedmode, which entirely removed the aDNA damage.Sequence data were demultiplexed on the basis of specific pairs of indexes and processed with the EAGER (1.92.59) pipeline .0.677 to81 between ancient individuals based on pseudo-haploid 1,240,000 SNP capture data. To estimate the degree of relatedness among MLZ libraries, we calculated the baseline PMR for identical samples/twins using several libraries from our MLZ individuals and we compared the mean value with the merged MLZ003 versus the merged MLZ005 PMR value. On the basis of the PMR results we concluded that samples MLZ003 and MLZ005 were from the same individual P > 0.15), even when we restricted PMR values from pairs with >500 overlapping SNPs (P = 0.1974). Since we find no statistically significant difference between the distributions of the PMR values for combinations of libraries of MLZ003/MLZ003, MLZ003/MLZ005 and MLZ005/MLZ005, we have no evidence to suggest that MLZ003 and MLZ005 are not the same individual.To further validate the finding that MZ003 and MLZ005 are the same individual, when we lacked a robust estimate of the background relatedness, we performed the following test: we calculated the PMR for all pairs of libraries for MLZ003 and MLZ005, which yielded three categories of PMRs—comparisons between MLZ003 libraries (MLZ003/MLZ003), comparisons between MLZ005 libraries (MLZ005/MLZ005) and comparisons between MLZ003 and MLZ005 libraries (MLZ003/MLZ005). Leveraging the fact that the ranks of the PMR values will be invariant to normalization for background relatedness, we used non-parametric, pairwise Wilcoxon rank sum tests to evaluate if there was a significant difference in distribution for the PMR values from the three categories. We found no such difference (adjusted https://reich.hms.harvard.edu) plus the newly published data from refs. 38. We generated two datasets, the 1,240,000 genotype set used for all the statistics presented in the paper and one with the intersected SNPs from the Human Origins panel  used to perform PCA analyses. In total, 179 Palaeolithic and Mesolithic individuals, all covered at >20,000 SNPs, were used in this study.We merged the newly reported ancient data with data from the Allen Ancient DNA Resource , present-day west Eurasian groups (West Eurasian PCA) and present-day west Eurasian, North African and Sub-Saharan groups (West Eurasians–North Africans–Subsaharans). The ancient individuals were projected onto the PCA scaffold which was calculated using the modern individuals using the parameters ‘lsqproject:YES’ and ‘shrinkmode:YES’. We project the genotyped PMD-filtered version and the non-PMD-filtered version to evaluate potential signs of contamination78. A global PCA was used to infer East Asian ancestry and by adding North Africans and Sub-Saharan populations to the West Eurasian PCA we could infer potential African ancestry.We used the smartpca software from the EIGENSOFT package (v.6.0.1)F-statistics were calculated with qpDstat from ADMIXTOOLS (https://github.com/DReichLab). The f3-outgroup statistics were used to calculate the affinity matrix with all the possible HG pairwise combinations. The f4-statistics were used to test for cladality and admixture. Standard errors were calculated with the default block jackknife and all plots display 3 s.e.f3-outgroup matrix on the form 1 − f3 pairwise values among all possible HG pairwise combinations following ref. 26.We applied MDS using the R package cmdscale. Euclidean distances were computed with the genetic distances calculated from the https://github.com/DReichLab) to construct the phylogeny of our Palaeolithic individual from Cueva del Malalmuerzo. We built the hypothetical topology of the tree based on the previous statistical analysis (f3- and f4-statistics) and used qpGraph to clarify the order of the genetic events that were inferred previously. The trees were built by order of complexity and the ones with the difference between the observed and fitted f-statistics | Z | > 3 were rejected. We also excluded models with 0% ancestry stream estimates. We used the options ‘outpop: NULL’ rather than specifying an outgroup population, ‘useallsnps: YES’, ‘lambdascale: 1’ and ‘diag: 0.0001’ as used in ref. 54.We used qpGraph from ADMIXTOOLS (https://github.com/DReichLab), with the ‘allsnps: YES’ option. With qpWave, we evaluate the number of sources needed to model our target population. With qpAdm, we quantified the proportion of genetic ancestry contributed by each source in the target population. Programs qpWave and qpAdm were used in post-Palaeolithic populations co-analysed in this study.To estimate admixture proportions we used the qpWave and qpAdm programs from the ADMIXTOOLS v.5.1 package (https://haplogrep.uibk.ac.at/) for an automated mitochondrial haplogroup assignment based on phylotree   dataset included in the 1,240,000 and the in-house Y-capture probes using the procedure described in ref. Further information on research design is available in the Supplementary InformationSupplementary Discussion and Figs. 1–11.Reporting SummaryPeer Review FileSupplementary Table 1Quality analysis and summary of the genomic data.Supplementary Table 2Detailed genomic data analysis.