Long-term efficacy and safety profiles of iris-fixated foldable anterior chamber phakic intraocular lens implantation in eyes with more than 10-years of follow-up

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Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of the Radiation Energy in the Radio Signal of Extensive Air Showers as a Universal Estimator of Cosmic-Ray Energy

We measure the energy emitted by extensive air showers in the form of radio emission in the frequency range from 30 to 80 MHz. Exploiting the accurate energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory, we obtain a radiation energy of 15.8 \pm 0.7 (stat) \pm 6.7 (sys) MeV for cosmic rays with an energy of 1 EeV arriving perpendicularly to a geomagnetic field of 0.24 G, scaling quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy. A comparison with predictions from state-of-the-art first-principle calculations shows agreement with our measurement. The radiation energy provides direct access to the calorimetric energy in the electromagnetic cascade of extensive air showers. Comparison with our result thus allows the direct calibration of any cosmic-ray radio detector against the well-established energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Supplemental material in the ancillary file

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space. While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes, vast areas of the tropics remain understudied. In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity, but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases. To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge, it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

How pervasive is biotic homogenization in human‐modified tropical forest landscapes?

Land-cover change and ecosystem degradation may lead to biotic homogenization, yet our understanding of this phenomenon over large spatial scales and different biotic groups remains weak. We used a multi-taxa dataset from 335 sites and 36 heterogeneous landscapes in the Brazilian Amazon to examine the potential for landscape-scale processes to modulate the cumulative effects of local disturbances. Biotic homogenization was high in production areas but much less in disturbed and regenerating forests, where high levels of among-site and among-landscape β-diversity appeared to attenuate species loss at larger scales. We found consistently high levels of β-diversity among landscapes for all land cover classes, providing support for landscape-scale divergence in species composition. Our findings support concerns that β-diversity has been underestimated as a driver of biodiversity change and underscore the importance of maintaining a distributed network of reserves, including remaining areas of undisturbed primary forest, but also disturbed and regenerating forests, to conserve regional biota

WATER DEMAND AND WATER USE EFFICIENCY IN ‘PALMER’ MANGO CULTIVATION IN THE LOW-MIDDLE SÃO FRANCISCO VALLEY

ABSTRACT The study aimed to determine the evapotranspiration (ETc) of the mango cv. ‘Palmer’ over two productive cycles, analyzing water-use efficiency (WUE) and crop water productivity (CWP) to propose average crop coefficient (Kc) values for improving irrigation management under cultivation conditions in the Low-Middle São Francisco Valley. The study was conducted from July 2019 to May 2021 in a commercial ‘Palmer’ mango orchard in Petrolina, State of Pernambuco, Brazil. Micrometeorological data was collected throughout the experimental period. The crop evapotranspiration (ETc) was determined using Bowen ratio energy balance (BREB), and then the Kc, WUE, and CWP were determined. The highest ETc values occurred during the floral induction phase (5.14 ± 0.85 mm day-1), with a Kc of 0.85; however, the lowest values were observed during the fruit maturation phase (3.60 ± 0.73 mm day-1), with a Kc of 0.91. Average water consumption per cycle was 1445 mm, with a daily average of 4.39 mm day-1. WUE and CWP were 16.9 and 24.5 kg ha-1 mm-1, respectively. Average Kc values of 0.81, 0.76, 0.85, 0.90, 0.95, and 0.91 are recommended for the vegetative growth, rest period and shoot maturation, floral induction, flowering, fruit development, and fruit maturation phases, respectively

Analysis of high-identity segmental duplications in the grapevine genome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Segmental duplications (SDs) are blocks of genomic sequence of 1-200 kb that map to different loci in a genome and share a sequence identity > 90%. SDs show at the sequence level the same characteristics as other regions of the human genome: they contain both high-copy repeats and gene sequences. SDs play an important role in genome plasticity by creating new genes and modeling genome structure. Although data is plentiful for mammals, not much was known about the representation of SDs in plant genomes. In this regard, we performed a genome-wide analysis of high-identity SDs on the sequenced grapevine (<it>Vitis vinifera</it>) genome (PN40024).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We demonstrate that recent SDs (> 94% identity and >= 10 kb in size) are a relevant component of the grapevine genome (85 Mb, 17% of the genome sequence). We detected mitochondrial and plastid DNA and genes (10% of gene annotation) in segmentally duplicated regions of the nuclear genome. In particular, the nine highest copy number genes have a copy in either or both organelle genomes. Further we showed that several duplicated genes take part in the biosynthesis of compounds involved in plant response to environmental stress.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These data show the great influence of SDs and organelle DNA transfers in modeling the <it>Vitis vinifera </it>nuclear DNA structure as well as the impact of SDs in contributing to the adaptive capacity of grapevine and the nutritional content of grape products through genome variation. This study represents a step forward in the full characterization of duplicated genes important for grapevine cultural needs and human health.</p