Uncertainty in Model Predictions of Vibrio Vulnificus Response to Climate Variability and Change: A Chesapeake Bay Case Study

The effect that climate change and variability will have on waterborne bacteria is a topic of increasing concern for coastal ecosystems, including the Chesapeake Bay. Surface water temperature trends in the Bay indicate a warming pattern of roughly 0.3-0.4 C per decade over the past 30 years. It is unclear what impact future warming will have on pathogens currently found in the Bay, including Vibrio spp. Using historical environmental data, combined with three different statistical models of Vibrio vulnificus probability, we explore the relationship between environmental change and predicted Vibrio vulnificus presence in the upper Chesapeake Bay. We find that the predicted response of V. vulnificus probability to high temperatures in the Bay differs systematically between models of differing structure. As existing publicly available datasets are inadequate to determine which model structure is most appropriate, the impact of climatic change on the probability of V. vulnificus presence in the Chesapeake Bay remains uncertain. This result points to the challenge of characterizing climate sensitivity of ecological systems in which data are sparse and only statistical models of ecological sensitivity exist

Impact of Soil Conservation and Eucalyptus on Hydrology and Soil Loss in the Ethiopian Highlands

The Ethiopian highlands suffer from severe land degradation, including erosion. In response, the Ethiopian government has implemented soil and water conservation practices (SWCPs). At the same time, due to its economic value, the acreage of eucalyptus has expanded, with croplands and pastures converted to eucalyptus plantations. The impact of these changes on soil loss has not been investigated experimentally. The objective of this study, therefore, is to examine the impacts of these changes on stream discharge and sediment load in a sub-humid watershed. The study covers a nine-year period that included installation of SWCPs, a three-fold increase from 1.5 ha in 2010 to 5 ha in 2018 in eucalyptus, and the upgrading of an unpaved to the paved road. Precipitation, runoff, and sediment concentration were monitored by installing weirs at the outlets of the main and four nested watersheds. A total of 867 storm events were collected in the nine years. Runoff and sediment concentration decreased by more than half in nine years. In the main watershed W5, we estimated that evapotranspiration by eucalyptus during the dry phase (November to May) increased approximately from 30 mm a−1 in 2010 to 100 mm a−1 in 2018. In watershed W3 it increased from 2 mm a−1 to 400 mm a−1, requiring more rainfall before saturation excess runoff began in the rain phase. The reduction in runoff led to a decreased sediment load from 70 Mg ha−1 a−1 in 2010 to 2.8 Mg ha−1 a−1 in 2018, though the reduction in discharge may have negative impacts on ecology and downstream water resources. SWCPs became sediment-filled and minimally effective by 2018. This indicates that these techniques are either inappropriate for this sub-humid watershed or require improved design and maintenance

Evaluation ofthe Middle East and North Africa Land Data Assimilation System

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is dominated by dry, warm deserts, areas of dense population, and inefficient use of fresh water resources. Due to the scarcity, high intensity, and short duration of rainfall in the MENA, the region is prone to hydro climatic extremes that are realized by devastating floods and times of drought. However, given its widespread water stress and the considerable demand for water, the MENA remains relatively poorly monitored. This is due in part to the shortage of meteorological observations and the lack of data sharing between nations. As a result, the accurate monitoring of the dynamics of the water cycle in the MENA is difficult. The Land Data Assimilation System for the MENA region (MENA LDAS) has been developed to provide regional, gridded fields of hydrological states and fluxes relevant for water resources assessments. As an extension of the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), the MENA LDAS was designed to aid in the identification and evaluation of regional hydrological anomalies by synergistically combining the physically-based Catchment Land Surface Model (CLSM) with observations from several independent data products including soil-water storage variations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and irrigation intensity derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). In this fashion, we estimate the mean and seasonal cycle of the water budget components across the MENA

Sintomatologia ansiosa e depressiva em famílias com filhos adolescentes: Qual o papel da diferenciação do self dos pais?

A literatura tem realçado o impacto da história familiar de psicopatologia no desenvolvimento de perturbações emocionais nas gerações mais novas e a associação entre o nível de diferenciação do self e diversos quadros clínicos (e.g., ansiosos e depressivos). Com recurso a um desenho quantitativo transversal e a uma amostra de 104 tríades familiares (mãe, pai e filho/a adolescente), o presente estudo pretende analisar: a associação entre a sintomatologia depressiva e ansiosa de mães e pais e filhos/as adolescentes; e o papel mediador da diferenciação do self das mães e dos pais na relação entre a sintomatologia depressiva e ansiosa de mães e de pais e a sintomatologia depressiva e ansiosa dos/as filhos/as adolescentes. Os resultados mostram que: a sintomatologia depressiva e ansiosa do pai e da mãe são preditoras do nível de diferenciação do self do pai e da mãe; a relação entre a sintomatologia depressiva da mãe e dos/as filhos/as é mediada pela diferenciação do self da mãe; e a sintomatologia ansiosa da mãe é preditora da sintomatologia ansiosa dos/as filhos/as. Apesar de os resultados sugerirem que a mãe tenha também um papel central na transmissão de adversidade aos filhos, apontam para que a sintomatologia ansiosa e depressiva de pais e filhos se associem de formas diferentes. Este estudo tem implicações para a prática clínica e para a literatura na área da psicologia clínica e psicologia da família, ao relevar o impacto da sintomatologia da mãe e do seu nível de diferenciação do self no desenvolvimento de psicopatologia na adolescência.The literature has highlighted the impact of the family psychopathology history on the development of psychopathology in the younger generations and the association between the level of self differentiation and various clinical conditions (e.g., anxiety and depression). Using a quantitative cross-sectional design and a sample of 104 family triads (mother, father and adolescent child), the present study aims to analyze: the association between depressive and anxious symptomatology of mothers and fathers and adolescent children; and the mediating role of the self-differentiation of mothers and fathers in the relationship between the depressive and anxious symptomatology of mothers and fathers and the depressive and anxious symptomatology of the adolescent children. The results show that: the depressive and anxious symptomatology of the father and the mother are predictors of the level of differentiation of the self of the father and the mother; the relationship between the depressive symptomatology of the mother and the child is mediated by the differentiation of the mother's self; and the anxious symptomatology of the mother is a predictor of the anxious symptomatology of the child. Although the results suggest that the mother also has a central role in the transmission of adversity to the children, they point out that the anxious and depressive symptomatology of parents and children associate in different ways. This study has implications for clinical practice and for literature in clinical psychology and family psychology, by highlighting the impact of the mother's symptomatology and mothers’ level of self differentiation in the development of psychopathology in adolescence.Orientação: Ana Priost

Identifying key water resource vulnerabilities in data‐scarce transboundary river basins

This paper presents a two‐step framework to identify key water resource vulnerabilities in transboundary river basins where data availability on both hydrological fluxes and the operation of man‐made facilities is either limited or nonexistent. In a first step, it combines two state‐of‐the‐art modeling tools to overcome data limitations and build a model that provides a lower bound on risks estimated in that basin. Land data assimilation (process‐based hydrological modeling taking remote‐sensed products as inputs) is needed to evaluate hydrological fluxes, that is, streamflow data and consumptive use in irrigated agriculture—a lower‐end estimate of demand. Hydroeconomic modeling provides cooperative water allocation policies that reflect the best‐case management of storage capacity under hydrological uncertainty at a monthly time step for competing uses—hydropower, irrigation. In a second step, the framework uses additional scenarios to proceed with the in‐depth analysis of the vulnerabilities identified despite the use of what is by definition a best‐case model. We implement this approach to the Tigris‐Euphrates river basin, a politically unstable region where water scarcity has been hypothesized to serve as a trigger for the Syrian revolution and ensuing war. Results suggest that even under the framework's best‐case assumptions, the Euphrates part of the basin is close to a threshold where it becomes reliant on transfers of saline water from other parts of the basin to ensure irrigation demands are met. This Tigris‐Euphrates river basin application demonstrates how the proposed framework quantifies vulnerabilities that have been hitherto discussed in a mostly qualitative, speculative way

Uncertainty in Model Predictions of Vibrio vulnificus Response to Climate Variability and Change: A Chesapeake Bay Case Study

Abstract The effect that climate change and variability will have on waterborne bacteria is a topic of increasing concern for coastal ecosystems, including the Chesapeake Bay. Surface water temperature trends in the Bay indicate a warming pattern of roughly 0.3-0.4uC per decade over the past 30 years. It is unclear what impact future warming will have on pathogens currently found in the Bay, including Vibrio spp. Using historical environmental data, combined with three different statistical models of Vibrio vulnificus probability, we explore the relationship between environmental change and predicted Vibrio vulnificus presence in the upper Chesapeake Bay. We find that the predicted response of V. vulnificus probability to high temperatures in the Bay differs systematically between models of differing structure. As existing publicly available datasets are inadequate to determine which model structure is most appropriate, the impact of climatic change on the probability of V. vulnificus presence in the Chesapeake Bay remains uncertain. This result points to the challenge of characterizing climate sensitivity of ecological systems in which data are sparse and only statistical models of ecological sensitivity exist

NASAs Seasonal Hydrological Forecast System for Improved Food Insecurity Early Warning in Africa

To develop a seasonal scale drought forecasting system to strengthen FEWS NET's progressive early warning efforts in Africa and the Middle East. This presentation provides an overview of the implementation, validation, and ongoing operational applications of this system

The special case of self-perspective inhibition in mental, but not non-mental, representation

The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) has been implicated in studies of both executive and social functions. Recent meta-analyses suggest that vlPFC plays an important but little understood role in Theory of Mind (ToM). Converging neuropsychological and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) evidence suggests that this may reflect inhibition of self-perspective. The present study adapted an extensively published ToM localizer to evaluate the role of vlPFC in inhibition of self-perspective. The classic false belief, false photograph vignettes that comprise the localizer were modified to generate high and low salience of self-perspective. Using a factorial design, the present study identified a behavioural and neural cost associated with having a highly salient self-perspective that was incongruent with the representational content. Importantly, vlPFC only differentiated between high versus low salience of self-perspective when representing mental state content. No difference was identified for non-mental representation. This result suggests that different control processes are required to represent competing mental and non-mental content

A Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System for South Asia

AbstractThe Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System (RDMOS) is an operational service which produces reliable drought indicators for the south Asia region with a specific focus on Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan. The system incorporates climatic models with suitable Earth observation data and land surface models to produce drought indices—precipitation, temperature, soil moisture, evapotranspiration—and vegetation conditions at 10-day intervals for near realtime monitoring of droughts. The RDMOS also provides seasonal outlooks at four-month intervals to support drought management and preparedness processes