Three monthly coral Sr/Ca records from the Chagos Archipelago covering the period of 1950-1995 A.D.: reproducibility and implications for quantitative reconstructions of sea surface temperature variations

In order to assess the fidelity of coral Sr/Ca for quantitative reconstructions of sea surface temperature variations, we have generated three monthly Sr/Ca time series from Porites corals from the lagoon of Peros Banhos (71°E, 5°S, Chagos Archipelago). We find that all three coral Sr/Ca time series are well correlated with instrumental records of sea surface temperature (SST) and air temperature. However, the intrinsic variance of the single-core Sr/Ca time series differs from core to core, limiting their use for quantitative estimates of past temperature variations. Averaging the single-core data improves the correlation with instrumental temperature (r > 0.7) and allows accurate estimates of interannual temperature variations (~0.35°C or better). All Sr/Ca time series indicate a shift towards warmer temperatures in the mid-1970s, which coincides with the most recent regime shift in the Pacific Ocean. However, the magnitude of the warming inferred from coral Sr/Ca differs from core to core and ranges from 0.26 to 0.75°C. The composite Sr/Ca record from Peros Banhos clearly captures the major climatic signals in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, i.e. the El Niño–southern oscillation and the Pacific decadal oscillation. Moreover, composite Sr/Ca is highly correlated with tropical mean temperatures (r = 0.7), suggesting that coral Sr/Ca time series from the tropical Indian Ocean will contribute to multi-proxy reconstructions of tropical mean temperatures

Analysis of rainfall seasonality from observations and climate models

Two new indicators of rainfall seasonality based on information entropy, the relative entropy (RE) and the dimensionless seasonality index (DSI), together with the mean annual rainfall, are evaluated on a global scale for recently updated precipitation gridded datasets and for historical simulations from coupled atmosphere--ocean general circulation models. The RE provides a measure of the number of wet months and, for precipitation regimes featuring a distinct wet and dry season, it is directly related to the duration of the wet season. The DSI combines the rainfall intensity with its degree of seasonality and it is an indicator of the extent of the global monsoon region. We show that the RE and the DSI are fairly independent of the time resolution of the precipitation data, thereby allowing objective metrics for model intercomparison and ranking. Regions with different precipitation regimes are classified and characterized in terms of RE and DSI. Comparison of different land observational datasets reveals substantial difference in their local representation of seasonality. It is shown that two-dimensional maps of RE provide an easy way to compare rainfall seasonality from various datasets and to determine areas of interest. Models participating to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project platform, Phase 5, consistently overestimate the RE over tropical Latin America and underestimate it in West Africa, western Mexico and East Asia. It is demonstrated that positive RE biases in a general circulation model are associated with excessively peaked monthly precipitation fractions, too large during the wet months and too small in the months preceding and following the wet season; negative biases are instead due, in most cases, to an excess of rainfall during the premonsoonal months

Alexithymia, but not Autism Spectrum Disorder, may be Related to the Production of Emotional Facial Expressions

Background A prominent diagnostic criterion of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) relates to the abnormal or diminished use of facial expressions. Yet little is known about the mechanisms that contribute to this feature of ASD. Methods We showed children with and without ASD emotionally charged video clips in order to parse out individual differences in spontaneous production of facial expressions using automated facial expression analysis software. Results Using hierarchical multiple regression, we sought to determine whether alexithymia (characterized by difficulties interpreting one’s own feeling states) contributes to diminished facial expression production. Across groups, alexithymic traits—but not ASD traits, IQ, or sex—were associated with quantity of facial expression production. Conclusions These results accord with a growing body of research suggesting that many emotion processing abnormalities observed in ASD may be explained by co-occurring alexithymia. Developmental and clinical considerations are discussed, and it is argued that alexithymia is an important but too often ignored trait associated with ASD that may have implications for subtyping individuals on the autism spectrum

The mammals of Angola

Scientific investigations on the mammals of Angola started over 150 years ago, but information remains scarce and scattered, with only one recent published account. Here we provide a synthesis of the mammals of Angola based on a thorough survey of primary and grey literature, as well as recent unpublished records. We present a short history of mammal research, and provide brief information on each species known to occur in the country. Particular attention is given to endemic and near endemic species. We also provide a zoogeographic outline and information on the conservation of Angolan mammals. We found confirmed records for 291 native species, most of which from the orders Rodentia (85), Chiroptera (73), Carnivora (39), and Cetartiodactyla (33). There is a large number of endemic and near endemic species, most of which are rodents or bats. The large diversity of species is favoured by the wide range of habitats with contrasting environmental conditions, while endemism tends to be associated with unique physiographic settings such as the Angolan Escarpment. The mammal fauna of Angola includes 2 Critically Endangered, 2 Endangered, 11 Vulnerable, and 14 Near-Threatened species at the global scale. There are also 12 data deficient species, most of which are endemics or near endemics to the countryinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Life Cycle Impact Assessment

International audienceThis chapter is dedicated to the third phase of an LCA study, the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) where the life cycle inventory's information on elementary flows is translated into environmental impact scores. In contrast to the three other LCA phases, LCIA is in practice largely automated by LCA software, but the underlying principles, models and factors should still be well understood by practitioners to ensure the insight that is needed for a qualified interpretation of the results.This chapter teaches the fundamentals of LCIA and opens the black box of LCIA with its characterisation models and factors to inform the reader about: (1) the main purpose and characteristics of LCIA, (2) the mandatory and optional steps of LCIA according to the ISO standard, and (3) the science and methods underlying the assessment for each environmental impact category. For each impact category, the reader is taken through (a) the underlying environmental problem, (b) the underlying environmental mechanism and its fundamental modelling principles, (c) the main anthropogenic sources causing the problem and (d) the main methods available in LCIA. An annex to this book offers a comprehensive qualitative comparison of the main elements and properties of the most widely used and also the latest LCIAmethods for each impact category, to further assist the advanced practitioner to make an informed choice between LCIA methods

A systematic review of randomised controlled trials assessing effectiveness of prosthetic and orthotic interventions.

BACKGROUND: Assistive products are items which allow older people and people with disabilities to be able to live a healthy, productive and dignified life. It has been estimated that approximately 1.5% of the world's population need a prosthesis or orthosis. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to systematically identify and review the evidence from randomized controlled trials assessing effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of prosthetic and orthotic interventions. METHODS: Literature searches, completed in September 2015, were carried out in fourteen databases between years 1995 and 2015. The search results were independently screened by two reviewers. For the purpose of this manuscript, only randomized controlled trials which examined interventions using orthotic or prosthetic devices were selected for data extraction and synthesis. RESULTS: A total of 342 randomised controlled trials were identified (319 English language and 23 non-English language). Only 4 of these randomised controlled trials examined prosthetic interventions and the rest examined orthotic interventions. These orthotic interventions were categorised based on the medical conditions/injuries of the participants. From these studies, this review focused on the medical condition/injuries with the highest number of randomised controlled trials (osteoarthritis, fracture, stroke, carpal tunnel syndrome, plantar fasciitis, anterior cruciate ligament, diabetic foot, rheumatoid and juvenile idiopathic arthritis, ankle sprain, cerebral palsy, lateral epicondylitis and low back pain). The included articles were assessed for risk of bias using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. Details of the clinical population examined, the type of orthotic/prosthetic intervention, the comparator/s and the outcome measures were extracted. Effect sizes and odds ratios were calculated for all outcome measures, where possible. CONCLUSIONS: At present, for prosthetic and orthotic interventions, the scientific literature does not provide sufficient high quality research to allow strong conclusions on their effectiveness and cost-effectiveness

Data Descriptor: A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era

Reproducible climate reconstructions of the Common Era (1 CE to present) are key to placing industrial-era warming into the context of natural climatic variability. Here we present a community-sourced database of temperature-sensitive proxy records from the PAGES2k initiative. The database gathers 692 records from 648 locations, including all continental regions and major ocean basins. The records are from trees, ice, sediment, corals, speleothems, documentary evidence, and other archives. They range in length from 50 to 2000 years, with a median of 547 years, while temporal resolution ranges from biweekly to centennial. Nearly half of the proxy time series are significantly correlated with HadCRUT4.2 surface temperature over the period 1850-2014. Global temperature composites show a remarkable degree of coherence between high-and low-resolution archives, with broadly similar patterns across archive types, terrestrial versus marine locations, and screening criteria. The database is suited to investigations of global and regional temperature variability over the Common Era, and is shared in the Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) format, including serializations in Matlab, R and Python.(TABLE)Since the pioneering work of D'Arrigo and Jacoby1-3, as well as Mann et al. 4,5, temperature reconstructions of the Common Era have become a key component of climate assessments6-9. Such reconstructions depend strongly on the composition of the underlying network of climate proxies10, and it is therefore critical for the climate community to have access to a community-vetted, quality-controlled database of temperature-sensitive records stored in a self-describing format. The Past Global Changes (PAGES) 2k consortium, a self-organized, international group of experts, recently assembled such a database, and used it to reconstruct surface temperature over continental-scale regions11 (hereafter, ` PAGES2k-2013').This data descriptor presents version 2.0.0 of the PAGES2k proxy temperature database (Data Citation 1). It augments the PAGES2k-2013 collection of terrestrial records with marine records assembled by the Ocean2k working group at centennial12 and annual13 time scales. In addition to these previously published data compilations, this version includes substantially more records, extensive new metadata, and validation. Furthermore, the selection criteria for records included in this version are applied more uniformly and transparently across regions, resulting in a more cohesive data product.This data descriptor describes the contents of the database, the criteria for inclusion, and quantifies the relation of each record with instrumental temperature. In addition, the paleotemperature time series are summarized as composites to highlight the most salient decadal-to centennial-scale behaviour of the dataset and check mutual consistency between paleoclimate archives. We provide extensive Matlab code to probe the database-processing, filtering and aggregating it in various ways to investigate temperature variability over the Common Era. The unique approach to data stewardship and code-sharing employed here is designed to enable an unprecedented scale of investigation of the temperature history of the Common Era, by the scientific community and citizen-scientists alike