Impacts of the Last Glacial Cycle on ground surface temperature reconstructions over the last millennium

Borehole temperature profiles provide robust estimates of past ground surface temperature changes, in agreement with meteorological data. Nevertheless, past climatic changes such as the Last Glacial Cycle (LGC) generated thermal effects in the subsurface that affect estimates of recent climatic change from geothermal data. We use an ensemble of ice sheet simulations spanning the last 120 ka to assess the impact of the Laurentide Ice Sheet on recent ground surface temperature histories reconstructed from borehole temperature profiles over North America. When the thermal remnants of the LGC are removed, we find larger amounts of subsurface heat storage (2.8 times) and an increased warming of the ground surface over North America by 0.75 K, both relative to uncorrected borehole estimates

Characterizing land surface processes: A quantitative analysis using air-ground thermal orbits

A quantitative analysis of thermal orbits is developed and applied to modeled air and ground temperatures. Thermal orbits are phase-space representations of air and ground temperature relationships that are generated by plotting daily or monthly ground temperatures against air temperatures. Thermal orbits are useful descriptive tools that provide straightforward illustrations of air and ground temperature relationships in the presence of land surface processes related to snow cover, soil freezing, and vegetation effects. The utility of thermal orbits has been limited, however, by the lack of quantitative analyses that describe changes in orbits across different environments or in time. This shortcoming is overcome in the present study by developing a linear regression analysis of thermal orbits that allows changes to be tracked in time and space and as a function of depth within the subsurface. The theory that underlies the thermal orbit regression analysis is developed herein, and the utility of the application is demonstrated using controlled model experiments

Borehole climatology: a discussion based on contributions from climate modeling

Progress in understanding climate variability through the last millennium leans on simulation and reconstruction efforts. Exercises blending both approaches present a great potential for answering questions relevant both for the simulation and reconstruction of past climate, and depend on the specific peculiarities of proxies and methods involved in climate reconstructions, as well as on the realism and limitations of model simulations. This paper explores research specifically related to paleoclimate modeling and borehole climatology as a branch of climate reconstruction that has contributed significantly to our knowledge of the low frequency climate evolution during the last five centuries. The text flows around three main issues that group most of the interaction between model and geothermal efforts: the use of models as a validation tool for borehole climate reconstructions; comparison of geothermal information and model simulations as a means of either model validation or inference about past climate; and implications of the degree of realism on simulating subsurface climate on estimations of future climate change. The use of multi-centennial simulations as a surrogate reality for past climate suggests that within the simplified reality of climate models, methods and assumptions in borehole reconstructions deliver a consistent picture of past climate evolution at long time scales. Comparison of model simulations and borehole profiles indicate that borehole temperatures are responding to past external forcing and that more realism in the development of the soil model components in climate models is desirable. Such an improved degree of realism is important for the simulation of subsurface climate and air-ground interaction; results indicate it could also be crucial for simulating the adequate energy balance within climate change scenario experiments

Influence of chemically synthesized powder addition on K0.5Na0.5NbO3 ceramic's properties

A new strategy to produce lead-free K0.5Na0.5NbO3 (KNN) piezoceramics with reliable and improved piezoelectric performance is presented for the first time. KNN powders were synthesized using two distinct synthesis routes: a mechanochemical activation-assisted solid-state route (KNNSSR) and a sol-gel modified Pechini method (KNNchem). KNNchem powders were mixed with KNNSSR at different weight ratios (0, 3, 5, 10 and 20 wt%), and the mixtures were conventionally consolidated and sintered at 1130 degrees C for 2 h. It was found that KNNchem powders influence crystal phase, microstructure and piezoelectric properties of the sintered pellets. Gradually increasing KNNchem content promotes the conversion of the undesired phase present in KNNSSR into the stoichiometric one. It is also proved that the addition of KNNchem between 5 and 10 wt% improves piezoelectric properties, eventually leading to a d(33) piezoelectric charge constant value of 113-115 pC/N. These values are among the highest reported for undoped KNN ceramics obtained by conventional sintering

Perturbation Theory for Metastable States of the Dirac Equation with Quadratic Vector Interaction

The spectral problem of the Dirac equation in an external quadratic vector potential is considered using the methods of the perturbation theory. The problem is singular and the perturbation series is asymptotic, so that the methods for dealing with divergent series must be used. Among these, the Distributional Borel Sum appears to be the most well suited tool to give answers and to describe the spectral properties of the system. A detailed investigation is made in one and in three space dimensions with a central potential. We present numerical results for the Dirac equation in one space dimension: these are obtained by determining the perturbation expansion and using the Pad\'e approximants for calculating the distributional Borel transform. A complete agreement is found with previous non-perturbative results obtained by the numerical solution of the singular boundary value problem and the determination of the density of the states from the continuous spectrum.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Effects of bottom boundary placement on subsurface heat storage: Implications for climate model simulations

A one-dimensional soil model is used to estimate the influence of the position of the bottom boundary condition on heat storage calculations in land-surface components of General Circulation Models (GCMs). It is shown that shallow boundary conditions reduce the capacity of the global continental subsurface to store heat by as much as 1.0 x 10²³ Joules during a 110-year simulation with a 10 m bottom boundary. The calculations are relevant for GCM projections that employ land-surface components with shallow bottom boundary conditions, typically ranging between 3 to 10 m. These shallow boundary conditions preclude a large amount of heat from being stored in the terrestrial subsurface, possibly allocating heat to other parts of the simulated climate system. The results show that climate models of any complexity should consider the potential for subsurface heat storage whenever choosing a bottom boundary condition in simulations of future climate change

Glioma Associated Stem Cells (GASCs) Isolation and Culture.

Glioma Associated Stem Cells (GASCs) represent a population of nontumorigenic multipotent stem cells hosted in the microenvironment of human gliomas. In vitro, these cells are able, through the release of exosomes, to increase the biological aggressiveness of glioma-initiating cells. The clinical importance of this finding is supported by the strong prognostic value associated with the GASCs surface immunophenotype thus suggesting that this patient-based approach can provide a groundbreaking method to predict prognosis and to exploit novel strategies that target the tumor strom

Investigation of adhesion and mechanical properties of human glioma cells by single cell force spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy.

Active cell migration and invasion is a peculiar feature of glioma that makes this tumor able to rapidly infiltrate into the surrounding brain tissue. In our recent work, we identified a novel class of glioma-associated-stem cells (defined as GASC for high-grade glioma--HG--and Gasc for low-grade glioma--LG) that, although not tumorigenic, act supporting the biological aggressiveness of glioma-initiating stem cells (defined as GSC for HG and Gsc for LG) favoring also their motility. Migrating cancer cells undergo considerable molecular and cellular changes by remodeling their cytoskeleton and cell interactions with surrounding environment. To get a better understanding about the role of the glioma-associated-stem cells in tumor progression, cell deformability and interactions between glioma-initiating stem cells and glioma-associated-stem cells were investigated. Adhesion of HG/LG-cancer cells on HG/LG-glioma-associated stem cells was studied by time-lapse microscopy, while cell deformability and cell-cell adhesion strengths were quantified by indentation measurements by atomic force microscopy and single cell force spectroscopy. Our results demonstrate that for both HG and LG glioma, cancer-initiating-stem cells are softer than glioma-associated-stem cells, in agreement with their neoplastic features. The adhesion strength of GSC on GASC appears to be significantly lower than that observed for Gsc on Gasc. Whereas, GSC spread and firmly adhere on Gasc with an adhesion strength increased as compared to that obtained on GASC. These findings highlight that the grade of glioma-associated-stem cells plays an important role in modulating cancer cell adhesion, which could affect glioma cell migration, invasion and thus cancer aggressiveness. Moreover this work provides evidence about the importance of investigating cell adhesion and elasticity for new developments in disease diagnostics and therapeutics

Gradient catastrophe and flutter in vortex filament dynamics

Gradient catastrophe and flutter instability in the motion of vortex filament within the localized induction approximation are analyzed. It is shown that the origin if this phenomenon is in the gradient catastrophe for the dispersionless Da Rios system which describes motion of filament with slow varying curvature and torsion. Geometrically this catastrophe manifests as a rapid oscillation of a filament curve in a point that resembles the flutter of airfoils. Analytically it is the elliptic umbilic singularity in the terminology of the catastrophe theory. It is demonstrated that its double scaling regularization is governed by the Painlev\'e-I equation.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, typos corrected, references adde

Manual de prática de coleta e herborização de material botânico.

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