Measured greenhouse gas budgets challenge emission savings from palm-oil biodiesel

Special thanks to our field assistants in Indonesia (Basri, Bayu and Darwis) and to Frank Tiedemann, Edgar Tunsch, Dietmar Fellert and Malte Puhan for technical assistance. We thank PTPN VI and the owner of the plantation at Pompa Air for allowing us to conduct our research at their plantation. We would also like to thank the Spanish national project GEISpain (CGL2014-52838-C2-1-R) and the DAAD (scholarship from the programme ‘Research Stays for University Academics and Scientist 2018, ref. no. 91687130)' for partly financing A. Meijide during the preparation of this paper.The potential of palm-oil biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared with fossil fuels is increasingly questioned. So far, no measurement-based GHG budgets were available, and plantation age was ignored in Life Cycle Analyses (LCA). Here, we conduct LCA based on measured CO2, CH4 and N2O fluxes in young and mature Indonesian oil palm plantations. CO2 dominates the on-site GHG budgets. The young plantation is a carbon source (1012 ± 51 gC m−2 yr−1), the mature plantation a sink (−754 ± 38 gC m−2 yr−1). LCA considering the measured fluxes shows higher GHG emissions for palm-oil biodiesel than traditional LCA assuming carbon neutrality. Plantation rotation-cycle extension and earlier-yielding varieties potentially decrease GHG emissions. Due to the high emissions associated with forest conversion to oil palm, our results indicate that only biodiesel from second rotation-cycle plantations or plantations established on degraded land has the potential for pronounced GHG emission savings.This study was financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)— Project-ID 192626868—in the framework of the collaborative German-Indonesian research project CRC990 (subprojects A03, A04 and A05).Spanish national project GEISpain (CGL2014-52838-C2-1-R) and the DAAD (scholarship from the programme ‘Research Stays for University Academics and Scientist 2018, ref. no. 91687130

Comprehensive analysis of correlation coefficients estimated from pooling heterogeneous microarray data

Background The synthesis of information across microarray studies has been performed by combining statistical results of individual studies (as in a mosaic), or by combining data from multiple studies into a large pool to be analyzed as a single data set (as in a melting pot of data). Specific issues relating to data heterogeneity across microarray studies, such as differences within and between labs or differences among experimental conditions, could lead to equivocal results in a melting pot approach. Results We applied statistical theory to determine the specific effect of different means and heteroskedasticity across 19 groups of microarray data on the sign and magnitude of gene-to-gene Pearson correlation coefficients obtained from the pool of 19 groups. We quantified the biases of the pooled coefficients and compared them to the biases of correlations estimated by an effect-size model. Mean differences across the 19 groups were the main factor determining the magnitude and sign of the pooled coefficients, which showed largest values of bias as they approached ±1. Only heteroskedasticity across the pool of 19 groups resulted in less efficient estimations of correlations than did a classical meta-analysis approach of combining correlation coefficients. These results were corroborated by simulation studies involving either mean differences or heteroskedasticity across a pool of N \u3e 2 groups. Conclusions The combination of statistical results is best suited for synthesizing the correlation between expression profiles of a gene pair across several microarray studies

Alternative low-cost adsorbent for water and wastewater decontamination derived from eggshellwaste: an overview

As the current global trend towards more stringent environmental standards, technical applicability and cost-effectiveness became key factors in the selection of adsorbents for water and wastewater treatment. Recently, various low-cost adsorbents derived from agricultural waste, industrial by-products or natural materials, have been intensively investigated. In this respect, the eggshells from egg-breaking operations constitute significant waste disposal problems for the food industry, so the development of value-added by-products from this waste is to be welcomed. The egg processing industry is very competitive, with low profit margins due to global competition and cheap imports. Additionally, the costs associated with the egg shell disposal (mainly on landfill sites) are significant, and expected to continue increasing as landfill taxes increase. The aim of the present review is to provide an overview on the development of low-cost adsorbents derived from eggshell by-products

Goal-directed and habitual control in the basal ganglia: implications for Parkinson's disease

Progressive loss of the ascending dopaminergic projection in the basal ganglia is a fundamental pathological feature of Parkinson's disease. Studies in animals and humans have identified spatially segregated functional territories in the basal ganglia for the control of goal-directed and habitual actions. In patients with Parkinson's disease the loss of dopamine is predominantly in the posterior putamen, a region of the basal ganglia associated with the control of habitual behaviour. These patients may therefore be forced into a progressive reliance on the goal-directed mode of action control that is mediated by comparatively preserved processing in the rostromedial striatum. Thus, many of their behavioural difficulties may reflect a loss of normal automatic control owing to distorting output signals from habitual control circuits, which impede the expression of goal-directed action. © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

A Network Model of Local Field Potential Activity in Essential Tremor and the Impact of Deep Brain Stimulation

Essential tremor (ET), a movement disorder characterised by an uncontrollable shaking of the affected body part, is often professed to be the most common movement disorder, affecting up to one percent of adults over 40 years of age. The precise cause of ET is unknown, however pathological oscillations of a network of a number of brain regions are implicated in leading to the disorder. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a clinical therapy used to alleviate the symptoms of a number of movement disorders. DBS involves the surgical implantation of electrodes into specific nuclei in the brain. For ET the targeted region is the ventralis intermedius (Vim) nucleus of the thalamus. Though DBS is effective for treating ET, the mechanism through which the therapeutic effect is obtained is not understood. To elucidate the mechanism underlying the pathological network activity and the effect of DBS on such activity, we take a computational modelling approach combined with electrophysiological data. The pathological brain activity was recorded intra-operatively via implanted DBS electrodes, whilst simultaneously recording muscle activity of the affected limbs. We modelled the network hypothesised to underlie ET using the Wilson-Cowan approach. The modelled network exhibited oscillatory behaviour within the tremor frequency range, as did our electrophysiological data. By applying a DBS-like input we suppressed these oscillations. This study shows that the dynamics of the ET network support oscillations at the tremor frequency and the application of a DBS-like input disrupts this activity, which could be one mechanism underlying the therapeutic benefit

Excitatory amino acidergic pathways and receptors in the basal ganglia

The striatum receives the majority of excitatory amino acidergic input to the basal ganglia from neocortical and allocortical sources. The subthalamic nucleus and the substantia nigra also receive excitatory amino acidergic inputs from neocortex. The subthalamic nucleus, which has prominent projections to the pallidum and nigra, is the only known intrinsic excitatory amino acidergic component of the basal ganglia. Possible excitatory amino acidergic inputs reach the basal ganglia from the intralaminar thalamic nuclei and the pedunculo-pontine nucleus. The striatum is richly endowed with all subtypes of excitatory amino acid receptors and these appear to be inhomogeneously distributed within the striatal complex. The non-striatal nuclei contain lesser levels of excitatory amino acid receptors and the relative proportion of these receptors varies between nuclei. The presence of high densities of excitatory amino acid receptors is a phylogenetically conserved feature of the striatum and its non-mammalian homologues. In Huntington's disease, there is substantial depletion of α -amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionic acid, N-methyl-D-aspartate, and kainate receptors within the striatum. In Parkinson's disease substantia nigra, there is significant loss of N-methyl-D-aspartate and α -amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionic acid receptors.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/41734/1/726_2004_Article_BF00814003.pd

Current perspectives of the signaling pathways directing neural crest induction

The neural crest is a migratory population of embryonic cells with a tremendous potential to differentiate and contribute to nearly every organ system in the adult body. Over the past two decades, an incredible amount of research has given us a reasonable understanding of how these cells are generated. Neural crest induction involves the combinatorial input of multiple signaling pathways and transcription factors, and is thought to occur in two phases from gastrulation to neurulation. In the first phase, FGF and Wnt signaling induce NC progenitors at the border of the neural plate, activating the expression of members of the Msx, Pax, and Zic families, among others. In the second phase, BMP, Wnt, and Notch signaling maintain these progenitors and bring about the expression of definitive NC markers including Snail2, FoxD3, and Sox9/10. In recent years, additional signaling molecules and modulators of these pathways have been uncovered, creating an increasingly complex regulatory network. In this work, we provide a comprehensive review of the major signaling pathways that participate in neural crest induction, with a focus on recent developments and current perspectives. We provide a simplified model of early neural crest development and stress similarities and differences between four major model organisms: Xenopus, chick, zebrafish, and mouse