Only small changes in soil organic carbon and charcoal concentrations found one year after experimental slash-and-burn in a temperate deciduous forest

International audienceAnthropogenic fires affected the temperate deciduous forests of Central Europe over millennia. Biomass burning releases carbon to the atmosphere and produces charcoal, which potentially contributes to the stable soil carbon pools and is an important archive of environmental history. The fate of charcoal in soils of temperate deciduous forests, i.e. the processes of charcoal incorporation and transportation, and the effects on soil organic matter are still not clear. In a long-term experimental burning site, we investigated the effects of slash-and-burn and determined soil organic carbon, charcoal carbon and nitrogen concentrations and the soil lightness of colour (L*) in the topmost soil material (0?1, 1?2.5 and 2.5?5 cm depths) before, immediately after the fire and one year after burning. The main results are that (i) only few charcoal particles from the forest floor were incorporated into the soil matrix by soil mixing animals. In 0?1 cm and during one year, the charcoal C concentrations increased only by 0.4 g kg?1 and the proportion of charcoal C to SOC concentrations increased from 2.8 to 3.4%; (ii) the SOC concentrations did not show any significant differences; (iii) soil lightness significantly decreased in the topmost soil layer and correlated with the concentrations of charcoal C (r=-0.87**) and SOC (r=?0.94**) in samples 0?5 cm. We concluded that the soil colour depends on the proportion of aromatic charcoal carbon in total organic matter and that Holocene burning could have influenced soil charcoal concentrations and soil colour

SAS-B digitized spark chamber gamma ray telescope

Systems description of SAS-B gamma ray telescope with multilayer digitized spark chamber for gamma rays with energy exceeding 20 Me

Identificación y análisis de los recursos económicos asignados a la segunda locomotora. Evolución, aciertos y desaciertos

Con la elaboración del presente documento, se pretende identificar y analizar los recursos económicos asignados a una de las locomotoras del gobierno del presidente Juan Manuel Santos en el marco de su plan de desarrollo Prosperidad para todos y el impacto social de esta asignación de recursos en el agro Colombiano, Así mismo evaluar el cumplimiento de dicha política publica y la generación de bienestar social en la población."With the production of the present document, one tries to identify and to analyze the economic resources assigned to one of the locomotives of the government of the president Juan Manuel Santos in the frame of his plan of development "" Prosperity for all "" and the social impact of this assignment of resources in the Colombian agro, Likewise to evaluate the fulfillment of the above mentioned politics publishes and the generation of social well-being in the population.

Holocene history of the 79° N ice shelf reconstructed from epishelf lake and uplifted glaciomarine sediments

Acknowledgements This work was funded by a NERC standard grant (grant no. NE/N011228/1), and some radiocarbon analysis was funded by NEIF (grant NE/S011587/1; allocation number 2169.1118). We thank the Alfred Wegener Institute, particularly Angelika Humbert and Hicham Rafiq, for significant logistic support through the iGRIFF project. Additional support was provided by Station Nord (Jorgen Skafte), Nordlandair, Air Greenland, and the Joint Arctic Command. Naalakkersuisut (government of Greenland) provided scientific survey (VU-00121) and export (046/2017) licences for this work. Finally, we would like to thank our (Nanu Travel) field ranger Isak (and dog Ooni) for keeping us safe in the field and taking great pleasure in beating James A. Smith at cards. Financial support This research has been supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (grant no. NE/N011228/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Oral Disposition Index Predicts the Development of Future Diabetes Above and Beyond Fasting and 2-h Glucose Levels

OBJECTIVE—We sought to determine whether an oral disposition index (DIO) predicts the development of diabetes over a 10-year period. First, we assessed the validity of the DIO by demonstrating that a hyperbolic relationship exists between oral indexes of insulin sensitivity and β-cell function

Sub-ice-shelf sediments record history of twentieth-century retreat of Pine Island Glacier

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature20136The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the largest potential sources of rising sea levels. Over the past 40 years, glaciers flowing into the Amundsen Sea sector of the ice sheet have thinned at an accelerating rate, and several numerical models suggest that unstable and irreversible retreat of the grounding line—which marks the boundary between grounded ice and floating ice shelf—is underway. Understanding this recent retreat requires a detailed knowledge of grounding-line history, but the locations of the grounding line before the advent of satellite monitoring in the 1990s are poorly dated. In particular, a history of grounding-line retreat is required to understand the relative roles of contemporaneous ocean-forced change and of ongoing glacier response to an earlier perturbation in driving ice-sheet loss. Here we show that the present thinning and retreat of Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica is part of a climatically forced trend that was triggered in the 1940s. Our conclusions arise from analysis of sediment cores recovered beneath the floating Pine Island Glacier ice shelf, and constrain the date at which the grounding line retreated from a prominent seafloor ridge. We find that incursion of marine water beyond the crest of this ridge, forming an ocean cavity beneath the ice shelf, occurred in 1945 (±12 years); final ungrounding of the ice shelf from the ridge occurred in 1970 (±4 years). The initial opening of this ocean cavity followed a period of strong warming of West Antarctica, associated with El Niño activity. Furthermore our results suggest that, even when climate forcing weakened, ice-sheet retreat continued.USDO

Circulating adrenomedullin estimates survival and reversibility of organ failure in sepsis: the prospective observational multinational Adrenomedullin and Outcome in Sepsis and Septic Shock-1 (AdrenOSS-1) study

Background: Adrenomedullin (ADM) regulates vascular tone and endothelial permeability during sepsis. Levels of circulating biologically active ADM (bio-ADM) show an inverse relationship with blood pressure and a direct relationship with vasopressor requirement. In the present prospective observational multinational Adrenomedullin and Outcome in Sepsis and Septic Shock 1 (, AdrenOSS-1) study, we assessed relationships between circulating bio-ADM during the initial intensive care unit (ICU) stay and short-term outcome in order to eventually design a biomarker-guided randomized controlled trial. Methods: AdrenOSS-1 was a prospective observational multinational study. The primary outcome was 28-day mortality. Secondary outcomes included organ failure as defined by Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score, organ support with focus on vasopressor/inotropic use, and need for renal replacement therapy. AdrenOSS-1 included 583 patients admitted to the ICU with sepsis or septic shock. Results: Circulating bio-ADM levels were measured upon admission and at day 2. Median bio-ADM concentration upon admission was 80.5 pg/ml [IQR 41.5-148.1 pg/ml]. Initial SOFA score was 7 [IQR 5-10], and 28-day mortality was 22%. We found marked associations between bio-ADM upon admission and 28-day mortality (unadjusted standardized HR 2.3 [CI 1.9-2.9]; adjusted HR 1.6 [CI 1.1-2.5]) and between bio-ADM levels and SOFA score (p < 0.0001). Need of vasopressor/inotrope, renal replacement therapy, and positive fluid balance were more prevalent in patients with a bio-ADM > 70 pg/ml upon admission than in those with bio-ADM ≤ 70 pg/ml. In patients with bio-ADM > 70 pg/ml upon admission, decrease in bio-ADM below 70 pg/ml at day 2 was associated with recovery of organ function at day 7 and better 28-day outcome (9.5% mortality). By contrast, persistently elevated bio-ADM at day 2 was associated with prolonged organ dysfunction and high 28-day mortality (38.1% mortality, HR 4.9, 95% CI 2.5-9.8). Conclusions: AdrenOSS-1 shows that early levels and rapid changes in bio-ADM estimate short-term outcome in sepsis and septic shock. These data are the backbone of the design of the biomarker-guided AdrenOSS-2 trial. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02393781. Registered on March 19, 2015

Oral Disposition Index Predicts the Development of Future Diabetes Above and Beyond Fasting and 2-h Glucose Levels

OBJECTIVE—We sought to determine whether an oral disposition index (DIO) predicts the development of diabetes over a 10-year period. First, we assessed the validity of the DIO by demonstrating that a hyperbolic relationship exists between oral indexes of insulin sensitivity and β-cell function

Prototype ATLAS IBL Modules using the FE-I4A Front-End Readout Chip

The ATLAS Collaboration will upgrade its semiconductor pixel tracking detector with a new Insertable B-layer (IBL) between the existing pixel detector and the vacuum pipe of the Large Hadron Collider. The extreme operating conditions at this location have necessitated the development of new radiation hard pixel sensor technologies and a new front-end readout chip, called the FE-I4. Planar pixel sensors and 3D pixel sensors have been investigated to equip this new pixel layer, and prototype modules using the FE-I4A have been fabricated and characterized using 120 GeV pions at the CERN SPS and 4 GeV positrons at DESY, before and after module irradiation. Beam test results are presented, including charge collection efficiency, tracking efficiency and charge sharing.Comment: 45 pages, 30 figures, submitted to JINS