Satellites May Underestimate Rice Residue and Associated Burning Emissions in Vietnam

In this study, we estimate rice residue, associated burning emissions, and compare results with existing emissions inventories employing a bottom-up approach. We first estimated field-level post-harvest rice residues, including separate fuel-loading factors for rice straw and rice stubble. Results suggested fuel-loading factors of 0.27 kg/sq m (+/-0.033), 0.61 kg/sq m (+/-0.076), and 0.88 kg/sq m (+/-0.083) for rice straw, stubble, and total post-harvest biomass, respectively. Using these factors, we quantified potential emissions from rice residue burning and compared our estimates with other studies. Our results suggest total rice residue burning emissions as 2.24 Gg PM2.5, 36.54 Gg CO and 567.79 Gg CO2 for Hanoi Province, which are significantly higher than earlier studies. We attribute our higher emission estimates to improved fuel-loading factors; moreover, we infer that some earlier studies relying on residue-to-product ratios could be underestimating rice residue emissions by more than a factor of 2.3 for Hanoi, Vietnam. Using the rice planted area data from the Vietnamese government, and combining our fuel-loading factors, we also estimated rice residue PM2.5 emissions for the entirety of Vietnam and compared these estimates with an existing all-sources emissions inventory, and the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED). Results suggest 75.98 Gg of PM2.5 released from rice residue burning accounting for 12.8% of total emissions for Vietnam. The GFED database suggests 42.56 Gg PM2.5 from biomass burning with 5.62 Gg attributed to agricultural waste burning indicating satellite-based methods may be significantly underestimating emissions. Our results not only provide improved residue and emission estimates, but also highlight the need for emissions mitigation from rice residue burning

Dependent coordinates in path integral measure factorization

The transformation of the path integral measure under the reduction procedure in the dynamical systems with a symmetry is considered. The investigation is carried out in the case of the Wiener--type path integrals that are used for description of the diffusion on a smooth compact Riemannian manifold with the given free isometric action of the compact semisimple unimodular Lie group. The transformation of the path integral, which factorizes the path integral measure, is based on the application of the optimal nonlinear filtering equation from the stochastic theory. The integral relation between the kernels of the original and reduced semigroup are obtained.Comment: LaTeX2e, 28 page

QED on Curved Background and on Manifolds with Boundaries: Unitarity versus Covariance

Some recent results show that the covariant path integral and the integral over physical degrees of freedom give contradicting results on curved background and on manifolds with boundaries. This looks like a conflict between unitarity and covariance. We argue that this effect is due to the use of non-covariant measure on the space of physical degrees of freedom. Starting with the reduced phase space path integral and using covariant measure throughout computations we recover standard path integral in the Lorentz gauge and the Moss and Poletti BRST-invariant boundary conditions. We also demonstrate by direct calculations that in the approach based on Gaussian path integral on the space of physical degrees of freedom some basic symmetries are broken.Comment: 29 pages, LaTEX, no figure

Cardiovascular, endocrine and behavioural responses to suckling and permanent separation in goats

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Suckling can be a peaceful or vulnerable event for goats and kids, whereas, separation is suggested as stressful. The aim of this study was to investigate physiology and behaviour in these two different situations in dairy goats.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Four studies were performed with seven goats kept with their first-born kid in individual boxes. The goats were videotaped and heart rate and arterial blood pressure were recorded every minute by telemetry from parturition until 24 hours after separation. One to two days after parturition, Study 1 was performed with analyses of heart rate and blood pressure around a suckling. In Study 2, performed 3-5 days after parturition, blood sampling was done before, during and after suckling. Study 3 was performed 4-6 days post partum, with blood sampling before and after a permanent goat and kid separation. In addition, vocalisations were recorded after separation. Blood samples were obtained from a jugular vein catheter and analysed for plasma cortisol, β-endorphin, oxytocin, and vasopressin concentrations. Study 4 was performed during the first (N1) and second nights (N2) after parturition and the nights after Study 2 (N3) and 3 (N4). Heart rate, blood pressure and time spent lying down were recorded.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The kids suckled 2 ± 0.2 times per hour and each suckling bout lasted 43 ± 15 s. In Study 1, heart rate and blood pressure did not change significantly during undisturbed suckling. In Study 2, plasma cortisol (P ≤ 0.05 during suckling and P ≤ 0.01 five minutes after suckling) and β-endorphin (P ≤ 0.05) concentrations increased during suckling, but oxytocin and vasopressin concentrations did not change. In Study 3, the goats and kids vocalised intensively during the first 20 minutes after separation, but the physiological variables were not affected. In Study 4, heart rate and arterial blood pressure declined gradually after parturition and were lowest during N4 (P ≤ 0.05) when the goats spent longer time lying down than during earlier nights (P ≤ 0.01 during N1 and N3 and P ≤ 0.05 during N2).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Suckling elevated plasma cortisol and β-endorphin concentrations in the goats. The intensive vocalisation in the goats after separation, earlier suggested to indicate stress, was not accompanied by cardiovascular or endocrine responses.</p

Predicting severe pain after major surgery: a secondary analysis of the Peri-operative Quality Improvement Programme (PQIP) dataset

Acute postoperative pain is common, distressing and associated with increased morbidity. Targeted interventions can prevent its development. We aimed to develop and internally validate a predictive tool to pre-emptively identify patients at risk of severe pain following major surgery. We analysed data from the UK Peri-operative Quality Improvement Programme to develop and validate a logistic regression model to predict severe pain on the first postoperative day using pre-operative variables. Secondary analyses included the use of peri-operative variables. Data from 17,079 patients undergoing major surgery were included. Severe pain was reported by 3140 (18.4%) patients; this was more prevalent in females, patients with cancer or insulin-dependent diabetes, current smokers and in those taking baseline opioids. Our final model included 25 pre-operative predictors with an optimism-corrected c-statistic of 0.66 and good calibration (mean absolute error 0.005, p = 0.35). Decision-curve analysis suggested an optimal cut-off value of 20–30% predicted risk to identify high-risk individuals. Potentially modifiable risk factors included smoking status and patient-reported measures of psychological well-being. Non-modifiable factors included demographic and surgical factors. Discrimination was improved by the addition of intra-operative variables (likelihood ratio χ2 496.5, p < 0.001) but not by the addition of baseline opioid data. On internal validation, our pre-operative prediction model was well calibrated but discrimination was moderate. Performance was improved with the inclusion of peri-operative covariates suggesting pre-operative variables alone are not sufficient to adequately predict postoperative pain

Geometrical aspects of quantum field theory

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The Body Mass Index of San Francisco Cold Water Swimmers - Comparisons to U.S. National and Local Populations, and Pool Swimmers

International Journal of Exercise Science 10(8): 1250-1262, 2017. To determine if cold-water swimmers have substantial differences in BMI, which might have a protective effect against heat loss during swims in cold water without wetsuits, and to determine if obesity is more or less prevalent in cold-water swimmers, we compared the body mass index (BMI) values of 103 recreational open-water swimmers (mean age 54.3 ±10.8 years) to data from various population groups. Swimmers swam consistently throughout the winter months, in the San Francisco Bay (water temperature range: 9.6° C [49.3 ° F] to 12.6° C [54.7 ° F]), without wetsuits. After matching for age and sex, the average BMI of cold-water swimmers (25.9 kg/m2) was lower than the corresponding predicted U.S. average BMI (29.2 kg/m2; p\u3c.001), the predicted California state average BMI (28.0 kg/m2; p\u3c.001), and the predicted San Francisco city average BMI (26.6 kg/m2; p=.047). The average BMI value for cold-water swimmers (25.9 kg/m2) was not significantly different from values of North American masters pool swimmers (25.1 kg/m2; p=.15) or international masters pool swimmers (25.3 kg/m2; p=.16). 10.7% of cold-water swimmers were classified as obese (BMI \u3e 30 kg/m2) vs. 35.7%, 25.8%, and 11.8% of the U.S., California, and San Francisco populations, respectively. The lower or similar BMI values of our swimmers suggest that successful recreational swimming in cold water is influenced by factors other than body habitus, such as acclimatization, heat production while swimming, and most importantly, limiting immersion time. The relatively low prevalence of obesity in our swimmers suggests that cold-water swimming could contribute to a healthy lifestyle

Development of models to follow vapour-aerosol reactions and iodine chemistry, technical progress report, 1 January - 31 August 1991

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