Photoperiod decelerates the advance of spring phenology of six deciduous tree species under climate warming

Vegetation phenology in spring has substantially advanced under climate warming, consequently shifting the seasonality of ecosystem process and altering biosphere–atmosphere feedbacks. However, whether and to what extent photoperiod (i.e., daylength) affects the phenological advancement is unclear, leading to large uncertainties in projecting future phenological changes. Here we examined the photoperiod effect on spring phenology at a regional scale using in situ observation of six deciduous tree species from the Pan European Phenological Network during 1980–2016. We disentangled the photoperiod effect from the temperature effect (i.e., forcing and chilling) by utilizing the unique topography of the northern Alps of Europe (i.e., varying daylength but uniform temperature distribution across latitudes) and examining phenological changes across latitudes. We found prominent photoperiod-induced shifts in spring leaf-out across latitudes (up to 1.7 days per latitudinal degree). Photoperiod regulates spring phenology by delaying early leaf-out and advancing late leaf-out caused by temperature variations. Based on these findings, we proposed two phenological models that consider the photoperiod effect through different mechanisms and compared them with a chilling model. We found that photoperiod regulation would slow down the advance in spring leaf-out under projected climate warming and thus mitigate the increasing frost risk in spring that deciduous forests will face in the future. Our findings identify photoperiod as a critical but understudied factor influencing spring phenology, suggesting that the responses of terrestrial ecosystem processes to climate warming are likely to be overestimated without adequately considering the photoperiod effect

Effect of Additives on the Performance of the Fire-Clay Refractory Bricks

This work studied the effect of additive materials – ceramic powder, bentonite, and clay-on the performance of fire-clay refractory bricks. The results showed that as the percentage of ceramic powder, clay, or bentonite increased up to 1.5%, shrinkage of the bricks decreased and density of the bricks increased while porosity and water absorption decreased and compressive strength increased

Role of CO2, climate and land use in regulating the seasonal amplitude increase of carbon fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems: A multimodel analysis

© Author(s) 2016.We examined the net terrestrial carbon flux to the atmosphere (FTA) simulated by nine models from the TRENDY dynamic global vegetation model project for its seasonal cycle and amplitude trend during 1961-2012. While some models exhibit similar phase and amplitude compared to atmospheric inversions, with spring drawdown and autumn rebound, others tend to rebound early in summer. The model ensemble mean underestimates the magnitude of the seasonal cycle by 40g% compared to atmospheric inversions. Global FTA amplitude increase (19g±g8g%) and its decadal variability from the model ensemble are generally consistent with constraints from surface atmosphere observations. However, models disagree on attribution of this long-term amplitude increase, with factorial experiments attributing 83g±g56g%, ĝ'3g±g74 and 20g±g30g% to rising CO2, climate change and land use/cover change, respectively. Seven out of the nine models suggest that CO2 fertilization is the strongest control - with the notable exception of VEGAS, which attributes approximately equally to the three factors. Generally, all models display an enhanced seasonality over the boreal region in response to high-latitude warming, but a negative climate contribution from part of the Northern Hemisphere temperate region, and the net result is a divergence over climate change effect. Six of the nine models show that land use/cover change amplifies the seasonal cycle of global FTA: some are due to forest regrowth, while others are caused by crop expansion or agricultural intensification, as revealed by their divergent spatial patterns. We also discovered a moderate cross-model correlation between FTA amplitude increase and increase in land carbon sink (R2 Combining double low line g0.61). Our results suggest that models can show similar results in some benchmarks with different underlying mechanisms; therefore, the spatial traits of CO2 fertilization, climate change and land use/cover changes are crucial in determining the right mechanisms in seasonal carbon cycle change as well as mean sink change.This study was funded by NOAA, NASA and NSF. This study was partly supported by a Laboratory Directed Research and Development project by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory that is being managed by Battelle Memorial Institute for the US Department of Energy. We thank the TRENDY coordinators and participating modeling teams, NOAA ESRL and Jena/CarbonTracker inversion teams

Peripheral Sensory Neuropathy Associates With Micro- or Macroangiopathy: Results from a population-based study of type 2 diabetic patients in Sweden

OBJECTIVE—To assess associations between peripheral sensory neuropathy (PSN) and other diabetes-related complications

An Earth-system prediction initiative for the twenty-first century

International audienceSome scientists have proposed the Earth-System Prediction Initiative (EPI) at the 2007 GEO Summit in Cape Town, South Africa. EPI will draw upon coordination between international programs for Earth system observations, prediction, and warning, such as the WCRP, WWRP, GCOS, and hence contribute to GEO and the GEOSS. It will link with international organizations, such as the International Council for Science (ICSU), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), UNEP, WMO, and World Health Organization (WHO). The proposed initiative will provide high-resolution climate models that capture the properties of regional high-impact weather events, such as tropical cyclones, heat wave, and sand and dust storms associated within multi-decadal climate projections of climate variability and change. Unprecedented international collaboration and goodwill are necessary for the success of EPI

Religio-ethical discussions on organ donation among Muslims in Europe: an example of transnational Islamic bioethics

This article analyzes the religio-ethical discussions of Muslim religious scholars, which took place in Europe specifically in the UK and the Netherlands, on organ donation. After introductory notes on fatwas (Islamic religious guidelines) relevant to biomedical ethics and the socio-political context in which discussions on organ donation took place, the article studies three specific fatwas issued in Europe whose analysis has escaped the attention of modern academic researchers. In 2000 the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) issued a fatwa on organ donation. Besides this “European” fatwa, two other fatwas were issued respectively in the UK by the Muslim Law (Shariah) Council in 1995 and in the Netherlands by the Moroccan religious scholar Muṣṭafā Ben Ḥamza during a conference on “Islam and Organ Donation” held in March 2006. The three fatwas show that a great number of Muslim religious scholars permit organ donation and this holds true for donating organs to non-Muslims as well. Further, they demonstrate that transnationalism is one of the main characteristics of contemporary Islamic bioethics. In a bid to develop their own standpoints towards organ donation, Muslims living in the West rely heavily on fatwas imported from the Muslim world

A review of data mining in knowledge management: applications/findings for transportation of small and medium enterprises

A core subfeld of knowledge management (KM) and data mining (DM) constitutes an integral part of the knowledge discovery in database process. With the explosion of information in the new digital age, research studies in the DM and KM continue to heighten up in the business organisations, especially so, for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). DM is crucial in supporting the KM application as it processes the data to useful knowledge and KM role next, is to manage these knowledge assets within the organisation systematically. At the comprehensive appraisal of the large enterprise in the transportation sector and the SMEs across various industries—it was gathered that there is limited research case study conducted on the application of DM–KM on the transportation SMEs in specifc. From the extensive review of the case studies, it was uncovered that majority of the organisations are not leveraging on the use of tacit knowledge and that the SMEs are adopting a more traditional use of ICTs to its KM approach. In addition, despite DM–KM is being widely implemented—the case studies analysis reveals that there is a limitation in the presence of an integrated DM–KM assessment to evaluate the outcome of the DM–KM application. This paper concludes that there is a critical need for a novel DM–KM assessment plan template to evaluate and ensure that the knowledge created and implemented are usable and relevant, specifcally for the SMEs in the transportation sector. Therefore, this research paper aims to carry out an in-depth review of data mining in knowledge management for SMEs in the transportation industry