88 research outputs found

    Bohmian trajectories and Klein's paradox

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    We compute the Bohmian trajectories of the incoming scattering plane waves for Klein's potential step in explicit form. For finite norm incoming scattering solutions we derive their asymptotic space-time localization and we compute some Bohmian trajectories numerically. The paradox, which appears in the traditional treatments of the problem based on the outgoing scattering asymptotics, is absent.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures; minor format change

    Integrated management of a Swiss cropland is not sufficient to preserve its soil carbon pool in the long term

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    Croplands are involved in the exchange of carbon dioxide (CO2) between the atmosphere and the biosphere. Furthermore, soil carbon (C) stocks play an important role in soil fertility. It is thus of great interest to know whether intensively managed croplands act as a net source or sink of atmospheric CO2 and if soil C stocks are preserved over long timescales. The FluxNet site CH-Oe2 in Oensingen, Switzerland, has been operational since the end of 2003. This cropland is managed under the Swiss framework of the Proof of Ecological Performance (PEP, a variant of integrated management) with a crop rotation centred on winter wheat, which also includes winter barley, winter rapeseed, peas, potato and intermediate cover crops. In addition to eddy covariance measurements, meteorological and soil measurements were available along with information on C imports and exports from organic fertilisation, sowing and harvesting. This study investigates cropland C budgets over 13 years and assesses whether the PEP regulations resulted in a balanced C budget. The strongest CO2 uptake was observed during cereal seasons. C export through harvest, however, offset the strong uptake of the cereal crops. The largest net CO2 emissions to the atmosphere were observed during pea and cover crop seasons. Net biome production, representing the overall C budget (assuming carbon leaching to groundwater to be negligible), typically ranged between close to C neutral to C losses of up to 407&thinsp;g&thinsp;C&thinsp;m−2 per season, with peas being the largest source. Overall, the field lost 1674&thinsp;g&thinsp;C&thinsp;m−2 over 13 years (129&thinsp;g&thinsp;C&thinsp;m−2&thinsp;yr−1), which was confirmed by soil C stock measurements at the beginning and the end of the study period. Although managing the field under the regulations of PEP did not result in an overall C sink, model simulations showed that the use of cover crops reduced the C losses compared to leaving the field bare. The use of solid manure improved the C budget by importing substantial amounts of C into the soil, while liquid manure had only a small effect. We thus conclude that additional efforts are needed to bring Swiss management practices closer to the goal of preserving soil C in the long term.</p

    Preclinical evaluation of two 68Ga-siderophores as potential radiopharmaceuticals for Aspergillus fumigatus infection imaging

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    PURPOSE: Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis is mainly caused by Aspergillus fumigatus, and is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients. The mortality associated with invasive pulmonary aspergillosis remains high, mainly due to the difficulties and limitations in diagnosis. We have shown that siderophores can be labelled with (68)Ga and can be used for PET imaging of A. fumigatus infection in rats. Here we report on the further evaluation of the most promising (68)Ga-siderophore candidates, triacetylfusarinine (TAFC) and ferrioxamine E (FOXE). METHODS: Siderophores were labelled with (68)Ga using acetate buffer. Log P, protein binding and stability values were determined. Uptake by A. fumigatus was studied in vitro in cultures with high and low iron loads. In vivo biodistribution was determined in normal mice and an infection model was established using neutropenic rats inoculated with A. fumigatus. Static and dynamic muPET imaging was performed and correlated with CT images, and lung infection was evaluated ex vivo. RESULTS: (68)Ga-siderophores were labelled with high radiochemical purity and specific activity. (68)Ga-TAFC and (68)Ga-FOXE showed high uptake by A. fumigatus in iron-deficient cultures. In normal mice, (68)Ga-TAFC and (68)Ga-FOXE showed rapid renal excretion with high metabolic stability. In the rat infection model focal lung uptake was detected by muPET with both compounds and increased with severity of the infection, correlating with abnormal CT images. CONCLUSION: (68)Ga-TAFC and (68)Ga-FOXE displayed excellent in vitro stability and high uptake by A. fumigatus. Both compounds showed excellent pharmacokinetics, highly selective accumulation in infected lung tissue and good correlation with severity of disease in a rat infection model, which makes them promising agents for A. fumigatus infection imaging

    Gap-filling eddy covariance methane fluxes:Comparison of machine learning model predictions and uncertainties at FLUXNET-CH4 wetlands

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    Time series of wetland methane fluxes measured by eddy covariance require gap-filling to estimate daily, seasonal, and annual emissions. Gap-filling methane fluxes is challenging because of high variability and complex responses to multiple drivers. To date, there is no widely established gap-filling standard for wetland methane fluxes, with regards both to the best model algorithms and predictors. This study synthesizes results of different gap-filling methods systematically applied at 17 wetland sites spanning boreal to tropical regions and including all major wetland classes and two rice paddies. Procedures are proposed for: 1) creating realistic artificial gap scenarios, 2) training and evaluating gap-filling models without overstating performance, and 3) predicting half-hourly methane fluxes and annual emissions with realistic uncertainty estimates. Performance is compared between a conventional method (marginal distribution sampling) and four machine learning algorithms. The conventional method achieved similar median performance as the machine learning models but was worse than the best machine learning models and relatively insensitive to predictor choices. Of the machine learning models, decision tree algorithms performed the best in cross-validation experiments, even with a baseline predictor set, and artificial neural networks showed comparable performance when using all predictors. Soil temperature was frequently the most important predictor whilst water table depth was important at sites with substantial water table fluctuations, highlighting the value of data on wetland soil conditions. Raw gap-filling uncertainties from the machine learning models were underestimated and we propose a method to calibrate uncertainties to observations. The python code for model development, evaluation, and uncertainty estimation is publicly available. This study outlines a modular and robust machine learning workflow and makes recommendations for, and evaluates an improved baseline of, methane gap-filling models that can be implemented in multi-site syntheses or standardized products from regional and global flux networks (e.g., FLUXNET)

    Global maps of soil temperature

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    Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km² resolution for 0–5 and 5–15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e., offset) between in-situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km² pixels (summarized from 8500 unique temperature sensors) across all the world’s major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (-0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in-situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications

    Global maps of soil temperature.

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    Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km &lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; resolution for 0-5 and 5-15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km &lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (-0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications

    Author Correction: The FLUXNET2015 dataset and the ONEFlux processing pipeline for eddy covariance data

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    The following authors were omitted from the original version of this Data Descriptor: Markus Reichstein and Nicolas Vuichard. Both contributed to the code development and N. Vuichard contributed to the processing of the ERA-Interim data downscaling. Furthermore, the contribution of the co-author Frank Tiedemann was re-evaluated relative to the colleague Corinna Rebmann, both working at the same sites, and based on this re-evaluation a substitution in the co-author list is implemented (with Rebmann replacing Tiedemann). Finally, two affiliations were listed incorrectly and are corrected here (entries 190 and 193). The author list and affiliations have been amended to address these omissions in both the HTML and PDF versions

    The FLUXNET2015 dataset and the ONEFlux processing pipeline for eddy covariance data.

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    The FLUXNET2015 dataset provides ecosystem-scale data on CO2, water, and energy exchange between the biosphere and the atmosphere, and other meteorological and biological measurements, from 212 sites around the globe (over 1500 site-years, up to and including year 2014). These sites, independently managed and operated, voluntarily contributed their data to create global datasets. Data were quality controlled and processed using uniform methods, to improve consistency and intercomparability across sites. The dataset is already being used in a number of applications, including ecophysiology studies, remote sensing studies, and development of ecosystem and Earth system models. FLUXNET2015 includes derived-data products, such as gap-filled time series, ecosystem respiration and photosynthetic uptake estimates, estimation of uncertainties, and metadata about the measurements, presented for the first time in this paper. In addition, 206 of these sites are for the first time distributed under a Creative Commons (CC-BY 4.0) license. This paper details this enhanced dataset and the processing methods, now made available as open-source codes, making the dataset more accessible, transparent, and reproducible
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