Climate, Land, Energy & Water Strategies: A Case Study of Mauritius

The study of the Island of Mauritius presented here is a collaborative effort between the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, the Royal Swedish Institute of Technology in Stockholm, the Agricultural Research & Extension Unit in Quatre Bornes, Mauritius and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). The Climate, Land, Energy and Water Strategies project (CLEWS) deals with integration of water, energy and land-use models to quantify resource use, greenhouse gas emissions and costs associated with meeting energy, water and food security goals. For this purpose the WEAP water model, the LEAP energy model and the AEZ land production planning tool were applied in an integrated fashion to determine (a) crop suitability under rain-fed and irrigated conditions for current and future projected climate, (b) potentials of bio-fuel feedstock crops, (c) the practicality and impact of crop changes, and (d) measures to ensure adequate water supplies in the face of an observed and projected trend of decreasing rainfall. A core component in this study is the assessment of alternative land and water use options in view of anticipated climate change and socio-economic trends. For this purpose the agro-ecological zones (AEZ) methodology and database framework has been applied at a resolution of 3 arc-seconds (ca. 100 m grid). Climate change results indicate significant changes in rain-fed crop production potentials, particularly a decline in the northern and western parts of the island. Results show that total water resources availability is expected to diminish due to climate change while water demand for agriculture, industrial and domestic use is increasing. This will trigger planning for extra water storage systems, for an overall expansion and upgrading of current water supply infrastructure, but also and foremost for more efficient use of water resources, in particular for irrigation. The high water demand of the dominating sugarcane production on the island may locally require the introduction of alternative less water demanding cropping systems

The unexpected resurgence of Weyl geometry in late 20-th century physics

Weyl's original scale geometry of 1918 ("purely infinitesimal geometry") was withdrawn by its author from physical theorizing in the early 1920s. It had a comeback in the last third of the 20th century in different contexts: scalar tensor theories of gravity, foundations of gravity, foundations of quantum mechanics, elementary particle physics, and cosmology. It seems that Weyl geometry continues to offer an open research potential for the foundations of physics even after the turn to the new millennium.Comment: Completely rewritten conference paper 'Beyond Einstein', Mainz Sep 2008. Preprint ELHC (Epistemology of the LHC) 2017-02, 92 pages, 1 figur

Conversion electron spectroscopy at the fragment mass analyzer focal plane: Studies of isomeric decays near the proton drip line

The decays of seniority isomers in the N=82 nuclei Er150 and Yb152 and in their respective N=81 isotopes Er149 and Yb151 were studied following mass separation by the Argonne Fragment Mass Analyzer. Conversion electrons were detected with Si p-i-n diodes operated at room temperature. The low-energy isomeric transitions in Yb151,152 have been observed for the first time in the electron spectra. Multipolarity assignments were made for many of the decay rays of the four nuclei

Low Dose Gamma Irradiation of Trypanosoma evansi Parasites Identifies Molecular Changes That Occur to Repair Radiation Damage and Gene Transcripts That May Be Involved in Establishing Disease in Mice Post-Irradiation

International audienceThe protozoan parasite Trypanosoma evansi is responsible for causing surra in a variety of mammalian hosts and is spread by many vectors over a wide geographical area making it an ideal target for irradiation as a tool to study the initial events that occur during infection. Parasites irradiated at the representative doses 100Gy, 140Gy, and 200Gy were used to inoculate BALB/c mice revealing that parasites irradiated at 200Gy were unable to establish disease in all mice. Cytokine analysis of mice inoculated with 200Gy of irradiated parasites showed significantly lower levels of interleukins when compared to mice inoculated with non-irradiated and 100Gy irradiated parasites. Irradiation also differentially affected the abundance of gene transcripts in a dose-dependent trend measured at 6- and 20-hours post-irradiation with 234, 325, and 484 gene transcripts affected 6 hours post-irradiation for 100Gy-, 140Gy- and 200Gy-irradiated parasites, respectively. At 20 hours post-irradiation, 422, 381, and 457 gene transcripts were affected by irradiation at 100Gy, 140Gy, and 200Gy, respectively. A gene ontology (GO) term analysis was carried out for the three representative doses at 6 hours and 20 hours post-irradiation revealing different processes occurring at 20 hours when compared to 6 hours for 100Gy irradiation. The top ten most significant processes had a negative Z score. These processes fall in significance at 140Gy and even further at 200Gy, revealing that they were least likely to occur at 200Gy, and thus may have been responsible for infection in mice by 100Gy and 140Gy irradiated parasites. When looking at 100Gy irradiated parasites 20 hours post-irradiation processes with a positive Z score, we identified genes that were involved in multiple processes and compared their fold change values at 6 hours and 20 hours. We present these genes as possibly necessary for repair from irradiation damage at 6 hours and suggestive of being involved in the establishment of disease in mice at 20 hours post-irradiation. A potential strategy using this information to develop a whole parasite vaccine is also postulated

Integrated analysis of climate change, land-use, energy and water strategies

Land, energy and water are our most precious resources, but the manner and extent to which they are exploited contributes to climate change. Meanwhile, the systems that provide these resources are themselves highly vulnerable to changes in climate. Efficient resource management is therefore of great importance, both for mitigation and for adaptation purposes. We postulate that the lack of integration in resource assessments and policy-making leads to inconsistent strategies and inefficient use of resources. We present CLEWs (climate, land-use, energy and water strategies), a new paradigm for resource assessments that we believe can help to remedy some of these shortcomings