Occurrence and spatial pattern of water repellency in a beech forest subsoil

Most recent studies on soil water repellency (WR) were limited to the humous topsoil or to shallow subsoil layers slightly below the main root zone to approximately 0.5 m depth. Hence, the main objective of the present study was to investigate the wettability pattern of a forest soil including the deeper subsoil. The selected site was a 100 years old beech forest on a well-drained sandy Cambisol in northern Germany which showed moderate to partly extended acidification. Results obtained from three sampling transects (3 m length, 2 m depth; sampling grid 8 × 8 samples per transect; minimum distance of sampling locations to nearest tree about 0.5 m) show that contact angles (CA) were always in the subcritical WR range (0° < CA < 90°). Significant impact of the tree distance on WR was not observed for any of the transects. A prominent feature of two transects was the minimum WR level (CA < 10°) for samples with soil organic carbon (SOC) contents around 0.25–0.4%. For the topsoils it was observed that CA increased with SOC content from that minimum to a maximum CA of 60–75° for transects 1 and 2 with mean pH values < 3.5. For transect 3 with slightly higher average pH close to 4.0, average CA of samples were always < 10° and showed no trend to increase with increasing SOC content or other soil parameters like N content or C/N ratio. Subsoil samples, however, behave differently with respect to SOC: for these samples, generally low in SOC, the CA increase with decreasing SOC occurred at all transects for approximately 50% of the samples but did not show any clear tendencies with respect to further parameters like texture, pH or N content. We conclude that the SOC content is the most prominent parameter determining wettability, either positively correlated with WR for topsoils or negatively correlated for subsoil samples very low in SOC. We finally conclude for moderately acid beech forest stands that emerging WR starts in the A horizon after reaching a pH lower than 3.5, whereas subsoil WR might appear already at higher pH values. Even SOC contents of ~0.01–0.02% turned out to be very effective in increasing the CA up to 70°, which points out clearly the importance of small amounts of soil organic matter in affecting subsoil wettability. With respect to site hydrology we conclude that ongoing acidification as well as predicted higher frequencies of extended droughts due to climate change will promote the occurrence of WR with corresponding implications for site and catchment hydrology.DFG/BA 1359/13-1DFG/BA 1359/14-

Strongly inhomogeneous distribution of spectral properties of silicon-vacancy color centers in nanodiamonds

The silicon-vacancy (SiV) color center in diamond is a solid-state single photon emitter and spin quantum bit suited as a component in quantum devices. Here, we show that the SiV center in nanodiamond exhibits a strongly inhomogeneous distribution with regard to the center wavelengths and linewidths of the zero-phonon-line (ZPL) emission at room temperature. We find that the SiV centers separate in two clusters: one group exhibits ZPLs with center wavelengths within a narrow range of approximatly 730 nm to 742 nm and broad linewidths between 5 nm and 17 nm, whereas the second group comprises a very broad distribution of center wavelengths between 715 nm and 835 nm, but narrow linewidths from below 1 nm up to 4 nm. Supported by ab initio Kohn-Sham density functional theory calculations we show that the ZPL shifts of the first group are consistently explained by strain in the diamond lattice. Further, we suggest, that the second group showing the strongly inhomogeneous distribution of center wavelengths might be comprised of modified SiV centers. Whereas single photon emission is demonstrated for SiV centers of both clusters, we show that emitters from different clusters show different spectroscopic features such as variations of the phonon sideband spectra and different blinking dynamics

Public health impact and cost-effectiveness of intranasal live attenuated influenza vaccination of children in Germany

Damm O, Eichner M, Rose MA, et al. Public health impact and cost-effectiveness of intranasal live attenuated influenza vaccination of children in Germany. The European Journal of Health Economics. 2015;16(5):471-488.In 2011, intranasally administered live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) was approved in the EU for prophylaxis of seasonal influenza in 2-17-year-old children. Our objective was to estimate the potential epidemiological impact and cost-effectiveness of an LAIV-based extension of the influenza vaccination programme to healthy children in Germany. An age-structured dynamic model of influenza transmission was developed and combined with a decision-tree to evaluate different vaccination strategies in the German health care system. Model inputs were based on published literature or were derived by expert consulting using the Delphi technique. Unit costs were drawn from German sources. Under base-case assumptions, annual routine vaccination of children aged 2-17 years with LAIV assuming an uptake of 50 % would prevent, across all ages, 16 million cases of symptomatic influenza, over 600,000 cases of acute otitis media, nearly 130,000 cases of community-acquired pneumonia, nearly 1.7 million prescriptions of antibiotics and over 165,000 hospitalisations over 10 years. The discounted incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was a,not sign1,228 per quality-adjusted life year gained from a broad third-party payer perspective (including reimbursed direct costs and specific transfer payments), when compared with the current strategy of vaccinating primarily risk groups with the conventional trivalent inactivated vaccine. Inclusion of patient co-payments and indirect costs in terms of productivity losses resulted in discounted 10-year cost savings of a,not sign3.4 billion. In conclusion, adopting universal influenza immunisation of healthy children and adolescents would lead to a substantial reduction in influenza-associated disease at a reasonable cost to the German statutory health insurance system. On the basis of the epidemiological and health economic simulation results, a recommendation of introducing annual routine influenza vaccination of children 2-17 years of age might be taken into consideration

Analisis Pengaruh Budaya Organisasi Dan Kompensasi Terhadap Kinerja Karyawan Dengan Motivasi Sebagai Variabel Intervening (Studi Kasus Pada PT. Lg Bagian Penjualan Indonesia Semarang)

The problems that occurred in the employee portion of sales LG Indonesia Semarang is adecline in performance is indicated by not achieving the target for 2015. The employeeperformance and motivation is also thought to be influenced by factors of organizationalculture and also compensation deemed not feasible by most employees. This study aimedto analyze the influence of organizational culture on the motivation and compensationand employee performance parts sales LG Indonesia Semarang. The population used inthis study were all employees of LG Indonesia Semarang. The sampling technique usedwas purposive sampling. Criteria samples taken were all employees of the salesdepartment LG Indonesia Semarang who have worked more than two years are 71nurses. The method of collecting the data in this study using questionnaires andinterviews. Methods of data analysis using path analysis. Based on the research,organizational culture and compensation have a positive effect on motivation andperformance, while motivation is also a positive effect on performance. Based on theresults Sobel Test to determine whether there is mediating the relationship between theindependent and dependent variables, it is known that motivation mediates the effect ofcompensation and organizational culture on performance

Kajian Pengelolaan Lahan Subdas Secang Kulonprogo YOGYAKARTA

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengevaluasi kemampuan lahan, menyusun arahan penggunaanlahan dan mengkaji pengelolaan lahan SubDAS Secang. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitianadalah sampel terpilih pada 48 satuan lahan. Penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kemampuan lahanSubDAS Secang terdiri atas kelas lahan I seluas 187 ha, kelas lahan II seluas 147 ha, kelas lahan IIIseluas 515,2 ha, kelas lahan IV seluas 1522,7 ha, kelas lahan V seluas 7,3 ha dan kelas lahan VI seluas1223,2 ha. Arahan penggunaan lahan SubDAS Secang berupa pertanian lahan basah seluas 326,85 ha,kawasan permukiman dan budidaya tanaman semusim seluas 200,55 ha, kawasan budidaya tanamanlahan kering seluas 525,81 ha, kawasan budidaya tanaman tahunan seluas 1981,31 ha, kawasanpenyangga seluas 716,54 ha. Pengelolaan lahan memberikan pedoman pemanfaatan lahan; daerah hilirsebagai daerah pemanfaatan untuk pertanian irigasi; daerah tengah diperuntukan permukiman danpembudidayaan tanaman lahan kering; serta daerah hulu sebagai daerah imbuhan diperuntukkanwanatani dan hutan penyangga

TrueCISS: Genuine bSSFP Signal Reconstruction from Undersampled Multiple-Acquisition SSFP Using Model-Based Iterative Non-Linear Inversion

Balanced steady-state free-precession (bSSFP) is prone to local field inhomogeneities, typically appearing as signal voids, i.e. banding-artifacts. A new method, termed true constructive interference in steady state (trueCISS), is proposed based on the acquisition of eight highly undersampled bSSFP k-spaces with different radio-frequency (RF) phase increments. A model-based non-linear inversion is used to fit the bSSFP signal model onto the undersampled data, effectively estimating parameter maps that allow synthesizing the genuine bSSFP signal over the whole image, thus without any noticeable banding artifacts

scNMT-seq enables joint profiling of chromatin accessibility DNA methylation and transcription in single cells.

Parallel single-cell sequencing protocols represent powerful methods for investigating regulatory relationships, including epigenome-transcriptome interactions. Here, we report a single-cell method for parallel chromatin accessibility, DNA methylation and transcriptome profiling. scNMT-seq (single-cell nucleosome, methylation and transcription sequencing) uses a GpC methyltransferase to label open chromatin followed by bisulfite and RNA sequencing. We validate scNMT-seq by applying it to differentiating mouse embryonic stem cells, finding links between all three molecular layers and revealing dynamic coupling between epigenomic layers during differentiation