Modeling impacts of farming management alternatives on CO2, CH4, and N2O emissions: A case study for water management of rice agriculture of China

Since the early 1980s, water management of rice paddies in China has changed substantially, with midseason drainage gradually replacing continuous flooding. This has provided an opportunity to estimate how a management alternative impacts greenhouse gas emissions at a large regional scale. We integrated a process-based model, DNDC, with a GIS database of paddy area, soil properties, and management factors. We simulated soil carbon sequestration (or net CO2 emission) and CH4 and N2O emissions from China\u27s rice paddies (30 million ha), based on 1990 climate and management conditions, with two water management scenarios: continuous flooding and midseason drainage. The results indicated that this change in water management has reduced aggregate CH4 emissions about 40%, or 5 Tg CH4 yr−1, roughly 5–10% of total global methane emissions from rice paddies. The mitigating effect of midseason drainage on CH4 flux was highly uneven across the country; the highest flux reductions (\u3e200 kg CH4-C ha−1 yr−1) were in Hainan, Sichuan, Hubei, and Guangdong provinces, with warmer weather and multiple-cropping rice systems. The smallest flux reductions (\u3c25 kg CH4-C ha−1 yr−1) occurred in Tianjin, Hebei, Ningxia, Liaoning, and Gansu Provinces, with relatively cool weather and single cropping systems. Shifting water management from continuous flooding to midseason drainage increased N2O emissions from Chinese rice paddies by 0.15 Tg N yr−1 (∼50% increase). This offset a large fraction of the greenhouse gas radiative forcing benefit gained by the decrease in CH4 emissions. Midseason drainage-induced N2O fluxes were high (\u3e8.0 kg N/ha) in Jilin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Xinjiang provinces, where the paddy soils contained relatively high organic matter. Shifting water management from continuous flooding to midseason drainage reduced total net CO2emissions by 0.65 Tg CO2-C yr−1, which made a relatively small contribution to the net climate impact due to the low radiative potential of CO2. The change in water management had very different effects on net greenhouse gas mitigation when implemented across climatic zones, soil types, or cropping systems. Maximum CH4 reductions and minimum N2O increases were obtained when the mid-season draining was applied to rice paddies with warm weather, high soil clay content, and low soil organic matter content, for example, Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces, which have 60% of China\u27s rice paddies and produce 65% of China\u27s rice harvest

Reduced methane emissions from large-scale changes in water management of China’s rice paddies during 1980-2000

Decreased methane emissions from paddy rice may have contributed to the decline in the rate of increase of global atmospheric methane (CH4) concentration over the last 20 years. In China, midseason paddy drainage, which reduces growing season CH4 fluxes, was first implemented in the early 1980s, and has gradually replaced continuous flooding in much of the paddy area. We constructed a regional prediction for China\u27s rice paddy methane emissions using the DNDC biogeochemical model. Results of continuous flooding and midseason drainage simulations for all paddy fields in China were combined with regional scenarios for the timing of the transition from continuous flooding to predominantly mid-season drainage to generate estimates of total methane flux for 1980–2000. CH4 emissions from China\u27s paddy fields were reduced over that period by ∼5 Tg CH4 yr−1

A Disappearing Heritage: The Clinical Core of Schizophrenia

This article traces the fundamental descriptive features of schizophrenia described in the European continental literature form Kraepelin and Bleuler, culminating with the creation of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-8 (1974). There was a consensus among the researchers that the specificity and typicality of schizophrenia was anchored to its “fundamental” clinical core (with trait status) and not to positive psychotic features, which were considered as “state”, “accessory” phenomena. The clinical core of schizophrenia was, in a diluted form, constitutive of the spectrum conditions (“schizoidia” and “latent schizophrenia”). The fundamental features are manifest across all domains of consciousness: subjective experience, expression, cognition, affectivity, behavior, and willing. Yet, the specificity of the core was only graspable at a more comprehensive Gestalt-level, variously designated (eg, discordance, autism, “Spaltung”), and not on the level of single features. In other words, the phenomenological specificity was seen as being expressive of a fundamental structural or formal change of the patient’s mentality (consciousness, subjectivity). This overall change transpires through the single symptoms and signs, lending them a characteristic phenomenological pattern. This concept of schizophrenia bears little resemblance to the current operational definitions. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, and ICD-10 seem to diagnose a subset of patients with chronic paranoid-hallucinatory variant of schizophrenia

A biopsychosocial interpretation of the Neuropsychiatric Inventory – Nursing Home assessment: reconceptualising psychiatric symptom attributions

Background: The Neuropsychiatric Inventory is predicated on the assumption that psychiatric symptoms are manifestations of disease. Biopsychosocial theories suggest behavioural changes viewed as psychiatric may also arise as a result of external behavioural triggers. Knowing the causes of psychiatric is important since the treatment and management of psychiatric symptoms relies on this understanding. Aims: This study sought to understand the causes of psychiatric symptoms recorded in care home settings by investigating qualitatively described symptoms in NPI-NH interviews. Method: The current study examined the NPI-NH interviews of 725 participants across 50 care homes. The qualitatively described symptoms from each of the 12 subscales of the NPI were extracted: 347 interviews included at least one qualitatively described symptom (n=651 descriptions). A biopsychosocial algorithm developed following a process of independent researcher coding (n=3) was applied to the symptom descriptions. This determined whether the description had predominantly psychiatric features, or features that were cognitive or attributable to other causes (i.e. issues with Orientation & Memory, Expressions of Need, Poor Care and Communication or Understandable Reactions) Results: Our findings suggest that the majority (over 80%) of descriptions described symptoms with features that could be attributable to cognitive changes and external triggers (e.g. poor care and communication). Conclusions: The finding suggest that in its current form the NPI-NH may over attribute the incidence of psychiatric symptoms in care homes by overlooking triggers for behavioural changes. Measures of psychiatric symptoms should determine the causes of behavioural changes in order to guide treatments more effectively

Quantification of Ophthalmic Changes After Long-Duration Spaceflight, and Subsequent Recovery

A subset of crewmembers are subjected to ophthalmic structure changes due to long-duration spaceflight (>6 months). Crewmembers who experience these changes are described as having Spaceflight Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome (SANS). Characteristics of SANS include optic disk edema, cotton wool spots, choroidal folds, refractive error, and posterior globe flattening. SANS remains a major obstacle to deep-space and planetary missions, requiring a better understanding of its etiology. Quantification of ocular, structural changes will improve our understanding of SANS pathophysiology. Methods were developed to quantify 3D optic nerve (ON) and ON sheath (ONS) geometries, ON tortuosity, and posterior globe deformation using MR imaging

Lixiviação de nutrientes em substrato enriquecido com biochar.

Resumo