Integrating soil moisture measurements into pasture growth forecasting in New Zealand's hill country

Forecasting pasture growth in hill country landscapes requires information about soil water retention characteristics, which will help to quantify both water uptake, and its percolation below the root zone. Despite the importance of soil moisture data in pasture productivity predictions, current models use low-resolution estimates of water input into their soil water balance equations and plant growth simulations. As a result, they frequently fail to capture the spatial and temporal variability of soil moisture in hill country soils. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are promising in-situ measurement systems for monitoring soil moisture dynamics with high temporal resolution in agricultural soils. This paper presents the deployment of a soil moisture sensing network, utilising WSN technology and multi-sensor probes, to monitor soil water changes over a hill country farm in the northern Wairarapa region of the North Island. Processed capacitance-based raw data was converted to volumetric water content by means of a factory calibration function to assess sensor accuracy and to calculate soil water storage within the pasture root zone. The derived volumetric soil moisture data was examined in terms of its dependence on the variability and influences of hill country landscape characteristics such as aspect. The integration of spatially distributed sensors and multi-depth soil moisture measurements from various hillslope positions showed that slope and aspect exerted a significant impact on soil moisture values. Furthermore, considerable differences were identified in soil water profile responses to significant rainfall events and subsequent soil water redistribution. Initial indications are that high-resolution time series of accurate multi-depth soil moisture measurements collected by a WSN are valuable for investigating root zone water movement. Sensor evaluation and data analysis suggest that these devices and their associated datasets are able to contribute to an improved understanding of drying and wetting cycles and soil moisture variability. Potentially, this will create an opportunity to generate improved pasture growth predictions in pastoral hill country environments

In situ tropical peatland ire emission factors and their variability, as determined by field measurements in peninsula Malaysia

Fires in tropical peatlands account for >25% of estimated total greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and degradation. Despite significant global and regional impacts, our understanding of specific gaseous fire emission factors (EFs) from tropical peat burning is limited to a handful of studies. Furthermore, there is substantial variability in EFs between sampled fires and/or studies. For example, methane EFs vary by 91% between studies. Here we present new fire EFs for the tropical peatland ecosystem; the first EFs measured for Malaysian peatlands, and only the second comprehensive study of EFs in this crucial environment. During August 2015 (under El Niño conditions) and July 2016, we embarked on field campaigns to measure gaseous emissions at multiple peatland fires burning on deforested land in Southeast Pahang (2015) and oil palm plantations in North Selangor (2016), Peninsula Malaysia. Gaseous emissions were measured using open-path Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The IR spectra were used to retrieve mole fractions of 12 different gases present within the smoke (including carbon dioxide and methane), and these measurements used to calculate EFs. Peat samples were taken at each burn site for physicochemical analysis and to explore possible relationships between specific physicochemical properties and fire EFs. Here we present the first evidence to indicate that substrate bulk density affects methane fire EFs reported here. This novel explanation of interplume, within-biome variability, should be considered by those undertaking greenhouse gas accounting and haze forecasting in this region and is of importance to peatland management, particularly with respect to artificial compaction

The effect of crop type, crop rotation, and tillage practice on runoff and soil loss on a Vertisol in central Queensland

In 1982, a long-term project was established in central Queensland to study the effect of crop type, crop rotation, and tillage practice on runoff and soil loss. Runoff and soil loss were measured at the outlet of 9 large contour bay catchments (approximately 13 ha) where wheat, sorghum, and sunflower were grown in 3 crop sequences. Each crop sequence consisted of zero, reduced, and conventional tillage fallow practices. Monoculture cropping was practised from 1983 to 1985, then opportunity cropping from 1986 to 1993. During the study, wheat cropping had lower average annual runoff and soil loss (P 50%) and had less soil loss (P < 0·05) than conventional tillage. Zero tillage wheat had the lowest average annual runoff and soil loss, and conventional sunflowers had the highest. The erosion risk associated with sunflowers was reduced by a wheat–sunflower crop rotation, particularly when zero-tilled. Monoculture sunflower must be avoided. The region is susceptible to large episodic erosion when crops are not sown, there are long fallows, and soil cover falls below levels critical to control erosion (<30%). Opportunity cropping is the most appropriate system to maximise the regions variable rainfall and reduce runoff and soil loss

Sexual behaviour and smoking as determinants of cervical HPV infection and of CIN3 among those infected: a case–control study nested within the Manchester cohort

To distinguish risk factors for acquisition of cervical human papillomavirus (HPV) infection from the determinants of neoplasia among infected individuals we have conducted a three-arm case-control study nested within a large population-based cohort of women (the Manchester cohort) screened for HPV at entry using L1 consensus primer PCR. The study includes 181 HPV-positive controls who did not develop high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN3) during follow-up, 203 HPV-negative controls, and 199 HPV-positive cases with histologically confirmed CIN3. Detailed information on sexual, reproductive and gynaecological history, oral contraceptive use and smoking was obtained at face-to-face interview. There was a striking division between risk factors for infection and those predictive of disease. Comparing the HPV-positive against the HPV-negative controls, the only risk factors for infection were number of sexual partners (OR for six or more = 3.89; 95% Cl = 1.99–7.62), a relatively recent new sexual relationship (OR for a new partner within the previous 2 years = 4.17; 95% Cl = 2.13–8.33), and a history of previous miscarriage (OR = 2.59; 95% Cl = 1.28–5.21). The determinants of CIN3 among infected women were, in contrast, early age at first intercourse (OR for 16 years old or less = 3.23; 95% Cl = 1.33–7.69), a long time since starting a new sexual relationship (OR for 6 years or more = 4.94; 95% Cl = 2.51–9.71), and cigarette smoking, with strong evidence for a dose– response (OR for current smoking habit 20+ per day = 2.57; 95% Cl = 1.49–4.45). Oral contraceptive use was not significantly associated with either HPV infection or CIN3. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.co

Critical and Near-Critical Branching Processes

Scale-free dynamics in physical and biological systems can arise from a variety of causes. Here, we explore a branching process which leads to such dynamics. We find conditions for the appearance of power laws and study quantitatively what happens to these power laws when such conditions are violated. From a branching process model, we predict the behavior of two systems which seem to exhibit near scale-free behavior--rank-frequency distributions of number of subtaxa in biology, and abundance distributions of genotypes in an artificial life system. In the light of these, we discuss distributions of avalanche sizes in the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld sandpile model.Comment: 9 pages LaTex with 10 PS figures. v.1 of this paper contains results from non-critical sandpile simulations that were excised from the published versio

Parent and child agreement for acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychopathology in a prospective study of children and adolescents exposed to single-event trauma

Examining parent-child agreement for Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in children and adolescents is essential for informing the assessment of trauma-exposed children, yet no studies have examined this relationship using appropriate statistical techniques. Parent-child agreement for these disorders was examined by structured interview in a prospective study of assault and motor vehicle accident (MVA) child survivors, assessed at 2-4 weeks and 6 months post-trauma. Children were significantly more likely to meet criteria for ASD, as well as other ASD and PTSD symptom clusters, based on their own report than on their parent's report. Parent-child agreement for ASD was poor (Cohen's κ = -.04), but fair for PTSD (Cohen's κ = .21). Agreement ranged widely for other emotional disorders (Cohen's κ = -.07-.64), with generalised anxiety disorder found to have superior parent-child agreement (when assessed by phi coefficients) relative to ASD and PTSD. The findings support the need to directly interview children and adolescents, particularly for the early screening of posttraumatic stress, and suggest that other anxiety disorders may have a clearer presentation post-trauma

Rank Statistics in Biological Evolution

We present a statistical analysis of biological evolution processes. Specifically, we study the stochastic replication-mutation-death model where the population of a species may grow or shrink by birth or death, respectively, and additionally, mutations lead to the creation of new species. We rank the various species by the chronological order by which they originate. The average population N_k of the kth species decays algebraically with rank, N_k ~ M^{mu} k^{-mu}, where M is the average total population. The characteristic exponent mu=(alpha-gamma)/(alpha+beta-gamma)$ depends on alpha, beta, and gamma, the replication, mutation, and death rates. Furthermore, the average population P_k of all descendants of the kth species has a universal algebraic behavior, P_k ~ M/k.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Dynamics on expanding spaces: modeling the emergence of novelties

Novelties are part of our daily lives. We constantly adopt new technologies, conceive new ideas, meet new people, experiment with new situations. Occasionally, we as individuals, in a complicated cognitive and sometimes fortuitous process, come up with something that is not only new to us, but to our entire society so that what is a personal novelty can turn into an innovation at a global level. Innovations occur throughout social, biological and technological systems and, though we perceive them as a very natural ingredient of our human experience, little is known about the processes determining their emergence. Still the statistical occurrence of innovations shows striking regularities that represent a starting point to get a deeper insight in the whole phenomenology. This paper represents a small step in that direction, focusing on reviewing the scientific attempts to effectively model the emergence of the new and its regularities, with an emphasis on more recent contributions: from the plain Simon's model tracing back to the 1950s, to the newest model of Polya's urn with triggering of one novelty by another. What seems to be key in the successful modelling schemes proposed so far is the idea of looking at evolution as a path in a complex space, physical, conceptual, biological, technological, whose structure and topology get continuously reshaped and expanded by the occurrence of the new. Mathematically it is very interesting to look at the consequences of the interplay between the "actual" and the "possible" and this is the aim of this short review.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figure

Towards Computing Inferences from English News Headlines

Newspapers are a popular form of written discourse, read by many people, thanks to the novelty of the information provided by the news content in it. A headline is the most widely read part of any newspaper due to its appearance in a bigger font and sometimes in colour print. In this paper, we suggest and implement a method for computing inferences from English news headlines, excluding the information from the context in which the headlines appear. This method attempts to generate the possible assumptions a reader formulates in mind upon reading a fresh headline. The generated inferences could be useful for assessing the impact of the news headline on readers including children. The understandability of the current state of social affairs depends greatly on the assimilation of the headlines. As the inferences that are independent of the context depend mainly on the syntax of the headline, dependency trees of headlines are used in this approach, to find the syntactical structure of the headlines and to compute inferences out of them.Comment: PACLING 2019 Long paper, 15 page