ALBERT

Description: Due to its dryness, the subtropical free troposphere plays a critical role in the radiative balance of the Earth's climate system. But the complex interactions of the dynamical and physical processes controlling the variability in the moisture budget of this sensitive region of the subtropical atmosphere are still not fully understood. Stable water isotopes can provide important information about several of the latter processes, namely subsidence drying, turbulent mixing, and dry and moist convective moistening. In this study, we use high-resolution simulations of the isotope-enabled version of the regional weather and climate prediction model of the Consortium for Small-Scale Modelling (COSMOiso) to investigate predominant moisture transport pathways in the Canary Islands region in the eastern subtropical North Atlantic. Comparison of the simulated isotope signals with multi-platform isotope observations (aircraft, ground- and space-based remote sensing) from a field campaign in summer 2013 shows that COSMOiso can reproduce the observed variability of stable water vapour isotopes on timescales of hours to days, thus allowing us to study the mechanisms that control the subtropical free-tropospheric humidity. Changes in isotopic signals along backward trajectories from the Canary Islands region reveal the physical processes behind the synoptic-scale isotope variability. We identify four predominant moisture transport pathways of mid-tropospheric air, each with distinct isotopic signatures: - air parcels originating from the convective boundary layer of the Saharan heat low (SHL) – these are characterised by a homogeneous isotopic composition with a particularly high δD (median mid-tropospheric δD=−122‰), which results from dry convective mixing of low-level moisture of diverse origin advected into the SHL; - air parcels originating from the free troposphere above the SHL – although experiencing the largest changes in humidity and δD during their subsidence over West Africa, these air parcels typically have lower δD values (median δD=−148‰) than air parcels originating from the boundary layer of the SHL; - air parcels originating from outside the SHL region, typically descending from tropical upper levels south of the SHL, which are often affected by moist convective injections from mesoscale convective systems in the Sahel – their isotopic composition is much less enriched in heavy isotopes (median δD=−175‰) than those from the SHL region; - air parcels subsiding from the upper-level extratropical North Atlantic – this pathway leads to the driest and most depleted conditions (median δD=−255‰) in the middle troposphere near the Canary Islands. The alternation of these transport pathways explains the observed high variability in humidity and δD on synoptic timescales to a large degree. We further show that the four different transport pathways are related to specific large-scale flow conditions. In particular, distinct differences in the location of the North African mid-level anticyclone and of extratropical Rossby wave patterns occur between the four transport pathways. Overall, this study demonstrates that the adopted Lagrangian isotope perspective enhances our understanding of air mass transport and mixing and offers a sound interpretation of the free-tropospheric variability of specific humidity and isotope composition on timescales of hours to days in contrasting atmospheric conditions over the eastern subtropical North Atlantic.

Description: Background Flowering plants (angiosperms) are dominant components of global terrestrial ecosystems, but phylogenetic relationships at the familial level and above remain only partially resolved, greatly impeding our full understanding of their evolution and early diversification. The plastome, typically mapped as a circular genome, has been the most important molecular data source for plant phylogeny reconstruction for decades. Results Here, we assembled by far the largest plastid dataset of angiosperms, composed of 80 genes from 4792 plastomes of 4660 species in 2024 genera representing all currently recognized families. Our phylogenetic tree (PPA II) is essentially congruent with those of previous plastid phylogenomic analyses but generally provides greater clade support. In the PPA II tree, 75% of nodes at or above the ordinal level and 78% at or above the familial level were resolved with high bootstrap support (BP ≥ 90). We obtained strong support for many interordinal and interfamilial relationships that were poorly resolved previously within the core eudicots, such as Dilleniales, Saxifragales, and Vitales being resolved as successive sisters to the remaining rosids, and Santalales, Berberidopsidales, and Caryophyllales as successive sisters to the asterids. However, the placement of magnoliids, although resolved as sister to all other Mesangiospermae, is not well supported and disagrees with topologies inferred from nuclear data. Relationships among the five major clades of Mesangiospermae remain intractable despite increased sampling, probably due to an ancient rapid radiation. Conclusions We provide the most comprehensive dataset of plastomes to date and a well-resolved phylogenetic tree, which together provide a strong foundation for future evolutionary studies of flowering plants.

Description: The mechanisms that govern the vertical growth of seep carbonates were deciphered by studying the sedimentary architecture of a 15 m thick, 8 m wide column of limestone encased in deep-water marl in the middle Callovian interval of the Terres Noires Formation in the SE France Basin. The limestone body, also called “pseudobioherm”, records intense bioturbation, with predominant traces of the Thalassinoides/Spongeliomorpha suite, excavated by decapod crustaceans. Bioturbation was organized in four tiers. The uppermost tier, tier 1, corresponds to shallow homogenization of rather soft sediment. Tier 2 corresponds to pervasive burrows dominated by large Thalassinoides that were later passively filled by pellets. Both homogenized micrite and burrow-filling pellets are depleted in 13C in the range from −5 ‰ to −10 ‰. Tier 3 is characterized by small Thalassinoides that have walls locally bored by Trypanites; the latter represent tier 4. The diagenetic cements filling the tier-3 Thalassinoides are arranged in two phases. The first cement generation constitutes a continuous rim that coats the burrow wall and has consistent δ13C values of approximately −8 ‰ to −12 ‰, indicative of bicarbonate originating from the anaerobic oxidation of methane. In contrast, the second cement generation is dominated by saddle dolomite precipitated at temperatures 〉80 ∘C, at a time when the pseudobioherm was deeply buried. The fact that the tubes remained open until deep burial means that vertical fluid communication was possible over the whole vertical extent of the pseudobioherm up to the seafloor during its active development. Therefore, vertical growth was fostered by this open burrow network, providing a high density of localized conduits through the zone of carbonate precipitation, in particular across the sulfate–methane transition zone. Burrows prevented self-sealing from blocking upward methane migration and laterally deflecting fluid flow. One key aspect is the geometric complexity of the burrows with numerous subhorizontal segments that could trap sediment shed from above and, hence, prevent their passive fill.

Description: Background Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in several immune processes, including the immune response to vaccination, but most of them remain uncharacterised in livestock species. The mechanism of action of aluminium adjuvants as vaccine components is neither not fully understood. Results We built a transcriptome from sheep PBMCs RNA-seq data in order to identify unannotated lncRNAs and analysed their expression patterns along protein coding genes. We found 2284 novel lncRNAs and assessed their conservation in terms of sequence and synteny. Differential expression analysis performed between animals inoculated with commercial vaccines or aluminium adjuvant alone and the co-expression analysis revealed lncRNAs related to the immune response to vaccines and adjuvants. A group of co-expressed genes enriched in cytokine signalling and production highlighted the differences between different treatments. A number of differentially expressed lncRNAs were correlated with a divergently located protein-coding gene, such as the OSM cytokine. Other lncRNAs were predicted to act as sponges of miRNAs involved in immune response regulation. Conclusions This work enlarges the lncRNA catalogue in sheep and puts an accent on their involvement in the immune response to repetitive vaccination, providing a basis for further characterisation of the non-coding sheep transcriptome within different immune cells.

Description: The nitrogen-15 (15N) natural abundance composition (δ15N) in soils or plants is a useful tool to indicate the openness of ecosystem N cycling. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of the experimental warming on soil and plant δ15N. We applied a global meta-analysis method to synthesize 79 and 76 paired observations of soil and plant δ15N from 20 published studies, respectively. Results showed that the mean effect sizes of the soil and plant δ15N under experimental warming were −0.524 (95 % CI (confidence interval): −0.987 to −0.162) and 0.189 (95 % CI: −0.210 to 0.569), respectively. This indicated that soil δ15N had negative response to warming at the global scale, where warming had no significant effect on plant δ15N. Experimental warming significantly (p3 ∘C in temperature, whereas it significantly (p

Description: Global access to sanitary water is of utmost importance to human health. Presently, textile dye water pollution and cigarette pollution are both plaguing the environment. Herein, waste cigarette filters (CFs) are converted into useful carbon-based adsorbent materials via a facile, microwave-assisted carbonization procedure. The CFs are activated and co-doped with phosphorus and nitrogen simultaneously to enhance their surface characteristics and adsorbent capability by introducing chemisorptive binding sites to the surface. The doped carbonized CF (DCCF) and undoped carbonized CF (CCF) adsorbents are characterized physically to examine their surface area, elemental composition, and surface charge properties. The maximum adsorption capacity of synthesized adsorbents was determined via batch adsorption experiments and Langmuir modelling. Additionally, the influence of different parameters on the adsorption process was studied by varying the adsorption conditions such as adsorbent dosage, initial concentration, contact time, temperature, and pH. The DCCF adsorbent showed a maximum adsorption capacity of 303 mg g− 1. Adsorption of both adsorbents fit best to Langmuir model and pseudo-second order kinetics, indicating chemisorptive mechanism. Both adsorbents showed endothermic adsorption process which is indicated by increasing adsorption capacity with increased temperatures. DCCF exhibited greater adsorption capability than CCF at all temperatures from 25 to 55 °C. The pH of the solution significantly affected the adsorption capacity of CCF while DCCF adsorption is favorable at a wide pH range due to low value of the adsorbent’s point of zero charge. Reusability results showed that both adsorbents can be used over several cycles for removal of dye. Thus, results conclude that the waste DCCF-based adsorbent does not only show a profound potential as a sustainable solution to combat textile dye water pollution but also addresses the valuable use of the CF pollution simultaneously. This approach, which can target two major pollutants, is attractive due to its ease of preparation, negligible cost, and versatility in application.

Description: The Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer Cropping Systems Model (DSSAT-CSM) is a widely used crop modeling system that has been integrated into large-scale modeling frameworks. Existing frameworks generate spatially explicit simulated outputs at grid points through an inefficient process of translation from binary spatially referenced inputs to point-specific text input files, followed by translation and aggregation back from point-specific text output files to binary spatially referenced outputs. The main objective of this paper was to document the design and implementation of a parallel gridded simulation framework for DSSAT-CSM. A secondary objective was to provide preliminary analysis of execution time and scaling of the new parallel gridded framework. The parallel gridded framework includes improved code for model-internal data transfer, gridded input–output with the Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) library, and parallelization of simulations using the Message Passing Interface (MPI). Validation simulations with the DSSAT-CSM-CROPSIM-CERES-Wheat model revealed subtle discrepancies in simulated yield due to the rounding of soil parameters in the input routines of the standard DSSAT-CSM. Utilizing NetCDF for direct input–output produced a 3.7- to 4-fold reduction in execution time compared to R- and text-based input–output. Parallelization improved execution time for both versions with between 12.2- (standard version) and 13.4-fold (parallel gridded version) speed-up when comparing 1 to 16 compute cores. Estimates of parallelization of computation ranged between 99.2 % (standard version) and 97.3 % (parallel gridded version), indicating potential for scaling to higher numbers of compute cores.

Description: Background High-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) oxygen is a non-invasive ventilation system that was introduced as an alternative to CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure), with a marked increase in its use in pediatric care settings. This study aimed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of early use of HFNC compared to oxygen by nasal cannula in an infant with bronchiolitis in the emergency setting. Methods A decision tree model was used to estimate the cost-effectiveness of HFNC compared with oxygen by nasal cannula (control strategy) in an infant with bronchiolitis in the emergency setting. Cost data were obtained from a retrospective study on bronchiolitis from tertiary centers in Rionegro, Colombia, while utilities were collected from the literature. Results The QALYs per patient calculated in the base-case model were 0.9141 (95% CI 0.913–0.915) in the HFNC and 0.9105 (95% CI 0.910–0.911) in control group. The cost per patient was US$368 (95% CI US$ 323–411) in HFNC and US$441 (95% CI US$ 384–498) per patient in the control group. Conclusions HFNC was cost-effective HFNC compared to oxygen by nasal cannula in an infant with bronchiolitis in the emergency setting. The use of this technology in emergency settings will allow a more efficient use of resources, especially in low-resource countries with high prevalence of bronchiolitis .

Description: Background The detection of environmental cues and signals via the sensory system directs behavioral choices in diverse organisms. Insect larvae rely on input from the chemosensory system, mainly olfaction, for locating food sources. In several lepidopteran species, foraging behavior and food preferences change across larval instars; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying such behavioral plasticity during larval development are not fully understood. Here, we hypothesize that expression patterns of odorant receptors (ORs) change during development, as a possible mechanism influencing instar-specific olfactory-guided behavior and food preferences. Results We investigated the expression patterns of ORs in larvae of the cotton leafworm Spodoptera littoralis between the first and fourth instar and revealed that some of the ORs show instar-specific expression. We functionally characterized one OR expressed in the first instar, SlitOR40, as responding to the plant volatile, β-caryophyllene and its isomer α-humulene. In agreement with the proposed hypothesis, we showed that first but not fourth instar larvae responded behaviorally to β-caryophyllene and α-humulene. Moreover, knocking out this odorant receptor via CRISPR-Cas9, we confirmed that instar-specific responses towards its cognate ligands rely on the expression of SlitOR40. Conclusion Our results provide evidence that larvae of S. littoralis change their peripheral olfactory system during development. Furthermore, our data demonstrate an unprecedented instar-specific behavioral plasticity mediated by an OR, and knocking out this OR disrupts larval behavioral plasticity. The ecological relevance of such behavioral plasticity for S. littoralis remains to be elucidated, but our results demonstrate an olfactory mechanism underlying this plasticity in foraging behavior during larval development.