Search results for "Arid"
showing 10 items of 1382 documents
Ten years surface-atmosphere water budget from the ISAC micrometeorological base in Salento peninsula and comments on the aquifer balance
2016
Data from a ten years (2003-2013) period of activity of the ISAC-Lecce micrometeorological station have been discussed focusing on the atmosphere-surface exchange. Some suitable indices have been calculated such as the precipitation intensity, the aridity index and the ground water infiltration fraction (ratio of the difference between precipitation and real evapotranspiration and the precipitation). Possible trends of annual averages in the decadal period are considered, trying to take also into account the statistical uncertainty associated to measurement errors and missing data. The results indicate a significant increasing in the precipitation intensity together with an experimental evi…
Morphological and molecular characterization of three new parastenocarididae (Copepoda: Harpacticoida) from caves in Southern Italy
2020
We describe three new parastenocaridid: Cottarellicaris sanctiangeli Bruno & Cottarelli sp. nov., Stammericaris vincentimariae Bruno & Cottarelli sp. nov. and Proserpinicars specincola Bruno & Cottarelli sp. nov., collected in the pools of five different caves located in Calabria (Southern Italy). We conducted a phylogenetic analysis based on the mitochondrial COI and ribosomal 18S sequences of C. sanctiangeli sp. nov. and S. vincentimariae sp. nov., and of four more species of Stammericaris and one Proserpinicaris available from literature. Based on the molecular study, the specimens of C. sanctiangeli sp. nov. are clearly separated from the species belonging to the closely-rel…
Enzyme replacement therapy for mucopolysaccharidosis VI: evaluation of long-term pulmonary function in patients treated with recombinant human N-acet…
2010
Pulmonary function is impaired in untreated mucopolysaccharidosis type VI (MPS VI). Pulmonary function was studied in patients during long-term enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) with recombinant human arylsulfatase B (rhASB; rhN-acetylgalactosamine 4-sulfatase). Pulmonary function tests prior to and for up to 240 weeks of weekly infusions of rhASB at 1 mg/kg were completed in 56 patients during Phase 1/2, Phase 2, Phase 3 and Phase 3 Extension trials of rhASB and the Survey Study. Forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) and, in a subset of patients, maximum voluntary ventilation (MVV), were analyzed as absolute volume in liters. FEV1 and FVC showed little change f…
Crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms
2021
Fungal hyphal growth and branching are essential traits that allow fungi to spread and proliferate in many environments. This sustained growth is essential for a myriad of applications in health, agriculture, and industry. However, comparisons between different fungi are difficult in the absence of standardized metrics. Here, we used a microfluidic device featuring four different maze patterns to compare the growth velocity and branching frequency of fourteen filamentous fungi. These measurements result from the collective work of several labs in the form of a competition named the “Fungus Olympics.” The competing fungi included five ascomycete species (ten strains total), two basidiomycete…
Pharmacological blockade of the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) alters neural proliferation, apoptosis and gliosis in the rat hippocampus, hypothal…
2015
Endocannabinoids participate in the control of neurogenesis, neural cell death and gliosis. The pharmacological effect of the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) inhibitor URB597, which limits the endocannabinoid degradation, was investigated in the present study. Cell proliferation (phospho-H3(+) or BrdU(+) cells) of the main adult neurogenic zones as well as apoptosis (cleaved caspase-3(+)), astroglia (GFAP(+)), and microglia (Iba1(+) cells) were analyzed in the hippocampus, hypothalamus and striatum of rats intraperitoneally treated with URB597 (0.3 mg/kg/day) at one dose/4-days resting or 5 doses (1 dose/day). Repeated URB597 treatment increased the plasma levels of the N-acylethanolamine…
Climate Extreme Versus Carbon Extreme: Responses of Terrestrial Carbon Fluxes to Temperature and Precipitation
2020
International audience; Carbon fluxes at the land-atmosphere interface are strongly influenced by weather and climate conditions. Yet what is usually known as “climate extremes” does not always translate into very high or low carbon fluxes or so-called “carbon extremes.” To reveal the patterns of how climate extremes influence terrestrial carbon fluxes, we analyzed the interannual variations in ecosystem carbon fluxes simulated by the Terrestrial Biosphere Models (TBMs) in the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project. At the global level, TBMs simulated reduced ecosystem net primary productivity (NPP; 18.5 ± 9.3 g C m−2 yr−1), but enhanced heterotrophic respiration (Rh; 7 ± 4.6 g…
Spatial distribution of aerosol microphysical and optical properties and direct radiative effect from the China Aerosol Remote Sensing Network
2019
Multi-year observations of aerosol microphysical and optical properties, obtained through ground-based remote sensing at 50 China Aerosol Remote Sensing Network (CARSNET) sites, were used to characterize the aerosol climatology for representative remote, rural, and urban areas over China to assess effects on climate. The annual mean effective radii for total particles (ReffT) decreased from north to south and from rural to urban sites, and high total particle volumes were found at the urban sites. The aerosol optical depth at 440 nm (AOD440 nm) increased from remote and rural sites (0.12) to urban sites (0.79), and the extinction Ångström exponent (EAE440–870 nm) increased fro…
Climatology of convective density currents in the southern foothills of the Atlas Mountains
2010
Density currents fed by evaporationally cooled air are an important dust storm generating feature and can constitute a source of moisture in arid regions. Recently, the existence of such systems has been demonstrated for the area between the High Atlas Mountains and the Sahara desert in southern Morocco on the basis of case studies. Here, a climatological analysis is presented that uses data from the dense climate station network of the IMPETUS project (An Integrated Approach to the Efficient Management of Scarce Water Resources in West Africa) for the 5 year period 20022006. Objective criteria mainly based upon abrupt changes in wind and dew point temperature are defined to identify possib…
Exploring the linkage between dew point temperature and precipitation extremes: A multi-time-scale analysis on a semi-arid Mediterranean region
2021
Abstract Understanding warming climate implications on precipitation is of crucial importance, especially for areas particularly subjected to climate changes and land use/cover modifications, which could be extremely vulnerable to phenomena typically caused by rainfall extremes, such as floods and landslides. Past decade has been witnessing an increasing interest on simple modeling approaches based on the observation of commonly available meteorological variables and their physical linkages. In particular, based on the well-known thermodynamic Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) equation, it was widely investigated the scaling relation between rainfall extremes and variables representative of the near …
Recent temporal and spatial temperature changes in Egypt
2005
In order to detect and to estimate trends of temperature change in Egypt, trend analyses applying the least-squares method and the non-parametric Mann–Kendall test for trends were carried out at six stations for the period 1941–2000 (60 years), and at nine stations for the period 1971–2000 (30 years). According to the trend computations for the period 1941–2000, variable temperature trends over time and space have been observed. Decreasing trends of the mean annual temperature were observed in northern Egypt and (weakly) increasing trends in southern Egypt. Seasonally, positive trends prevailed in summer compared with negative trends in winter. For the recent period, 1971–2000, positive tre…