Peatlands contain a large belowground carbon (C) stock in the biosphere, and their dynamics have important implications for the global carbon cycle. However, there are still large uncertainties in C ...stock estimates and poor understanding of C dynamics across timescales. Here I review different approaches and associated uncertainties of C stock estimates in the literature, and on the basis of the literature review my best estimate of C stocks and uncertainty is 500 ± 100 (approximate range) gigatons of C (Gt C) in northern peatlands. The greatest source of uncertainty for all the approaches is the lack or insufficient representation of data, including depth, bulk density and carbon accumulation data, especially from the world's large peatlands. Several ways to improve estimates of peat carbon stocks are also discussed in this paper, including the estimates of C stocks by regions and further utilizations of widely available basal peat ages. Changes in peatland carbon stocks over time, estimated using Sphagnum (peat moss) spore data and down-core peat accumulation records, show different patterns during the Holocene, and I argue that spore-based approach underestimates the abundance of peatlands in their early histories. Considering long-term peat decomposition using peat accumulation data allows estimates of net carbon sequestration rates by peatlands, or net (ecosystem) carbon balance (NECB), which indicates more than half of peat carbon (> 270 Gt C) was sequestrated before 7000 yr ago during the Holocene. Contemporary carbon flux studies at 5 peatland sites show much larger NECB during the last decade (32 ± 7.8 (S.E.) g C m−2 yr–1) than during the last 7000 yr (∼ 11 g C m−2 yr–1), as modeled from peat records across northern peatlands. This discrepancy highlights the urgent need for carbon accumulation data and process understanding, especially at decadal and centennial timescales, that would bridge current knowledge gaps and facilitate comparisons of NECB across all timescales.
Essentials
Perioperative blood loss and inflammatory response can significantly affect recovery after surgery.
We studied the effects of multiple‐dose oral tranexamic acid on blood loss and ...inflammatory response.
A postoperative four‐dose regimen brought about maximum reduction in postoperative blood loss.
A postoperative four‐dose regimen reduced inflammatory response and promoted early rehabilitation.
Summary
Background
Tranexamic acid (TXA) can reduce blood loss and the inflammatory response at multiple doses in total knee arthroplasty patients. However, the optimal regimen has not been determined.
Objectives
To identify the most effective regimen for achieving maximum reductions in blood loss and the inflammatory response.
Patients/Methods
Two hundred and seventy‐five patients were randomized to receive a placebo (group A), a single 2‐g oral dose of TXA 2 h preoperatively followed by 1 g of oral TXA 3 h postoperatively (group B), a single dose followed by 1 g of oral TXA 3 h and 7 h postoperatively (group C), a single dose followed by 1 g of oral TXA 3 h, 7 h and 11 h postoperatively (group D), or a single dose followed by 1 g of oral TXA 3 h, 7 h, 11 h and 15 h postoperatively (group E). The primary outcome was total blood loss on postoperative day (POD) 3. Secondary outcomes included a decrease in the hemoglobin level, coagulation parameters, inflammatory marker levels, and thromboembolic complications.
Results
Groups D and E had significantly lower blood loss and smaller decreases in hemoglobin level than groups A, B, and C, with no significant difference on POD 3 between groups D and E. Significantly enhanced coagulation was identified for the four multiple‐dose regimens; however, all thromboelastographic parameters remained within normal ranges. Group E had the lowest inflammatory marker levels and pain, and the greatest range of motion. No thromboembolic complications were identified.
Conclusion
The four‐dose regimen yielded the maximum reductions in blood loss and inflammatory response, improved analgesia, and promoted early rehabilitation. Further studies are required to ensure that these findings are reproducible.
Hybrid inorganic-organic perovskites have proven to be a revolutionary material for low-cost photovoltaic applications. They also exhibit many other interesting properties, including giant Rashba ...splitting, large-radius Wannier excitons, and novel magneto-optical effects. Understanding these properties as well as the detailed mechanism of photovoltaics requires a reliable and accessible electronic structure, on which models of transport, excitonic, and magneto-optical properties can be efficiently developed. Here we construct an effective-mass model for the hybrid perovskites based on the group theory, experiment, and first-principles calculations. Using this model, we relate the Rashba splitting with the inversion-asymmetry parameter in the tetragonal perovskites, evaluate anisotropic g-factors for both conduction and valence bands, and elucidate the magnetic-field effect on photoluminescence and its dependence on the intensity of photoexcitation. The diamagnetic effect of exciton is calculated for an arbitrarily strong magnetic field. The pronounced excitonic peak emerged at intermediate magnetic fields in cyclotron resonance is assigned to the 3D±2 states, whose splitting can be used to estimate the difference in the effective masses of electron and hole.
We report the synthesis and fatigue characterization of fiberglass/epoxy composites with various weight fractions of graphene platelets infiltrated into the epoxy resin as well as directly ...spray-coated on to the glass microfibers. Remarkably only ∼0.2% (with respect to the epoxy resin weight and ∼0.02% with respect to the entire laminate weight) of graphene additives enhanced the fatigue life of the composite in the flexural bending mode by up to 1200-fold. By contrast, under uniaxial tensile fatigue conditions, the graphene fillers resulted in ∼3−5-fold increase in fatigue life. The fatigue life increase (in the flexural bending mode) with graphene additives was ∼1−2 orders of magnitude superior to those obtained using carbon nanotubes. In situ ultrasound analysis of the nanocomposite during the cyclic fatigue test suggests that the graphene network toughens the fiberglass/epoxy-matrix interface and prevents the delamination/buckling of the glass microfibers under compressive stress. Such fatigue-resistant hierarchical materials show potential to improve the safety, reliability, and cost effectiveness of fiber-reinforced composites that are increasingly the material of choice in the aerospace, automotive, marine, sports, biomedical, and wind energy industries.
Crystal lattices with tetragonal or hexagonal structure often exhibit structural transitions in response to external stimuli
. Similar behaviour is anticipated for the lattice forms of topological ...spin textures, such as lattices composed of merons and antimerons or skyrmions and antiskyrmions (types of vortex related to the distribution of electron spins in a magnetic field), but has yet to be verified experimentally
. Here we report real-space observations of spin textures in a thin plate of the chiral-lattice magnet Co
Zn
Mn
, which exhibits in-plane magnetic anisotropy. The observations demonstrate the emergence of a two-dimensional square lattice of merons and antimerons from a helical state, and its transformation into a hexagonal lattice of skyrmions in the presence of a magnetic field at room temperature. Sequential observations with decreasing temperature reveal that the topologically protected skyrmions remain robust to changes in temperature, whereas the square lattice of merons and antimerons relaxes to non-topological in-plane spin helices, highlighting the different topological stabilities of merons, antimerons and skyrmions. Our results demonstrate the rich variety of topological spin textures and their lattice forms, and should stimulate further investigation of emergent electromagnetic properties.
The objective of this study was to generate a phylogenetic diversity census of bacteria identified in the intestinal tract of chickens and turkeys using a naïve analysis of all the curated 16S rRNA ...gene sequences archived in public databases. High-quality sequences of chicken and turkey gastrointestinal origin (3,184 and 1,345, respectively) were collected from the GenBank, Ribosomal Database Project, and Silva comprehensive ribosomal RNA database. Through phylogenetic and statistical analysis, 915 and 464 species-equivalent operational taxonomic units (defined at 0.03 phylogenetic distance) were found in the chicken and the turkey sequence collections, respectively. Of the 13 bacterial phyla identified in both bird species, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria were the largest phyla, accounting for >90% of all the sequences. The chicken sequences represent 117 established bacterial genera, and the turkey sequences represent 69 genera. The most predominant genera found in both the chicken and the turkey sequence data sets were Clostridium, Ruminococcus, Lactobacillus, and Bacteroides, but with different distribution between the 2 bird species. The estimated coverage of bacterial diversity of chicken and turkey reached 89 and 68% at species-equivalent and 93 and 73% at genus-equivalent levels, respectively. Less than 7,000 bacterial sequences from each bird species from various locations would be needed to reach 99% coverage for either bird species. Based on annotation of the sequence records, cecum was the most sampled gut segment. Chickens and turkeys were shown to have distinct intestinal microbiomes, sharing only 16% similarity at the species-equivalent level. Besides identifying gaps in knowledge on bacterial diversity in poultry gastrointestinal tract, the bacterial census generated in this study may serve as a framework for future studies and development of analytic tools.
The skyrmion, a vortex-like spin-swirling object, is anticipatedto play a vital role in quantum magneto-transport processes such as the quantum Hall and topological Hall effects. The existence of the ...magnetic skyrmion crystal (SkX) state was recently verified experimentally for MnSi and Fe0.5Co0.5Si by means of small-angle neutron scattering and Lorentz transmission electron microscopy. However, to enable the application of such a SkX for spintronic function, materials problems such as a low crystallization temperature and low stability of SkX have to be overcome. Here we report the formation of SkX close to room temperature in thin-films of the helimagnet FeGe. In addition to the magnetic twin structure, we found a magnetic chirality inversion of the SkX across lattice twin boundaries. Furthermore, for thin crystal plates with thicknesses much smaller than the SkX lattice constant (as) the two-dimensional SkX is quite stable over a wide range of temperatures and magnetic fields, whereas for quasi-three-dimensional films with thicknesses over as the SkX is relatively unstable and observed only around the helical transition temperature. The room-temperature stable SkX state as promised by this study will pave a new path to designing quantum-effect devices based on the controllable skyrmion dynamics.
The metabolic functions of androgen receptor (AR) in normal prostate are circumvented in prostate cancer (PCa) to drive tumor growth, and the AR also can acquire new growth-promoting functions during ...PCa development and progression through genetic and epigenetic mechanisms. Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT, surgical or medical castration) is the standard treatment for metastatic PCa, but patients invariably relapse despite castrate androgen levels (castration-resistant PCa, CRPC). Early studies from many groups had shown that AR was highly expressed and transcriptionally active in CRPC, and indicated that steroids from the adrenal glands were contributing to this AR activity. More recent studies showed that CRPC cells had increased expression of enzymes mediating androgen synthesis from adrenal steroids, and could synthesize androgens de novo from cholesterol. Phase III clinical trials showing a survival advantage in CRPC for treatment with abiraterone (inhibitor of the enzyme CYP17A1 required for androgen synthesis that markedly reduces androgens and precursor steroids) and for enzalutamide (new AR antagonist) have now confirmed that AR activity driven by residual androgens makes a major contribution to CRPC, and led to the recent Food and Drug Administration approval of both agents. Unfortunately, patients treated with these agents for advanced CRPC generally relapse within a year and AR appears to be active in the relapsed tumors, but the molecular mechanisms mediating intrinsic or acquired resistance to these AR-targeted therapies remain to be defined. This review outlines AR functions that contribute to PCa development and progression, the roles of intratumoral androgen synthesis and AR structural alterations in driving AR activity in CRPC, mechanisms of action for abiraterone and enzalutamide, and possible mechanisms of resistance to these agents.
Observation of Skyrmions in a Multiferroic Material Seki, S.; Yu, X. Z.; Ishiwata, S. ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
04/2012, Letnik:
336, Številka:
6078
Journal Article
Recenzirano
A magnetic skyrmion is a topologically stable particle-like object that appears as a vortex-like spin texture at the nanometer scale in a chiral-lattice magnet. Skyrmions have been observed in ...metallic materials, where they are controllable by electric currents. Here, we report the experimental discovery of magnetoelectric skyrmions in an insulating chiral-lattice magnet Cu₂OSeO₃ through Lorentz transmission electron microscopy and magnetic susceptibility measurements. We find that the skyrmion can magnetically induce electric polarization. The observed magnetoelectric coupling may potentially enable the manipulation of the skyrmion by an external electric field without losses due to joule heating.
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