Evaluation of biospheric components in Earth system models using modern and palaeo-observations: the state-of-the-art

Earth system models (ESMs) are increasing in complexity by incorporating more processes than their predecessors, making them potentially important tools for studying the evolution of climate and associated biogeochemical cycles. However, their coupled behaviour has only recently been examined in any detail, and has yielded a very wide range of outcomes. For example, coupled climate–carbon cycle models that represent land-use change simulate total land carbon stores at 2100 that vary by as much as 600 Pg C, given the same emissions scenario. This large uncertainty is associated with differences in how key processes are simulated in different models, and illustrates the necessity of determining which models are most realistic using rigorous methods of model evaluation. Here we assess the state-of-the-art in evaluation of ESMs, with a particular emphasis on the simulation of the carbon cycle and associated biospheric processes. We examine some of the new advances and remaining uncertainties relating to (i) modern and palaeodata and (ii) metrics for evaluation. We note that the practice of averaging results from many models is unreliable and no substitute for proper evaluation of individual models. We discuss a range of strategies, such as the inclusion of pre-calibration, combined process- and system-level evaluation, and the use of emergent constraints, that can contribute to the development of more robust evaluation schemes. An increasingly data-rich environment offers more opportunities for model evaluation, but also presents a challenge. Improved knowledge of data uncertainties is still necessary to move the field of ESM evaluation away from a "beauty contest" towards the development of useful constraints on model outcomes.

Extraction methods and availability of phosphorus for soybean in soils from Parana State, Brazil

In studies on the evaluation of methodologies for the analysis of soil, phosphorus (P) has been the single most studied aspect, due to the complexity of this dynamic element in soil. However, these studies have been limited regarding soil conditions in Paranaa. The present study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of the Mehlich-1, Mehlich-3 and ion exchange resin methods in the evaluation of available P for soybean (Glycine max) in the soils of Paranaa State. Twelve soil samples collected from the upper 0-20 cm were planted with soybean for a period of 42 days in the greenhouse. The ability to extract soil P followed the order of decreasing average amount of extracted P: Mehlich-3 > resin > Mehlich-1. The correlation coefficients between the content of P extracted by Mehlich-1, Mehlich-3 and resin and the amount of P accumulated in the plants were 0.86, 0.90 and 0.93, respectively. Mehlich-1, Mehlich-3 and resin showed similar efficiency in the evaluation of P availability to plants and, under conditions of natural fertility and in soils that had received no application of poorly natural reactive phosphates, can be used to quantify the concentrations of P in the soils of Parana State.

Preschool children and excess weight: the impact of a low complexity intervention in public day care centers

Introduction: childhood obesity is a major public health problem, affecting children even at early ages. Objective: to assess the impact of dietary intervention and relatively simple physical activity on the nutritional state of preschoolers. Method: this was an intervention study in public daycare centers targeting children from 2 to 4 years of age, in the State of São Paulo. The sample consisted of 9 daycare centers covering 578 children, with 264 children in the intervention group (IG) and 314 in the comparison group (CG). Intervention was focused on modifications in diet and physical activity, avoiding overloading the routine of daycare centers, for duration of one year. A zBMI score > 1 (zBMI) and < 2 was considered risk of being overweight, and > 2 zBMI was considered excess weight (overweight and obese). Analysis was done by frequency calculations, comparisons of proportions by χ2, mean comparisons by t-student and calculations according to Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Results: IG showed an inverse correlation between the initial zBMI of the children and the difference with the zBMI at the end of the intervention (rP = -0.39, p <0.0001). The mean difference of zBMI of the overweight children in IG between the beginning and the end of the study period was negative (-0.46 z score), indicating weight reduction, while the children in the CG was positive (+0. 17 z score) (p = 0.0037). Conclusion: intervention in diet and physical activity in overweight preschool children in daycare centers could have a favorable impact on the evolution of their nutritional state.

Estimation of Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Height and Distribution in Nova Avanhandava Reservoir (São Paulo State, Brazil) Using Bio-Optical Modeling

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

State of the Arctic October 2006

This State of the Arctic Report presents a review of recent data by an international group of scientists who developed a consensus on the information content and reliability. The report highlights data primarily from 2000 to 2005 with a first look at winter 2006, providing an update to some of the records of physical processes discussed in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA, 2004, 2005). Of particular note: • Atmospheric climate patterns are shifting (Fig. 1). The late winter/spring pattern for 2000–2005 had new hot spots in northeast Canada and the East Siberian Sea relative to 1980–1999. Late winter 2006, however, shows a return to earlier climate patterns, with warm temperatures in the extended region near Svalbard. • Ocean salinity and temperature profiles at the North Pole and in the Beaufort Sea, which changed abruptly in the 1990s, show that conditions since 2000 have relaxed toward the pre-1990 climatology, although 2001–2004 has seen an increase in northward ocean heat transport through Bering Strait (Fig. 2), which is thought to impact sea ice loss. • Sea ice extent continues to decrease. The sea ice extent in September 2005 was the minimum observed in summer during the satellite era (beginning in 1979), marking an unprecedented series of extreme ice extent minima beginning in 2002 (Fig. 3). The sea ice extent in March 2006 was also the minimum observed in winter during the satellite era. • Tundra vegetation greenness increased, primarily due to an increase in the abundance of shrubs. Boreal forest vegetation greenness decreased, possibly due to drought conditions (Fig. 4). • There is increasing interest in the stability of the Greenland ice sheet. The velocity of outlet glaciers increased in 2005 relative to 2000 and 1995, but uncertainty remains with regard to the total mass balance. • Permafrost temperatures continue to increase. However, data on changes in the active layer thickness (the relatively thin layer of ground between the surface and permafrost that undergoes seasonal freezing and thawing) are less conclusive. While some of the sites show a barely noticeable increasing trend in the thickness of the active layer, most of them do not. • Globally, 2005 was the warmest year in the instrumental record (beginning in 1880), with the Arctic providing a large contribution toward this increase. Many of the trends documented in the ACIA are continuing, but some are not. Taken collectively, the observations presented in this report indicate that during 2000–2005 the Arctic system showed signs of continued warming. However, there are a few indications that certain elements may be recovering and returning to recent climatological norms (for example, the central Arctic Ocean and some wind patterns). These mixed tendencies further illustrate the sensitivity and complexity of the Arctic physical system. They underline the importance of maintaining and expanding efforts to observe and better understand this important component of the climate system to provide accurate predictions of its future state.

Neuroimaging during Trance State: A Contribution to the Study of Dissociation

Despite increasing interest in pathological and non-pathological dissociation, few researchers have focused on the spiritual experiences involving dissociative states such as mediumship, in which an individual (the medium) claims to be in communication with, or under the control of, the mind of a deceased person. Our preliminary study investigated psychography - in which allegedly "the spirit writes through the medium's hand" - for potential associations with specific alterations in cerebral activity. We examined ten healthy psychographers - five less expert mediums and five with substantial experience, ranging from 15 to 47 years of automatic writing and 2 to 18 psychographies per month - using single photon emission computed tomography to scan activity as subjects were writing, in both dissociative trance and non-trance states. The complexity of the original written content they produced was analyzed for each individual and for the sample as a whole. The experienced psychographers showed lower levels of activity in the left culmen, left hippocampus, left inferior occipital gyrus, left anterior cingulate, right superior temporal gyrus and right precentral gyrus during psychography compared to their normal (non-trance) writing. The average complexity scores for psychographed content were higher than those for control writing, for both the whole sample and for experienced mediums. The fact that subjects produced complex content in a trance dissociative state suggests they were not merely relaxed, and relaxation seems an unlikely explanation for the underactivation of brain areas specifically related to the cognitive processing being carried out. This finding deserves further investigation both in terms of replication and explanatory hypotheses.

Evaluation of physiologic complexity in time series using generalized sample entropy and surrogate data analysis

Complexity in time series is an intriguing feature of living dynamical systems, with potential use for identification of system state. Although various methods have been proposed for measuring physiologic complexity, uncorrelated time series are often assigned high values of complexity, errouneously classifying them as a complex physiological signals. Here, we propose and discuss a method for complex system analysis based on generalized statistical formalism and surrogate time series. Sample entropy (SampEn) was rewritten inspired in Tsallis generalized entropy, as function of q parameter (qSampEn). qSDiff curves were calculated, which consist of differences between original and surrogate series qSampEn. We evaluated qSDiff for 125 real heart rate variability (HRV) dynamics, divided into groups of 70 healthy, 44 congestive heart failure (CHF), and 11 atrial fibrillation (AF) subjects, and for simulated series of stochastic and chaotic process. The evaluations showed that, for nonperiodic signals, qSDiff curves have a maximum point (qSDiff(max)) for q not equal 1. Values of q where the maximum point occurs and where qSDiff is zero were also evaluated. Only qSDiff(max) values were capable of distinguish HRV groups (p-values 5.10 x 10(-3); 1.11 x 10(-7), and 5.50 x 10(-7) for healthy vs. CHF, healthy vs. AF, and CHF vs. AF, respectively), consistently with the concept of physiologic complexity, and suggests a potential use for chaotic system analysis. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4758815]

COMPLEXITY MEASURE: A QUANTUM INFORMATION APPROACH

In the past decades, all of the efforts at quantifying systems complexity with a general tool has usually relied on using Shannon's classical information framework to address the disorder of the system through the Boltzmann-Gibbs-Shannon entropy, or one of its extensions. However, in recent years, there were some attempts to tackle the quantification of algorithmic complexities in quantum systems based on the Kolmogorov algorithmic complexity, obtaining some discrepant results against the classical approach. Therefore, an approach to the complexity measure is proposed here, using the quantum information formalism, taking advantage of the generality of the classical-based complexities, and being capable of expressing these systems' complexity on other framework than its algorithmic counterparts. To do so, the Shiner-Davison-Landsberg (SDL) complexity framework is considered jointly with linear entropy for the density operators representing the analyzed systems formalism along with the tangle for the entanglement measure. The proposed measure is then applied in a family of maximally entangled mixed state.

Entropy, complexity and disequilibrium in compact stars

We used the statistical measurements of information entropy, disequilibrium and complexity to infer a hierarchy of equations of state for two types of compact stars from the broad class of neutron stars, namely, with hadronic composition and with strange quark composition. Our results show that, since order costs energy. Nature would favor the exotic strange stars even though the question of how to form the strange stars cannot be answered within this approach. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Beyond socialism: Tanzanian theatre, neoliberalism and foreign aid complexity

Theatralität ist ein gängiges Konzept, um Theater in Afrika zu definieren. Wird dieses Konzept angewendet, so treten die historischen Unterschiede zwischen den verschiedenen Theaterformen in den Hintergrund. Deshalb ist es wichtig, Theater in einen kulturellen Kontext zu stellen, aus dem das Theater entsteht. Dadurch können nationale und internationale Suprastrukturen, die die sozialpolitische und wirtschaftliche Atmosphäre bestimmen, analysiert werden,. Da sich die aktuelle „globale“ Entwicklung auf neoliberale Grundsätze stützt, ist es offensichtlich, dass man Theater nicht diskutieren kann, ohne näher auf Neoliberalismus, Imperialismus, Kapitalismus, Entwicklungshilfe und Geberpolitik einzugehen.rnDerzeit werden die meisten Theaterprojekte in Tansania durch die Entwicklungshilfe oder ausländische Geberorganisationen unterstützt. Diese Organisationen stellen finanzielle Mittel zur Verfügung, um Theaterproduktionen auf unterschiedlichem Niveau zu ermöglichen. Diese Spendenpraxis hat zu der Fehlannahme geführt, dass Theater nur dann ein Theater ist, wenn es durch ausländische Organisationen finanziert wird. Jedoch ist es offensichtlich, dass diese finanziellen Mittel eine große Rolle in der Machtpolitik spielen. Diese Studie untersucht deshalb die Frage: Welchen Einfluss hat die neoliberale Politik, insbesondere durch die Entwicklungshilfe, auf das Theater in Tansania? Die Arbeit deckt einmal die Verbindung zwischen dem produzieren Theater und den verschiedenen dominierenden politischen Richtungen – von Nationalismus bis Neoliberalismus – auf. Darüber hinaus wird gezeigt, dass diese Verbindungen es dem Theater erschweren, diese Suprastrukturen zu vermeiden, durch die es finanziert wird. Das bedeutet, dass die neoliberale Politik mit seinen Merkmalen von Einengung, Unterdrückung und Ausbeutung auch ein eingeengtes, unterdrücktes und ausbeuterisches Theater hervorbringt. Dieser Studie bezeichnet ein solches Theater als Theater (Neo-)Liberalismus. Es ist ein Theater, das apolitisch auftritt, aber tatsächlich unter der neoliberal Politik des freien Markts und der Subventionsstreichungen ums Überleben kämpft.rnIndem diese Verbindungen zwischen Theater, Entwicklungshilfe und Geberorganisationen erläutert werden, kommt diese Forschung zu folgendem Ergebnis: Die Geberorganisationen haben kein Recht, unabhängig von der Höhe ihrer Spende, in die Souveränität eines Staates einzugreifen oder ein neues System einzuführen. Deshalb sollte die Loslösung von ausländischen Geberländern an erster Stelle stehen, damit sich das Theater ganz entwickeln und unabhängig überleben kann. Es ist deshalb notwendig, das Konzept des Volkstheaters neu zu definieren. Das Theater soll wieder mit den Initiativen von Menschen zu tun haben und ihre eigenen Themen in einem gewissen zeitlich und räumlichen Rahmen ansprechen.rnrn

Frontal areas contribute to reduced global coordination of resting-state gamma activities in drug-naïve patients with schizophrenia

Schizophrenia has been postulated to involve impaired neuronal cooperation in large-scale neural networks, including cortico-cortical circuitry. Alterations in gamma band oscillations have attracted a great deal of interest as they appear to represent a pathophysiological process of cortical dysfunction in schizophrenia. Gamma band oscillations reflect local cortical activities, and the synchronization of these activities among spatially distributed cortical areas has been suggested to play a central role in the formation of networks. To assess global coordination across spatially distributed brain regions, Omega complexity (OC) in multichannel EEG was proposed. Using OC, we investigated global coordination of resting-state EEG activities in both gamma (30–50 Hz) and below-gamma (1.5–30 Hz) bands in drug-naïve patients with schizophrenia and investigated the effects of neuroleptic treatment. We found that gamma band OC was significantly higher in drug-naïve patients with schizophrenia compared to control subjects and that a right frontal electrode (F3) contributed significantly to the higher OC. After neuroleptic treatment, reductions in the contribution of frontal electrodes to global OC in both bands correlated with the improvement of schizophrenia symptomatology. The present study suggests that frontal brain processes in schizophrenia were less coordinated with activity in the remaining brain. In addition, beneficial effects of neuroleptic treatment were accompanied by improvement of brain coordination predominantly due to changes in frontal regions. Our study provides new evidence of improper intrinsic brain integration in schizophrenia by investigating the resting-state gamma band activity.

Subsecond changes of global brain state in illusory multistable motion perception

This study explored transient changes in EEG microstates and spatial Omega complexity associated with changes in multistable perception. 21-channel EEG was recorded from 13 healthy subjects viewing an alternating dot pattern that induced illusory motion with ambiguous direction. Baseline epochs with stable motion direction were compared to epochs immediately preceding stimuli that were perceived with changed motion direction ('reference stimuli'). About 750 ms before reference stimuli, Omega complexity decreased as compared to baseline, and two of four classes of EEG microstates changed their probability of occurrence. About 300 ms before reference stimuli, Omega complexity increased and the previous deviations of EEG microstates were reversed. Given earlier results on Omega complexity and microstates, these sub-second EEG changes might parallel longer-lasting fluctuations in vigilance. Assumedly, the discontinuities of illusory motion thus occur during sub-second dips in arousal, and the following reconstruction of the illusion coincides with a state of relative over-arousal.

Single-dose piracetam effects on global complexity measures of human spontaneous multichannel EEG

Global complexity of 47-channel resting electroencephalogram (EEG) of healthy young volunteers was studied after intake of a single dose of a nootropic drug (piracetam, Nootropil® UCB Pharma) in 12 healthy volunteers. Four treatment levels were used: 2.4, 4.8, 9.6 g piracetam and placebo. Brain electric activity was assessed through Global Dimensional Complexity and Global Omega-Complexity as quantitative measures of the complexity of the trajectory of multichannel EEG in state space. After oral ingestion (1–1.5 h), both measures showed significant decreases from placebo to 2.4 g piracetam. In addition, Global Dimensional Complexity showed a significant return to placebo values at 9.6 g piracetam. The results indicate that a single dose of piracetam dose-dependently affects the spontaneous EEG in normal volunteers, showing effects at the lowest treatment level. The decreased EEG complexity is interpreted as increased cooperativity of brain functional processes.

Brain electric correlates of strong belief in paranormal phenomena: intracerebral EEG source and regional Omega complexity analyses

The neurocognitive processes underlying the formation and maintenance of paranormal beliefs are important for understanding schizotypal ideation. Behavioral studies indicated that both schizotypal and paranormal ideation are based on an overreliance on the right hemisphere, whose coarse rather than focussed semantic processing may favor the emergence of 'loose' and 'uncommon' associations. To elucidate the electrophysiological basis of these behavioral observations, 35-channel resting EEG was recorded in pre-screened female strong believers and disbelievers during resting baseline. EEG data were subjected to FFT-Dipole-Approximation analysis, a reference-free frequency-domain dipole source modeling, and Regional (hemispheric) Omega Complexity analysis, a linear approach estimating the complexity of the trajectories of momentary EEG map series in state space. Compared to disbelievers, believers showed: more right-located sources of the beta2 band (18.5-21 Hz, excitatory activity); reduced interhemispheric differences in Omega complexity values; higher scores on the Magical Ideation scale; more general negative affect; and more hypnagogic-like reveries after a 4-min eyes-closed resting period. Thus, subjects differing in their declared paranormal belief displayed different active, cerebral neural populations during resting, task-free conditions. As hypothesized, believers showed relatively higher right hemispheric activation and reduced hemispheric asymmetry of functional complexity. These markers may constitute the neurophysiological basis for paranormal and schizotypal ideation.