Wave breaking on turbulent energy budget in the ocean surface mixed layer

As an important physical process at the air-sea interface, wave movement and breaking have a significant effect on the ocean surface mixed layer (OSML). When breaking waves occur at the ocean surface, turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) is input downwards, and a sublayer is formed near the surface and turbulence vertical mixing is intensively enhanced. A one-dimensional ocean model including the Mellor-Yamada level 2.5 turbulence closure equations was employed in our research on variations in turbulent energy budget within OSML. The influence of wave breaking could be introduced into the model by modifying an existing surface boundary condition of the TKE equation and specifying its input. The vertical diffusion and dissipation of TKE were effectively enhanced in the sublayer when wave breaking was considered. Turbulent energy dissipated in the sublayer was about 92.0% of the total depth-integrated dissipated TKE, which is twice higher than that of non-wave breaking. The shear production of TKE decreased by 3.5% because the mean flow fields tended to be uniform due to wave-enhanced turbulent mixing. As a result, a new local equilibrium between diffusion and dissipation of TKE was reached in the wave-enhanced layer. Below the sublayer, the local equilibrium between shear production and dissipation of TKE agreed with the conclusion drawn from the classical law-of-the-wall (Craig and Banner, 1994).

A nitrogen budget of the Changjiang river catchment

Based on 1997-1998 field investigations in the Changjiang river mouth, rain sampling from the river's upper reaches to the mouth, historical data, and relevant literature, the various sources of Total Nitrogen (TN) and Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen (DIN) in the Changjiang river catchment and N transport in the Changjiang river mouth were estimated. The export fluxes of various form of were mainly controlled by the river runoff, and the export fluxes of NO3-N, DIN and TN in 1998 (an especially heavy flood year) were 1438 103 tonnes (t) yr(-1) or 795.1 kg km(-2) yr(-1) 1746 10(3) t yr(-1) or 965.4 kg km(-2) yr(-1) and 2849 10(3) t yr(-1) or 1575.3 kg km(-2) yr(-1), respectively. The TN and DIN in the Changjiang river came mainly from precipitation, agricultural nonpoint sources, N lost from fertilizer and soil, and point sources of industrial waste and residential sewage discharge, which were about 56.2% and 62.3%, 15.4% and 18.5%, 17.1% and 14.4%, respectively, of the N outflow at the Changjiang river mouth; maximum transport being in the middle reaches.

Effects of salinity on energy budget in pond-cultured sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus (Selenka) (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea)

Pond farming for sea cucumber has developed rapidly along the northern coast of China in the recent years. Holothurians inhabiting ponds undergo seasonal fluctuations of salinity. This study deals with the bioenergetic responses of pond-cultured sea cucumbers Apostichopus japonicus (wet weight of 37.5 +/- 1.8 g) to different water salinities [22, 27, 31.5, and 36 practical salinity units (psu)] at 15 degrees C in the laboratory to determine the influence of water salinity on growth and energy allocation in this species. Results show that ingested energy and scope for growth (SFG) were highest at 31.5 psu and then decreased when water salinity was below or above this point. Although energy ingested was lowest at 36 psu, the lowest SFG occurred at 22 psu (only 102.68 +/- 14.26 J g(-1) d(-1)) because animals reared at 22 psu spent much more consumed energy on feces (72.19%), respiration (21.70%), and excretion (2.59%), leaving less energy for growth (3.52%). Results suggest that pond-cultured sea cucumbers could tolerate chronic salinity fluctuations at a range of 22 to 36 psu and grew better between 27 and 31.5 psu, but decreased at salinities above and below the mentioned salinity range. Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Is China's fifth-largest inland lake to dry-up? Incorporated hydrological and satellite-based methods for forecasting Hulun Lake water levels

Hulun Lake, China’s fifth-largest inland lake, experienced severe declines in water level in the period of 2000-2010. This has prompted concerns whether the lake is drying up gradually. A multi-million US dollar engineering project to construct a water channel to transfer part of the river flow from a nearby river to maintain the water level was completed in August 2010. This study aimed to advance the understanding of the key processes controlling the lake water level variation over the last five decades, as well as investigate the impact of the river transfer engineering project on the water level. A water balance model was developed to investigate the lake water level variations over the last five decades, using hydrological and climatic data as well as satellite-based measurements and results from land surface modelling. The investigation reveals that the severe reduction of river discharge (- 364±64 mm/yr, ~70% of the five-decade average) into the lake was the key factor behind the decline of the lake water level between 2000 and 2010. The decline of river discharge was due to the reduction of total runoff from the lake watershed. This was a result of the reduction of soil moisture due to the decrease of precipitation (-49±45 mm/yr) over this period. The water budget calculation suggests that the groundwater component from the surrounding lake area as well as surface run off from the un-gauged area surrounding the lake contributed ~ net 210 Mm3/yr (equivalent to ~ 100 mm/yr) water inflows into the lake. The results also show that the water diversion project did prevent a further water level decline of over 0.5 m by the end of 2012. Overall, the monthly water balance model gave an excellent prediction of the lake water level fluctuation over the last five decades and can be a useful tool to manage lake water resources in the future.

Parents' experiences of child growth and development concerns: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

Background: Assessing child growth and development is complex. Delayed identification of growth or developmental problems until school entry has health, educational and social consequences for children and families. Health care professionals (HCPs), including Public Health Nurses work with parents to elicit and attend to their growth and development concerns. It is known that parents have concerns about their children’s growth and development which are not expressed in a timely manner. Measuring parental concern has not been fully effective to date and little is known about parents’ experiences of expressing concerns. Aim: To understand how parents make sense of child growth or development concerns. Method: The study was qualitative using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). A purposeful sample of 15 parents of pre-school children referred by their PHN to second tier services was used. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews. NVivo version 10 was used for data management purposes and IPA for analysis. Findings: Findings yielded two contextual themes which captured how parents described The Concern – ‘telling it as it is’ and their experiences of being Referred on. Four superordinate themes were found which encapsulated the Uncertainty – ‘a little bit not sure’ of parents as they made sense of the child’s growth and development problems. They were influenced by Parental Knowledge – ‘being and getting in the know’ which aided their sense-making before being prompted by Triggers to action. Parents then described Getting the child’s problem checked out as they went to express their concerns to HCPs. Conclusion and Implications: Parental expression of concerns about their child is a complex process that may not be readily understood by HCPs. A key implication of findings is to reappraise how parental concern is elicited and attended to in order to promote early referral and intervention of children who may have growth and development problems.

Burning a hole in the budget: tobacco spending and its crowd-out of other goods.

Smoking is an expensive habit. Smoking households spend, on average, more than $US1000 annually on cigarettes. When a family member quits, in addition to the former smoker's improved long-term health, families benefit because savings from reduced cigarette expenditures can be allocated to other goods. For households in which some members continue to smoke, smoking expenditures crowd-out other purchases, which may affect other household members, as well as the smoker. We empirically analyse how expenditures on tobacco crowd-out consumption of other goods, estimating the patterns of substitution and complementarity between tobacco products and other categories of household expenditure. We use the Consumer Expenditure Survey data for the years 1995-2001, which we complement with regional price data and state cigarette prices. We estimate a consumer demand system that includes several main expenditure categories (cigarettes, food, alcohol, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care) and controls for socioeconomic variables and other sources of observable heterogeneity. Descriptive data indicate that, comparing smokers to nonsmokers, smokers spend less on housing. Results from the demand system indicate that as the price of cigarettes rises, households increase the quantity of food purchased, and, in some samples, reduce the quantity of apparel and housing purchased.

Ethics Standards (HRPP) and Public Partnership (PARTAKE) to Address Clinical Research Concerns in India: Moving Toward Ethical, Responsible, Culturally Sensitive, and Community-Engaging Clinical Research.

Like other emerging economies, India's quest for independent, evidence-based, and affordable healthcare has led to robust and promising growth in the clinical research sector, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.4% between 2005 and 2010. However, while the fundamental drivers and strengths are still strong, the past few years witnessed a declining trend (CAGR -16.7%) amid regulatory concerns, activist protests, and sponsor departure. And although India accounts for 17.5% of the world's population, it currently conducts only 1% of clinical trials. Indian and international experts and public stakeholders gathered for a 2-day conference in June 2013 in New Delhi to discuss the challenges facing clinical research in India and to explore solutions. The main themes discussed were ethical standards, regulatory oversight, and partnerships with public stakeholders. The meeting was a collaboration of AAHRPP (Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs)-aimed at establishing responsible and ethical clinical research standards-and PARTAKE (Public Awareness of Research for Therapeutic Advancements through Knowledge and Empowerment)-aimed at informing and engaging the public in clinical research. The present article covers recent clinical research developments in India as well as associated expectations, challenges, and suggestions for future directions. AAHRPP and PARTAKE provide etiologically based solutions to protect, inform, and engage the public and medical research sponsors.

Nursing resources and patient outcomes in intensive care: a systematic review of the literature

Objectives: To evaluate the empirical evidence linking nursing resources to patient outcomes in intensive care settings as a framework for future research in this area. Background: Concerns about patient safely and the quality of care are driving research on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of health care interventions, including the deployment of human resources. This is particularly important in intensive care where a large proportion of the health care budget is consumed and where nursing staff is the main item of expenditure. Recommendations about staffing levels have been trade but may not be evidence based and may not always be achieved in practice. Methods: We searched systematically for studies of the impact of nursing resources (e.g. nurse-patient ratios, nurses' level of education, training and experience) on patient Outcomes, including mortality and adverse events, in adult intensive care. Abstracts of articles were reviewed and retrieved if they investigated the relationship between nursing resources and patient Outcomes. Characteristics of the studies were tabulated and the quality of the Studies assessed. Results: Of the 15 studies included in this review, two reported it statistical relationship between nursing resources and both mortality and adverse events, one reported ail association to mortality only, seven studies reported that they Could not reject the null hypothesis of no relationship to mortality and 10 studies (out of 10 that tested the hypothesis) reported a relationship to adverse events. The main explanatory mechanisms were the lack of time for nurses to perform preventative measures, or for patient surveillance. The nurses' role in pain control was noted by One author. Studies were mainly observational and retrospective and varied in scope from 1 to 52 units. Recommendations for future research include developing the mechanisms linking nursing resources to patient Outcomes, and designing large multi-centre prospective Studies that link patient's exposure to nursing care oil a shift-by-shift basis over time. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Data rescue and re-use: Recycling old information to address new policy concerns

Information on past trends is essential to inform future predictions and underpin attribution needed to drive policy responses. It has long been recognised that sustained observations are essential for disentangling climate-driven change from other regional and local-scale anthropogenic impacts and environmental fluctuations or cycles in natural systems. This paper highlights how data rescue and re-use have contributed to the debate on climate change responses of marine biodiversity and ecosystems. It also illustrates via two case studies the re-use of old data to address new policy concerns. The case studies focus on (1) plankton, fish and benthos from the Western English Channel and (2) broad-scale and long-term studies of intertidal species around the British Isles. Case study 1 using the Marine Biological Association of the UK's English Channel data has shown the influence of climatic fluctuations on phenology (migration and breeding patterns) and has also helped to disentangle responses to fishing pressure from those driven by climate, and provided insights into ecosystem-level change in the English Channel. Case study 2 has shown recent range extensions, increases of abundance and changes in phenology (breeding patterns) of southern, warm-water intertidal species in relation to recent rapid climate change and fluctuations in northern and southern barnacle species, enabling modelling and prediction of future states. The case is made for continuing targeted sustained observations and their importance for marine management and policy development.

Parameterisation of bivalve functional traits for mechanistic eco-physiological dynamic energy budget (DEB) models

Mechanistic models such as those based on dynamic energy budget (DEB) theory are emergent ecomechanics tools to investigate the extent of fitness in organisms through changes in life history traits as explained by bioenergetic principles. The rapid growth in interest around this approach originates from the mechanistic characteristics of DEB, which are based on a number of rules dictating the use of mass and energy flow through organisms. One apparent bottleneck in DEB applications comes from the estimations of DEB parameters which are based on mathematical and statistical methods (covariation method). The parameterisation process begins with the knowledge of some functional traits of a target organism (e. g. embryo, sexual maturity and ultimate body size, feeding and assimilation rates, maintenance costs), identified from the literature or laboratory experiments. However, considering the prominent role of the mechanistic approach in ecology, the reduction of possible uncertainties is an important objective. We propose a revaluation of the laboratory procedures commonly used in ecological studies to estimate DEB parameters in marine bivalves. Our experimental organism was Brachidontes pharaonis. We supported our proposal with a validation exercise which compared life history traits as obtained by DEBs (implemented with parameters obtained using classical laboratory methods) with the actual set of species traits obtained in the field. Correspondence between the 2 approaches was very high (>95%) with respect to estimating both size and fitness. Our results demonstrate a good agreement between field data and model output for the effect of temperature and food density on age-size curve, maximum body size and total gamete production per life span. The mechanistic approach is a promising method of providing accurate predictions in a world that is under in creasing anthropogenic pressure.

Global carbon budget 2014

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and a methodology to quantify all major components of the global carbon budget, including their uncertainties, based on the combination of a range of data, algorithms, statistics, and model estimates and their interpretation by a broad scientific community. We discuss changes compared to previous estimates, consistency within and among components, alongside methodology and data limitations. CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production (E-FF) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, respectively, while emissions from land-use change (E-LUC), mainly deforestation, are based on combined evidence from land-cover-change data, fire activity associated with deforestation, and models. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly and its rate of growth (G(ATM)) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The mean ocean CO2 sink (S-OCEAN) is based on observations from the 1990s, while the annual anomalies and trends are estimated with ocean models. The variability in S-OCEAN is evaluated with data products based on surveys of ocean CO2 measurements. The global residual terrestrial CO2 sink (S-LAND) is estimated by the difference of the other terms of the global carbon budget and compared to results of independent dynamic global vegetation models forced by observed climate, CO2, and land-cover-change (some including nitrogen-carbon interactions). We compare the mean land and ocean fluxes and their variability to estimates from three atmospheric inverse methods for three broad latitude bands. All uncertainties are reported as +/- 1 sigma, reflecting the current capacity to characterise the annual estimates of each component of the global carbon budget. For the last decade available (2004-2013), E-FF was 8.9 +/- 0.4 GtC yr(-1), E-LUC 0.9 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), G(ATM) 4.3 +/- 0.1 GtC yr(-1), S-OCEAN 2.6 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), and S-LAND 2.9 +/- 0.8 GtC yr(-1). For year 2013 alone, E-FF grew to 9.9 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), 2.3% above 2012, continuing the growth trend in these emissions, E-LUC was 0.9 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), G(ATM) was 5.4 +/- 0.2 GtC yr(-1), S-OCEAN was 2.9 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1), and S-LAND was 2.5 +/- 0.9 GtC yr(-1). G(ATM) was high in 2013, reflecting a steady increase in E-FF and smaller and opposite changes between S-OCEAN and S-LAND compared to the past decade (2004-2013). The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 395.31 +/- 0.10 ppm averaged over 2013. We estimate that E-FF will increase by 2.5% (1.3-3.5 %) to 10.1 +/- 0.6 GtC in 2014 (37.0 +/- 2.2 GtCO(2) yr(-1)), 65% above emissions in 1990, based on projections of world gross domestic product and recent changes in the carbon intensity of the global economy. From this projection of E-FF and assumed constant E-LUC for 2014, cumulative emissions of CO2 will reach about 545 +/- 55 GtC (2000 +/- 200 GtCO(2)) for 1870-2014, about 75% from E-FF and 25% from E-LUC. This paper documents changes in the methods and data sets used in this new carbon budget compared with previous publications of this living data set (Le Quere et al., 2013, 2014). All observations presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (doi:10.3334/CDIAC/GCP_2014).