Results
- Showing results for:
- Reset all filters
Search results
-
Journal articleSaleesongsom S, Plancherel Y, Weiss D, 2027,
Optimising nonlinear calibration of glass pH electrodes over the pH range -4.5 to 15.5 using improved statistical treatment of acid and alkaline errors.
, Talanta, Vol: 312Accurate calibration of the widely used glass pH electrode is particularly challenging at high (pH < 1) and low (pH > 11) proton activities (aH+), where the linear Nernstian relationship between the cell potential and log(aH+) breaks down. An asymmetric double-logistic function, selected from seven nonlinear function candidates by the corrected Akaike Information Criterion (AICc) and RMSE, best described the electromotive force (EMF)-pH relationship across both the acid- and alkaline-error regions from pH -4.5 to 15.5 at 25 °C (R2 = 1.00, RMSE = 2.3 mV). Reference pH was assigned from proton activity (Pitzer model, MacInnes convention) for five NIST/DIN buffers, ten H2SO4 standards (0.10-7.54 mol L-1 H2SO4; pH -4.5 to 1) and nine NaOH standards (0.10-6.91 mol L-1 NaOH; pH 12.9 to 15.5). Relative to conventional three-point calibration, the function reduced acid-error bias by up to 3.0 pH units at pH -4.5 and alkaline-error bias by up to 1.5 pH units at pH 15.5. All-subsets and leave-one-out Monte Carlo analyses further showed that five acidic and three alkaline standards, with the NIST/DIN-traceable buffers, reproduced full-dataset accuracy to within ±0.25 pH unit at the extremes. This nonlinear calibration model enables continuous calibration over nearly twenty pH units; when only one region is of interest, the model reduces to a four-parameter logistic function. The reduced standard set retains accuracy while reducing calibration time by at least 50 %.
-
Journal articleBose I, Part C, Moirano G, et al., 2026,
The impact of weekly rainfall on water-related diseases in The Gambia: a time-series analysis of health facility data
, Environmental Advances, Vol: 26, ISSN: 2666-7657In West Africa, anticipated climatic changes may increase the risk of common water-related diseases, however the evidence is limited. We investigated the risk of diarrheal diseases and skin infections associated with rainfall in rural Gambia, using data on clinic visits (2010–2022) linked to meteorological exposures from the ERA5-Land reanalysis dataset.We conducted time-series regression analysis to assess the risks associated with total weekly rainfall (mm) and weeks with heavy rainfall events (daily rainfall >95th percentile) on diarrheal and skin infection visits, adjusted for weekly average maximum temperature (°C), season and long-term trends. Subgroup analyses were undertaken to examine potential effect modification by age, sex and pathogen category.An increase in weekly total rainfall was associated with an increased risk of both health outcomes, but only up to rainfall values of ∼30/35 mm. Over a 0–3 week lag, 20 mm of weekly rainfall (versus 0 mm) was associated with an increased relative risk of diarrheal (1.20 RR; 95% CI: 1.01–1.43) and skin (1.39 RR; 95% CI: 1.22–1.58) visits. Age modified rainfall-health associations, with patterns differing by outcome. Stronger associations were found in children under-5 for skin infections, while diarrheal risks were higher among patients 5+ years. Rainfall effects were greatest for bacterial skin and diarrheal visits. Heavy rainfall events were not associated with a change in risk for either health outcome. Adjusting for temperature attenuated rainfall effects.These findings show that weather is an important determinant of disease in this population. More investment in climate-resilient water, sanitation and hygiene measures is needed.
-
Journal articleZhao J, Paschalis A, Gentine P, et al., 2026,
Limited capability of current satellite solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence reconstructions to capture stomatal responses to environmental stresses
, Communications Earth and Environment, Vol: 7Quantification of the impact of environmental stress on terrestrial vegetation photosynthesis is crucial for our understanding of the global carbon cycle, particularly under a changing climate. Vegetation responses to environmental stress manifest first as plant physiological changes, and at later stages through changes in canopy structure. Here we leverage CO<inf>2</inf> and water flux data from 103 eddy covariance towers and satellite thermal images to assess whether current satellite reconstructions of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence capture these plant mechanisms. After removing seasonality using standardized anomalies (z-scores), we found that the relationship between tower-observed gross primary productivity and fluorescence reconstructions considerably weakened across a wide range of biomes. This loss of correlation results from a decoupling between stomatal responses and the physiological emission yield (Φ<inf>F</inf>) of fluorescence reconstructions during soil and atmospheric dry periods. The consequence is that productivity derived from fluorescence reconstructions will be progressively overestimated as dry conditions persist.
-
Journal articleFraser K, Cibrelus L, Horton J, et al., 2026,
Yellow fever outbreak potential in Djibouti, Somalia and Yemen: a mathematical modelling study
, BMC Global and Public Health, Vol: 4, ISSN: 2731-913XBackgroundThe importation of arbovirus diseases into new countries is a global concern. This risk is exacerbated by human movement and climate change effects. In the World Health Organization (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean regional office, three countries - Djibouti, Somalia, and Yemen - are currently classified as potential or moderate risk for yellow fever (YF) outbreaks.MethodsHere we present a quantitative assessment of the risk of introduction and propagation of yellow fever virus (YFV) transmission in Djibouti, Somalia and Yemen. This modelling has two components: i) projecting the risk of importation of infectious individuals into the countries of interest using a radiation model of human movement and ii) estimating the risk of onward transmission given importation using a dynamic compartmental model of yellow fever virus transmission. Both components are multiplicatively combined to give an overall relative outbreak risk combining both risk of importation and risk of an outbreak given importation.ResultsWe show that areas such as the western coast of Yemen, regions of Somalia bordering Ethiopia and Kenya, and Djibouti City have potential for YF outbreaks (where the estimated probability of an outbreak given an imported infectious case is over 50%). This is due to environmental suitability for transmission based on factors such as temperature and projected human mobility between endemic and at-risk regions.ConclusionsCountries bordering existing YF endemic regions are potentially vulnerable to both introduction of YF cases and subsequent outbreak spread. This promotes the awareness of YF importation potential when conducting clinical surveillance in at-risk countries.
-
Journal articleDe Lorm TA, Heon SP, Bernard H, et al., 2026,
Bird and mammal communities transform without collapsing in response to oil palm replanting
, Forest Ecology and Management, Vol: 619, ISSN: 0378-1127Replanting a tree plantation - that is, clearing old trees and replacing these with young plants - drastically alters its habitat structure and microclimate, leading to changes in its biodiversity. Nevertheless, we lack an understanding of how the replanting of oil palm plantations - the most prominent oil crop globally - affects mammals and birds, while the amount of area replanted will increase exponentially over the next decades. We therefore studied how the bird and mammal community of an oil palm plantation in Malaysian Borneo changed in response to replanting. Using camera traps for mammals, and acoustic recordings and BirdNET for birds, we show that both communities are transformed. Mammal species richness slightly dropped, because of the absence from replanted plantations of long- and pig-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis and M. nemestrina), both endangered primate species. Bird species richness did not significantly differ between replanted and mature plantations. However, the detection frequency of most species changed, as the bird community shifted from forest and woodland species towards open-habitat species. The detection frequency and species richness of different trophic niches stayed largely constant, indicating that birds will still be able to perform similar high-level ecological functions in replanted plantations. Overall, our results show that replanting reshaped mammal and bird communities, but that their diversity and abundance does not collapse. These findings stress the importance of staggered replanting, as opposed to replanting large stretches of plantation in one go, to bolster landscape level biodiversity, and underscore that tree plantations are temporally dynamic habitats.
-
Journal articleTan E, van den Berg M, Saddler A, et al., 2026,
Spatiotemporal analysis of insecticide-treated bednet coverage, age and type in Africa from 2006-2024
, Nature Communications<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Since their rapid adoption from the mid 2000s, insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) have been one of the most impactful malaria interventions in Africa. Facing insecticide resistance and ever-increasing resource constraints, there is a growing need to revise previous modelling efforts of ITN coverage to better reflect the current epidemiological reality. Comprehensive estimates of ITN coverage must account for factors such as net type, net age, and user behaviours. By leveraging improved data availability, we propose a mathematically rigorous ITN coverage model that extends previous national-level models to the subnational level across 44 countries in Africa. The presented Multitype-ITN (MITN) model is used to construct longitudinal estimates of net demography by age and type from 2006-2024, and provide insights on potential sources of ITN distribution inefficiencies. Our findings show a significant increase in the uptake of next-generation ITNs, reflecting an increasingly diverse market. However, longitudinal trends suggests stagnation in key metrics of net coverage (nets-per-capita, access and use), alongside a downwards trend in utilisation – number of users per net, coupled with observed stationary use rates – proportion of people with access that also use nets. There are also early signs of interventions failing to meet the demands of increasing populations.</jats:p>
-
Journal articleDing R, Nobrega R, Collalti A, et al., 2026,
Resolving the multiple controls of biomass productionefficiency in woody plants
, Global Change Biology, ISSN: 1354-1013Plants assimilate carbon through photosynthesis to support biomass production (BP), autotrophic respiration (Ra) and the synthesis of non-structural compounds. Biomass production efficiency (BPE), the fraction of assimilated carbon allocated to BP, is one key factor influencing ecosystems’ potential to store carbon. However there is no consensus on the controls of BPE, and even the sign of its response to growth temperature is unclear. By means of statistical hypothesis testing using the largest observational dataset to date on annual BPE (n = 514 records) from evergreen and deciduous woody plants, we confirm earlier findings that BPE declines with stand age and is greater in deciduous plants. However, we also show that BPE declines towards more organic, sandy, or alkaline soils and increases with climatic aridity, while declining with warmer growing seasons and increasing with warmer winters. Such a dual temperature response is consistent with additional carbon costs due to the need for cold-hardening processes, and reconciles contradictory published reports of both positive and negative effects of temperature on BPE. Notably, our analysis provides novel evidence that BPE is significantly higher in species associated with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi than in those associated with ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi and mixed EcM–AM associations. Our analysis explains the observed BPE patterns better than dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) from the TRENDY (Trends and Drivers of the Regional-Scale Terrestrial Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide) project, which show a weaker correspondence with observations. In particular, our model captures reduced BPE in boreal regions, consistent with the predominance of ectomycorrhizal (EcM) species there. This study advances understanding of the global controls of BPE, and suggests a route towards the improved representation of plant growth in vegetation and land surface models.
-
Journal articleNoriega Giménez J, Rowan TSL, Bowes MJ, et al., 2026,
From Noise to Signal: A Data-Driven Framework for Identifying Hot Moments in Water Quality Timeseries
, Environmental Research Letters<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p/>
-
Journal articleKavanagh RJ, Bertola LD, Nielsen SD, et al., 2026,
Multiple drivers of genomic novelty across ruminants.
, iScience, Vol: 29Ruminants are among the most ecologically and economically important groups of mammals and have accumulated some of the most remarkable traits and genomes across metazoans. Using genomic-scale data representing all ruminant families, we examined the traits that explain evolutionary rates across ruminant lineages and genes. Bayesian phylogenetic regression revealed that ruminant genome-wide rates are associated with chromosome number, longevity, sexual dimorphism, and domestication. Orthogonal dimensions of genomic rates showed that genes with the greatest rate change are associated with domestication, suggesting these events have a strong impact on ruminant genome evolution. Decomposition of d N/d S rates captured a signal of body size impacting a narrow and yet important portion of the genome in which larger ruminants show consistently weakened purifying selection. Protein-coding loci were associated with the greatest change in evolutionary rates across metabolic, gene signaling, and neurologically functional pathways, suggesting these are core to ruminant evolutionary diversity. This study reveals the primary forces driving biological novelty across the ruminants.
-
Journal articleGhail RC, Crouch EJP, Mason PJ, 2026,
The lost oceans of Venus
, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Vol: 692, ISSN: 0012-821XWhether Venus once had oceans and, if so, when it lost them are critical issues in the understanding of habitability on exoplanets, as well as for the future of life on Earth. Analysis of distinctive, lowland polygonal terrains on Venus reveals 6 main types. Many are several kilometres across, suggesting a mode of formation by contraction of confined marine clays, supporting the hypothesis that Venus had oceans within the last billion years. By analogy with the Messinian desiccation of the Mediterranean Sea on Earth, we identify other features of possible marine origin, including canali, which we conclude formed as submarine channels. The distribution of wrinkle ridges is consistent with them overlying salt layers, calculated to be at least 64 m thick, but probably significantly more, precipitated from evaporating oceans. While the interpretation of these features is not unambiguous, there is a compelling case that Venus once supported oceans, and perhaps life, across most of its surface.
This data is extracted from the Web of Science and reproduced under a licence from Thomson Reuters. You may not copy or re-distribute this data in whole or in part without the written consent of the Science business of Thomson Reuters.
Join the network
Contact Hsuan-Yi to join the network.