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Future sea-level rise projections are characterized by both quantifiable uncertainty and unquantifiable structural uncertainty. Thorough scientific assessment of sea-level rise projections requires analysis of both dimensions of uncertainty. Probabilistic sea-level rise projections evaluate the quantifiable dimension of uncertainty; comparison of alternative probabilistic methods provides an indication of structural uncertainty. Here we describe the Framework for Assessing Changes To Sea-level (FACTS), a modular platform for characterizing different probability distributions for the drivers of sea-level change and their consequences for global mean, regional, and extreme sea-level change. We demonstrate its application by generating seven alternative probability distributions under multiple emissions scenarios for both future global mean sea-level change and future relative and extreme sea-level change at New York City. These distributions, closely aligned with those presented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report, emphasize the role of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets as drivers of structural uncertainty in sea-level change projections.

Ecological intensification has been embraced with great interest by the academic sector but is still rarely taken up by farmers because monitoring the state of different ecological functions is not straightforward. Modelling tools can represent a more accessible alternative of measuring ecological functions, which could help promote their use amongst farmers and other decision-makers. In the case of crop pollination, modelling has traditionally followed either a mechanistic or a data-driven approach. Mechanistic models simulate the habitat preferences and foraging behaviour of pollinators, while data-driven models associate georeferenced variables with real observations. Here, we test these two approaches to predict pollination supply and validate these predictions using data from a newly released global dataset on pollinator visitation rates to different crops. We use one of the most extensively used models for the mechanistic approach, while for the data-driven approach, we select from among a comprehensive set of state-of-the-art machine-learning models. Moreover, we explore a mixed approach, where data-derived inputs, rather than expert assessment, inform the mechanistic model. We find that, at a global scale, machine-learning models work best, offering a rank correlation coefficient between predictions and observations of pollinator visitation rates of 0.56. In turn, the mechanistic model works moderately well at a global scale for wild bees other than bumblebees. Biomes characterized by temperate or Mediterranean forests show a better agreement between mechanistic model predictions and observations, probably due to more comprehensive ecological knowledge and therefore better parameterization of input variables for these biomes. This study highlights the challenges of transferring input variables across multiple biomes, as expected given the different composition of species in different biomes. Our results provide clear guidance on which pollination supply models perform best at different spatial scales – the first step towards bridging the stakeholder–academia gap in modelling ecosystem service delivery under ecological intensification.

Abstract Spaceflight and simulated spaceflight microgravity induced osteoarthritic-like alterations at the transcriptomic and proteomic levels in the articular and meniscal cartilages of rodents. But little is known about the effect of spaceflight or simulated spaceflight microgravity on the transcriptome of tissue-engineered cartilage developed from human cells. In this study, we investigate the effect of simulated spaceflight microgravity facilitated by parabolic flights on tissue-engineered cartilage developed from in vitro chondrogenesis of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells obtained from age-matched female and male donors. The successful induction of cartilage-like tissue was confirmed by the expression of well-demonstrated chondrogenic markers. Our bulk transcriptome data via RNA sequencing demonstrated that parabolic flight altered mostly fundamental biological processes, and the modulation of the transcriptome profile showed sex-dependent differences. The secretome profile analysis revealed that two genes (WNT7B and WNT9A) from the Wnt-signaling pathway, which is implicated in osteoarthritis development, were only up-regulated for female donors. The results of this study showed that the engineered cartilage tissues responded to microgravity in a sex-dependent manner, and the reported data offers a strong foundation to further explore the underlying mechanisms.

Abstract Background Women with stress urinary incontinence (SUI) experience urine leakage with physical activity. Currently, the interventional treatments for SUI are surgical, or endoscopic bulking injection(s). However, these procedures are not always successful, and symptoms can persist or come back after treatment, categorised as recurrent SUI. There are longstanding symptoms and distress associated with a failed primary treatment, and currently, there is no consensus on how best to treat women with recurrent, or persistent, SUI. Methods A two-arm trial, set in at least 20 National Health Service (NHS) urology and urogynaecology referral units in the UK, randomising 250 adult women with recurrent or persistent SUI 1:1 to receive either an endoscopic intervention (endoscopic bulking injections) or a standard NHS surgical intervention, currently colposuspension, autologous fascial sling or artificial urinary sphincter. The aim of the trial is to determine whether surgical treatment is superior to endoscopic bulking injections in terms of symptom severity at 1 year after randomisation. This primary outcome will be measured using the patient-reported International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire - Urinary Incontinence - Short Form (ICIQ-UI-SF). Secondary outcomes include assessment of longer-term clinical impact, improvement of symptoms, safety, operative assessments, sexual function, cost-effectiveness and an evaluation of patients’ and clinicians’ views and experiences of the interventions. Discussion There is a lack of high-quality, randomised, scientific evidence for which treatment is best for women presenting with recurrent SUI. The PURSUIT study will benefit healthcare professionals and patients and provide robust evidence to guide further treatment and improve symptoms and quality of life for women with this condition. Trial registration International Standard Randomised Controlled Trials Number (ISRCTN) registry ISRCTN12201059. Registered on 09 January 2020

Fast propagation of sawtooth induced heat pulse is observed in the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) active plasmas of ADITYA tokamak. The sawtooth crash deposits heat beyond the inversion radius, which gets transported to the edge region of the plasma, and is reflected as inverted sawtooth modulation in the edge channels of electron cyclotron emission (ECE) and ${H_\alpha }$ spectral line emission. The time-lag analysis on ECE signal reveals the propagation time from plasma core to edge of ∼150 µ s. From this analysis, the estimated transient electron heat diffusivity $\chi _{\text{e}}^{{\text{hp}}}$ is found to be ∼50–60 m ^2 s ^−1 , which is ten times higher than that of power balance heat diffusivity $\chi _{\text{e}}^{{\text{pb}}}$ , in the MHD active discharges of ADITYA. It has been observed that the presence of MHD ( m / n = 2/1, 3/1) activity in the intermediate region between the q = 1 and the edge radii, significantly influences the heat transport from the plasma core to the edge region. Stochastic magnetic field region formation with overlapping m / n = 2/1 and 3/1 MHD islands facilitates the fast heat-pulse propagation during a sawtooth crash in ADITYA tokamak. The disparity between the measured and the power-balance estimated diffusivity is significantly reduced by considering the electron heat diffusivity due to stochastization of magnetic field in the intermediate region.

The insect-pests infestation in mango leads to severe injury to its’ shoots, flowers and fruits by hopper, leaf cutting weevil, shoot borer, grey weevil and fruit flies. The present investigation was taken up during 2006 and 2007 to study the population dynamics of prevailing five insect-pests of mango in relation to weather parameters. The correlation worked out between various pests and weather parameters of previous week and previous fortnight revealed highly significant correlation in most of the cases. Except shoot borer, which was significantly influenced by rainfall, all the other pests were significantly influenced by temperature related indices. Among all the weather parameters heat sum showed highest degree of correlation with fruit fly population.

The processes across an interface between land surface and the atmosphere over central India have a strong impact on the Indian summer monsoon climate, particularly during extreme years. The soil moisture-climate interactions, i.e. impacts on temperature and precipitation for years of excess (1999,2010) and deficit (1987,2009) rainfall over central India are being analyzed. For this study, two land surface parameterization schemes the Biosphere Atmosphere Transfer scheme (BATS) and the Community Land Model (CLM) were coupled using the regional climate model RegCM4.0. Soil moisture-temperature coupling and soil moisture-precipitation feedbacks are important land surface atmosphere interactions in context of climate change scenario. As feedbacks between land and atmosphere are hard to measure directly, correlation between temperature and evapotranspiration is the diagnostic used for assessing soil moisture-evapotranspiration-temperature coupling strength and simple statistic called "normalized feedback parameter" λNC of soil moisture and precipitation is used to access the strength of soil moisture precipitation feedback at a regional scale. The soil moisture – atmosphere coupling strength in BATS scheme coupled with RegCM4.0 is more than the coupling strength in the CLM scheme enabled with RegCM4.0. From our study it is validated that central India is the region in the Indian monsoon domain where profound soil moisture-climate interactions take place at a regional scale.

Experiments were conducted to document behavioural responses of koi carp, Cyprinus carpio L., and goldfish, Carassius auratus (L.) to monoculture and polyculture conditions in aquaria. Two parallel experiments, otherwise involving similar experimental protocols, were carried out with two batches of fish, fed with live tubifex worm (first batch) and live zooplankton (second batch). Each of the trials, randomized with respect to treatment, yielded data on aggressive encounters (chases, nips), both in presence and absence of food. The two species exhibited considerable variation in the extent and type of aggression displayed, koi carp being the more aggressive species. Frequency of attack increased in the presence of food. The impact of aggressive behaviour of koi carp was conspicuous by the increased level of attack on goldfish in polyculture trials in both experimental batches.

A laboratory study was conducted in Completely Randomized Block Design during 2003 for comparative assessment of different agricultural wastes for the cultivation of Oyster mushroom (Pluorotus sajor caju). The Pleurotus sajor caju was successfully grown on all the agricultural wastes. However, the paddy straw resulted the highest yield (1733.60 g/bed) followed by wheat straw (1627.49 g/bed), black gram straw (1401.09 g/bed). The quickest spawn run (19.00 days), days of first harvest (24.00 days) were also recorded with paddy straw. The pleurotus sajorcaju resulted highest biological efficiency (86.62 percent) with paddy straw which was at par with wheat straw (81.39 percent) and significantly surpassed over rest of the treatments. Though the lower yield of Pleurotus sajorcaju was obtained on other agricultural wastes but their successful cultivation on all the agricultural wastes proved an economical and most viable venture. The correlation coefficient between yield and diameter of fruit was highly significant at all stages of harvest. The multiple regressions equation model Y=a+b1x1+b2x2+b3x3+b4X4 was best fitted between yield and different independent variables(X1=days of spawn run, x2=days of harvest X3=number of fruits/bed, X4=diameter of fruits) with R2 value0.85 and 0.82 at first and second harvest respectively. At third harvest the R2 value (0.67) was found insignificant. Significantly highest contribution in yield (93.84 percent) was recorded with number of fruits at first harvest. Where as at second and third harvest the highest contribution in total yield was recorded with diameter of fruits, 82.71 and 67.23 percent respectively.

The present investigation was conducted to assess the effect of different seed soaking treatments and media on growth and alkaloid content of Indian cheese maker–Withania coagulans (Stocks) Dunal. to develop effective nursery production technology. The experiment was conducted in completely randomized design with factorial concept, including twenty treatment combinations comprising of four levels of seed treatments with GA3 (0, 50, 100, 150 ppm) and five levels of different growing media. Among various concentrations of GA3 as pre-soaking treatment, 100 ppm GA3 (S3) showed significantly better results for germination, growth, biomass and alkaloid content in W. coagulans. Similarly, among growing media, red soil (M1) recorded maximum germination percentage, collar diameter, number of branches per plant, number of leaves per plant, total leaf area, length of the main root, thickness of main root, root dry biomass, shoot dry biomass, fresh weight of plant, dry weight of plant, survival percentage of the plant and total alkaloid content of plant. Overall, the result indicated that that pre-sowing W. coagulans seeds with GA3 -150 ppm for 24 hrs and subsequently sowing treated seeds in M1 media comprising of red soil (control) can enhance growth and alkaloid content.