Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risk: The United Nations World Water Development Report 4

This report introduces new aspects of water issues: 1) it reintroduces the 12 challenge area reports that provided the foundation for the first two World Water Development Reports (WWDR); 2) 4 new reports on water quality, groundwater, gender, and desertification, land degradation and drought; 3) in recognition that the global challenges of water can vary considerably across countries and regions, a series of 5 regional reports have been included; 4) a deeper analysis of the main external forces of freshwater resources and possibilities for their future evolution; 5) managing water under uncertainty and risk

Análise geoestatística do teor de água do solo sob sistema de cultivo em plantio direto

Experimentos em agricultura geralmente consideram as propriedades do solo como sendo uniformes no espaço e, por esta razão, os resultados são freqüentemente mal interpretados. O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a variabilidade do teor de água do solo usando técnicas de geoestatística. O experimento foi desenvolvido em um Latossolo Vermelho eutroférrico, Campinas, SP, Brasil, numa área de 3,42 ha sob plantio direto, e a amostragem foi realizada em 102 pontos dispostos em uma grade de 10 x 20 metros. Tubos de acesso foram inseridos até um metro de profundidade em cada ponto para medir o teor de água do solo (cm³ cm-3) a 30, 60 e 90 cm de profundidade com uma sonda de nêutrons. As amostragens foram realizadas em agosto e setembro de 2003, e em janeiro de 2004. Os dados foram analisados usando estatística clássica para descrever adequadamente a tendência central e a dispersão dos dados e a variabilidade espacial foi analisada usando a geoestatística. A comparação entre a variabilidade espacial para diferentes amostragens foi verificada através da análise de semivariogramas escalonados. O teor de água do solo foi mapeado usando a interpolação de dados com krigagem pontual. Os semivariogramas mostraram moderada dependência espacial para todas as épocas de amostragens a 60 cm de profundidade, com alcance de 90 a 110 m. Entretanto, para 30 e 90 cm de profundidade não foi detectada em 2003 dependência espacial. A densidade de amostragem foi insuficiente para expressar a variabilidade espacial a 30 e 90 cm de profundidade.Experiments in agriculture usually consider the topsoil properties to be uniform in space and, for this reason, often make inadequate use of the results. The objective of this study was to assess the variability for soil moisture content using geostatistical techniques. The experiment was carried out on a Rhodic Ferralsol (typic Haplorthox) in Campinas, SP, Brazil, in an area of 3.42 ha cultivated under the no tillage system, and the sampling was made in a grid of 102 points spaced 10 m x 20 m. Access tubes were inserted down to one meter at each evaluation point in order to measure soil moisture contents (cm³ cm-3) at depths of 30, 60 and 90 cm with a neutron moisture gauge. Samplings were made between the months of August and September of 2003 and in January 2004. The soil moisture content for each sampling date was analyzed using classical statistics in order to appropriately describe the central tendency and dispersion on the data and then using geostatistics to describe the spatial variability. The comparison between the spatial variability for different samplings was made examining scaled semivariograms. Water content was mapped using interpolated values with punctual kriging. The semivariograms showed that, at the 60 cm depth, soil water content had moderate spatial dependence with ranges between 90 and 110 m. However, no spatial dependence was found for 30 and 90 cm depths in 2003. Sampling density was insufficient for an adequate characterization of the spatial variability of soil moisture contents at the 30 and 90 cm depths

Characterization of the upper and lower respiratory tract microbiota in Piedmontese calves

Abstract Background The microbiota of the bovine upper respiratory tract has been recently characterized, but no data for the lower respiratory tract are available. A major health problem in bovine medicine is infectious bronchopneumonia, the most common respiratory syndrome affecting cattle. With this study, we used 16S rRNA gene sequencing to characterize and compare the microbial community composition of the upper and lower respiratory tracts in calves. Results The microbiota of the upper (nasal swab [NS]) and the lower (trans-tracheal aspiration [TTA]) respiratory tracts of 19 post-weaned Piedmontese calves with (8/19) and without (11/19) clinical signs of respiratory disease, coming from six different farms, was characterized by 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding. A total of 29 phyla (29 in NS, 21 in TTA) and 305 genera (289 in NS, 182 in TTA) were identified. Mycoplasma (60.8%) was the most abundant genus identified in both the NS (27.3%) and TTA (76.7%) samples, followed by Moraxella (16.6%) in the NS and Pasteurella (7.3%) in the TTA samples. Pasteurella multocida (7.3% of total operational taxonomic units [OTUs]) was the most abundant species in the TTA and Psychrobacter sanguinis (1.1% of total OTUs) in the NS samples. Statistically significant differences between the NS and the TTA samples were found for both alpha (Shannon index, observed species, Chao1 index, and Simpson index; P = 0.001) and beta (Adonis; P = 0.001) diversity. Comparison of the NS and TTA samples by farm origin and clinical signs revealed no statistical difference (P > 0.05), except for farm origin for the NS samples when compared by the unweighted UniFrac metric (P = 0.05). Conclusions Using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, we characterized the microbiota of the upper and lower respiratory tracts of calves, both healthy individuals and those with clinical signs of respiratory disease. Our results suggest that environmental factors may influence the composition of the upper airway microbiota in cattle. While the two microbial communities (upper and lower airways) differed in microbial composition, they shared several OTUs, suggesting that the lung microbiota may be a self-sustaining, more homogeneous ecosystem, influenced by the upper respiratory tract microbiota

Acute diverticulitis management: evolving trends among Italian surgeons. A survey of the Italian Society of Colorectal Surgery (SICCR)

Acute diverticulitis (AD) is associated with relevant morbidity/mortality and is increasing worldwide, thus becoming a major issue for national health systems. AD may be challenging, as clinical relevance varies widely, ranging from asymptomatic picture to life-threatening conditions, with continuously evolving diagnostic tools, classifications, and management. A 33-item-questionnaire was administered to residents and surgeons to analyze the actual clinical practice and to verify the real spread of recent recommendations, also by stratifying surgeons by experience. CT-scan remains the mainstay of AD assessment, including cases presenting with recurrent mild episodes or women of child-bearing age. Outpatient management of mild AD is slowly gaining acceptance. A conservative management is preferred in non-severe cases with extradigestive air or small/non-radiologically drainable abscesses. In severe cases, a laparoscopic approach is preferred, with a non-negligible number of surgeons confident in performing emergency complex procedures. Surgeons are seemingly aware of several options during emergency surgery for AD, since the rate of Hartmann procedures does not exceed 50% in most environments and damage control surgery is spreading in life-threatening cases. Quality of life and history of complicated AD are the main indications for delayed colectomy, which is mostly performed avoiding the proximal vessel ligation, mobilizing the splenic flexure and performing a colorectal anastomosis. ICG is spreading to check anastomotic stumps' vascularization. Differences between the two experience groups were found about the type of investigation to exclude colon cancer (considering the experience only in terms of number of colectomies performed), the size of the peritoneal abscess to be drained, practice of damage control surgery and the attitude towards colovesical fistula

Models to relate variable soil and basal area of forest species in an area of natural vegeration

O padrão espacial de ocorrência de atributos de espécies florestais, tal como a área basal das árvores, pode fornecer informações para o entendimento da estrutura da comunidade vegetal. Uma vez que fatores ambientais podem influenciar tanto o padrão espacial de ocorrência quanto os atributos das espécies em florestas nativas. Desse modo, investigar a relação entre as características ambientais e o padrão espacial de espécies florestais pode ajudar a entender a dinâmica das florestas. Especificamente, neste trabalho, o objetivo é avaliar métodos estatísticos que permitam identificar quais atributos do solo são capazes de explicar a variação da área basal de cada espécie de árvore. A área basal foi considerada como variável resposta e como covariáveis, um grande número de atributos físicos e químicos do solo, medidos em uma malha de localizações cobrindo a área de estudo. Foram revisados e utilizados os métodos de regressão linear múltipla com método de seleção stepwise, modelos aditivos generalizados e árvores de regressão. Em uma segunda fase das análises, adicionou-se um efeito espacial aos modelos, com o intuito de verificar se havia ainda padrões na variabilidade, não capturados pelos modelos. Com isso, foram considerados os modelos autoregressivo simultâneo, condicional autoregressivo e geoestatístico. Dado o grande número de atributos do solo, as análises foram também conduzidas utilizando-se as covariáveis originais, fatores identificados em uma análise fatorial prévia dos atributos de solo. A seleção de modelos com melhor ajuste foi utilizada para identificar os atributos de solo relevantes, bem como a presença e melhor descrição de padrões espaciais. A área de estudo foi a Estação Ecológica de Assis, da Unidade de Conservação do Estado de São Paulo em parcelas permanentes, dentro do projeto \"Diversidade, Dinâmica e Conservação em Florestas do Estado de São Paulo: 40 ha de parcelas permanentes\", do programa Biota da FAPESP. As análises reportadas aqui se referem à área basal das espécies Copaifera langsdorffii, Vochysia tucanorum e Xylopia aromatica. Com os atributos de solo reduzidos e consistentemente associados à área basal, a declividade, altitude, saturação por alumínio e potássio mostraram-se relevantes para duas das espécies. Resultados obtidos mostraram a presença de um padrão na variabilidade, mesmo levando-se em consideração os efeitos das covariáveis, ou seja, os atributos do solo explicam parcialmente a variabilidade da área basal, mas existe um padrão que ocorre no espaço que não é capturado por essas covariáveis.The spatial pattern of occurrenceis of forest species and their attributes, such as the basal area of trees, can provide information for understanding the structure of the vegetable community. Considering the environmental factors can influence the spatial pattern of occurrences of species in native forests and related attributes, describing relationship between environmental characteristics and spatial pattern of forest species can be associated with the dynamics of forests. The objective of the present study is to assess different statistical methods used to identify which soil attributes are associated with the basal area of each tree selected species. The basal area was considered as the response variable and the covariates are given by a large number of physical and chemical attributes of the soil, measured at a grid of locations covering the study area. The methods considered are the multiple linear regression with stepwise model selection, generalized additive models and regression trees. Spatial effects were added to the models, in order to ascertain whether there is residual spatial patterns not captured by the covariates. Thus, simultaneous autoregressive model, autoregressive conditional and geostatistical were considered. Considering the large number of soil attributes, analysis were were conducted both ways, using the original covariates, and using factors identified in a preliminar factor analysis of the soil attributes. Model selection was used to identify the relevant attributes of soil as well as the presence and better description of spatial patterns. The study area was the Ecological Station of Assis, the Conservation Unit of the State of São Paulo in permanent plots within the \"Diversity Dynamics and Conservation Forests in the State of São Paulo: 40 ha of permanent plots\" project, under the research project FAPESP biota. The analyzes reported here refer to the basal area of the species Copaifera langsdorffii, Vochysia tucanorum and Xylopia aromatica. Results differ among the considered methods reinforcing the reccomendation of considering differing modeling strategies. Covariates consistently associated with basal area are slope, altitude and aluminum saturation, potassium, relevant to at least two of the species. Results obtained showed the presence of patterns in residual variability, even taking into account the effects of covariates. The soil characteristics only partially explain the variability of the basal area and there are spatial patterns not captured by these covariates

Adjustment of geostatistical generalized linear models in counting data in different agroclimatic approaches

Geralmente, na análise de dados com contagens, a suposição de equidispersão não é atendida, inviabilizando o uso do modelo clássico de regressão linear generalizado. Além disso, observações medidas ao longo do tempo e correlacionadas espacialmente, dificultam a modelagem visto que essas estruturas causam diferentes fontes de variações. Desse modo, esse trabalho procurou explorar a metodologia dos modelos lineares generalizados geoestatísticos a fim de possibilitar opções em duas áreas do conhecimento. Para tal, utilizou-se dados pluviométricos e relacionados a doença do grenning, os quais foram analisados no software R. Nos resultados do capítulo 2 destacam-se a tendência e padronização no acometimento da doença nas plantas, principalmente em um determinado local. No capítulo 3, tem-se a flexibilidade e eficiência da metodologia proposta, principalmente ao realizar as análises baseadas em estimativas iniciais oriundas de um modelo considerado bem ajustado.Generally, in the analysis of data with counts, the hypothesis of equidistance is not met, making impossible the use of the classic model of generalized linear regression. In addition, observations measured over time and spatially correlated make modeling difficult, since these structures cause different sources of variation. Thus, this work sought to explore the methodology of generalized geostatistical linear models to enable options in two areas of knowledge. The results of chapter 2 highlight the tendency and standardization of disease involvement in plants, especially in a given location. In Chapter 3, we have the flexibility and efficiency of the proposed methodology, especially when performing the analyzes based on the initial estimates of a well considered model