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Water potential directly controls the function of leaves, roots, and microbes, and gradients in water potential drive water flows throughout the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. Notwithstanding its clear relevance for many ecosystem processes, soil water potential is rarely measured in-situ, and plant water potential observations are generally discrete, sparse, and not yet aggregated into accessible databases. These gaps limit our conceptual understanding of biophysical responses to moisture stress and inject large uncertainty into hydrologic and land surface models. Here, we outline the conceptual and predictive gains that could be made with more continuous and discoverable observations of water potential in soils and plants. We discuss improvements to sensor technologies that facilitate in situ characterization of water potential, as well as strategies for building new networks that aggregate water potential data across sites. We end by highlighting novel opportunities for linking more representative site-level observations of water potential to remotely-sensed proxies. Together, these considerations offer a roadmap for clearer links between ecohydrological processes and the water potential gradients that have the 'potential' to substantially reduce conceptual and modeling uncertainties.

This article tackles the question of whether financialisation is present in the Chinese economy by analysing two key transformations of the country's financial system. The first was a state-led reform process through which the Chinese financial system introduced market practices, similarly to the rest of the economy. The second was a market-led process, reflected in the emergence and rise of shadow banking, which originates from within financial markets with the aim of bypassing loan restrictions. The article shows that despite the two transformations and the enormous growth of finance during the past four decades, the underlying character of the Chinese financial system exhibits remarkable continuity. Namely, it remains bank based – albeit partially liberalised – with a predominant role for bank credit and a strong presence for the state. The relational and government-controlled structures of Chinese finance have not been replaced by arm's length and private mechanisms. On these grounds, it is premature to consider the Chinese economy to be financialised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the nature of nitrogen cycling, policies designed to address water quality concerns have the potential to provide benefits beyond the targeted water quality improvements. For example, actions to protect water quality by reducing nitrate leaching from agriculture also reduce emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. These positive effects, which are incidental to the regulation's intended target, are termed "co‐benefits." To quantify the co‐benefits associated with reduced nitrate leaching, we integrate an economic model of farmer decision making with a model of terrestrial nitrogen cycling for the watershed surrounding Lake Mendota, Wisconsin, USA. Our modeling approach provides a framework that links air and water pollutants in an agri‐environmental system and offers a direction for future studies. Our model results highlight the finding that the co‐benefits from nitrous oxide abatement are substantial, and their inclusion increases the benefit–cost ratio of water quality policies. Consideration of these co‐benefits has the potential to reverse the conclusions of benefit–cost analysis in the assessment of current water quality policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatiotemporal heterogeneity in soil CO2 efflux (FS) underlies one of our greatest gaps in understanding global carbon (C) cycles. Though scientists recognize this heterogeneity, FS sampling schemes often average across spatial heterogeneity or fail to capture fine temporal heterogeneity, and many ecosystem models assume flat terrain. Here, we test the idea that simple, remotely sensible terrain variables improve regression models of spatiotemporal variation in FS. We used automatic chambers that, for the first time, capture FS in complex temperate forest terrain at fine temporal resolution with 177,477 hourly FS measurements at 8 locations from ridgetop to valley along planar and swale hillslopes, across three years ranging from dry to record wet precipitation. In two of these years, we measured FS weekly at 50 additional locations distributed across the 8-ha catchment. Growing season Fs estimates were 1.25 times greater when sampling hourly versus weekly. At ridgetops, growing season FS increased by an average of 463 gC m−2 180 day−1 (75.9%) from dry to wet years, while valleys decreased by 208 gC m−2 180 day−1 (− 20.1%). This bidirectional response to interannual moisture was identified in distinct Random Forest models of Fs for convergent (water accumulating) or non-convergent (water shedding) hillslope positions. We hypothesize that different FS constraints drive these opposing responses—water availably to biota limits FS from ridgetops while slow oxygen diffusion limits FS from wet valleys. Accounting for hillslope position and shape reduces variance of FS estimates in complex terrain, which could improve FS sampling, C budgets, and modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering of hollow nanostructure, represented by the carbon nanocages, has shown tremendous potential in addressing the impedance mismatch of carbonaceous microwave absorbers (MAs). However, issues with limited electric energy loss capacity caused by their localized graphitization characteristic and the isolated 0D structural layout of these reported models still need to be settled. Herein, for the first time, a controllable structure of 3D interconnected framework assembled with graphene nanocages (3DIGCs) is constructed via a self‐sacrificing in‐situ growth. The elaborate air‐filled interconnected cavities impart desirable impedance matching to absorber and facilitate multi‐scattering of microwave; while the archipelago‐like continuous framework with a remarkable electrical conductivity (≈1265.8 S m−1) boosts their electric energy loss capacity by introducing resistance loss and a synergistic reinforcing effect from dipolar polarization and interfacial polarization, in which the loss behaviors are innovatively unraveled via numerical simulation technology explicitly, further highlighting the structural advantages of 3DIGCs. As a result, 3DIGC‐750 delivers a strong reflection loss of −51.10 dB and an effective bandwidth of 4.40 GHz at only 1.45 mm, outperforming the reported carbon nanocage MAs. This work hereby provides a deep insight into employing structure engineering to develop high‐performance graphene nanocage MAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study aimed to develop and validate nomograms for predicting overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) in small intestinal gastrointestinal stromal tumors (SI GISTs). Methods: Patients diagnosed with SI GISTs were retrieved from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database and further randomly divided into training and validating cohorts. Univariate and multivariate Cox analyses were conducted in the training set to determine independent prognostic factors to build nomograms for predicting 3- and 5-year OS and CSS. The performance of the nomograms was assessed by using the concordance index (C-index), calibration plot, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Results: Data of a total of 776 patients with SI GISTs were retrospectively collected from the SEER database. The OS nomogram was constructed based on age, surgery, imatinib treatment, and American Joint Committee for Cancer (AJCC) stage, while the CSS nomogram incorporated age, surgery, tumor grade, and AJCC stage. In the training set, the C-index for the OS nomogram was 0.773 (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 0.722–0.824) and for the CSS nomogram 0.806 (95% CI: 0.757–0.855). In the internal validation cohort, the C-index for the OS nomogram was 0.741, while for the CSS nomogram, it was 0.819. Well-corresponded calibration plots both in OS and CSS nomogram models were noticed. The comparisons of AUC values showed that the established nomograms exhibited superior discrimination power than the 7th Tumor-Node-Metastasis staging system. Conclusion: Our nomogram can effectively predict 3- and 5-year OS and CSS in patients with SI GISTs, and its use can help improve the accuracy of personalized survival prediction and facilitate to provide constructive therapeutic suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As yet, there is no unified method of treatment for the evaluation and management of gastric low-grade intraepithelial neoplasia (LGIN) worldwide., Methods: Patients with gastric LGIN who had been treated with Helicobacter pylori eradication were gathered retrospectively. Based on several relevant characteristics described and analyzed by LASSO regression analysis and multivariable logistic regression, a prediction nomogram model was established. C-index, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), calibration plot, and decision curve analysis (DCA) were adopted to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of the model., Results: A total of 309 patients with LGIN were randomly divided into the training groups and the validation groups. LASSO regression analysis and multivariable logistic regression identified that 6 variables including gender, size, location, borderline, number, and erosion were independent risk factors. The nomogram model displayed good discrimination with a C-index of .765 (95% confidence interval: .702-.828). The accuracy and reliability of the model were also verified by an AUC of .764 in the training group and .757 in the validation group. Meanwhile, the calibration curve and the DCA suggested that the predictive nomogram had promising accuracy and clinical utility., Conclusions: A predictive nomogram model was constructed and proved to be clinically applicable to identify high-risk groups with possible pathologic upgrade in patients with gastric LGIN. Since it is regarded that strengthening follow-up or endoscopic treatment of high-risk patients may contribute to improving the detection rate or reducing the incidence of gastric cancer, the predictive nomogram model provides a reliable basis for the treatment of LGIN.