Even though Central Asia is water rich, water disputes have characterized the region after crumbling of the Soviet Union in 1991. The uneven spatial distribution and complex pattern of transboundary water sources with contrasting national water needs have created an intricate water dilemma. Increasing national water needs, water claims by surrounding countries, uncertainties in renewable water vol

Existing econometric approaches for studying price discovery presume that the number of markets are small, and their properties become suspect when this restriction is not met. They also require making identifying restrictions and are in many cases not suitable for statistical inference. The current paper takes these shortcomings as a starting point to develop a factor analytical approach that mak

Predation is an interaction during which an organism kills and feeds on another organism. Past and current interest in studying predation in terrestrial habitats has yielded a number of methods to assess invertebrate predation events in terrestrial ecosystems. We provide a decision tree to select appropriate methods for individual studies. For each method, we then present a short introduction, key

A new generation of potent hDHODH inhibitors designed by a scaffold-hopping replacement of the quinolinecarboxylate moiety of brequinar, one of the most potent known hDHODH inhibitors, is presented here. Their general structure is characterized by a biphenyl moiety joined through an amide bridge with an acidic hydroxyazole scaffold (hydroxylated thiadiazole, pyrazole and triazole). Molecular model

Emerging evidence suggests that the basis for variation in late-life mobility is attributable, in part, to genetic factors, which may become increasingly important with age. Our objective was to systematically assess the contribution of genetic variation to gait speed in older individuals. We conducted a meta-analysis of gait speed GWASs in 31,478 older adults from 17 cohorts of the CHARGE consort

Realistic projection of future climate-carbon (C) cycle feedbacks requires better understanding and an improved representation of the C cycle in permafrost regions in the current generation of Earth system models. Here we evaluated 10 terrestrial ecosystem models for their estimates of net primary productivity (NPP) and responses to historical climate change in permafrost regions in the Northern H

Today's power plants are shifting their combustion toward a more complex fuel mix on the grounds of environmental impact, cost, availability and regulations. Certain new types of fuel can be classified into the following groups: herbaceous material (straw and grass), agricultural by-products (pits, shells and hulls), wood, and waste fuels. These fuels contain various amounts of alkali metals, main

With the dramatic increase in x-ray source brilliance and associated coherent photon flux, holography with x-rays has become feasible and is increasingly used for real-space investigations of static and dynamic properties of nanoscale systems. We describe the basic principles and capabilities of the method and present the current state of the art. A particular emphasis is put on the investigation

In this paper we study the distribution of the product of an inverse Wishart random matrix and a Gaussian random vector. We derive its asymptotic distribution as well as a formula for its approximate density function which is based on the Gaussian integral and the third order Taylor expansion. Furthermore, we compare the asymptotic and approximate density functions with the exact density obtained

Some species of long-distance migrant birds are thought to follow spatiotemporal patterns of high food availability during the non-breeding season, a strategy termed "itinerancy," instead of being sedentary in one specific site. We tracked the migration of a small Eurasian songbird, the Common Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus), using archival light-level geolocators. The birds showed a distinct c

Migratory birds are frequently found far outside their normal range but the phenomenon is poorly understood. We used radio telemetry to track individual migratory flights of several species of songbirds on the Faroe Islands, far west of their normal migration route. Birds with expected easterly and south-easterly migration direction departed westwards out over the Atlantic Ocean, indicating that t

Migratory birds track seasonal resources across and between continents. We propose a general strategy of tracking the broad seasonal abundance of resources throughout the annual cycle in the longest-distance migrating land birds as an alternative to tracking a certain climatic niche or shorter-term resource surplus occurring, for example, during spring foliation. Whether and how this is possible f

Migrating birds follow innate species-specific migration programs capable of guiding them along complex spatio-temporal routes, which may include several separate staging areas. Indeed, migration routes of common cuckoos Cuculus canorus show little variation between individuals; yet, satellite tracks of 11 experimentally displaced adults revealed an unexpected flexibility in individual navigation