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Assessing soil erosion of forest and cropland sites in wet tropical Africa using 239+240 Pu fallout radionuclides
(2020)Soil DiscussionsDue to the rapidly growing population in tropical Africa, a substantial rise in food demand is predicted in upcoming decades, which will result in higher pressure on soil resources. However, there is limited knowledge on soil redistribution dynamics following land conversion to arable land in tropical Africa that is partly caused by challenging local conditions for long-term landscape scale monitoring. In this study, fallout radionuclides ...Working Paper -
The Control of Lung Branching Morphogenesis
(2020)arXivBranching morphogenesis generates epithelial trees which facilitate gas exchange, filtering, as well as secretion processes with their large surface to volume ratio. In this review, we focus on the developmental mechanisms that control the early stages of lung branching morphogenesis. Lung branching morphogenesis involves the stereotypic, recurrent definition of new branch points, subsequent epithelial budding, and lung tube elongation. ...Working Paper -
Southern Ocean bottom water cooling and ice sheet expansion during the middle Miocene climate transition
(2020)Climate of the Past DiscussionsThe middle Miocene climate transition (MMCT, ~14.5–13.0 Ma) was associated with a significant expansion of Antarctic ice, but the mechanisms triggering the event remain enigmatic. We present a new clumped isotope (∆47) bottom water temperature (BWT) record from 16.0 Ma to 12.2 Ma from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 747 in the Southern Ocean, and compare it to existing BWT records. We show that BWTs in the Southern Ocean were ~8–10 °C ...Working Paper -
Global models for short-term earthquake forecasting and predictive skill assessment
(2020)EarthArXivWe present rigorous tests of global short-term earthquake forecasts using Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence models with two different time kernels (one with exponentially tapered Omori kernel (ETOK) and another with linear magnitude dependent Omori kernel (MDOK)). The tests are conducted with three different magnitude cutoffs for the auxiliary catalog (M3, M4 or M5) and two different magnitude cutoffs for the primary catalog (M5 or M6), ...Working Paper -
On the horizon entropy of a causal set
(2020)arXivWe discuss how to define a kinematical horizon entropy on a causal set. We extend a recent definition of horizon molecules to a setting with a null hypersurface crossing the horizon. We argue that, as opposed to the spacelike case, this extension fails to yield an entropy local to the hypersurface-horizon intersection in the continuum limit when the causal set approximates a curved spacetime. We then investigate the entropy defined via ...Working Paper -
The Manin-Drinfeld theorem and the rationality of Rademacher symbols
(2020)arXivFor any noncocompact Fuchsian group Γ, we show that periods of the canonical differential of the third kind associated to residue divisors of cusps are expressed in terms of Rademacher symbols for Γ - generalizations of periods appearing in the classical theory of modular forms. This result provides a relation between Rademacher symbols and the famous theorem of Manin and Drinfeld. On this basis, we present a straightforward group-theoretic ...Working Paper -
Patterns of microbial processes shaped by parent material and soil depth in tropical rainforest soils
(2020)Soil DiscussionsMicrobial processes are one of the key factors driving carbon (C) and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems, and are strongly driven by the equilibrium between resource availability and demand. In deeply weathered tropical rainforest soils of Africa, it remains unclear whether patterns of microbial processes differ between soils developed from geochemically contrasting parent materials. Here we show that resource availability across ...Working Paper -
Composably secure device-independent encryption with certified deletion
(2020)arXivWe study the task of encryption with certified deletion (ECD) introduced by Broadbent and Islam (2019), but in a device-independent setting: we show that it is possible to achieve this task even when the honest parties do not trust their quantum devices. Moreover, we define security for the ECD task in a composable manner and show that our ECD protocol satisfies conditions that lead to composable security. Our protocol is based on ...Working Paper -
MOSAIC (Modern Ocean Sediment Archive and Inventory of Carbon): A (radio)carbon-centric database for seafloor surficial sediments
(2020)Earth System Science Data DiscussionsMapping the biogeochemical characteristics of surficial ocean sediments is crucial for advancing our understanding of global element cycling, as well as for assessment of the potential footprint of environmental change. Despite their importance as long-term repositories for biogenic materials produced in the ocean and delivered from the continents, biogeochemical signatures in ocean sediments remain poorly delineated. Here, we introduce ...Working Paper -
Shear sensor mechano-signaling determines tendon stiffness and human jumping performance
(2020)Research SquareTendons enable movement by transferring muscle forces to the skeleton, and athletic performances critically rely on mechanically-optimized tendons. How load-bearing structures of tendon sense and adapt to physical demands is an open question of central importance to musculoskeletal medicine and human sports performance. Here, with calcium imaging in tendon explants and primary tendon cells we characterized how tenocytes detect mechanical ...Working Paper