The martensitic–austenitic phase transformation of a polycrystalline shape memory alloys (SMA) occurs gradually over a range of temperatures even though the monocrystal undergoes a first-order transition (at a single temperature). Factors such as material inhomogeneities and internal stresses in a polycrystal are believed to cause the spread in transformation temperatures. In this work, we assu...

Introduction Worldwide, economic damages attributed to natural disasters tripled from the 1960s The economic, social, and environmental costs and losses associated with drought are also increasing dramatically, although it is difficult to quantify this trend precisely because of the lack of reliable historical estimates of losses. White and Haas estimated in 1975 that the average annual crop lo...

Climate science has advanced over decades from an initial focus on the development and use of numerical models of Earth’s climate and compilation of rich networks of observational data, to now being in a position to “detect” and “attribute” specific impacts and events to anthropogenic climate change. Recent analyses have thus established the “fingerprint” of anthropogenic climate change in an i...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of childhood wasting and to investigate the effects of drought and conflict on wasting in crisis-affected areas within Ethiopia. METHODS We searched the Complex Emergency Database for nutrition surveys carried out in Ethiopia over the period 2000-2013. We extracted data on the prevalence of wasting (weight-for-height z-scores below -2) among children aged ...

Root hydraulic conductivity (L(p)) and leaf osmotic potential at full turgor (Psi(pi,o)) were measured in young, drought-stressed and nonstressed peach (Prunus persica (L.) Batsch), olive (Olea europaea L.), citrumelo (Poncirus trifoliata Raf. x Citrus paradisi Macf.) and pistachio (Pistachia integerrima L.). Drought stress caused a 2.5- to 4.2-fold reduction in L(p), depending on species, but ...

The analysis and forecasting of extreme climatic events has become increasingly relevant to planning effective financial and food-related interventions in third-world countries. Natural disasters and climate change, both large and small scale, have a great impact on non-industrialized populations who rely exclusively on activities such as crop production, fishing, and similar livelihood activit...

Predictions of future ecosystem function and food supply from staple C(4) crops, such as maize, depend on elucidation of the mechanisms by which environmental change and growing conditions interact to determine future plant performance. To test the interactive effects of elevated [CO(2)], drought, and nitrogen (N) supply on net photosynthetic CO(2) uptake (A) in the world's most important C(4) ...

Increases in severity and frequency of drought periods, average global temperatures, and more erratic fluctuations in rainfall patterns due to climate change are predicted to have a dramatic impact on agricultural production systems. Insect pest populations in agricultural and horticultural systems are also expected to be impacted, both in terms of their spatial and temporal distributions and i...

Our current understanding is that plant species distribution in the subtropical mountain forests of Southwest China is controlled mainly by inadequate warmth. Due to abundant annual precipitation, aridity has been less considered in this context, yet rainfall here is highly seasonal, and the magnitude of drought severity at different elevations has not been examined due to limited access to hig...

The components of the surface energy balance were measured for 3 years over a broadleaved deciduous forest using the eddy covariance technique. Within years, the magnitude and distribution of fluxes was controlled by seasonal changes in solar radiation, drought, as well as leaf emergence and senescence. Evapotranspiration increased by a factor greater than five (from about 0.5 to 3 mm day−1) af...