Suchergebnisse

et al. ; A search for supersymmetry in hadronic final states with highly boosted W bosons and b jets is presented, focusing on compressed scenarios. The search is performed using proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb-1. Events containing candidates for hadronic decays of boosted W bosons are identified using jet substructure techniques, and are analyzed using the razor variables MR and R2, which characterize a possible signal as a peak on a smoothly falling background. The observed event yields in the signal regions are found to be consistent with the expected contributions from standard model processes, which are predicted using control samples in the data. The results are interpreted in terms of gluino-pair production followed by their exclusive decay into top squarks and top quarks. The analysis excludes gluino masses up to 1.1 TeV for light top squarks decaying solely to a charm quark and a neutralino, and up to 700 GeV for heavier top squarks decaying solely to a top quark and a neutralino. ; Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council and EPLANET (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWTBelgium); the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the HOMING PLUS program of the Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced by the European Union, Regional Development Fund; the OPUS program of the National Science Center (Poland); the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); MIUR Project No. 20108T4XTM (Italy); the Thalis and Aristeia programs cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund; the Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand); the Chulalongkorn Academic into its 2nd Century Project Advancement Project (Thailand); and the Welch Foundation, Contract No. C-1845. ; Peer Reviewed

et al. ; The charge asymmetry in the production of top quark and antiquark pairs is measured in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.6 fb-1, were collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. Events with a single isolated electron or muon, and four or more jets, at least one of which is likely to have originated from hadronization of a bottom quark, are selected. A template technique is used to measure the asymmetry in the distribution of differences in the top quark and antiquark absolute rapidities. The measured asymmetry is Acy=[0.33±0.26(stat)±0.33(syst)]%, which is the most precise result to date. The results are compared to calculations based on the standard model and on several beyond-the-standard-model scenarios. ; Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council and EPLANET (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the HOMING PLUS program of the Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund; the OPUS program of the National Science Center (Poland); the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); the Consorzio per la Fisica (Trieste); MIUR Project No. 20108T4XTM (Italy); the Thalis and Aristeia programs cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund; the Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand); and the Welch Foundation, Contract No. C-1845. ; Peer Reviewed

et al. ; A search is presented for the production of both first- and second-generation scalar leptoquarks with a final state of either two electrons and one jet or two muons and one jet. The search is based on a data sample of proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energy √s=8 TeV recorded with the CMS detector and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.6 fb−1. Upper limits are set on both the first- and second-generation leptoquark production cross sections as functions of the leptoquark mass and the leptoquark couplings to a lepton and a quark. Results are compared with theoretical predictions to obtain lower limits on the leptoquark mass. At 95% confidence level, single production of first-generation leptoquarks with a coupling and branching fraction of 1.0 is excluded for masses below 1730 GeV, and second-generation leptoquarks with a coupling and branching fraction of 1.0 is excluded for masses below 530 GeV. These are the best overall limits on the production of first-generation leptoquarks to date. ; Individuals have received support from the Marie Curie program and the European Research Council and EPLANET (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the HOMING PLUS program of the Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund; the OPUS program of the National Science Center (Poland);theCompagnia diSan Paolo (Torino); theConsorzio perla Fisica (Trieste);MIUR Project No. 20108T4XTM (Italy); the Thalis and Aristeia programs cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar NationalResearch Fund;theRachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand); and the Welch Foundation, Contract No. C-1845. ; Peer Reviewed

Tabla de contenidos: Sobre la primera modernización de los diarios en Buenos Aires. Avisos, noticias y literatura durante la Guerra Franco-Prusiana (1870) / Sergio Pastormerlo. Propósitos representativos nacionales, "bellas artes" y reproducción de imágenes en La Ilustración Argentina (1881-1887) / Sandra M. Szir. Variedades y escritura periódica. Notas para una historia del folletín en el Río de la Plata / Hernán Pas. Entre la Revista de Filosofía y La novela semanal: el Tratado del amor de José Ingenieros / Cristina Beatriz Fernández. Imagen impresa en La Vanguardia en la década de 1920 / Javier Guiamet. Mercado editorial e infancia: los comienzos hasta Colibrí (1921-1932) / Gloria Chicote. La Revista Multicolor de los Sábados como contexto formativo de un tipo de literatura policial de enigma / María de los Angeles Mascioto. Entre la crítica de arte y el guiño desenfadado: Juan José de Soiza Reilly en la revista El Hogar durante la década de 1920 / Talía Bermejo. Comienzos en el fin de una década. La Vida Literaria de Samuel Glusberg (1928-1929) / Verónica Delgado. La Brasa: la revista como construcción simbólica de la región / Alejandra Mailhe. Articulaciones en la frontera: Azul. Revista de Ciencias y Letras (1930-1931) / Geraldine Rogers. Sol y Luna: falangismo y Syllabus en la Década Infame (1938-1943) / Marcela Croce. Imágenes y palabras entre dos tierras: De Mar a Mar y Correo Literario / Silvia Dolinko. Independencia crítica y compromiso de empresa: Correo Literario (1943-1945) y el mercado editorial / Federico Gerhardt. La narrativa en Letra y Línea: entre "contemporáneos" y "embaucadores" / Verónica Stedile Luna. Polémicas estéticas y apuestas literarias en las revistas de Abelardo Castillo / Sylvia Saítta. Los años 70 según Punto de Vista: acerca de los usos de Raymond Williams en la posdictadura argentina / Ana García Orsi. Asemal: poesía, periódico y correo postal. Un experimento de Darío Canton bajo la última dictadura militar / Julio Schvartzman. Dimensiones y preguntas para el análisis de las revistas culturales / Daniel Badenes. Indagaciones en común: las publicaciones periódicas argentinas de la entreguerra / Ayelén Fiebelkorn. Publicaciones periódicas entre dos campos culturales nacionales. Reflexiones en torno a su estatuto / Laura Giaccio. Publicaciones periódicas: convergencias y nuevos desafíos / Gisele Alejandra Spelzini, Iván Suasnábar. Materiales para una lengua común / Sebastián Hernaiz.

UNLABELLED: Knowledge of the contemporary epidemiology of hepatitis C viral (HCV) infection among military personnel can inform potential Department of Defense screening policy. HCV infection status at the time of accession and following deployment was determined by evaluating reposed serum from 10,000 service members recently deployed to combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the period 2007-2010. A cost model was developed from the perspective of the Department of Defense for a military applicant screening program. Return on investment was based on comparison between screening program costs and potential treatment costs avoided. The prevalence of HCV antibody-positive and chronic HCV infection at accession among younger recently deployed military personnel born after 1965 was 0.98/1000 (95% confidence interval 0.45-1.85) and 0.43/1000 (95% confidence interval 0.12-1.11), respectively. Among these, service-related incidence was low; 64% of infections were present at the time of accession. With no screening, the cost to the Department of Defense of treating the estimated 93 cases of chronic HCV cases from a single year's accession cohort was $9.3 million. Screening with the HCV antibody test followed by the nucleic acid test for confirmation yielded a net annual savings and a $3.1 million dollar advantage over not screening. CONCLUSIONS: Applicant screening will reduce chronic HCV infection in the force, result in a small system costs savings, and decrease the threat of transfusion-transmitted HCV infection in the battlefield blood supply and may lead to earlier diagnosis and linkage to care; initiation of an applicant screening program will require ongoing evaluation that considers changes in the treatment cost and practice landscape, screening options, and the epidemiology of HCV in the applicant/accession and overall force populations.

Prevention of fragility fractures in older people has become a public health priority, although the most appropriate and cost-effective strategy remains unclear. In the present statement, the Interest Group on Falls and Fracture Prevention of the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society, in collaboration with the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics for the European Region, the European Union of Medical Specialists, and the International Osteoporosis Foundation-European Society for Clinical and Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis, outlines its views on the main points in the current debate in relation to the primary and secondary prevention of falls, the diagnosis and treatment of bone fragility, and the place of combined falls and fracture liaison services for fracture prevention in older people. ; Non peer reviewed

Although ecosystem services have been intensively examined in certain domains (e.g., forests and wetlands), little research has assessed ecosystem services for the most dominant landscape type in urban ecosystems-namely, residential yards. In this paper, we report findings of a cross-site survey of homeowners in six U.S. cities to 1) examine how residents subjectively value various ecosystem services, 2) explore distinctive dimensions of those values, and 3) test the urban homogenization hypothesis. This hypothesis posits that urbanization leads to similarities in the social-ecological dynamics across cities in diverse biomes. By extension, the thesis suggests that residents' ecosystem service priorities for residential landscapes will be similar regardless of whether residents live in the humid East or the arid West, or the warm South or the cold North. Results underscored that cultural services were of utmost importance, particularly anthropocentric values including aesthetics, low-maintenance, and personal enjoyment. Using factor analyses, distinctive dimensions of residents' values were found to partially align with the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment's categories (provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural). Finally, residents' ecosystem service priorities exhibited significant homogenization across regions. In particular, the traditional lawn aesthetic (neat, green, weed-free yards) was similarly important across residents of diverse U.S. cities. Only a few exceptions were found across different environmental and social contexts; for example, cooling effects were more important in the warm South, where residents also valued aesthetics more than those in the North, where low-maintenance yards were a greater priority. ; MacroSystems Biology Program in the Emerging Frontiers Division of the Biological Sciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF) [EF-1065548, 1065737, 1065740, 1065741, 1065772, 1065785, 1065831, 121238320]; NSFNational Science Foundation (NSF) [DEB-0423476, SES-0951366]; Phoenix [BCS-1026865]; Plum Island (Boston) [OCE-1058747]; Cedar Creek (Minneapolis-St Paul) [DEB-0620652]; Florida Coastal Everglades (Miami) [DBI-0620409] ; This work was supported by the MacroSystems Biology Program in the Emerging Frontiers Division of the Biological Sciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grants EF-1065548, 1065737, 1065740, 1065741, 1065772, 1065785, 1065831, 121238320. The work arose from research funded by grants from the NSF Long-Term Ecological Research Program supporting work in Baltimore (DEB-0423476), Phoenix (BCS-1026865), Plum Island (Boston) (OCE-1058747), Cedar Creek (Minneapolis-St Paul) (DEB-0620652), and Florida Coastal Everglades (Miami) (DBI-0620409). This research was also supported by the NSF-funded Decision Center for a Desert City II: Urban Climate Adaptation (SES-0951366). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF. ; Public domain authored by a U.S. government employee

This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.-- et al. ; Constraints on the lifetime and width of the Higgs boson are obtained from H→ZZ→4ℓ events using data recorded by the CMS experiment during the LHC run 1 with an integrated luminosity of 5.1 and 19.7fb-1 at a center-of-mass energy of 7 and 8 TeV, respectively. The measurement of the Higgs boson lifetime is derived from its flight distance in the CMS detector with an upper bound of τH3.5×10-9MeV. The measurement of the width is obtained from an off-shell production technique, generalized to include anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson to two electroweak bosons. From this measurement, a joint constraint is set on the Higgs boson width and a parameter fΛQ that expresses an anomalous coupling contribution as an on-shell cross-section fraction. The limit on the Higgs boson width is ΓH<46MeV with fΛQ unconstrained and ΓH<26MeV for fΛQ=0 at the 95% C.L. The constraint fΛQ<3.8×10-3 at the 95% C.L. is obtained for the expected standard model Higgs boson width. ; The Secretaría de Estado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación and Programa ConsoliderIngenio 2010, Spain. Individuals have received support from the Marie Curie program and the European Research Council and EPLANET (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the HOMING PLUS program of the Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced by the European Union, Regional Development Fund; the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); the Consorzio per la Fisica (Trieste); MIUR project 20108T4XTM (Italy); the Thalis and Aristeia programs cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund; the Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand); and the Welch Foundation. ; Peer Reviewed

Cosmology (including clusters of galaxies).-- et al. ; We present the results of approximately three years of observations of Planck Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) sources with the Russian-Turkish 1.5 m telescope (RTT150), as a part of the optical follow-up programme undertaken by the Planck collaboration. During this time period approximately 20% of all dark and grey clear time available at the telescope was devoted to observations of Planck objects. Some observations of distant clusters were also done at the 6 m Bolshoi Telescope Alt-azimutalnyi (BTA) of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In total, deep, direct images of more than one hundred fields were obtained in multiple filters. We identified 47 previously unknown galaxy clusters, 41 of which are included in the Planck catalogue of SZ sources. The redshifts of 65 Planck clusters were measured spectroscopically and 14 more were measured photometrically. We discuss the details of cluster optical identifications and redshift measurements. We also present new spectroscopic redshifts for 39 Planck clusters that were not included in the Planck SZ source catalogue and are published here for the first time. ; The development of Planck has been supported by: ESA; CNES and CNRS/INSU-IN2P3-INP (France); ASI, CNR, and INAF (Italy); NASA and DoE (USA); STFC and UKSA (UK); CSIC, MICINN, JA, and RES (Spain); Tekes, AoF, and CSC (Finland); DLR and MPG (Germany); CSA (Canada); DTU Space (Denmark); SER/SSO (Switzerland); RCN (Norway); SFI (Ireland); FCT/MCTES (Portugal); and PRACE (EU). This work was supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grants 13-02-12250-ofim, 13-02-01464, 14-22-03111-ofim, by Programs of the Russian Academy of Sciences P-21 and OPhN-17 and by the subsidy of the Russian Government to Kazan Federal University (agreement No.02.A03.21.0002). ; Peer Reviewed

et al. ; A first search is reported for a standard model Higgs boson (H) that is produced through vector boson fusion and decays to a bottom-quark pair. Two data samples, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 19.8 fb−1 and 18.3 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at √s=8 TeV were selected for this channel at the CERN LHC. The observed significance in these data samples for a H→bb¯ signal at a mass of 125 GeV is 2.2 standard deviations, while the expected significance is 0.8 standard deviations. The fitted signal strength μ=σ/σSM=2.8+1.6−1.4. The combination of this result with other CMS searches for the Higgs boson decaying to a b-quark pair yields a signal strength of 1.0±0.4, corresponding to a signal significance of 2.6 standard deviations for a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV. ; Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council and EPLANET (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the Ministry of Education Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the HOMING PLUS program of the Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from the European Union, Regional Development Fund; the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); the Consorzio per la Fisica (Trieste); MIUR Project No. 20108T4XTM (Italy); the Thalis and Aristeia programs cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; and the National Priorities Research Program by the Qatar Nationa Research Fund. ; Peer Reviewed

AIMS: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of diabetes and diabetes treatment with risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. METHODS: Histologically confirmed incident cases of postmenopausal breast (N = 916) cancer were recruited from 23 Spanish public hospitals. Population-based controls (N = 1094) were randomly selected from primary care center lists within the catchment areas of the participant hospitals. ORs (95 % CI) were estimated using mixed-effects logistic regression models, using the recruitment center as a random effect term. Breast tumors were classified into hormone receptor positive (ER+ or PR+), HER2+ and triple negative (TN). RESULTS: Diabetes was not associated with the overall risk of breast cancer (OR 1.09; 95 % CI 0.82-1.45), and it was only linked to the risk of developing TN tumors: Among 91 women with TN tumors, 18.7 % were diabetic, while the corresponding figure among controls was 9.9 % (OR 2.25; 95 % CI 1.22-4.15). Regarding treatment, results showed that insulin use was more prevalent among diabetic cases (2.5 %) as compared to diabetic controls (0.7 %); OR 2.98; 95 % CI 1.26-7.01. They also showed that, among diabetics, the risk of developing HR+/HER2- tumors decreased with longer metformin use (ORper year 0.89; 95 % CI 0.81-0.99; based on 24 cases and 43 controls). CONCLUSION: This study reinforces the need to correctly classify breast cancers when studying their association with diabetes. Given the low survival rates in women diagnosed with TN breast tumors and the potential impact of diabetes control on breast cancer prevention, more studies are needed to better characterize this association. ; This work was supported by research Grants from Spain´s Health Research Fund Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (PI12/00488, PI08/1770, PI08/0533, PI08/1359, PS09/00773, PS09/01286, PS09/01903, PS09/02078, PS09/01662, PI11/01403, PI11/01889, PI11/00226, PI11/01810, PI11/02213, PI12/00265, PI12/01270, PI12/00715, PI12/00150), Fundación Marqués de Valdecilla (API 10/09), ICGC International Cancer Genome Consortium CLL, Junta de Castilla y León (LE22A10-2), Consejería de Salud of the Junta de Andalucía (PI-0571), Conselleria de Sanitat of the Generalitat Valenciana (AP_061/10), Recercaixa (2010ACUP 00310), Regional Government of the Basque Country by European Commission GrantsFOOD-CT-2006-036224-HIWATE, Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) Scientific Foundation and the Catalan Government DURSI Grant 2014SGR647 ; Sí

Qualitative frameworks, especially those based on the logical discrete formalism, are increasingly used to model regulatory and signalling networks. A major advantage of these frameworks is that they do not require precise quantitative data, and that they are well-suited for studies of large networks. While numerous groups have developed specific computational tools that provide original methods to analyse qualitative models, a standard format to exchange qualitative models has been missing. ; Nebraska NASA Space Grant Consortium grant: ("Technology for collaborative biomedical research"), National Institutes of Health grant support: (#5R01DA030962), US National Institute of General Medical Sciences support: (#GM070923), Swiss Federal Government through the Federal Office of Education Science and Innovation (SERI) and the European Commission FP6 project ENFIN (Experimental Network for Functional INtegration–LSHG-CT-2005-518254), FCT grant: (Pest-OE/EEI/LA002), , Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Germany) as part of the Virtual Liver Network grants : (0315756, 0315744), EMBL-EBI.

El reloj circadiano endógeno permite a los organismos adaptar su crecimiento y desarrollo a los cambios ambientales. Aquí describimos cómo el reloj circadiano es empleado para coordinar las respuestas a la señal clave de las auxinas durante la aparición de la raíz lateral (LR). En la planta modelo Arabidopsis thaliana, LRs proceden de un grupo de células madre de raíz profunda, que requiere que los nuevos órganos emerjan a través de tejidos subyacentes de la raíz. Nos informan que el desarrollo del reloj circadiano reprogramara a LR. El metabolito y los perfiles de transcripción revelaron que el reloj circadiano controla los niveles de auxina, incluyendo genes relacionados con la respuesta de auxinas AIA represor14 y la auxina oxidasa AtDAO2. Las plantas carecen de componentes de reloj del núcleo para indicar o exhibir la aparición de defectos en LR. Concluimos que los actos del reloj circadiano conducen a la señalización de la auxina durante el desarrollo de la LR para facilitar el surgimiento de órganos. ; The endogenous circadian clock enables organisms to adapt their growth and development to environmental changes. Here we describe how the circadian clock is employed to coordinate responses to the key signal auxin during lateral root (LR) emergence. In the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, LRs originate from a group of stem cells deep within the root, necessitating that new organs emerge through overlying root tissues. We report that the circadian clock is rephased during LR development. Metabolite and transcript profiling revealed that the circadian clock controls the levels of auxin and auxin-related genes including the auxin response repressor IAA14 and auxin oxidase AtDAO2. Plants lacking or overexpressing core clock components exhibit LR emergence defects. We conclude that the circadian clock acts to gate auxin signalling during LR development to facilitate organ emergence. ; Acknowledge Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)funding to the Centre for Plant Integrative Biology (CPIB) BB/D019613/1; U.V, K.S. and M.J.B. acknowledge funding from BBSRC grant BB/H020314/1; K.K., M.H.W. and K.S. acknowledge the support of the European Research Community Advanced Investigator Funding to M.J.B (FUTUREROOTS); D.M.W. and M.J.B. acknowledge BBSRC funding from grant BB/J009717/1 and U.V. and D.M.W. from the BBSRC Professorial Research Fellowship funding to M.J.B. grant BB/G023972/1; JSPS Fellowship to T.G., H.F. and M.J.B.; BBSRC funding for F.C.R and A.A.R.W. from grant BB/D017904/1; and Royal Society-Wolfson Merit Award to M.J.B. Work at the University of Liverpool by P.D.G and A.J.H was supported by the BBSRC/EPSRC-funded ROBuST SABR project BB/F005318/1 and BBSRC grant BB/K018078/1. M.L. and L.L. were supported by the Région Languedoc Roussillon ('Chercheur d'Avenir' grant to LL) and the Agropolis Fondation Rhizopolis project. B.P. acknowledges the support of an Intra-European Fellowship for Career Development under the seventh framework of the European Commission (IEF-2008-220506), an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship, a European Reintegration Grant under the seventh framework of the European Commission (ERG-2010-276662). K.L. acknowledges the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA)and the Swedish Research Council (VR). W.A.P. and A.S.M. acknowledge funding from the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station and DOE Physical Biosciences Basic Energy Sciences (DE-FG02-13ER16405). ; peerReviewed

Summarization: European Union policy on soil threats and soil protection has prioritized new research to address global soil threats. This research draws on the methodology of Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs) to focus a critical mass of international, multidisciplinary expertise at specific field sites. These CZOs were selected as part of an experimental design to study soil processes and ecosystem function along a hypothesized soil life cycle—from incipient soil formation where new parent material is being deposited, to highly degraded soils that have experienced millennia of intensive land use. Further CZOs have been selected to broaden the range of soil environments and data sets to test soil process models that represent the stages of the soil life cycle. The scientific methodology for this research focuses on the central role of soil structure and soil aggregate formation and stability in soil processes. Research methods include detailed analysis and mathematical modeling of soil properties related to aggregate formation and their relation to key processes of reactive transport, nutrient transformation, and C and food web dynamics in soil ecosystems. Within this program of research, quantification of soil processes across an international network of CZOs is focused on understanding soil ecosystem services including their quantitative monetary valuation within the soil life cycle. Further experimental design at the global scale is enabled by this type of international CZO network. One example is a proposed experiment to study soil ecosystem services along planetary-scale environmental gradients. This would allow scientists to gain insight into the responses of soil processes to increasing human pressures on Earth's critical zone that arise through rapidly changing land use and climate. ; Presented on: Vadose Zone Journal