The paper studies changes in daily precipitation records at the National Observatory, Athens, during the period 1891–2004. This is the longest available time series of precipitation for Greece. The results show that both the shape and scale parameter of a fitted two parameter gamma distribution for the last two decades do show a significant difference of these parameters, when compared to any p...

Local adaptation and plasticity pose significant obstacles to predicting plant responses to future climates. Although local adaptation and plasticity in plant functional traits have been documented for many species, less is known about population-level variation in plasticity and whether such variation is driven by adaptation to environmental variation. We examined clinal variation in traits an...

This article traces the metrological history of radiocarbon, from the initial breakthrough devised by Libby, to minor (evolutionary) and major (revolutionary) advances that have brought (14)C measurement from a crude, bulk [8 g carbon] dating tool, to a refined probe for dating tiny amounts of precious artifacts, and for "molecular dating" at the 10 µg to 100 µg level. The metrological advances...

Development of methodology for the recovery of citric acid from the fermented broth involves standardization of the various parameters to achieve maximum performance in terms of recovery and optimum conditions. The present investigation was carried out to study the purification of citric acid from fermented broth by calcium carbonate precipitation and subsequent acid hydrolysis. The parameters ...

The changes in temperatures at Showa base in Antarctica were evaluated. Various parameters of temperatures at Showa base in Antarctica were obtained from Japan Metrological Agency. Parameters of temperatures were not correlated with years at Showa base (mean temperature in a year: r = 0.056, p = 0.7267). In addition, the number of days over 4 ̊C was negatively correlated with years. Global warmi...

a survey was conducted of physicians in practice, to determine the criteria that would lead the study of a particular condition to be an important component of clerkship training in internal medicine. four such criteria were suggested: the prevalence of the condition in practice, the urgency with which it requires attention, the severity in terms of morbidity and mortality and the cost effectiv...

Atmospheric corrosion poses a significant problem with regard to destruction of various materials, especially metals. Observations made over the past decades suggest that the world's climate is changing. Besides global warming, there are also changes in other parameters. For example, average annual precipitation increased by nearly 10% over the course of the 20th century. In Europe, the most si...

The 1993 U.S. hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) outbreak was attributed to environmental conditions and increased rodent populations caused by unusual weather in 1991- 92. In a case-control study to test this hypothesis, we estimated precipitation at 28 HPS and 170 control sites during the springs of 1992 and 1993 and compared it with precipitation during the previous 6 years by using rainfal...