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A paradigm shift for rhizosphere priming effects to unearth new potential for more sustainable plant production
Get PDFDuring photosynthesis, plants fix carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and transform it into bioavailable molecules like primary sugars and more complex molecules like cellulose. A significant fraction of these molecules is transferred to the soil in the plant root zone, where organic carbon compounds serve as food source for soil microorganisms and thus direct their metabolic activity. Increased microbial activity can lead to higher turnover rates of native soil organic matter (positive priming), while microbes can also shift their energy and nutrient acquisition from soil materials to fresh organic inputs, which reduces rates of soil organic matter mineralisation (negative priming). Here, an ecological perspective integrates both positive and negative rhizosphere priming effects as ubiquitous processes in vegetated terrestrial ecosystems linking carbon, nutrient and water cycles. It is suggested that in the mid- to long-term rhizosphere priming effects contribute to synchronising carbon and nutrient supply and demand between plants, soils and microbes, with a neutral carbon balance. Future research could address these rhizosphere plant-soil-microbe interactions in an agronomical context, for example by implementing exudation patterns and rhizosphere priming potential as specific plant-traits to provide new levers for land management strategies that reduce nutrient losses and the need for mineral fertiliser, while also increasing the potential for soil carbon storage
Discovery and Catalogues at ULiège Library
Get PDFThis session presents an overview of the evolving discovery landscape at ULiège Library, tracing its journey from a fragmented OPAC environment to the implementation of Primo Local, the migration to the cloud-based Primo VE, and the integration of cutting-edge tools such as the AI-powered Primo Research Assistant. It outlines how ULiège streamlined access to print, electronic, and institutional repository resources while enhancing interoperability and metadata management. Particular attention is given to Collection Discovery, linked data initiatives, and current experiments with authority control. The presentation concludes by exploring upcoming developments with Primo NDE, which promises a redesigned, accessible user interface and improved analytics. Emphasis is placed on strategic decision-making, critical information literacy, and the importance of aligning discovery services with pedagogical and technological priorities
The Constitutional Court and equality between white-collar and blue-collar workers: a nagging question
No full textpeer reviewedLe clivage entre employés et ouvriers traverse tout le droit social belge et fait partie du socle sur lequel reposent un grand nombre de ses institutions. A l'occasion du 40ème anniversaire de la Cour constitutionnelle, l'étude commente l’arrêt n° 125/2011 prononcé le 7 juillet 2011, qui condamne, dans le domaine des préavis et du jour de carence, la distinction opérée sur la base de la nature de la prestation et qui, à la fois, innove sur plusieurs points, tant en droit du travail qu’en droit constitutionnel, et a entrainé une révision en profondeur – mais encore partielle – du logiciel du droit du travail
Pyrolysis-GC-MS as a versatile tool for environmental and multidisciplinary applications
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Serum acylcarnitines profile at ICU discharge to predict mid-term muscle outcomes: an exploratory study.
Get PDFpeer reviewed[en] BACKGROUND: Alterations in acylcarnitines (AC) profile may reflect mitochondrial and metabolic disturbances after critical illness. This study investigated the association between AC profile at ICU discharge (ICUD) and muscle outcomes assessed 3 months (M3) later in survivors of a prolonged stay in ICU.
METHODS: Adults enrolled in our post-ICU clinic were included if they completed the ICUD assessment and attended the M3 consultation. Blood analysis was routinely performed at both time points, including AC profile. Muscle outcomes included urea/creatinine ratio, sarcopenia index, quadriceps and handgrip strengths, maximal inspiratory and expiratory pressures. Muscle health was defined arbitrarily as a composite of all these muscle parameters.
RESULTS: A total of 127 patients [age 63 (55-70) years] survived an ICU stay of 13 (8-33) days and were analysed. Free carnitine (C0) concentration was 44.4 (33-52.2) μmol/L. The total AC/C0 ratio (normal ≤ 0.4) was 0.37 (0.28-0.47). An AC/C0 ratio >0.4 was observed in 55/127 (43.3%). The short-chain and long-chain ACs reached, respectively, 1.2 (0.9-1.7) μmol/L and 0.9 (0.6-1.2) μmol/L. At M3, the urea/creatinine ratio and the sarcopenia index were, respectively, 38.3 (28.3-50.3) and 0.7 (0.6-0.9). Quadriceps strength was 2.9 (2.1-3.7) N/kg and handgrip strength was 25 (19-34) kg. In univariate analysis, none of the AC markers were associated with any of the muscle outcomes. A multifactorial linear model, including metabolic and AC markers, failed to predict M3 muscle health.
CONCLUSION: In our exploratory cohort, AC profile as an isolated marker failed to predict post-ICU muscle weakness as assessed in daily practice
Combinés ou opposés ? L'institutionnalisation du tirage au sort et la question du référendum dans les parlements belges
Get PDFeditorial reviewedSince the latter half of the 2010s, several Belgian parliaments have initiated the
institutionalization of participatory democratic mechanisms. These initiatives predominantly
rely on deliberative formats in which randomly selected citizens—either exclusively or
alongside elected officials—engage in structured deliberation. A pivotal issue within these
frameworks is the role of broader popular vote mechanisms in linking mini-
publics (deliberative citizen groups) to the maxi-public (the general population). During the
preliminary debates that precede the institutional design of sortition-based systems, the question
of popular consultation and referendums emerges recurrently.
The objective of this study is to analyze the ways in which parliamentarians engage with the
concepts of referendum and popular consultation in the development of participatory processes
grounded in sortition. Do members of parliament perceive sortition and referendums as
mutually exclusive? Do they view voting and deliberation as compatible, and if so, under what
conditions? What legal and institutional constraints affect the implementation of participatory
models that combine deliberative practices with mechanisms of popular vote? The core research
question is thus articulated as follows: how do Belgian parliamentarians mobilize the concept
of referendum in the context of institutionalizing sortition?
This research examines parliamentary activities related to the institutionalization of sortition.
The analysis focuses on two regional legislatures—the Walloon Parliament and the Brussels
Parliament—where advocacy for sortition-based systems has been ongoing for approximately
a decade. Both parliaments have had, since 2014, the legal capacity to organize popular
consultations, a non-binding form of referendum. At the federal level, the study investigates the
work of the House of Representatives and the Senate beginning in 2013, when the first proposal
was introduced to incorporate random selection into the reform of representative institutions.
This analytical framework enables a deeper understanding of the democratic imaginaries
articulated by parliamentarians who promote participatory mechanisms. By comparing
parliamentary debates and proposals across different legislative bodies, the study identifies how
the idea of referendums is mobilized—whether to support, delay, or contest the
institutionalization of sortition. Ultimately, these findings contribute to a broader reflection on
the concept of populism and its evolving relationship with democratic practice
Jupiter's ultraviolet auroral bridge: the influence of the solar wind on polar auroral morphology
No full texteditorial reviewedIntroduction. Jupiter's ultraviolet aurora frequently shows a number of arcs between the dusk-side polar region and the main emission, which are denoted as “bridges” (Figure 1, left). Thus far, the only dedicated study of the auroral bridge was part of a Master’s thesis which analysed three images of the aurora taken by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) that contained bridges. The bridges were found to map to the dusk-side magnetosphere between 10 and 22 magnetic local time (MLT) and be largely confined to radial distances greater than 60 RJ. Other works have identified the appearance of dusk-side polar arcs with compression by the solar wind, though these conclusions were based a limited number of observations, and the origins of auroral bridges remain poorly understood.Methods. We present a largely automated detection and statistical analysis of bridges over 248 HST-STIS observations, alongside a multi-instrument study of crossings of magnetic field lines connected to bridges by the Juno spacecraft during its first 30 perijoves. The detection of bridges in the large number of HST images is performed automatically using a bespoke arc-tracing algorithm (Figure 1, right), which is combined with manual arc designations and a random-forest filter to provide a model test accuracy of 82%. In the Juno-UltraViolet-Spectrograph (Juno-UVS) images, bridge locations (and hence bridge-crossing timestamps) were identified manually to avoid the introduction of artefacts of the automated method.Results. Bridges are observed to arise on timescales of ~2 hours, can persist over a full Jupiter rotation, and are conjugate between hemispheres. The appearance of bridges is strongly associated with compression of the magnetosphere by the solar wind (Figure 2, left); there is a clear distinction between green points (cases where the magnetosphere was compressed) and red points (cases where the magnetosphere was uncompressed) in the total detected bridge length. Low-altitude bridge crossings are associated with upward-dominated, broadband electron distributions (Figure 2, left), consistent with Zone-II (Mauk et al. 2020; doi:10.1029/2019JA027699) aurorae, notable since similar regions in Earth and Saturn’s aurorae show no appreciable emission. Bridge crossings are also associated with plasma-wave bursts observed by Juno-Waves, in agreement with existing theoretical models for the generation of polar-region aurorae. Electron populations associated with crossings of field lines threading the main emission by Juno also become more downward-dominated when separate bridges are present in the nearby aurora. Figure 2 (right) shows that main emission crossings where bridges are present in the aurora (green) did not show the same bridge-like/Zone-II upward-travelling population of electrons as cases where no separate bridge was observed in the aurora (orange), which indicates that the “bridge” aurora was merely spatially indistinguishable from the main emission in these latter cases.Conclusions. Combining these two sets of results, bridges are identified as Zone-II aurorae that have become spatially separated from the Zone-I aurorae under the influence of the solar wind. In the absence of separate bridges in the polar region, the main emission takes on a decidedly mixed Zone-I-II character (bidirectional electrons, plasma-wave bursts) which become uniquely Zone-I-like when bridges are present. This is consistent with the previously observed adjacency of the auroral Zone-I and Zone-II; the gap between the two is thus observed to increase during solar wind compression. The solar wind is thus implied to be able to exert a considerable influence on Jupiter’s internally driven magnetosphere that is reflected in the morphology of its aurora.Figure 1: (left) An image of the northern jovian UV aurora captured by HST during the GO-15638 campaign (exposure ID: odxc01okq). A 15°-by-15° grid in System-III longitude and planetocentric latitude is included; the System-III longitude of certain meridians are given in white, and certain planetocentric latitudes in magenta. The average subsolar longitude during this exposure (170°) is denoted by a solid yellow line, and the positions of the dawn and dusk hemispheres are included to guide the reader. The approximate location of the polar collar is enclosed by red dashed lines, and that of the noon active region by a green dashed ellipse. Bridges are highlighted with yellow arrows. (right) Results of the bridge-detection algorithm after filtering. Red lines denote arcs accepted by the filter, and grey the arcs that have been discarded. The seed point of each arc is given in magenta. Manually designated arcs are given in yellow. White contours give the region of validity of the JRM33 flux-equivalence mapping along closed field lines.Figure 2: (left) Detected average expansion of the main emission vs. the total detected magnetosphere-mapped bridge length for each northern HST-STIS series considered in this work. Negative expansions imply a contracted main emission. Bridge-length error bars are determined as described in Appendix A. Green crosses denote those cases where the magnetosphere was compressed, and red pluses those cases where the magnetosphere was uncompressed; grey points denote cases where the compression state of the magnetosphere is unknown. The least-squares best fit is given by the solid blue line. (right) Median-average properties of dusk-side (1