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Creators/Authors contains: "Lai, Meng"

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  1. Improving our ability to understand and predict the dynamics of the terrestrial carbon cycle remains a pressing challenge despite a rapidly growing volume and diversity of Earth Observation data. State data assimilation represents a path forward via an iterative cycle of making process-based forecasts and then statistically reconciling these forecasts against numerous ground-based and remotely-sensed data constraints into a “reanalysis” data product that provides full spatiotemporal carbon budgets with robust uncertainty accounting. Here we report on an >100x expansion of the PEcAn+SIPNET reanalysis from 500 sites CONUS, 25 ensemble members, and 2 data constraints to 6400 sites across North America, 100 ensemble members, and 5 data constraints: GEDI and Landtrendr AGB, MODIS LAI, SoilGrids Soil C, and SMAP soil moisture. We also report on an ensemble-based machine learning (ML) downscaling to a 1km product that preserves spatial, temporal, and across-variable covariances and demonstrate the impacts of these covariances on uncertainty accounting (Fig. 1). Synergistically, we use the same ML models to assess what climate, vegetation, and soil variables explain the spatiotemporal variability in different C pools and fluxes. In addition, we review a wide range of ongoing validation activities, comparing the outputs of the reanalysis against withheld data from: Ameriflux and NEON NEE and LE; USFS Forest Inventory biomass, biomass increment, tree rings, soil C, and litter; and NEON soil C and soil respiration. Finally, we touch on ML analyses to diagnose and correct systematic biases and emulator-based recalibration efforts. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available May 28, 2026
  2. Leibovich-Raveh, Tali (Ed.)
    Number-recognition tasks, such as the how-many task, involve set-to-word mapping, and number-creation tasks, such as the give-n task, entail word-to-set mapping. The present study involved comparing sixty 3-year-olds’ performance on the two tasks with collections of one to three items over three time points about 3 weeks apart. Inconsistent with the sparse evidence indicating equivalent task performance, an omnibus test indicated that success differed significantly by task (and set size but not by time). A follow-up analysis indicated that the hypothesis that success emerges first on the how-many task was, in general, significantly superior to the hypothesis of simultaneous development. It further indicated the how-many-first hypothesis was superior to a give-n- first hypothesis for sets of three. A theoretical implication is that set-to-word mapping appears to develop before word-to-set mapping, especially in the case of three. A methodological implication is that the give-n task may underestimate a key aspect of children’s cardinal understanding of small numbers. Another is that the traditional give-n task, which requires checking an initial response by one-to-one counting, confounds pre-counting and counting competencies. 
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