The modern use of the extended humeral head (cuff tear arthropathy) hemiarthroplasty.

Today, the treatment of osteoarthritis in the rotator cuff-deficient population is largely dominated by reverse shoulder arthroplasty (RSA). Despite the popularity of and increased familiarity with this procedure, the complication rate of RSA remains significant. An extended humeral head hemiarthroplasty may provide a less invasive alternative for select patients with cuff tear arthropathy (CTA) and preserved glenohumeral active elevation. With the indications for reverse arthroplasty expanding to younger patients, there are concerns about the longevity of this implant, as well as the associated revision burden. In the setting of failed RSA, the bone stock available for glenosphere baseplate fixation can be inadequate for reimplantation. The treatment strategies for complex shoulder deformities and failed RSA are limited by patient-specific issues, such as anatomy and risk factors. In this review, we discuss the potential role of extended humeral head hemiarthroplasty (CTA hemiarthroplasty) as a primary surgical option in select patients (1) who have preserved elevation \u3e 90°, (2) who have maintained stability (intact coracoacromial ligament), and (3) who desire to circumvent the complications associated with RSA. Furthermore, CTA hemiarthroplasty may be used for severe glenoid erosion, for a fragmented acromion, and in the revision setting for failed RSA aimed at a reliable salvage procedure

Effects of Corn Crop Residue Grazing on Soil Physical Properties and Subsequent Soybean Production in a Corn–Soybean Crop Rotation

For three years beginning in 1999, a 96-acre field near Atlantic, Iowa was used to study the effects of corn residue grazing by beef cows on soil characteristics and soybean yields in subsequent years. Each winter, cows were allowed to graze corn crop residues inside selected paddocks in four sub-fields over five monthly periods. To compare the effects of grazing, one paddock was left as an ungrazed control. At the end of grazing in the spring, soil bulk density, moisture content, and penetration resistance were measured inside and 15 ft outside twelve grazing exclosures in each paddock. Soil surface roughness, texture, and type were also measured in twelve locations in each paddock. Corn crop residues were collected for yield, cover, and composition at the initiation, middle and termination of grazing. Precipitation and soil temperature also were recorded throughout the grazing season. Each following year, soybeans were planted in replicated subfields with disking or no tillage and harvested using a combine equipped with a yield monitor and global positioning system (GPS). Cattle grazing corn crop residue has shown no effect on soil bulk density, but there has been a measurable effect on penetration resistance in paddocks grazed in October and November (P\u3c 0.05). There is an increase in soil surface roughness during certain periods of cattle grazing where 75% of the variation can be contributed to increase in the amount of time soil temperature is above freezing. Cattle grazing had no effect on soybean plant population. However, 36 and 38% of the variation in soybean yield can be attributed to penetration resistance and soil surface roughness

Facilitation of a tropical seagrass by a chemosymbiotic bivalve increases with environmental stress

Facilitation of foundation species is critical to the structure, function and persistence of ecosystems. Understanding the dependence of the strength of this facilitation on environmental conditions is important for informed ecosystem management and for predicting the impacts of global change. In coastal seagrass habitats, chemosymbiotic lucinid bivalves can facilitate seagrasses by decreasing potentially toxic levels of sulphide in sediment porewater. However, variation in the strength of lucinid–seagrass facilitation with environmental context has not been experimentally investigated. We tested the hypothesis that the presence of the tiger lucine Codakia orbicularis becomes more important to the growth and survival of the seagrass Thalassia testudinum under decreased light availability and increased sulphide stress. In a mesocosm experiment, we reduced average ambient-light to T. testudinum by 64% and/or increased sediment porewater sulphide concentrations by ~200% and compared growth and tissue chemistry of T. testudinum with and without C. orbicularis. We found that T. testudinum was better able to maintain growth under shading and sulphide stress when C. orbicularis was present. C. orbicularis strongly decreased sediment porewater sulphide, an effect that minimized sulphur build-up in seagrass tissue and was likely achieved through bioirrigation as well as chemoautotrophy. The relative effects of C. orbicularis on T. testudinum growth were strongest in the presence of environmental stressors. Synthesis. The strength of lucinid–seagrass facilitation increases under environmental conditions that hinder the ability of seagrass to detoxify sulphide. Our results provide evidence of a potential mechanism by which the spatiotemporal association between lucinids and seagrasses is maintained and support the incorporation of interspecific facilitation into conservation and restoration strategies for foundation species in the face of increasing anthropogenic impact and global change

Characterization of Filtration Scale-Up Performance

The scale-up performance of sintered stainless steel crossflow filter elements planned for use at the Pretreatment Engineering Platform (PEP) and at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) were characterized in partial fulfillment (see Table S.1) of the requirements of Test Plan TP RPP WTP 509. This test report details the results of experimental activities related only to filter scale-up characterization. These tests were performed under the Simulant Testing Program supporting Phase 1 of the demonstration of the pretreatment leaching processes at PEP. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) conducted the tests discussed herein for Bechtel National, Inc. (BNI) to address the data needs of Test Specification 24590-WTP-TSP-RT-07-004. Scale-up characterization tests employ high-level waste (HLW) simulants developed under the Test Plan TP-RPP-WTP-469. The experimental activities outlined in TP-RPP-WTP-509 examined specific processes from two broad areas of simulant behavior: 1) leaching performance of the boehmite simulant as a function of suspending phase chemistry and 2) filtration performance of the blended simulant with respect to filter scale-up and fouling. With regard to leaching behavior, the effect of anions on the kinetics of boehmite leaching was examined. Two experiments were conducted: 1) one examined the effect of the aluminate anion on the rate of boehmite dissolution and 2) another determined the effect of secondary anions typical of Hanford tank wastes on the rate of boehmite dissolution. Both experiments provide insight into how compositional variations in the suspending phase impact the effectiveness of the leaching processes. In addition, the aluminate anion studies provide information on the consequences of gibbsite in waste. The latter derives from the expected fast dissolution of gibbsite relative to boehmite. This test report concerns only results of the filtration performance with respect to scale-up. Test results for boehmite dissolution kinetics and filter fouling are reported elsewhere (see Table S.1). The primary goal of scale-up testing was to examine how filter length influenced permeate flux rates. To accomplish this, the existing cells unit filter system, which employs a 2-ft-long, 0.5-in. (inner) diameter sintered stainless steel filter element, was redesigned to accommodate an 8-ft. sintered stainless steel filter element of the same diameter. Testing was then performed to evaluate the filtration performance of waste simulant slurries. Scale-up testing consisted of two separate series of filtration tests: 1) scale-up axial velocity (AV)/transmembrane pressure (TMP) matrix tests and 2) scale-up temperature tests. The AV/TMP matrix tests examined filtration performance of two different waste simulant slurries in the 8-ft. cells unit filter system. Waste simulant slurry formulations for the 8-ft. scale-up test was selected to match simulant slurries for which filtration performance had been characterized on the 2-ft CUF. For the scale-up temperature tests, the filtration performance at three test temperatures (i.e., 25°C, 40°C, and 60°C) was determined to evaluate if filter flux versus temperature correlations developed using the 2-ft filters were also valid for the 8-ft filters

A Tale of Four “Carp”: Invasion Potential and Ecological Niche Modeling

. We assessed the geographic potential of four Eurasian cyprinid fishes (common carp, tench, grass carp, black carp) as invaders in North America via ecological niche modeling (ENM). These “carp” represent four stages of invasion of the continent (a long-established invader with a wide distribution, a long-established invader with a limited distribution, a spreading invader whose distribution is expanding, and a newly introduced potential invader that is not yet established), and as such illustrate the progressive reduction of distributional disequilibrium over the history of species' invasions.We used ENM to estimate the potential distributional area for each species in North America using models based on native range distribution data. Environmental data layers for native and introduced ranges were imported from state, national, and international climate and environmental databases. Models were evaluated using independent validation data on native and invaded areas. We calculated omission error for the independent validation data for each species: all native range tests were highly successful (all omission values <7%); invaded-range predictions were predictive for common and grass carp (omission values 8.8 and 19.8%, respectively). Model omission was high for introduced tench populations (54.7%), but the model correctly identified some areas where the species has been successful; distributional predictions for black carp show that large portions of eastern North America are at risk.ENMs predicted potential ranges of carp species accurately even in regions where the species have not been present until recently. ENM can forecast species' potential geographic ranges with reasonable precision and within the short screening time required by proposed U.S. invasive species legislation

The DEHVILS Survey Overview and Initial Data Release: High-Quality Near-Infrared Type Ia Supernova Light Curves at Low Redshift

While the sample of optical Type Ia Supernova (SN Ia) light curves (LCs) usable for cosmological parameter measurements surpasses 2000, the sample of published, cosmologically viable near-infrared (NIR) SN Ia LCs, which have been shown to be good "standard candles," is still $\lesssim$ 200. Here, we present high-quality NIR LCs for 83 SNe Ia ranging from $0.002 < z < 0.09$ as a part of the Dark Energy, H$_0$, and peculiar Velocities using Infrared Light from Supernovae (DEHVILS) survey. Observations are taken using UKIRT's WFCAM, where the median depth of the images is 20.7, 20.1, and 19.3 mag (Vega) for $Y$, $J$, and $H$-bands, respectively. The median number of epochs per SN Ia is 18 for all three bands ($YJH$) combined and 6 for each band individually. We fit 47 SN Ia LCs that pass strict quality cuts using three LC models, SALT3, SNooPy, and BayeSN and find scatter on the Hubble diagram to be comparable to or better than scatter from optical-only fits in the literature. Fitting NIR-only LCs, we obtain standard deviations ranging from 0.128-0.135 mag. Additionally, we present a refined calibration method for transforming 2MASS magnitudes to WFCAM magnitudes using HST CALSPEC stars that results in a 0.03 mag shift in the WFCAM $Y$-band magnitudes.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures. Accepted by MNRA

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

Single Molecule Conformational Memory Extraction: P5ab RNA Hairpin

Extracting kinetic models from single molecule data is an important route to mechanistic insight in biophysics, chemistry, and biology. Data collected from force spectroscopy can probe discrete hops of a single molecule between different conformational states. Model extraction from such data is a challenging inverse problem because single molecule data are noisy and rich in structure. Standard modeling methods normally assume (i) a prespecified number of discrete states and (ii) that transitions between states are Markovian. The data set is then fit to this predetermined model to find a handful of rates describing the transitions between states. We show that it is unnecessary to assume either (i) or (ii) and focus our analysis on the zipping/unzipping transitions of an RNA hairpin. The key is in starting with a very broad class of non-Markov models in order to let the data guide us toward the best model from this very broad class. Our method suggests that there exists a folding intermediate for the P5ab RNA hairpin whose zipping/unzipping is monitored by force spectroscopy experiments. This intermediate would not have been resolved if a Markov model had been assumed from the onset. We compare the merits of our method with those of others

A Serological Survey of Infectious Disease in Yellowstone National Park’s Canid Community

BACKGROUND:Gray wolves (Canis lupus) were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park (YNP) after a >70 year absence, and as part of recovery efforts, the population has been closely monitored. In 1999 and 2005, pup survival was significantly reduced, suggestive of disease outbreaks. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We analyzed sympatric wolf, coyote (Canis latrans), and red fox (Vulpes vulpes) serologic data from YNP, spanning 1991-2007, to identify long-term patterns of pathogen exposure, identify associated risk factors, and examine evidence for disease-induced mortality among wolves for which there were survival data. We found high, constant exposure to canine parvovirus (wolf seroprevalence: 100%; coyote: 94%), canine adenovirus-1 (wolf pups [0.5-0.9 yr]: 91%, adults [>or=1 yr]: 96%; coyote juveniles [0.5-1.5 yrs]: 18%, adults [>or=1.6 yrs]: 83%), and canine herpesvirus (wolf: 87%; coyote juveniles: 23%, young adults [1.6-4.9 yrs]: 51%, old adults [>or=5 yrs]: 87%) suggesting that these pathogens were enzootic within YNP wolves and coyotes. An average of 50% of wolves exhibited exposure to the protozoan parasite, Neospora caninum, although individuals' odds of exposure tended to increase with age and was temporally variable. Wolf, coyote, and fox exposure to canine distemper virus (CDV) was temporally variable, with evidence for distinct multi-host outbreaks in 1999 and 2005, and perhaps a smaller, isolated outbreak among wolves in the interior of YNP in 2002. The years of high wolf-pup mortality in 1999 and 2005 in the northern region of the park were correlated with peaks in CDV seroprevalence, suggesting that CDV contributed to the observed mortality. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:Of the pathogens we examined, none appear to jeopardize the long-term population of canids in YNP. However, CDV appears capable of causing short-term population declines. Additional information on how and where CDV is maintained and the frequency with which future epizootics might be expected might be useful for future management of the Northern Rocky Mountain wolf population

Chlamydia pneumoniae Infection Induced Allergic Airway Sensitization Is Controlled by Regulatory T-Cells and Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells

Chlamydia pneumoniae (CP) is associated with induction and exacerbation of asthma. CP infection can induce allergic airway sensitization in mice in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Allergen exposure 5 days after a low dose (mild-moderate), but not a high dose (severe) CP infection induces antigen sensitization in mice. Innate immune signals play a critical role in controlling CP infection induced allergic airway sensitization, however these mechanisms have not been fully elucidated. Wild-type, TLR2−/−, and TLR4−/− mice were infected intranasally (i.n.) with a low dose of CP, followed by i.n. exposure to human serum albumin (HSA) and challenged with HSA 2 weeks later. Airway inflammation, immunoglobulins, eosinophils, and goblet cells were measured. Low dose CP infection induced allergic sensitization in TLR2−/− mice, but not in TLR4−/− mice, due to differential Treg responses in these genotypes. TLR2−/− mice had reduced numbers of Tregs in the lung during CP infection while TLR4−/− mice had increased numbers. High dose CP infection resulted in an increase in Tregs and pDCs in lungs, which prevented antigen sensitization in WT mice. Depletion of Tregs or pDCs resulted in allergic airway sensitization. We conclude that Tregs and pDCs are critical determinants regulating CP infection-induced allergic sensitization. Furthermore, TLR2 and TLR4 signaling during CP infection may play a regulatory role through the modulation of Tregs