Grazing Management Effects on the Sward and Physical Characteristics Relative to Streams in Cool-Season Grass Pastures

Different grazing management practices in pastures may affect the sward and physical characteristics of riparian areas which affect sediment, phosphorus, and fecal pathogen loading of the pasture streams. To measure these effects, six 30-acre cool-season grass pastures, bisected by a stream, were split into two blocks with three treatments per block. Pastures were grazed by continuous stocking with unrestricted stream access (CSU), continuous stocking with access to the stream restricted to a 16-foot wide stabilized stream crossing (CSR), or rotational stocking (RS). For data and sample collections, pastures were divided into 4 zones: on the streambank (streambanks zone), 0 to 110 feet from the streambanks (110 zone), 110 and 220 feet from the streambank (220 zone), and greater than 220 feet from the streambank (upland zone). Forage heights were measured and forage samples were collected and analyzed for dry matter and mass from areas where cattle did or did not congregate in each zone monthly from May to October. The percentages of bare and fecal-covered ground were also measured monthly at each sampling site. Sward heights were lower in cattle congregation areas than open areas through all months (P \u3c 0.05). In the later months of the grazing season, sward heights and forage mass were less in the streambanks and 110 zones of the CSU pastures than CSR pastures. Pastures with CSU also had higher (P \u3c 0.10) percentages of fecal-covered ground cover in the 110 zone than the other treatments through August. There were few significant differences between treatments for forage sward height, forage mass or bare or fecal-covered ground in the 220 and upland zones in any month

Microclimate Effects on the Temperature/Spatial Distribution of Beef Cows Grazing Cool-Season Grass Pastures by Different Management Practices (A Progress Report)

Congregation of cattle near pasture streams increases fecal cover and decreases forage sward height and mass, thereby, increasing the risks of sediment, nutrients, and fecal pathogens entering the stream and impairing water quality. Restricting access to the streams to stabilized stream crossings or by providing alternative water sources away from the stream may decrease the amount of time that cattle spend near a stream and, thereby, reduce the risk of nonpoint source pollution. Six 30-acre cool-season grass pastures, bisected by a stream, were split into two blocks with three treatments per block. Treatments were: continuous stocking with unrestricted stream access (CSU), continuous stocking with access to the stream restricted to a 16-foot wide stabilized stream crossing (CSR), and rotational stocking (RS). Cattle spent a greater proportion of time in the stream in CSU pastures than other treatments in June (P \u3c 0.05), August (P \u3c 0.05), and September (P \u3c 0.10). During May to July, and in September, cattle in CSU pastures spent a greater (P \u3c 0.05) percentage of time within 110 feet of the stream than in CSR or RS pastures. Offstream water had no effect on cattle distribution near the stream (P \u3e 0.10) in a summer in which there was considerable precipitation resulting in some of natural offstream water sources

The Odyssey Approach for Optimizing Federated SPARQL Queries

Answering queries over a federation of SPARQL endpoints requires combining data from more than one data source. Optimizing queries in such scenarios is particularly challenging not only because of (i) the large variety of possible query execution plans that correctly answer the query but also because (ii) there is only limited access to statistics about schema and instance data of remote sources. To overcome these challenges, most federated query engines rely on heuristics to reduce the space of possible query execution plans or on dynamic programming strategies to produce optimal plans. Nevertheless, these plans may still exhibit a high number of intermediate results or high execution times because of heuristics and inaccurate cost estimations. In this paper, we present Odyssey, an approach that uses statistics that allow for a more accurate cost estimation for federated queries and therefore enables Odyssey to produce better query execution plans. Our experimental results show that Odyssey produces query execution plans that are better in terms of data transfer and execution time than state-of-the-art optimizers. Our experiments using the FedBench benchmark show execution time gains of at least 25 times on average.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Endemisches Vorkommen der Hantanephritis im westlichen Münsterland

In dieser Arbeit wurden retrospektiv im Zeitraum von 1996 bis 2001 aus den Krankenblättern der Nephrologischen Abteilung des Marienhospitals Emsdetten die laborchemischen, urinanalytischen und klinischen Daten von 20 Patienten mit serologisch nachweisbarer Hantavirusinfektion im westlichen Münsterland erhoben. 19 Patienten zeigten das Bild einer milden Verlaufsform einer Nephropathia epidemica (NE), hervorgerufen durch das Puumalavirus. Der Krankheitsverlauf und die Symptomatik wurde mit Literaturangaben verglichen und besondere Aspekte der NE herausgestellt. Verschwommensehen wurde von 13 Patienten angegeben. Dieses Symptom, zeitgleich mit einem akuten Nierenversagen ist als pathognomonisch für die NE anzusehen. Ein Patient ohne Nierenaffektion und den serologischen Zeichen einer Infektion durch ein Virus der Hantaan-Linie hatte einen besonderen klinischen Verlauf. Möglicher Weise handelt es sich dabei um den ersten beschriebenen Fall einer Dobrava-Virusinfektion in Westdeutschland

Strategies for executing federated queries in SPARQL1.1

A common way for exposing RDF data on the Web is by means of SPARQL endpoints which allow end users and applications to query just the RDF data they want. However, servers hosting SPARQL endpoints often restrict access to the data by limiting the amount of results returned per query or the amount of queries per time that a client may issue. As this may affect query completeness when using SPARQL1.1's federated query extension, we analysed different strategies to implement federated queries with the goal to circumvent endpoint limits. We show that some seemingly intuitive methods for decomposing federated queries provide unsound results in the general case, and provide fixes or discuss under which restrictions these recipes are still applicable. Finally, we evaluate the proposed strategies for checking their feasibility in practice

Microclimate Effects on the Temporal/Spatial Distribution of Beef Cows Grazing Cool-Season Grass Pastures by Different Management Practices

Presence of cattle near pasture streams may increase the probability of bare ground and feces on streambanks and increase the risks of sediment, phosphorus, and fecal pathogen loading of water resources through direct deposition or transport in precipitation runoff. Management techniques such as providing off-stream water sources or managing cattle access to pasture streams through rotational stocking or use of stabilized stream access sites may limit the amount of time that the cattle spend near the stream, decreasing the risks of non-point source pollution. Six 30- acre cool-season grass pastures, bisected by a stream, were split into two blocks with three treatments per block. Treatments were: continuous stocking with unrestricted stream access (CSU), continuous stocking with access to the stream restricted to a 16-foot wide stabilized stream crossing (CSR), and rotational stocking (RS). Each pasture was stocked with 15 fall-calving Angus cows. For two weeks in each month from May through September, at least one cow in each pasture was fitted with a GPS collar programmed to record cow position at 10 minute intervals. Off-stream water was made available to cows in pastures with the CSU and CSR treatments for one week of the twoweek position measurement period in each month., Each pasture was divided into four zones to analyze position data; in the stream or on the streambank (stream zone), 0 to 110 feet from the streambank (110 zone), 110 to 220 feet from the streambank (220 zone), and greater than 220 feet from the streambank (upland zone). The combination of the stream and 110 zones were defined as the streamside zone. Cattle in both RS and CSR pastures spent (P \u3c 0.10) less time within the stream and 110 zones than CSU pastures in June and May, and July, respectively. Off-stream water availability had no meaningful effect on cattle distribution in the CSU and CSR pastures. With increasing temperatures, the probability that cattle were present in the streamside zone of CSU pastures increased more rapidly than CSR pastures

INCMap: A Journey towards ontology-based data integration

Ontology-based data integration (OBDI) allows users to federate over heterogeneous data sources using a semantic rich conceptual data model. An important challenge in ODBI is the curation of mappings between the data sources and the global ontology. In the last years, we have built IncMap, a system to semi-automatically create mappings between relational data sources and a global ontology. IncMap has since been put into practice, both for academic and in industrial applications. Based on the experience of the last years, we have extended the original version of IncMap in several dimensions to enhance the mapping quality: (1) IncMap can detect and leverage semantic-rich patterns in the relational data sources such as inheritance for the mapping creation. (2) IncMap is able to leverage reasoning rules in the ontology to overcome structural differences from the relational data sources. (3) IncMap now includes a fully automatic mode that is often necessary to bootstrap mappings for a new data source. Our experimental evaluation shows that the new version of IncMap outperforms its previous version as well as other state-of-the-art systems

Divergent mechanisms underlie Smad4-mediated positive regulation of the three genes encoding the basement membrane component laminin-332 (laminin-5)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Functional inactivation of the tumor suppressor Smad4 in colorectal and pancreatic carcinogenesis occurs coincident with the transition to invasive growth. Breaking the basement membrane (BM) barrier, a prerequisite for invasive growth, can be due to tumor induced proteolytic tissue remodeling or to reduced synthesis of BM molecules by incipient tumor cells. Laminin-332 (laminin-5), a heterotrimeric BM component composed of α3-, β3- and γ2-chains, has recently been identified as a target structure of Smad4 and represents the first example for expression control of an essential BM component by a tumor and invasion suppressor. Biochemically Smad4 is a transmitter of signals of the TGFβ superfamily of cytokines. We have reported previously, that Smad4 functions as a positive transcriptional regulator of constitutive and of TGFβ-induced transcription of all three genes encoding Laminin-332, LAMA3, LAMB3 and LAMC2.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Promoter-reporter constructs harboring 4 kb upstream regions, each of the three genes encoding Laminin-322 as well as deletion and mutations constructs were established. Promoter activities and TGFβ induction were assayed through transient transfections in Smad4-negative human cancer cells and their stable Smad4-positive derivatives. Functionally relevant binding sites were subsequently confirmed through chromatin immunoprecipitation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Herein, we report that Smad4 mediates transcriptional regulation through three different mechanisms, namely through Smad4 binding to a functional SBE site exclusively in the LAMA3 promoter, Smad4 binding to AP1 (and Sp1) sites presumably via interaction with AP1 family components and lastly a Smad4 impact on transcription of AP1 factors. Whereas Smad4 is essential for positive regulation of all three genes, the molecular mechanisms are significantly divergent between the LAMA3 promoter as compared to the LAMB3 and LAMC2 promoters.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We hypothesize that this divergence in modular regulation of the three promoters may lay the ground for uncoupled regulation of Laminin-332 in Smad4-deficient tumor cells in response to stromally expressed cytokines acting on budding tumor cells.</p