Economics of Alternative Crop Production in Arid Regions

As water resources in arid regions decline, agricultural producers are encouraged to adopt water conserving strategies. The implementation of alternative low-water use crops is one option, but is it economically feasible? Data on current and alternative crops for this study include enterprise budgets, producer interviews, and field trials in Northwestern Nevada, USA. We use WinEPIC, a Windows-based version of the EPIC model, which synthesizes both agronomics and economics, to model yields and returns of alternative crop production under differing irrigation levels. Risk analysis or the distribution of net returns to alternative crop production is also examined. This study determined that there are alternative crops that could be feasibly substituted for alfalfa and reduce water use by at least one-half while providing net returns that meet or exceed returns from alfalfa and keep producers profitable in agriculturealternative crops, arid regions, economic feasibility, irrigation, WinEPIC,

Herbivore Impacts on the Invasive Marine Alga Grateloupia turuturu

Invasive species have the ability to outcompete natives, and can create a monoculture if not mitigated by herbivores or some other mechanism. Limited information exists on the ecology of the invasive macroalga Grateloupia turuturu and how it is impacted by herbivores. Using laboratory mesocosm experiments, we investigated the ability of two invasive herbivore species common in Rhode Island, the snail Littorina littorea and Asian shore crab Hemigrapsus sanguineus, to control Grateloupia populations. In the first trial, Grateloupia was provided to a single herbivore (either Littorina or Hemigrapsus) or both herbivores together. Grateloupia controls were in the same mesocosms as each treatment, but were separated by a mesh partition to allow water flow and account for possible facilitation by herbivore presence. Mesocosms were kept at 13°C and at 0, 2, 4, and 6 days, the algae was weighed and water samples were taken. Preliminary results indicate that Littorina do indeed graze on Grateloupia, with an average decrease in mass of 44.6% after 6 days. There was no significant change in mass of Grateloupia in the presence of Hemigrapsus only or with Littorina and Hemigrapsus together. Future trials will include two common species of marine macroalgae along with the Grateloupia, to investigate herbivore feeding preference when exposed to multiple food choices. The ultimate results of these trials are intended to indicate the success of the continued invasion of Grateloupia in Rhode Island waters, and predict the role of invasive herbivores in controlling Grateloupia populations

Book Reviews: Municipal Government in North Carolina; from Currituck to Calabash: Living with North Carolina's Barrier Islands; Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives

Book reviews of: MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN NORTH CAROLINA: What is the most prevalent form of municipal government in North Carolina? Which North Carolina statute allows cities to budget and expend revenues? Must municipal budgets be balanced? Can cities levy property taxes for mass transit or public housing? The answers to these and other questions can be easily found in Municipal Government in North Carolina. The book is edited by David M. Lawrence and Warren J. Wicker, professors of Public Law and Government at the Institute of Government, and it is intended to be a reference guide to North Carolina city government. In addition, it offers a framework for administrative organization of cities and towns. FROM CURRITUCK TO CALABASH: LIVING WITH NORTH CAROLINA'S BARRIER ISLANDS: In recent years, the North Carolina coastline has undergone massive development. Higher incomes, more leisure, and the absence of major hurricanes have led to widespead, often dangerous construction. The authors of From Currituck to Calabash seek to provide a guide for "proper, limited development" of the North Carolina barrier islands. This volume is the first of a series entitled Living with the Shore, which will eventually provide guidance to development of the shorelines of all states bordering the oceans and Great Lakes. MEGATRENDS: TEN NEW DIRECTIONS TRANSFORMING OUR LIVES: City planners constantly search for new information which will help them anticipate and influence the future. Megatrends , written by John Naisbitt, features ten national social trends that are changing American life

PheMaDB: A solution for storage, retrieval, and analysis of high throughput phenotype data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>OmniLog™ phenotype microarrays (PMs) have the capability to measure and compare the growth responses of biological samples upon exposure to hundreds of growth conditions such as different metabolites and antibiotics over a time course of hours to days. In order to manage the large amount of data produced from the OmniLog™ instrument, PheMaDB (Phenotype Microarray DataBase), a web-based relational database, was designed. PheMaDB enables efficient storage, retrieval and rapid analysis of the OmniLog™ PM data.</p> <p>Description</p> <p>PheMaDB allows the user to quickly identify records of interest for data analysis by filtering with a hierarchical ordering of Project, Strain, Phenotype, Replicate, and Temperature. PheMaDB then provides various statistical analysis options to identify specific growth pattern characteristics of the experimental strains, such as: outlier analysis, negative controls analysis (signal/background calibration), bar plots, pearson's correlation matrix, growth curve profile search, <it>k</it>-means clustering, and a heat map plot. This web-based database management system allows for both easy data sharing among multiple users and robust tools to phenotype organisms of interest.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>PheMaDB is an open source system standardized for OmniLog™ PM data. PheMaDB could facilitate the banking and sharing of phenotype data. The source code is available for download at <url>http://phemadb.sourceforge.net</url>.</p

Mapping patterns of complementary and alternative medicine use in cancer: An explorative cross-sectional study of individuals with reported positive "exceptional" experiences

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>While the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among cancer patients is common and widespread, levels of commitment to CAM vary. "Committed" CAM use is important to investigate, as it may be associated with elevated risks and benefits, and may affect use of biomedically-oriented health care (BHC). Multiple methodological approaches were used to explore and map patterns of CAM use among individuals postulated to be committed users, voluntarily reporting exceptional experiences associated with CAM use after cancer diagnosis.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>The verbatim transcripts of thirty-eight unstructured interviews were analyzed in two steps. First, manifest content analysis was used to elucidate and map participants' use of CAM, based on the National Center for Complementary Medicine (NCCAM)'s classification system. Second, patterns of CAM use were explored statistically using principal component analysis.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>The 38 participants reported using a total of 274 specific CAM (median = 4) consisting of 148 different therapeutic modalities. Most reported therapies could be categorized using the NCCAM taxonomy (n = 224). However, a significant number of CAM therapies were not consistent with this categorization (n = 50); consequently, we introduced two additional categories: <it>Spiritual/health literature </it>and <it>Treatment centers</it>. The two factors explaining the largest proportion of variation in CAM usage patterns were a) number of CAM modalities used and b) a category preference for <it>Energy therapies </it>over the categories <it>Alternative Medical Systems </it>and <it>Treatment centers </it>or vice versa.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>We found considerable heterogeneity in patterns of CAM use. By analyzing users' own descriptions of CAM in relation to the most commonly used predefined professional taxonomy, this study highlights discrepancies between user and professional conceptualizations of CAM not previously addressed. Beyond variations in users' reports of CAM, our findings indicate some patterns in CAM usage related to number of therapies used and preference for different CAM categories.</p

Genomic Signatures of Strain Selection and Enhancement in Bacillus atrophaeus var. globigii, a Historical Biowarfare Simulant

(BG) as a simulant for biological warfare (BW) agents, knowledge of its genome composition is limited. Furthermore, the ability to differentiate signatures of deliberate adaptation and selection from natural variation is lacking for most bacterial agents. We characterized a lineage of BGwith a long history of use as a simulant for BW operations, focusing on classical bacteriological markers, metabolic profiling and whole-genome shotgun sequencing (WGS). on the nucleotide level. WGS of variants revealed that several strains were mixed but highly related populations and uncovered a progressive accumulation of mutations among the “military” isolates. Metabolic profiling and microscopic examination of bacterial cultures revealed enhanced growth of “military” isolates on lactate-containing media, and showed that the “military” strains exhibited a hypersporulating phenotype.Our analysis revealed the genomic and phenotypic signatures of strain adaptation and deliberate selection for traits that were desirable in a simulant organism. Together, these results demonstrate the power of whole-genome and modern systems-level approaches to characterize microbial lineages to develop and validate forensic markers for strain discrimination and reveal signatures of deliberate adaptation