Detection and Analysis of the Bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, in Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter, Homalodisca vitripennis, Populations in Texas

The glassy-winged sharpshooter, Homalodisca vitripeninis Germar (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae), is a xylophagous insect that is an endemic pest of several economically important plants in Texas. H. vitripennis is the main vector of Xylella fastidiosa Wells (Xanthomonadales: Xanthomonadaceae), the bacterium that causes Pierce's disease of grapevine and can travel long distances putting much of Texas grape production at risk. Understanding the movement of H. vitripennis populations capable of transmitting X. fastidiosa into Pierce's-disease-free areas is critical for developing a management program for Pierce's disease. To that end, the USDA-APHIS has developed a program to sample vineyards across Texas to monitor populations of H. vitripennis. From this sampling, H vitripennis collected during 2005 and 2006 over the months of May, June, and July from eight vineyards in different regions of Texas were recovered from yellow sticky traps and tested for the presence of X. fastidiosa. The foregut contents were vacuum extracted and analyzed using RT-PCR to determine the percentage of H. vitripennis within each population that harbor X. fastidiosa and have the potential to transmit this pathogen. H. vitripennis from vineyards known to have Pierce's disease routinely tested positive for the presence of X. fastidiosa. While almost all H. vitripennis collected from vineyards with no history of Pierce's disease tested negative for the presence of the pathogen, three individual insects tested positive. Furthermore, all three insects were determined, by DNA sequencing, to be carrying a strain of X. fastidiosa homologous to known Pierce's disease strains, signifying them as a risk factor for new X. fastidiosa infections

Heritage, health and place:The legacies of local community-based heritage conservation on social wellbeing

Geographies of health challenge researchers to attend to the positive effects of occupying, creating and using all kinds of spaces, including 'green space' and more recently 'blue space'. Attention to the spaces of community-based heritage conservation has largely gone unexplored within the health geography literature. This paper examines the personal motivations and impacts associated with people's growing interest in local heritage groups. It draws on questionnaires and interviews from a recent study with such groups and a conceptual mapping of their routes and flows. The findings reveal a rich array of positive benefits on the participants' social wellbeing with/in the community. These include personal enrichment, social learning, satisfaction from sharing the heritage products with others, and less anxiety about the present. These positive effects were tempered by needing to face and overcome challenging effects associated with running the projects thus opening up an extension to health-enabling spaces debates

School-based educational intervention to improve children’s oral health-related knowledge

Objective. To evaluate a brief oral health promotion intervention delivered in schools by a primary care dental practice, aimed at changing oral health care knowledge and oral health–related behaviors in children. Design. Cohort study with pretest–posttest design. Setting. Three primary schools. Participants. One hundred and fifty children (aged 9-12 years). Intervention. Children received a 60-minute theory-driven classroom-based interactive educational session delivered by a dental care professional and received take-home literature on oral health. Main Outcome Measures. All children completed a questionnaire on oral health–related knowledge and self-reported oral health–related behaviors before, immediately after, and 6 weeks following the intervention. Results. Children’s dental knowledge significantly improved following the intervention, with improvement evident at immediate follow-up and maintained 6 weeks later. Significantly more children reported using dental floss 6 weeks after the intervention compared with baseline. No significant differences were detected in toothbrushing or dietary behaviors. Conclusions. School-based preventative oral health education delivered by primary care dental practices can generate short-term improvements in children’s knowledge of oral health and some aspects of oral hygiene behavior. Future research should engage parents/carers and include objective clinical and behavioral outcomes in controlled study designs

Historical ecology with real numbers: past and present extent and biomass of an imperiled estuarine habitat

Historic baselines are important in developing our understanding of ecosystems in the face of rapid global change. While a number of studies have sought to determine changes in extent of exploited habitats over historic timescales, few have quantified such changes prior to late twentieth century baselines. Here, we present, to our knowledge, the first ever large-scale quantitative assessment of the extent and biomass of marine habitat-forming species over a 100-year time frame. We examined records of wild native oyster abundance in the United States from a historic, yet already exploited, baseline between 1878 and 1935 (predominantly 1885–1915), and a current baseline between 1968 and 2010 (predominantly 2000–2010). We quantified the extent of oyster grounds in 39 estuaries historically and 51 estuaries from recent times. Data from 24 estuaries allowed comparison of historic to present extent and biomass. We found evidence for a 64 per cent decline in the spatial extent of oyster habitat and an 88 per cent decline in oyster biomass over time. The difference between these two numbers illustrates that current areal extent measures may be masking significant loss of habitat through degradation

CE18-Bullet: Candidate engine for a next generation supersonic transport

This report details the cycle and component design of a gas turbine engine to be used on a 100 passenger supersonic transport. The engine, CE18-Bullet, is a mixed-flow, low-bypass ratio turbofan with a max diameter at the fan of 89 inches and a bypass ratio of 2.1. The fan pressure ratio is 2.5 and core of the engine has a 10-stage compressor, which achieves an overall pressure ratio of 42. The low pressure shaft powers the fan using 2 turbine stages while the high pressure shaft powers the compressor using 2 turbine stages. The advanced design of this engine demonstrates substantial improvements over a previously designed baseline engine in TSFC, thrust, weight, and flight envelope. The CE18-Bullet engine provides an 18.1% improvement of TSFC and a 34.2% improvement on thrust at the cruise condition