Short-term Response of Holcus lanatus L. (Common Velvetgrass) to Chemical and Manual Control at Yosemite National Park, USA

One of the highest priority invasive species at both Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks is Holcus lanatus L. (common velvetgrass), a perennial bunchgrass that invades mid-elevation montane meadows. Despite velvetgrass being a high priority species, there is little information available on control techniques. The goal of this project was to evaluate the short-term response of a single application of common chemical and manual velvetgrass control techniques. The study was conducted at three montane sites in Yosemite National Park. Glyphosate spotspray treatments were applied at 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0% concentrations, and compared with hand pulling to evaluate effects on cover of common velvetgrass, cover of other plant species, and community species richness. Posttreatment year 1 cover of common velvetgrass was 12.1% 6 1.6 in control plots, 6.3% 6 1.5 averaged over the four chemical treatments (all chemical treatments performed similarly), and 13.6% 6 1.7 for handpulled plots. This represents an approximately 50% reduction in common velvetgrass cover in chemically- treated plots recoded posttreatment year 1 and no statistically significant reduction in hand pulled plots compared with controls. However, there was no treatment effect in posttreatment year 2, and all herbicide application rates performed similarly. In addition, there were no significant treatment effects on nontarget species or species richness. These results suggest that for this level of infestation and habitat type, (1) one year of hand pulling is not an effective control method and (2) glyphosate provides some level of control in the short-term without impact to nontarget plant species, but the effect is temporary as a single year of glyphosate treatment is ineffective over a twoyear period

Polarization dOTF: on-sky focal plane wavefront sensing

The differential Optical Transfer Function (dOTF) is a focal plane wavefront sensing method that uses a diversity in the pupil plane to generate two different focal plane images. The difference of their Fourier transforms recovers the complex amplitude of the pupil down to the spatial scale of the diversity. We produce two simultaneous PSF images with diversity using a polarizing filter at the edge of the telescope pupil, and a polarization camera to simultaneously record the two images. Here we present the first on-sky demonstration of polarization dOTF at the 1.0m South African Astronomical Observatory telescope in Sutherland, and our attempt to validate it with simultaneous Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor images.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, Proc. SPIE Vol. 991

Evaluating Postfire Seeding Treatments Designed to Suppress Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) in a Ponderosa Pine Forest on the Colorado Plateau

The restoration of historical fuel conditions and fire regimes is one of the primary land management goals in the Shivwits Plateau region of northwestern Arizona. Fire is the primary tool used in this region to reduce fuel loads and shift landscapes back to historical conditions of a low intensity, 8- 15 year return interval, surface fire regime. However, the invasive plant cheatgrass has become the dominant understory vegetation and fuel type following initial fire treatments in many areas. There is significant concern that repeated burning at historically appropriate fire return intervals for ponderosa pine forest will benefit this invasive plant to the detriment of native species. There is additional concern that the high flammability of cheatgrass fuelbeds will lead to fire return intervals that are more frequent than occurred historically and that are prescribed in the agency fire management plans, potentially preventing recruitment of pine seedlings and leading to type conversion of native forests to alien grasslands. Federal land managers and research scientists have noted that cheatgrass does not typically cooccur with two of the dominant perennial grasses in the Shivwits plateau region, bottlebrush squirreltail (Elymus elymoides) and blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis). This suggests that these natives may be competing with and excluding the establishment of cheatgrass. If these species can be established in postfire landscapes, they may be able to pre-empt the establishment of cheatgrass and promote the restoration of native plant communities and natural fuel characteristics. This report provides results of an experimental seedings of these two perennial grasses. Seeding with or without raking had no detectable effects on any of the species or groups of species in this study as measured by: 1) the density, cover, and species diversity of standing vegetation during the first 5 post-treatment years; or 2) the density and species diversity of the soil seedbank during the first 3 post-treatment years. Blue grama had an overall low standing density and cover, and seedbank density, at the study site, whereas bottlebrush squirreltail had relatively high standing density and cover, and seedbank density, at least during some of the sampling years. Cheatgrass did not differ among treatments, including raked and unraked plots, and only increased from 1.1 seeds per 18 cubic cm of soil immediately following the fire in fall 2003 to 1.5 seeds by the fall of the third postfire year

Endogenous Nutritive Support after Traumatic Brain Injury: Peripheral Lactate Production for Glucose Supply via Gluconeogenesis.

We evaluated the hypothesis that nutritive needs of injured brains are supported by large and coordinated increases in lactate shuttling throughout the body. To that end, we used dual isotope tracer ([6,6-(2)H2]glucose, i.e., D2-glucose, and [3-(13)C]lactate) techniques involving central venous tracer infusion along with cerebral (arterial [art] and jugular bulb [JB]) blood sampling. Patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) who had nonpenetrating head injuries (n=12, all male) were entered into the study after consent of patients' legal representatives. Written and informed consent was obtained from healthy controls (n=6, including one female). As in previous investigations, the cerebral metabolic rate (CMR) for glucose was suppressed after TBI. Near normal arterial glucose and lactate levels in patients studied 5.7±2.2 days (range of days 2-10) post-injury, however, belied a 71% increase in systemic lactate production, compared with control, that was largely cleared by greater (hepatic+renal) glucose production. After TBI, gluconeogenesis from lactate clearance accounted for 67.1% of glucose rate of appearance (Ra), which was compared with 15.2% in healthy controls. We conclude that elevations in blood glucose concentration after TBI result from a massive mobilization of lactate from corporeal glycogen reserves. This previously unrecognized mobilization of lactate subserves hepatic and renal gluconeogenesis. As such, a lactate shuttle mechanism indirectly makes substrate available for the body and its essential organs, including the brain, after trauma. In addition, when elevations in arterial lactate concentration occur after TBI, lactate shuttling may provide substrate directly to vital organs of the body, including the injured brain

Reduction of blade-vortex interaction noise using higher harmonic pitch control

An acoustics test using an aeroelastically scaled rotor was conducted to examine the effectiveness of higher harmonic blade pitch control for the reduction of impulsive blade-vortex interaction (BVI) noise. A four-bladed, 110 in. diameter, articulated rotor model was tested in a heavy gas (Freon-12) medium in Langley's Transonic Dynamics Tunnel. Noise and vibration measurements were made for a range of matched flight conditions, where prescribed (open-loop) higher harmonic pitch was superimposed on the normal (baseline) collective and cyclic trim pitch. For the inflow-microphone noise measurements, advantage was taken of the reverberance in the hard walled tunnel by using a sound power determination approach. Initial findings from on-line data processing for three of the test microphones are reported for a 4/rev (4P) collective pitch control for a range of input amplitudes and phases. By comparing these results to corresponding baseline (no control) conditions, significant noise reductions (4 to 5 dB) were found for low-speed descent conditions, where helicopter BVI noise is most intense. For other rotor flight conditions, the overall noise was found to increase. All cases show increased vibration levels

CARMA: A platform for analyzing microarray datasets that incorporate replicate measures

BACKGROUND: The incorporation of statistical models that account for experimental variability provides a necessary framework for the interpretation of microarray data. A robust experimental design coupled with an analysis of variance (ANOVA) incorporating a model that accounts for known sources of experimental variability can significantly improve the determination of differences in gene expression and estimations of their significance. RESULTS: To realize the full benefits of performing analysis of variance on microarray data we have developed CARMA, a microarray analysis platform that reads data files generated by most microarray image processing software packages, performs ANOVA using a user-defined linear model, and produces easily interpretable graphical and numeric results. No pre-processing of the data is required and user-specified parameters control most aspects of the analysis including statistical significance criterion. The software also performs location and intensity dependent lowess normalization, automatic outlier detection and removal, and accommodates missing data. CONCLUSION: CARMA provides a clear quantitative and statistical characterization of each measured gene that can be used to assess marginally acceptable measures and improve confidence in the interpretation of microarray results. Overall, applying CARMA to microarray datasets incorporating repeated measures effectively reduces the number of gene incorrectly identified as differentially expressed and results in a more robust and reliable analysis

Editorial: Fire regimes in desert ecosystems: Drivers, impacts and changes

Although not commonly associated with fire, many desert ecosystems across the globe do occasionally burn, and there is evidence that fire incidences are increasing, leading to altered fire regimes in this biome. The increased prevalence of megafires (wildfires \u3e 10,000 ha in size and typically damaging) in most global biomes is linked to climate change, although those occurring in deserts have received far less attention, from both a research and policy perspective, than that of forested ecosystems (Linley et al., 2022). Understanding the drivers of desert fires, from climate to landscape patterns of hydrology and soil, and how these may be changing in the face of anthropogenic pressures, such as invasive species, livestock grazing, and global climate change, is imperative. This Research Topic has published nine papers addressing these drivers, how they have changed, and their impacts on desert biodiversity

Feshbach Spectroscopy of Cs Atom Pairs in Optical Tweezers

We prepare pairs of 133Cs atoms in a single optical tweezer and perform Feshbach spectroscopy for collisions of atoms in the states (f = 3, mf = ±3). We detect enhancements in pair loss using a detection scheme where the optical tweezers are repeatedly subdivided. For atoms in the state (3, −3), we identify resonant features by performing inelastic loss spectroscopy. We carry out coupled-channel scattering calculations and show that at typical experimental temperatures the loss features are mostly centred on zeroes in the scattering length, rather than resonance centres. We measure the number of atoms remaining after a collision, elucidating how the different loss processes are influenced by the tweezer depth. These measurements probe the energy released during an inelastic collision, and thus give information on the states of the collision products. We also identify resonances with atom pairs prepared in the absolute ground state (f = 3, mf = 3), where two-body radiative loss is engineered by an excitation laser blue-detuned from the Cs D2 line. These results demonstrate optical tweezers to be a versatile tool to study two-body collisions with number-resolved detection sensitivity

Health facility and skilled birth deliveries among poor women with Jamkesmas health insurance in Indonesia: a mixed-methods study

BACKGROUND: The growing momentum for quality and affordable health care for all has given rise to the recent global universal health coverage (UHC) movement. As part of Indonesia’s strategy to achieve the goal of UHC, large investments have been made to increase health access for the poor, resulting in the implementation of various health insurance schemes targeted towards the poor and near-poor, including the Jamkesmas program. In the backdrop of Indonesia’s aspiration to reach UHC is the high rate of maternal mortality that disproportionally affects poor women. The objective of this study was to evaluate the association of health facility and skilled birth deliveries among poor women with and without Jamkesmas and explore perceived barriers to health insurance membership and maternal health service utilization. METHODS: We used a mixed-methods design. Utilizing data from the 2012 Indonesian Demographic and Health Survey (n = 45,607), secondary analysis using propensity score matching was performed on key outcomes of interest: health facility delivery (HFD) and skilled birth delivery (SBD). In-depth interviews (n = 51) were conducted in the provinces of Jakarta and Banten among poor women, midwives, and government representatives. Thematic framework analysis was performed on qualitative data to explore perceived barriers. RESULTS: In 2012, 63.0% of women did not have health insurance; 19.1% had Jamkesmas. Poor women with Jamkesmas were 19% (OR = 1.19 [1.03–1.37]) more likely to have HFD and 17% (OR = 1.17 [1.01–1.35]) more likely to have SBD compared to poor women without insurance. Qualitative interviews highlighted key issues, including: lack of proper documentation for health insurance registration; the preference of pregnant women to deliver in their parents’ village; the use of traditional birth attendants; distance to health facilities; shortage of qualified health providers; overcrowded health facilities; and lack of health facility accreditation. CONCLUSION: Poor women with Jamkesmas membership had a modest increase in HFD and SBD. These findings are consistent with economic theory that health insurance coverage can reduce financial barriers to care and increase service uptake. However, factors such as socio-cultural beliefs, accessibility, and quality of care are important elements that need to be addressed as part of the national UHC agenda to improve maternal health services in Indonesia