How Water Level and Irrigation Practices Affect Waterbird Community, Nesting, and Foraging Habitat Use on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation

Loss of habitat continues to threaten all bird populations. Despite efforts for conservation of wetlands, waterbirds continue to face habitat threats especially in western North America where water resources are limited across the landscape. The White-faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi) is a colonial nesting waterbird of conservation concern that builds nests in emergent vegetation of freshwater wetlands throughout the western United States. An ibis breeding colony site located at the Blue Creek Wetland complex on Duck Valley Indian Reservation may face habitat threats in the future due to plans intended to increase irrigation water use efficiency. Plans include manipulation of water levels in the wetland and conversion of flood irrigation practices to sprinkler irrigation which may alter nesting and foraging habitat quality and availability for waterbirds. We conducted an assessment of waterbird populations, especially including the White-faced Ibis, to add critical information that could help conservation planning at this important bird site. We compared secretive marsh bird density, local nesting habitat changes, and ibis breeding success during two years with naturally different water levels, and in 2019, we modeled ibis nesting success with habitat variables we predicted might influence nesting success. We did not see a difference in density of secretive marsh birds or abundance of ibis from 2018 to 2019. However, higher natural water levels in 2019 decreased availability of emergent vegetation in the wetland needed by ibis for nest building and we observed catastrophic nest failures due to exposure to harsh weather events. As a result, apparent nest survival for ibis was lower in 2019 than 2018. Additionally, we investigated foraging habitat selection by ibis of agricultural fields with different irrigation practices surrounding the breeding colony. We found ibis foraged most often in the natural wetland areas but frequently used flooded agricultural fields as additional foraging sites. We modeled habitat selection and our results suggest the presence of water, resulting in saturation of a field with standing water, is the main predictor of selection. We also investigated differences in macro-invertebrate abundance and diversity of agricultural fields with different irrigation practices which may also drive foraging habitat selection. Our results suggest no differences in diversity between irrigation practices, but abundance was higher in naturally flooded areas and in flood-irrigated fields than sprinkler irrigated fields. Given the importance of this wetland site to a variety of wetland birds, understanding the effects of changes to irrigation practices and water management on waterbird community structure, nesting habitat, and foraging habitat availability is necessary to help shape adaptive management practices. Overall, our results provide information for future waterbird conservation planning and will be especially informative in increasingly human-controlled environments

Private Transfer Fees: Developer Exploitation or Legitimate Financing Vehicle

A private transfer fee (PTF) is typically created when a developer or homeowner decides to attach a covenant to the title of the home. This covenant, the PTF covenant, attaches the PTF to the real property. These covenants require payment of a fee—typically stated as one percent of the property\u27s sale price—upon each resale or transfer of the property and often survive for a period of ninety-nine years. The recipients or owners of the PTF (PTF beneficiaries) can be almost anyone, including property developers, PTF developers, home owner associations (HOA), private investors, state governments, and non-profit charities. Usually, the PTF payment is designated to a trust in which a trustee retains a portion of the fee for expenses and pays the remainder of the fee to the PTF beneficiaries. Are PTFs a form of financial exploitation by developers or a reasonable financing vehicle? Proponents of PTF covenants argue that PTFs are financial instruments designed to spread out housing development costs and lower the costs of homeownership. Their opponents argue that PTFs lower housing values, surprise homebuyers with extra fees, create unreasonable restraints on alienation, and impair the marketability of tide.* PTFs can surprise potential homebuyers even when the PTF covenant is recorded and clearly identified;buyers often do not know that the property they are buying has a PTF convent until the closing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Villanova Law Review is the property of Villanova University School of Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder\u27s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.

An Empirical Investigation of a 21st Century Career Development Program for Business Majors

When a small, Midwestern business school launched a required, four-year career development curriculum, robust practicum courses, and a dynamic, co-curricular program, it proved itself to be in the vanguard of career development practices. Due to the extensive experiential learning this program provides, greater numbers of business and accounting majors are graduating with raised employment aspirations and the knowledge, skills, and confidence to begin their professional lives. Using quantitative measures, the results suggest the positive impact of these career development activities on students’ certainty about career direction, assessment of the quality of their resumes and LinkedIn profiles, and confidence in interviewing

The Impact of Pharmacokinetic-Guided Prophylaxis on Clinical Outcomes and Healthcare Resource Utilization in Hemophilia A Patients: Real-World Evidence from the CHESS II Study.

From Europe PMC via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: ppub 2022-01-01, epub 2022-09-19Publication status: PublishedBackground: Using a pharmacokinetic (PK)-guided approach to personalize the dose and frequency of prophylactic treatment can help achieve and maintain targeted factor VIII (FVIII) trough levels in patients with hemophilia A. Objective: Investigate clinical and healthcare resource use outcomes in patients with hemophilia A treated with or without PK-guided prophylaxis using data from the Cost of Haemophilia in Europe: A Socioeconomic Survey (CHESS) II database. Methods: CHESS II was a cross-sectional, retrospective, burden-of-illness study incorporating data from eight European countries. Patients were eligible for this analysis if they were male, ≥18 years of age, and diagnosed with congenital hemophilia A of any severity. The clinical endpoints included annualized bleeding rate (ABR), presence and number of problem/target joints, and occurrence of joint surgeries. Healthcare resource utilization endpoints included the number of hematologist consultations and bleed-related hospitalizations or emergency department admissions. Data from November 2018 to October 2020 were included and were stratified according to treatment regimen and use of PK-guided dosing. Results: Altogether, 281 patients on prophylaxis had available FVIII trough level data. Mean (SD) age was 35.7 (13.8) years. A specific FVIII trough level was targeted in 120 (42.7%) patients and 47 (39.2%) received PK-guided dosing. Patients receiving PK-guided dosing had a mean (SD) ABR of 2.8 (2.1) and target joint number of 0.5 (0.7), compared with 3.9 (2.7) and 0.9 (1.4), respectively, for patients receiving non-PK-guided treatment. The mean (SD) number of hematologist consultations was 7.1 (5.3) for patients receiving PK-guided dosing versus 10.7 (5.7) for those who were not. A higher proportion of patients in the non-PK-guided group required hospitalization during their lifetime compared with the PK-guided group.ConclusionThis analysis of real-world data suggests that PK-guided dosing for prophylaxis has a beneficial impact on clinical and healthcare resource utilization outcomes in patients with hemophilia A

Indirect genetic effects increase heritability estimates for male and female extra-pair reproduction

The question of why females engage in extra-pair behaviors is long-standing in evolutionary biology. One suggestion is that these behaviors are maintained through pleiotropic effects on male extra-pair behaviors (genes controlling extra-pair reproduction are shared between sexes, but only beneficial to one sex, in this case, males). However, for this to evolve extra-pair reproduction must be both heritable and positively genetically correlated between sexes. Previous studies have suggested low heritability with no evidence for between-sex genetic correlations in extra-pair reproduction. However, these have not considered indirect genetic effects (derived from the behavior of others, IGEs) from the social partner, the influence of the social partner’s genotype on the phenotype of an individual, despite the potential of IGEs to uncover hidden heritable variation. Using data from a closed-house sparrow population with a genetic pedigree spanning two decades, we tested the influence of social partner IGEs on heritable variation and genetic correlation estimates of extra-pair reproduction. We found that the inclusion of IGEs resulted in larger heritable genetic variance for both male and female extra-pair heritability. While IGEs did not change between-sex genetic correlations, we found they reduced uncertainty in those estimates. Future studies should consider the effect of IGEs on the mechanisms of sex-specific extra-pair reproduction

Challenging our understanding of B-cell lymphomagenesis and risk:Paediatric high-grade B-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified with a DDX3X::MLLT10 fusion and an IGH deletion

We report a unique case of high-grade B-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified in a 5-year-old child. Whole-genome sequencing revealed a DDX3X::MLLT10 fusion, usually seen in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). This suggests the novel idea that MLLT10 fusions are capable of driving B-cell malignancies. An IGH deletion usually only seen in adults was also found. These unique genetic findings provide novel insights into B-cell lymphomagenesis. The child remains in remission 7 year post chemotherapy, which demonstrates that novel complex molecular findings do not always denote high-risk disease.</p

Ontology-based knowledge representation of experiment metadata in biological data mining

According to the PubMed resource from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, over 750,000 scientific articles have been published in the ~5000 biomedical journals worldwide in the year 2007 alone. The vast majority of these publications include results from hypothesis-driven experimentation in overlapping biomedical research domains. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of information being generated by the biomedical research enterprise has made it virtually impossible for investigators to stay aware of the latest findings in their domain of interest, let alone to be able to assimilate and mine data from related investigations for purposes of meta-analysis. While computers have the potential for assisting investigators in the extraction, management and analysis of these data, information contained in the traditional journal publication is still largely unstructured, free-text descriptions of study design, experimental application and results interpretation, making it difficult for computers to gain access to the content of what is being conveyed without significant manual intervention. In order to circumvent these roadblocks and make the most of the output from the biomedical research enterprise, a variety of related standards in knowledge representation are being developed, proposed and adopted in the biomedical community. In this chapter, we will explore the current status of efforts to develop minimum information standards for the representation of a biomedical experiment, ontologies composed of shared vocabularies assembled into subsumption hierarchical structures, and extensible relational data models that link the information components together in a machine-readable and human-useable framework for data mining purposes

Analysis of different uniflow scavenging options for a medium-duty 2-stroke engine for a U.S. light-truck application

The work presented here seeks to compare different means of providing uniflow scavenging for a 2-stroke engine suitable to power a US light-duty truck. Through the ‘end-to-end’ nature of the uniflow scavenging process, it can in theory provide improved gas-exchange characteristics for such an engine operating cycle; furthermore, because the exhaust leaves at one end and the fresh charge enters at the other, the full circumference of the cylinder can be used for the ports for each flow and therefore, for a given gas exchange angle-area demand, expansion can theoretically be maximized over more traditional loop-scavenging approaches. This gives a further thermodynamic advantage.The three different configurations studied which could utilize uniflow scavenging were the opposed piston, the poppet-valve with piston-controlled intake ports and the sleeve valve. These are described and all are compared in terms of indicated fuel consumption for the same cylinder swept volume, compression ratio and exhaust pressure, for the same target indicated mean effective pressure and indicated specific power.A new methodology for optimization was developed using a one-dimensional engine simulation package which also took into account charging system work. The charging system was assumed to be a combination of supercharger and turbocharger to permit some waste energy recovery.As a result of this work it was found that the opposed-piston configuration provides the best attributes since it allows maximum expansion and minimum heat transfer. Its advantage over the other two (whose results were very close) was of the order of 8.3% in terms of NSFC (defined as ISFC net of supercharger power). Part of its advantage also stems from its requirement for minimum air supply system work, included in this NSFC value.Interestingly, it was found that existing experiential guidelines for port angle-area specification for loop-scavenged, piston-ported engines using crankcase compression could also be applied to all of the other scavenging types. This has not been demonstrated before. The optimization process that was subsequently developed allowed port design to be tailored to specific targets, in this case lowest NSFC. The paper therefore presents a fundamental comparison of scavenging systems using a new approach, providing new insights and information which have not been shown before.<br/

“It would be simpler to see success without dominating discourse of ability”

This paper engages with and reflects the college experiences of three college students/graduates who type to communicate, chronicled through ongoing conversations with one another and a group of co-inquirers, focused on understanding experiences in higher education. Grounded in a disability studies in education framework, this work draws on narrative inquiry and collaborative qualitative analysis of discussions over three years in a co-constructed digital interspace. Key findings include: the role of mentorship and connection; navigating the system; controlling the narrative; and traversing new methodological and relational landscapes. Together, these conversations about neurodivergent communicative experiences in higher education tell stories of agency, friendship, affiliation, and advocacy against a backdrop of ableism. Through illustrative dialogic moments, we grapple with the complexities of presence as resistance in higher educational spaces. This work highlights collaborative research methods that center communicative diversity and relationality in inquiry, as well as how process can inform dialogue in and about the academy

Health-related quality of life, direct medical and societal costs among children with moderate or severe haemophilia in Europe: multivariable models of the CHESS-PAEDs study.

From Europe PMC via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: ppub 2022-04-01, epub 2022-04-04Publication status: PublishedFunder: SanofiBackgroundHaemophilia bears substantial humanistic and economic burden on children and their caregivers. Characterising the differential impact of severe versus moderate paediatric haemophilia is important for clinical and health policy decisions. We analysed health-related quality of life (HRQoL), annual direct medical (excluding factor treatment costs), non-medical and societal costs among children and adolescents with moderate and severe haemophilia A or B without inhibitors from the European CHESS-PAEDs study. Information was reported by physicians and caregivers; patients aged ≥ 8 years self-reported their HRQoL. Descriptive statistics summarised demographic and clinical characteristics, costs, and HRQoL scores (EQ-5D-Y). Regression models estimated differences in HRQoL and costs for moderate versus severe haemophilia adjusting for age, body mass index z-score, country, number of comorbidities, and weight-adjusted annual clotting factor consumption.ResultsThe analytic sample comprised 794 patients with a mean age of 10.5 years; most had haemophilia A (79%) and 58% had severe haemophilia. Mean predicted direct medical costs in moderate patients were two-thirds of the predicted costs for severe disease (€3065 vs. €2047; p ConclusionChildren with haemophilia and their caregivers displayed a significant economic and humanistic burden. While severe patients showed the highest direct medical and societal costs, and worse HRQoL, the burden of moderate haemophilia on its own was substantial and far from negligible