Geologic Descriptions and Coal Analyses for 1982 Coal Drilling in the Daniel Boone National Forest, Eastern Kentucky

This report contains core descriptions, lithologic logs, and analyses of coal from 21 stratigraphic test holes drilled in 1982 in the Daniel Boone National Forest, including the Redbird Purchase Unit, in eastern Kentucky. The test holes ranged in depth from 85 to 1,988 feet and averaged about 700 feet. A total of 89 coal samples were analyzed. Results of analyses (on the as-received basis) showed the following ranges: ash, 2.37 to 28.8 percent; sulfur, 0.3 to 8.4 percent; and Btu, 9,017 to 14,550 per pound

Available Resources of the Fire Clay Coal in Part of the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field

Available resources for the Fire Clay coal were calculated for a 15-quadrangle area in the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field. Original coal resources were estimated to be 1.8 billion tons (BT). Coal mined or lost in mining was estimated at 449 million tons (MT), leaving 1.3 BT of remaining Fire Clay resources in the study area. Of the remaining resources, 400 MT is restricted from mining, primarily because the coal is less than 28 in. thick, normally considered too thin to mine underground using present technology. The total coal available for mining in the study area is 911 MT, or 52 percent of the original resource. Of the 911 MT, 14.9 percent is thicker than 42 in., and only 6.1 percent is accessible by surface-mining methods. The largest block of available coal is in the Leatherwood quadrangle, is less than 42 in. thick, and mostly occurs below drainage

An Experimental Comparison of Stand Management Approaches to Sudden Oak Death: Prevention vs. Restoration

Many coastal forests stretching from central California to southwest Oregon are threatened or have been impacted by the invasive forest pathogen Phytophthora ramorum, the cause of sudden oak death. We analyzed a set of stand-level forest treatments aimed at preventing or mitigating disease impacts on stand composition, biomass, and fuels using a before–after-control-intervention experiment with a re-evaluation after 5 years. We compared the effects of restorative management for invaded stands and preventative treatments for uninvaded forests with two stand-level experiments. The restorative treatments contrasted two approaches to mastication, hand-crew thinning, and thinning with pile burning with untreated controls replicated at three distinct sites (N = 30), while the preventative treatments were limited to hand-crew thinning (N = 10) conducted at a single site. Half of the restoration treatments had basal sprouts removed 2 and 4 years after treatment. All treatments significantly reduced stand density and increased average tree size without significantly decreasing total basal area, both immediately and 5 years after treatments. Preventative treatments did not reduce the basal area or density of timber species not susceptible to P. ramorum, suggesting the relative dominance of these species increased in accordance with host removal. Follow-up basal sprout removal in the restoration experiment appears to maintain treatment benefits for average tree size and may be associated with small decreases in stand density 5 years after initial treatment. Our study demonstrates that for at least 5 years, a range of common stand management practices can improve forest conditions threatened or impacted by sudden oak death

Management of invading pathogens should be informed by epidemiology rather than administrative boundaries.

Plant and animal disease outbreaks have significant ecological and economic impacts. The spatial extent of control is often informed solely by administrative geography - for example, quarantine of an entire county or state once an invading disease is detected - with little regard for pathogen epidemiology. We present a stochastic model for the spread of a plant pathogen that couples spread in the natural environment and transmission via the nursery trade, and use it to illustrate that control deployed according to administrative boundaries is almost always sub-optimal. We use sudden oak death (caused by Phytophthora ramorum) in mixed forests in California as motivation for our study, since the decision as to whether or not to deploy plant trade quarantine is currently undertaken on a county-by-county basis for that system. However, our key conclusion is applicable more generally: basing management of any disease entirely upon administrative borders does not balance the cost of control with the possible economic and ecological costs of further spread in the optimal fashion.This work was funded by a BBSRC G2O PhD studentship (RNT). We thank Matthew Patrick for help building the GIS map in Figure 1a, and also Richard Stutt and Stephen Parnell for useful discussions.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.12.014

Landscape Epidemiology and Control of Pathogens with Cryptic and Long-Distance Dispersal: Sudden Oak Death in Northern Californian Forests

Exotic pathogens and pests threaten ecosystem service, biodiversity, and crop security globally. If an invasive agent can disperse asymptomatically over long distances, multiple spatial and temporal scales interplay, making identification of effective strategies to regulate, monitor, and control disease extremely difficult. The management of outbreaks is also challenged by limited data on the actual area infested and the dynamics of spatial spread, due to financial, technological, or social constraints. We examine principles of landscape epidemiology important in designing policy to prevent or slow invasion by such organisms, and use Phytophthora ramorum, the cause of sudden oak death, to illustrate how shortfalls in their understanding can render management applications inappropriate. This pathogen has invaded forests in coastal California, USA, and an isolated but fast-growing epidemic focus in northern California (Humboldt County) has the potential for extensive spread. The risk of spread is enhanced by the pathogen's generalist nature and survival. Additionally, the extent of cryptic infection is unknown due to limited surveying resources and access to private land. Here, we use an epidemiological model for transmission in heterogeneous landscapes and Bayesian Markov-chain-Monte-Carlo inference to estimate dispersal and life-cycle parameters of P. ramorum and forecast the distribution of infection and speed of the epidemic front in Humboldt County. We assess the viability of management options for containing the pathogen's northern spread and local impacts. Implementing a stand-alone host-free “barrier” had limited efficacy due to long-distance dispersal, but combining curative with preventive treatments ahead of the front reduced local damage and contained spread. While the large size of this focus makes effective control expensive, early synchronous treatment in newly-identified disease foci should be more cost-effective. We show how the successful management of forest ecosystems depends on estimating the spatial scales of invasion and treatment of pathogens and pests with cryptic long-distance dispersal

Western Indian Ocean marine and terrestrial records of climate variability: a review and new concepts on land-ocean interactions since AD 1660

We examine the relationship between three tropical and two subtropical western Indian Ocean coral oxygen isotope time series to surface air temperatures (SAT) and rainfall over India, tropical East Africa and southeast Africa. We review established relationships, provide new concepts with regard to distinct rainfall seasons, and mean annual temperatures. Tropical corals are coherent with SAT over western India and East Africa at interannual and multidecadal periodicities. The subtropical corals correlate with Southeast African SAT at periodicities of 16–30 years. The relationship between the coral records and land rainfall is more complex. Running correlations suggest varying strength of interannual teleconnections between the tropical coral oxygen isotope records and rainfall over equatorial East Africa. The relationship with rainfall over India changed in the 1970s. The subtropical oxygen isotope records are coherent with South African rainfall at interdecadal periodicities. Paleoclimatological reconstructions of land rainfall and SAT reveal that the inferred relationships generally hold during the last 350 years. Thus, the Indian Ocean corals prove invaluable for investigating land–ocean interactions during past centuries

The educational impact of assessment: a comparison of DOPS and MCQs

Aim: To evaluate the impact of two different assessment formats on the approaches to learning of final year veterinary students. The relationship between approach to learning and examination performance was also investigated. Method: An 18-item version of the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) was sent to 87 final year students. Each student responded to the questionnaire with regards to DOPS (Direct Observation of Procedural Skills) and a Multiple Choice Examination (MCQ). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 of the respondents to gain a deeper insight into the students’ perception of assessment. Results: Students’ adopted a deeper approach to learning for DOPS and a more surface approach with MCQs. There was a positive correlation between an achieving approach to learning and examination performance. Analysis of the qualitative data revealed that deep, surface and achieving approaches were reported by the students and seven major influences on their approaches to learning were identified: motivation, purpose, consequence, acceptability, feedback, time pressure and the individual difference of the students. Conclusions: The format of DOPS has a positive influence on approaches to learning. There is a conflict for students between preparing for final examinations and preparing for clinical practice

Targeted redox inhibition of protein phosphatase 1 by Nox4 regulates eIF2a-mediated stress signaling

Source: doi: 10.15252/embj.201592394Phosphorylation of translation initiation factor 2α (eIF2α) attenuates global protein synthesis but enhances translation of activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) and is a crucial evolutionarily conserved adaptive pathway during cellular stresses. The serine–threonine protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) deactivates this pathway whereas prolonging eIF2α phosphorylation enhances cell survival. Here, we show that the reactive oxygen species‐generating NADPH oxidase‐4 (Nox4) is induced downstream of ATF4, binds to a PP1‐targeting subunit GADD34 at the endoplasmic reticulum, and inhibits PP1 activity to increase eIF2α phosphorylation and ATF4 levels. Other PP1 targets distant from the endoplasmic reticulum are unaffected, indicating a spatially confined inhibition of the phosphatase. PP1 inhibition involves metal center oxidation rather than the thiol oxidation that underlies redox inhibition of protein tyrosine phosphatases. We show that this Nox4‐regulated pathway robustly enhances cell survival and has a physiologic role in heart ischemia–reperfusion and acute kidney injury. This work uncovers a novel redox signaling pathway, involving Nox4–GADD34 interaction and a targeted oxidative inactivation of the PP1 metal center, that sustains eIF2α phosphorylation to protect tissues under stress

Biophysical and electrochemical studies of protein-nucleic acid interactions

This review is devoted to biophysical and electrochemical methods used for studying protein-nucleic acid (NA) interactions. The importance of NA structure and protein-NA recognition for essential cellular processes, such as replication or transcription, is discussed to provide background for description of a range of biophysical chemistry methods that are applied to study a wide scope of protein-DNA and protein-RNA complexes. These techniques employ different detection principles with specific advantages and limitations and are often combined as mutually complementary approaches to provide a complete description of the interactions. Electrochemical methods have proven to be of great utility in such studies because they provide sensitive measurements and can be combined with other approaches that facilitate the protein-NA interactions. Recent applications of electrochemical methods in studies of protein-NA interactions are discussed in detail