97 research outputs found

    Climatic and environmental patterns associated with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, Four Corners region, United States.

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    To investigate climatic, spatial, temporal, and environmental patterns associated with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) cases in the Four Corners region, we collected exposure site data for HPS cases that occurred in 1993 to 1995. Cases clustered seasonally and temporally by biome type and geographic location, and exposure sites were most often found in pinyon-juniper woodlands, grasslands, and Great Basin desert scrub lands, at elevations of 1,800 m to 2,500 m. Environmental factors (e.g., the dramatic increase in precipitation associated with the 1992 to 1993 El Niño) may indirectly increase the risk for Sin Nombre virus exposure and therefore may be of value in designing disease prevention campaigns

    Crop Updates 2000 Cereals - part 3

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    This session covers eighteen papers from different authors: BARLEY AND OAT AGRONOMY 1. Unicorn barley must meet malting specifications to be a viable option, Roslyn Jettnerand Blakely Paynter, Agriculture Western Australia 2. Optimum oat seed rates, Glenn McDonald, Agriculture Western Australia 3. Production and Quality of export Oaten Hay (1998 and 1989), Pierre Fievez, Pierre Fievez and Associates FROST 4. Climatology of Frost in Southern Western Australia, Ian Foster, Agriculture Western Australia 5. Flowering calculator, David Tennant, Agriculture Western Australia 6. Some options for managing the risk of frost damage, Wal Anderson, Agriculture Western Australia PASTURE 7. TIMERITE® Control of redlegged earth mite in south western Australia with a spring spray to pastures, James Ridsdill-Smith and Celia Pavri, CSIRO Entomology, University of Western Australia 8. The pattern of seed softening in subterranean clover in relation to presicted false break risk, Ross Chapman and Senthold Asseng, CSIRO Plant Industry, Centre for Mediterranean Agricultural Research 9. Charano serradella – a viable option for 1:1 cropping, Steve Carr and Brad Nutt IAMA Agri-Services Western Australia and Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, University of Western Australia 10. Alfalfa mosaic virus in alternative annual pasture and forage legumes, Lindrea Latham and Roger Jones, Crop Improvement Institute, Agriculture Western Australia and Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, University of Western Australia 11. Pasture mixture performs better than single-species-based pasture – 1999, Anyou Liu, Clinton Revell and David Ferris, Centre for Cropping Systems, Agriculture Western Australia 12. Better pasture management improves performance of following crops – 1999, Anyou Liu, Clinton Revell and David Ferris, Centre for Cropping Systems, Agriculture Western Australia 13. Lucerne Benefits Crop Production, Roy Latta1, Lisa-Jane Blacklow2, Chris Matthews1 1Agriculture Western Australia 2University of Western Australia 14. Does size count? Determining optimum release number of red apion for biocontrol of doublegee, Tim Woodburn and Paul Yeoh, CSIRO Entomology/CRC Weed Management Systems, Perth 15. Herbicide tolerance of some new cultivars of annual pasture legumes, Clinton Revell and Ian Rose, Centre for Cropping Systems, Agriculture Western Australia 16. Lucerne – crop rotations in the Esperance region, Anita Lyons, Roy Latta and Chris Matthews,Agriculture Western Australia PRECISION AGRICULTURE 17. Assessing the results of on-farm experiments using yield monitors, Simon Cook and Matthew Adams, CSIRO Land and Water 18. Achiever: A GIS based achievable yield and fertiliser recommendation system for precision agriculture, Robert J. Corner, Matthew L. Adams, Precision Agriculture Research Group CSIRO Land and Wate

    Current knowledge, status and future for plant and fungal diversity in Great Britain and the UK Overseas Territories

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    Societal Impact Statement We rely on plants and fungi for most aspects of our lives. Yet plants and fungi are under threat, and we risk losing species before we know their identity, roles, and potential uses. Knowing names, distributions, and threats are first steps toward effective conservation action. Accessible products like field guides and online resources engage society, harnessing collective support for conservation. Here, we review current knowledge of the plants and fungi of the UK and UK Overseas Territories, highlighting gaps to help direct future research efforts toward conserving these vital elements of biodiversity. Summary This review summarizes current knowledge of the status and threats to the plants and fungi of Great Britain and the UK Overseas Territories (UKOTs). Although the body of knowledge is considerable, the distribution of information varies substantially, and we highlight knowledge gaps. The UK vascular flora is the most well studied and we have a relatively clear picture of its 9,001 native and alien taxa. We have seedbanked 72% of the native and archaeophyte angiosperm taxa and 78% of threatened taxa. Knowledge of the UKOTs flora varies across territories and we report a UKOTs flora comprising 4,093 native and alien taxa. We have conserved 27% of the native flora and 51% of the threatened vascular plants in Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, UK. We need a better understanding of the conservation status of plants in the wild, and progress toward completion or updating national red lists varies. Site‐based protection of key plant assemblages is outlined, and progress in identifying Important Plant Areas analyzed. Knowledge of the non‐vascular flora, especially seaweeds remains patchy, particularly in many UKOTs. The biggest gaps overall are in fungi, particularly non‐lichenized fungi. Considerable investment is needed to fill these knowledge gaps and instigate effective conservation strategies

    Contributions of phonological and verbal working memory to language development in adolescents with fragile X syndrome

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    Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability. Although language delays are frequently observed in FXS, neither the longitudinal course of language development nor its cognitive predictors are well understood. The present study investigated whether phonological and working memory skills are predictive of growth in vocabulary and syntax in individuals with FXS during adolescence. Forty-four individuals with FXS (mean age = 12.61 years) completed assessments of phonological memory (nonword repetition and forward digit recall), verbal working memory (backward digit recall), vocabulary, syntax, and nonverbal cognition. Vocabulary and syntax skills were reassessed at a 2-year follow-up. In a series of analyses that controlled for nonverbal cognitive ability and severity of autism symptoms, the relative contributions of phonological and working memory to language change over time were investigated. These relationships were examined separately for boys and girls. In boys with FXS, phonological memory significantly predicted gains in vocabulary and syntax skills. Further, verbal working memory was uniquely associated with vocabulary gains among boys. In girls with FXS, phonological and working memory skills showed no relationship with language change across the 2-year time period. Our findings indicate that, for adolescent boys with FXS, acquisition of vocabulary and syntax may be constrained by the ability to maintain and manipulate phonological representations online. Implications for the identification and treatment of language disorders in this population are discussed. The present study is the first to identify specific cognitive mechanisms contributing to language growth over time in individuals with FXS

    Assemblathon 2: evaluating de novo methods of genome assembly in three vertebrate species

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    Background: The process of generating raw genome sequence data continues to become cheaper, faster, and more accurate. However, assembly of such data into high-quality, finished genome sequences remains challenging. Many genome assembly tools are available, but they differ greatly in terms of their performance (speed, scalability, hardware requirements, acceptance of newer read technologies) and in their final output (composition of assembled sequence). More importantly, it remains largely unclear how to best assess the quality of assembled genome sequences. The Assemblathon competitions are intended to assess current state-of-the-art methods in genome assembly. Results: In Assemblathon 2, we provided a variety of sequence data to be assembled for three vertebrate species (a bird, a fish, and snake). This resulted in a total of 43 submitted assemblies from 21 participating teams. We evaluated these assemblies using a combination of optical map data, Fosmid sequences, and several statistical methods. From over 100 different metrics, we chose ten key measures by which to assess the overall quality of the assemblies. Conclusions: Many current genome assemblers produced useful assemblies, containing a significant representation of their genes and overall genome structure. However, the high degree of variability between the entries suggests that there is still much room for improvement in the field of genome assembly and that approaches which work well in assembling the genome of one species may not necessarily work well for another

    Morbidity and mortality from road injuries: results from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

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    BackgroundThe global burden of road injuries is known to follow complex geographical, temporal and demographic patterns. While health loss from road injuries is a major topic of global importance, there has been no recent comprehensive assessment that includes estimates for every age group, sex and country over recent years.MethodsWe used results from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 study to report incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability, deaths, years of life lost and disability-adjusted life years for all locations in the GBD 2017 hierarchy from 1990 to 2017 for road injuries. Second, we measured mortality-to-incidence ratios by location. Third, we assessed the distribution of the natures of injury (eg, traumatic brain injury) that result from each road injury.ResultsGlobally, 1 243 068 (95% uncertainty interval 1 191 889 to 1 276 940) people died from road injuries in 2017 out of 54 192 330 (47 381 583 to 61 645 891) new cases of road injuries. Age-standardised incidence rates of road injuries increased between 1990 and 2017, while mortality rates decreased. Regionally, age-standardised mortality rates decreased in all but two regions, South Asia and Southern Latin America, where rates did not change significantly. Nine of 21 GBD regions experienced significant increases in age-standardised incidence rates, while 10 experienced significant decreases and two experienced no significant change.ConclusionsWhile road injury mortality has improved in recent decades, there are worsening rates of incidence and significant geographical heterogeneity. These findings indicate that more research is needed to better understand how road injuries can be prevented
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