Analysis of Groundwater Level Changes, Surface Water Conditions, and Water Use in the Greater Barrington Region, 2014–2019

The Barrington area is dependent on shallow groundwater resources for water supply and is unusual in that much of the water demand required by its residents is met by private wells as opposed to centralized community water systems. The Barrington Area Council of Governments (BACOG) supports a groundwater and surface water monitoring program consisting of continuous and periodic water level measurements in local streams and in the shallow sand and gravel aquifer system (Henry Formation). BACOG also leads a yearly mass measurement of water levels at municipal wells within and surrounding the BACOG study area. We developed potentiometric surfaces (maps that represent aquifer water level elevations) for the sand and gravel aquifer system for the years 2014–2019 using geographic information system (GIS) interpolation tools, and from those developed potentiometric change maps. We also analyzed trends in baseflow conditions using United States Geological Survey (USGS) streamgage data and water use from the sand and gravel and shallow bedrock aquifers using Illinois Water Inventory Program (IWIP) data. The potentiometric surfaces show a consistent groundwater high in the western half of the BACOG study area due to the Henry Formation being at or near the land surface. Resultsfrom this study indicate that water levels in the sand and gravel aquifer within the BACOG study area have generally increased over the five-year study period. Water levels increased on average: 1) by around 5 feet at the continuously monitored USGS sites, 2) by 5.8 feet at the Illinois State Geological Survey monitoring wells, and 3) by over 5 feet at municipal wells. Baseflow alsotrended upward at the Fox River and Poplar Creek streamgaging sites. Regional municipal water use from the sand and gravel aquifer decreased from 16 million gallons per day in 2005 to around 13 million gallons per day in 2018. The increase in water levels may be due to a combination of less municipal water use, above average precipitation, and improved household water use efficiency. Because of the projected increases in precipitation intensity, flooding events, and climate variability, we recommend the continuation of BACOG’s groundwater monitoring program to understand long-term (decadal) trends in groundwater levels to support long-term regional planning of water supplies. Because of the predominance of private wells in the region and that a significant portion of the aquifer is susceptible to contamination, we also recommend that groundwater quality sampling be a focus of future BACOG studies.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewedOpe

Rescue of the MERTK phagocytic defect in a human iPSC disease model using translational read-through inducing drugs.

Inherited retinal dystrophies are an important cause of blindness, for which currently there are no effective treatments. In order to study this heterogeneous group of diseases, adequate disease models are required in order to better understand pathology and to test potential therapies. Induced pluripotent stem cells offer a new way to recapitulate patient specific diseases in vitro, providing an almost limitless amount of material to study. We used fibroblast-derived induced pluripotent stem cells to generate retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) from an individual suffering from retinitis pigmentosa associated with biallelic variants in MERTK. MERTK has an essential role in phagocytosis, one of the major functions of the RPE. The MERTK deficiency in this individual results from a nonsense variant and so the MERTK-RPE cells were subsequently treated with two translational readthrough inducing drugs (G418 & PTC124) to investigate potential restoration of expression of the affected gene and production of a full-length protein. The data show that PTC124 was able to reinstate phagocytosis of labeled photoreceptor outer segments at a reduced, but significant level. These findings represent a confirmation of the usefulness of iPSC derived disease specific models in investigating the pathogenesis and screening potential treatments for these rare blinding disorders

Instanton vibrations of the 3-Skyrmion

The Atiyah-Drinfeld-Hitchin-Manin matrix corresponding to a tetrahedrally symmetric 3-instanton is calculated. Some small variations of the matrix correspond to vibrations of the instanton-generated 3-Skyrmion. These vibrations are decomposed under tetrahedral symmetry and this decomposition is compared to previous knowledge of the 3-Skyrmion vibration spectrum.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, no figures, PRD version with longer introduction and minor change

Inversion symmetric 3-monopoles and the Atiyah-Hitchin manifold

We consider 3-monopoles symmetric under inversion symmetry. We show that the moduli space of these monopoles is an Atiyah-Hitchin submanifold of the 3-monopole moduli space. This allows what is known about 2-monopole dynamics to be translated into results about the dynamics of 3-monopoles. Using a numerical ADHMN construction we compute the monopole energy density at various points on two interesting geodesics. The first is a geodesic over the two-dimensional rounded cone submanifold corresponding to right angle scattering and the second is a closed geodesic for three orbiting monopoles.Comment: latex, 22 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Nonlinearit

Hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells are present in healthy gingiva tissue

Hematopoietic stem cells reside in the bone marrow, where they generate the effector cells that drive immune responses. However, in response to inflammation, some hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) are recruited to tissue sites and undergo extramedullary hematopoiesis. Contrasting with this paradigm, here we show residence and differentiation of HSPCs in healthy gingiva, a key oral barrier in the absence of overt inflammation. We initially defined a population of gingiva monocytes that could be locally maintained; we subsequently identified not only monocyte progenitors but also diverse HSPCs within the gingiva that could give rise to multiple myeloid lineages. Gingiva HSPCs possessed similar differentiation potentials, reconstitution capabilities, and heterogeneity to bone marrow HSPCs. However, gingival HSPCs responded differently to inflammatory insults, responding to oral but not systemic inflammation. Combined, we highlight a novel pathway of myeloid cell development at a healthy barrier, defining a gingiva-specific HSPC network that supports generation of a proportion of the innate immune cells that police this barrier

Beyond Spheroids and Discs: Classifications of CANDELS Galaxy Structure at 1.4 < z < 2 via Principal Component Analysis

Important but rare and subtle processes driving galaxy morphology and star-formation may be missed by traditional spiral, elliptical, irregular or S\'ersic bulge/disk classifications. To overcome this limitation, we use a principal component analysis of non-parametric morphological indicators (concentration, asymmetry, Gini coefficient, $M_{20}$, multi-mode, intensity and deviation) measured at rest-frame $B$-band (corresponding to HST/WFC3 F125W at 1.4 $10^{10} M_{\odot}$) galaxy morphologies. Principal component analysis (PCA) quantifies the correlations between these morphological indicators and determines the relative importance of each. The first three principal components (PCs) capture $\sim$75 per cent of the variance inherent to our sample. We interpret the first principal component (PC) as bulge strength, the second PC as dominated by concentration and the third PC as dominated by asymmetry. Both PC1 and PC2 correlate with the visual appearance of a central bulge and predict galaxy quiescence. PC1 is a better predictor of quenching than stellar mass, as as good as other structural indicators (S\'ersic-n or compactness). We divide the PCA results into groups using an agglomerative hierarchical clustering method. Unlike S\'ersic, this classification scheme separates compact galaxies from larger, smooth proto-elliptical systems, and star-forming disk-dominated clumpy galaxies from star-forming bulge-dominated asymmetric galaxies. Distinguishing between these galaxy structural types in a quantitative manner is an important step towards understanding the connections between morphology, galaxy assembly and star-formation.Comment: 31 pages, 24 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Bottleable neutral analogues of [B2H5]- as versatile and strongly binding eta2 donor ligands

Herein we report the discovery that two bottleable, neutral, base-stabilized diborane(5) compounds are able to bind strongly to a number of copper(I) complexes exclusively through their B-B bond. The resulting complexes represent the first known complexes containing unsupported, neutral σB-B diborane ligands. Single-crystal X-ray analyses of these complexes show that the X-Cu moiety (X = Cl, OTf, C6F5) lies opposite the bridging hydrogen of the diborane and is near perpendicular to the B-B bond, interacting almost equally with both boron atoms and causing a B-B bond elongation. DFT studies show that σ donation from and π backdonation to the pseudo-π-like B-B bond account for their formation. Astoundingly, these copper σB-B-complexes are inert to ligand exchange with pyridine under either heating or photoirradiation

New hyper-Kaehler manifolds by fixing monopoles

The construction of new hyper-Kaehler manifolds by taking the infinite monopole mass limit of certain Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield monopole moduli spaces is considered. The one-parameter family of hyperkaehler manifolds due to Dancer is shown to be an example of such manifolds. A new family of fixed monopole spaces is constructed. They are the moduli spaces of four SU(4) monopoles, in the infinite mass limit of two of the monopoles. These manifolds are shown to be nonsingular when the fixed monopole positions are distinct.Comment: Version in Phys. Rev. D. 11 pp, RevTeX, 14 Postscript diagram