Characterization of Legacy Sediment variations in accretion and carbon dynamics following dam removal in a recently restored tidal freshwater wetland

Damming disrupts the natural flow of sediment to adjoining water bodies resulting in the accumulation of Legacy Sediments (LS). While the impact of LS inputs has been well investigated in lotic Mid-Atlantic piedmont stream restorations, (i.e. milldam removal 1,2,3,4,5,), there have been few studies investigating LS following dam removal in low-gradient coastal plain streams. The objectives of this study were to quantify spatial and temporal variations of LS characteristics in a low-gradient tidal stream restoration within the lower James River watershed. Secondary objectives were to assess the current temporal and spatial variability in sediment deposition within the recently restored Kimages Creek wetlands and adjacent, unaltered wetlands of Harris Creek to investigate current sedimentation processes in a restoration setting

Using the past to restore the future: Quantifying historical vegetation to assist in tidal freshwater wetland restoration Former Lake Charles at the VCU Rice Rivers Center

Wetlands have been providing humans with critical natural ecosystem services throughout our time on Earth. Nevertheless, these invaluable ecosystems have been habitually altered as a cost of human progression. Two of the most common alterations to wetlands are hydrologic, in the form of damming, and filling. Both occurred along Kimages Creek in Charles City County, VA during the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2010 the Lake Charles dam was partially removed, restoring the creek’s tidal communication with the James River and beginning tidal forested freshwater wetland restoration. Upon the recession of the body of water, numerous woody stumps were revealed

Using the past to restore the future: Quantifying historical vegetation to assist in tidal freshwater wetland restoration

Wetlands have been providing humans with critical natural ecosystem services throughout our time on Earth. Nevertheless, these invaluable ecosystems have been habitually altered as a cost of human progression. Two of the most common alterations to wetlands are hydrologic, in the form of damming, and filling. Both occurred along Kimages Creek in Charles City County, VA during the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2010 the Lake Charles dam was partially removed, restoring the creek’s tidal communication with the James River and beginning tidal forested freshwater wetland restoration. Upon the recession of the body of water, numerous woody stumps were revealed

Characterization of Current and Historical Variations in Sediment Accretion and Carbon Dynamics at the Rice Rivers Center Kimages Creek Wetland Restoration

Current research of freshwater wetland soils have assessed and reported smaller stocks of soil organic carbon in restored wetlands compared to reference natural wetlands. However, a majority of these studies focus on sites restored from agricultural draining of non-tidal depressional wetlands,whereas carbon and accretion dynamics in tidal freshwater wetlands restored via dam removal is poorly understood. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates over 80,000 dams greater than 6 feet and tens of thousands of smaller dams pepper the U.S., of which the majority are unsafe, old or no longer serve their intended purpose. Damming disrupts the natural flow of sediment to adjoining water bodies resulting in the accumulation of what are commonly referred to as Legacy Sediments (LS). These sediments have the ability to alter the biology, hydrology, geomorphology, and biogeochemistry of their river corridors and adjacent riparian ecosystems. While the effect of these sediment inputs on ecosystem function has been well investigated in non-tidal regions, particularly in the form of milldam removal, there has been little-to-no inquiry on how LS exist within and affect tidal wetlands and their biotic and abiotic processes. The objectives of this study are to uantify the current temporal and spatial variation in sediment deposition and soil carbon dynamics within KC and Harris Creek (HC) wetlands via sediment collection tiles (SCTs); assess the differences in LS characteristics along the tidal to non-tidal gradient and between different depositional areas through soil core sampling and radiocarbon dating; and, compare carbon sequestration and sediment accretion rates between the two historical environments: the pre-impoundment forested freshwater wetland & the Lake Charles environment (LS)

The Inception of a Long-Term Study of Elevation Change and Sediment Accretion in Three Forested Tidal Freshwater Wetlands and in the Restored Freshwater Marsh at Kimages Creek

Sediment accretion and the corresponding ability to keep pace with sea level rise in both mature forested tidal freshwater wetlands and restored wetland sites represent significant data gaps in the current body of literature pertaining to wetland sustainability. In order to address these data gaps, Surface Elevation Tables (SETs) were installed along with feldspar marker horizons to measure contemporary sediment accretion rates in three mature forested tidal freshwater wetlands, as well as accretion within a tidal marsh currently undergoing restoration. These are the first SETs installed in tidal forests in the James River watershed, and establish VCU Rice Rivers Center as a contributing partner in the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Sentinel Sites Cooperative

Djinn Lite: a tool for customised gene transcript modelling, annotation-data enrichment and exploration

BACKGROUND: There is an ever increasing rate of data made available on genetic variation, transcriptomes and proteomes. Similarly, a growing variety of bioinformatic programs are becoming available from many diverse sources, designed to identify a myriad of sequence patterns considered to have potential biological importance within inter-genic regions, genes, transcripts, and proteins. However, biologists require easy to use, uncomplicated tools to integrate this information, visualise and print gene annotations. Integrating this information usually requires considerable informatics skills, and comprehensive knowledge of the data format to make full use of this information. Tools are needed to explore gene model variants by allowing users the ability to create alternative transcript models using novel combinations of exons not necessarily represented in current database deposits of mRNA/cDNA sequences. RESULTS: Djinn Lite is designed to be an intuitive program for storing and visually exploring of custom annotations relating to a eukaryotic gene sequence and its modelled gene products. In particular, it is helpful in developing hypothesis regarding alternate splicing of transcripts by allowing the construction of model transcripts and inspection of their resulting translations. It facilitates the ability to view a gene and its gene products in one synchronised graphical view, allowing one to drill down into sequence related data. Colour highlighting of selected sequences and added annotations further supports exploration, visualisation of sequence regions and motifs known or predicted to be biologically significant. CONCLUSION: Gene annotating remains an ongoing and challengingtask that will continue as gene structures, gene transcription repertoires, disease loci, protein products and their interactions become moreprecisely defined. Djinn Lite offers an accessible interface to help accumulate, enrich, and individualise sequence annotations relating to a gene, its transcripts and translations. The mechanism of transcript definition and creation, and subsequent navigation and exploration of features, are very intuitive and demand only a short learning curve. Ultimately, Djinn Lite can form the basis for providing valuable clues to plan new experiments, providing storage of sequences and annotations for dedication to customised projects. The application is appropriate for Windows 98-ME-2000-XP-2003 operating systems

Thermal Pressures in Neutral Clouds inside the Local Bubble, as Determined from C I Fine-Structure Excitations

High-resolution spectra covering absorption features from interstellar C I were recorded for four early-type stars with spectrographs on HST, in a program to measure the fine-structure excitation of this atom within neutral clouds inside or near the edge of the Local Bubble, a volume of hot (T ~ 10^6 K) gas that emits soft x-rays and extends out to about 100 pc away from the Sun. The excited levels of C I are populated by collisions, and the ratio of excited atoms to those in the ground level give a measure of the local thermal pressure. Absorptions from the two lowest levels of C I were detected toward alpha Del and delta Cyg, while only marginal indications of excited C I were obtained for gamma Ori, and lambda Lup. Along with temperature limits derived by other means, the C I fine-structure populations indicate that for the clouds in front of gamma Ori, delta Cyg and alpha Del, 10^3 < p/k < 10^4 cm^{-3}K at about the +-1 sigma confidence level in each case. The results for lambda Lup are not as well constrained, but still consistent with the other three stars. The results indicate that the thermal pressures are below generally accepted estimates p/k > 10^4 cm^{-3}K for the Local Bubble, based on the strength of x-ray and EUV emission from the hot gas. This inequality of pressure for these neutral clouds and their surroundings duplicates a condition that exists for the local, partly-ionized cloud that surrounds the Sun. An appendix in the paper describes a direct method for determining and eliminating small spectral artifacts arising from variations of detector sensitivity with position.Comment: 33 pages, 7 figures, submitted to the Astrophysical Journa

Row selection in remote sensing from four-row plots of maize and sorghum based on repeatability and predictive modeling

Remote sensing enables the rapid assessment of many traits that provide valuable information to plant breeders throughout the growing season to improve genetic gain. These traits are often extracted from remote sensing data on a row segment (rows within a plot) basis enabling the quantitative assessment of any row-wise subset of plants in a plot, rather than a few individual representative plants, as is commonly done in field-based phenotyping. Nevertheless, which rows to include in analysis is still a matter of debate. The objective of this experiment was to evaluate row selection and plot trimming in field trials conducted using four-row plots with remote sensing traits extracted from RGB (red-green-blue), LiDAR (light detection and ranging), and VNIR (visible near infrared) hyperspectral data. Uncrewed aerial vehicle flights were conducted throughout the growing seasons of 2018 to 2021 with data collected on three years of a sorghum experiment and two years of a maize experiment. Traits were extracted from each plot based on all four row segments (RS) (RS1234), inner rows (RS23), outer rows (RS14), and individual rows (RS1, RS2, RS3, and RS4). Plot end trimming of 40 cm was an additional factor tested. Repeatability and predictive modeling of end-season yield were used to evaluate performance of these methodologies. Plot trimming was never shown to result in significantly different outcomes from non-trimmed plots. Significant differences were often observed based on differences in row selection. Plots with more row segments were often favorable for increasing repeatability, and excluding outer rows improved predictive modeling. These results support long-standing principles of experimental design in agronomy and should be considered in breeding programs that incorporate remote sensing

Political strategies of external support for democratization

Political strategies of external support to democratization are contrasted and critically examined in respect of the United States and European Union. The analysis begins by defining its terms of reference and addresses the question of what it means to have a strategy. The account briefly notes the goals lying behind democratization support and their relationship with the wider foreign policy process, before considering what a successful strategy would look like and how that relates to the selection of candidates. The literature's attempts to identify strategy and its recommendations for better strategies are compared and assessed. Overall, the article argues that the question of political strategies of external support for democratization raises several distinct but related issues including the who?, what?, why?, and how? On one level, strategic choices can be expected to echo the comparative advantage of the "supporter." On a different level, the strategies cannot be divorced from the larger foreign policy framework. While it is correct to say that any sound strategy for support should be grounded in a theoretical understanding of democratization, the literature on strategies reveals something even more fundamental: divergent views about the nature of politics itself. The recommendations there certainly pinpoint weaknesses in the actual strategies of the United States and Europe but they have their own limitations too. In particular, in a world of increasing multi-level governance strategies for supporting democratization should go beyond preoccupation with just an "outside-in" approach

Operational Implementation of the Healthy Communities Study How Communities Shape Children’s Health

The Healthy Communities Study (HCS) is examining how characteristics of community programs and policies targeting childhood obesity are related to childhood diet, physical activity, and obesity outcomes. The study involves selected districts and public schools in 130 communities; families recruited through schools; and data collected at the community, school, household, and child levels. Data collection took place in two waves—Wave 1 in Spring 2012 and Wave 2 from 2013 to 2015—with analysis to be completed by August 2016. This paper describes operational elements of the HCS, including recruitment activities, field operations, training of data collectors, human subjects protection, and quality assurance and quality control procedures. Experienced trainers oversaw and conducted all training, including training of: (1) district and school recruitment staff; (2) telephone interviewers for household screening and recruitment; (3) field data collectors for conducting household data collection; and (4) community liaisons for conducting key informant interviews, document abstraction, and community observations. The study team developed quality assurance and quality control procedures that were implemented for all aspects of the study. Planning and operationalizing a study of this complexity and magnitude, with multiple functional teams, required frequent communication and strong collaboration among all study partners to ensure timely and effective decision making