Anaerobic consumers of monosaccharides in a moderately acidic fen

16S rRNA-based stable isotope probing identified active xylose- and glucose-fermenting Bacteria and active Archaea, including methanogens, in anoxic slurries of material obtained from a moderately acidic, CH4-emitting fen. Xylose and glucose were converted to fatty acids, CO2, H2, and CH4 under moderately acidic, anoxic conditions, indicating that the fen harbors moderately acid-tolerant xylose- and glucose-using fermenters, as well as moderately acid-tolerant methanogens. Organisms of the families Acidaminococcaceae, Aeromonadaceae, Clostridiaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, and Pseudomonadaceae and the order Actinomycetales, including hitherto unknown organisms, utilized xylose- or glucose-derived carbon, suggesting that highly diverse facultative aerobes and obligate anaerobes contribute to the flow of carbon in the fen under anoxic conditions. Uncultured Euryarchaeota (i.e., Methanosarcinaceae and Methanobacteriaceae) and Crenarchaeota species were identified by 16S rRNA analysis of anoxic slurries, demonstrating that the acidic fen harbors novel methanogens and Crenarchaeota organisms capable of anaerobiosis. Fermentation-derived molecules are conceived to be the primary drivers of methanogenesis when electron acceptors other than CO2 are absent, and the collective findings of this study indicate that fen soils harbor diverse, acid-tolerant, and novel xylose-utilizing as well as glucose-utilizing facultative aerobes and obligate anaerobes that form trophic links to novel moderately acid-tolerant methanogen

Production of pizero and eta mesons at large transverse momenta in pp and pBe interactions at 530 and 800 GeV/c

We present results on the production of high transverse momentum pizero and eta mesons in pp and pBe interactions at 530 and 800 GeV/c. The data span the kinematic ranges: 1 < p_T < 10 GeV/c in transverse momentum and 1.5 units in rapidity. The inclusive pizero cross sections are compared with next-to-leading order QCD calculations and to expectations based on a phenomenological parton-k_T model.Comment: RevTeX, 63 pages, 25 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev.

Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality and life expectancy, 1950–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

BACKGROUND: Assessments of age-specific mortality and life expectancy have been done by the UN Population Division, Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UNPOP), the United States Census Bureau, WHO, and as part of previous iterations of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD). Previous iterations of the GBD used population estimates from UNPOP, which were not derived in a way that was internally consistent with the estimates of the numbers of deaths in the GBD. The present iteration of the GBD, GBD 2017, improves on previous assessments and provides timely estimates of the mortality experience of populations globally. METHODS: The GBD uses all available data to produce estimates of mortality rates between 1950 and 2017 for 23 age groups, both sexes, and 918 locations, including 195 countries and territories and subnational locations for 16 countries. Data used include vital registration systems, sample registration systems, household surveys (complete birth histories, summary birth histories, sibling histories), censuses (summary birth histories, household deaths), and Demographic Surveillance Sites. In total, this analysis used 8259 data sources. Estimates of the probability of death between birth and the age of 5 years and between ages 15 and 60 years are generated and then input into a model life table system to produce complete life tables for all locations and years. Fatal discontinuities and mortality due to HIV/AIDS are analysed separately and then incorporated into the estimation. We analyse the relationship between age-specific mortality and development status using the Socio-demographic Index, a composite measure based on fertility under the age of 25 years, education, and income. There are four main methodological improvements in GBD 2017 compared with GBD 2016: 622 additional data sources have been incorporated; new estimates of population, generated by the GBD study, are used; statistical methods used in different components of the analysis have been further standardised and improved; and the analysis has been extended backwards in time by two decades to start in 1950. FINDINGS: Globally, 18·7% (95% uncertainty interval 18·4–19·0) of deaths were registered in 1950 and that proportion has been steadily increasing since, with 58·8% (58·2–59·3) of all deaths being registered in 2015. At the global level, between 1950 and 2017, life expectancy increased from 48·1 years (46·5–49·6) to 70·5 years (70·1–70·8) for men and from 52·9 years (51·7–54·0) to 75·6 years (75·3–75·9) for women. Despite this overall progress, there remains substantial variation in life expectancy at birth in 2017, which ranges from 49·1 years (46·5–51·7) for men in the Central African Republic to 87·6 years (86·9–88·1) among women in Singapore. The greatest progress across age groups was for children younger than 5 years; under-5 mortality dropped from 216·0 deaths (196·3–238·1) per 1000 livebirths in 1950 to 38·9 deaths (35·6–42·83) per 1000 livebirths in 2017, with huge reductions across countries. Nevertheless, there were still 5·4 million (5·2–5·6) deaths among children younger than 5 years in the world in 2017. Progress has been less pronounced and more variable for adults, especially for adult males, who had stagnant or increasing mortality rates in several countries. The gap between male and female life expectancy between 1950 and 2017, while relatively stable at the global level, shows distinctive patterns across super-regions and has consistently been the largest in central Europe, eastern Europe, and central Asia, and smallest in south Asia. Performance was also variable across countries and time in observed mortality rates compared with those expected on the basis of development. INTERPRETATION: This analysis of age-sex-specific mortality shows that there are remarkably complex patterns in population mortality across countries. The findings of this study highlight global successes, such as the large decline in under-5 mortality, which reflects significant local, national, and global commitment and investment over several decades. However, they also bring attention to mortality patterns that are a cause for concern, particularly among adult men and, to a lesser extent, women, whose mortality rates have stagnated in many countries over the time period of this study, and in some cases are increasing

Letter to Bert Curtis

The Corps of Engineers seeks local views and ideas regarding Dwarshak Dam and Reservio

Siting handbook for small wind energy conversion systems

This handbook was written to serve as a siting guide for individuals wishing to install small wind energy conversion systems (WECS); that is, machines having a rated capacity of less than 100 kilowatts. It incorporates half a century of siting experience gained by WECS owners and manufacturers, as well as recently developed siting techniques. The user needs no technical background in meteorology or engineering to understand and apply the siting principles discussed; he needs only a knowledge of basic arithmetic and the ability to understand simple graphs and tables. By properly using the siting techniques, an owner can select a site that will yield the most power at the least installation cost, the least maintenance cost, and the least risk of damage or accidental injury

Manure contaminated with the antibiotic sulfadiazine impairs the abundance of nirK- and nirS-type denitrifiers in the gut of the earthworm Eisenia fetida.

The antibiotic sulfadiazine (SDZ) can affect denitrifying bacteria in soil. However, effects on denitrifiers in the gut of earthworms have not been described so far. Therefore, the influence of SDZcontaminated manure applied to soil on denitrifiers in the gut of the earthworm Eisenia fetida was assessed by quantitative PCR targeting genes coding for nirK- and nirS- type nitrite reductases of denitrifiers. Gut contents of Eisenia fetida contained 2.5 x 106 and 5.1 x 105 gene copies of nirK and nirS, respectively, after two weeks in soils amended with manure only. Copy numbers of nirK and nirS in gut contents from manure treatments with SDZ were up to 10 times less. Overall, the data indicate a negative impact of SDZ on denitrifiers in the gut of earthworms