Water Management Strategies to Preserve Groundwater in Texas\u27 Region A

The Ogallala aquifer in the heavily irrigated, northern region of Texas continues to decline and has no appreciable rate of recharge. Under the water planning efforts in Texas, the regional water planning group identified a goal of limiting water use to an annual average of 1.25% of saturated thickness to preserve water availability for future generations. As a part of that effort, water management strategies that could be potentially implemented to reduce the rate of irrigation water use were identified and evaluated. The assessment of conservation strategies included the use of the ET network for irrigation scheduling, changes in crop variety, irrigation equipment improvements, changes in crop type, implementation of conservation tillage methods, precipitation enhancement, the conversion from irrigated to dryland farming, and brush control measures. While all of the strategies evaluated resulted in water savings, several have negative impacts on the economy of the region. If water savings are the principle objective, the strategies of changing crop variety and the use of conservation tillage should be potentially be dropped from consideration. The strategies of changing crop type and conversion of irrigated to dryland production generate the largest water savings, but had the largest negative impacts on the regional economy. The strategies of precipitation enhancement and irrigation scheduling were estimated to provide both a substantial water savings and have a positive impact on the regional economy. Regardless of the conservation strategy evaluated given the implementation level, the demand shortage could not be met with conservation alone in all areas

Radiocarbon dated late-glacial Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) chronology from Central Poland

Dendrochronologically dated wood of subfossil trunks of trees presents the basic material used at construction of the calibration curve. In the last years numerous studies have been aimed at construction of chronologies covering the late-glacial period (Kaiser et al. 2012). At present, Koźmin (Dzieduszyńska et al. 2014) and Kwiatków (Kolska Basin, Central Poland) proved to be very perspective sites, in which wood from the end of Allerød and Younger Dryas was recognized. A level of organic deposits with so-called ‘fossil forest’ was encountered within the late-Vistulian terrace of the low valley of the Warta river</p

Evidence for an exotic S=-2, Q=-2 baryon resonance in proton-proton collisions at the CERN SPS

Results of resonance searches in the Xi - pi -, Xi - pi +, Xi -bar+ pi -, and Xi -bar+ pi + invariant mass spectra in proton-proton collisions at sqrt[s]=17.2 GeV are presented. Evidence is shown for the existence of a narrow Xi - pi - baryon resonance with mass of 1.862±0.002 GeV/c2 and width below the detector resolution of about 0.018 GeV/c2. The significance is estimated to be above 4.2 sigma . This state is a candidate for the hypothetical exotic Xi --3/2 baryon with S=-2, I=3 / 2, and a quark content of (dsdsu-bar). At the same mass, a peak is observed in the Xi - pi + spectrum which is a candidate for the Xi 03/2 member of this isospin quartet with a quark content of (dsusd-bar). The corresponding antibaryon spectra also show enhancements at the same invariant mass

Long-acting FC-fusion rhGH (GX-H9) shows potential for up to twice-monthly administration in GH-deficient adults

Hybrid Fc-fused rhGH (GX-H9) is a long-acting recombinant human growth hormone (GH) under clinical development for both adults and children with GH deficiency (GHD). We compared the safety, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of weekly and every other week (EOW) dosages of GX-H9 with those of daily GH administration in adult GHD (AGHD) patients.This was a randomized, open-label, active-controlled and dose-escalation study conducted in 16 endocrinology centers in Europe and Korea.Forty-five AGHD patients with or without prior GH treatment were enrolled. Patients with prior GH treatments were required to have received the last GH administration at least 1 month prior to randomization. Subjects were sequentially assigned to treatment groups. Fifteen subjects were enrolled to each treatment group and randomly assigned to receive either GX-H9 or Genotropin (4:1 ratio). GX-H9 dosage regimens for Groups 1, 2 and 3 were 0.1 mg/kg weekly, 0.3 mg/kg EOW and 0.2 mg/kg EOW, respectively. All Genotropin-assigned subjects received 6 µg/kg Genotropin, regardless of treatment group. Main outcome analyses included measurements of serum insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-I), safety, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and immunogenicity.Mean GX-H9 peak and total exposure increased with an increase in dose after a single-dose administration. The mean IGF-I response was sustained above baseline over the intended dose interval of 168 h for the weekly and 336 h for the EOW GX-H9 groups. Safety profiles and immunogenicity were not different across the treatment groups and with Genotropin.GX-H9 has the potential for up to twice-monthly administration