Substrate and macroinvertebrates in the East Fork Black River, Missouri

Freshwater streams and their associated riparian and floodplain environments are crucial components to global biodiversity. Aquatic macroinvertebrates within streams are often adapted to and dependent on multiple physicochemical characteristics of these systems, but anthropogenic actions may disrupt these conditions and thus macroinvertebrates and other organisms. Stream impoundment, dam construction, fragment streams longitudinally; the effects of such may take effect through the stream's flow regime, thermal regime, and substrate composition and transport. These and other consequences may then further impact biological metrics such as macroinvertebrate diversity; changes to substrate size and distribution pose immediate challenges to physical habitat conditions. With an increasing awareness of the ecological harm impoundment may cause, mitigation efforts are similarly increasingly considered. Substrate augmentation is one such method which aims to restore pre-impoundment substrate conditions downstream of a dam. Here, we sought to further understand the influence of a dam on downstream substrate conditions and to determine what substrate and other physicochemical conditions yielded relatively high macroinvertebrate biodiversity. We utilized multiple lines of evidence to assess the macroinvertebrate community among various substrate and other habitat conditions in Missouri's East Fork Black River, an impounded Ozark Stream. The downstream waters of this river are unique in their flow and thermal regimes being relatively unaffected due to the presence of the Lower Taum Sauk Dam, leaving substrate as the sole primary stream parameter impacted. Ultimately, we determined how macroinvertebrate diversity was related to the various substrate conditions found in five sites downstream of the dam across four sampling events spanning three years. As expected, we observed that median substrate size decreased with downstream distance of the dam, while substrate size distribution increased. On average, median particle size ranged from 112.5 mm in our most-upstream site (R1) to 36.2 mm in our most-downstream site (R5), and the coefficient of variation of particle size ranged from 70.3 percent to 101.5 percent across the same longitudinal gradient. Substrate itself was not enough to predict macroinvertebrate abundance or diversity, however, as our most-downstream site was substantially deeper and slower-flowing than the sites upstream (R2, R3, R4); corresponding mean abundance and diversity in R1 were, respectively, 139.4 and 1.39, while those values in R5 were, respectively, 57.18 and 1.4. Looking to R4 instead, we observed a macroinvertebrate community more in line with expectations, with mean abundance of 268.6 and mean diversity of 1.92, showing improvement with downstream distance from the dam. Partial Mantel tests indicated that substrate size and size distribution were important drivers of difference in macroinvertebrate abundance and Shannon diversity between sites, but so too were seasonal and hydrologic parameters, such as water temperature, dissolved oxygen concentration, conductivity, and turbidity. Analyzing heatmaps, which allowed for utilizing both substrate parameters as input variables against macroinvertebrate metrics, we concluded that median abundance and Shannon diversity were maximized around median substrate particle sizes of 45 mm to 64 mm and size coefficients of variation of 65 percent to 75 percent, underscoring the importance of a heterogeneous mixture of substrate centered about gravels and cobbles. Future substrate augmentation projects in naturally gravelly streams may consider utilizing mixtures of these conditions to benefit macroinvertebrate communities.Includes bibliographical references

The Economic Impact of the University of Arkansas

As the state’s flagship institution of higher education, the University of Arkansas delivers a significant economic impact to Arkansas. In 2018, an impact in excess of $2.2 billion came from the University via operations, construction, technology transfer, student expenditures, and visitor spending. The University of Arkansas has a substantial influence on the direction of the state’s economy by fulfilling its land-grant mission of developing human capital, growing ideas, and transmitting knowledge to the public

Exploiting Music and Dance Notation to Improve Visualization of Data in BIM

Suboptimal information sharing is a key a factor that negatively impacts the construction sector’s massive productivity gap when compared to other sectors of the economy. This is due to management difficulties, supply chain issues and rework. Building Information Modeling has been shown to improve dissemination of information but has not yet been exploited to its full potential. In this paper, we propose a new notation for visualizing project information in a BIM context. It is inspired by music and dance notation, and is designed to overcome current limitations that may cause the technology’s limited use during the construction phase. A proof of concept was implemented and tested in an experiment with stakeholders. The use of the proposed BIM notations appeared to make access to and interpretation of available data more effective and resulted in more correct responses

Origem e distribuição do plexo braquial de Saimiri sciureus

Os autores descreveram a origem e composição do plexo braquial de quatro Saimiri sciureus, pertencentes ao Centro Nacional de Primatas (Cenp), Ananindeua/PA, os quais foram fixados com formaldeído e dissecados. Os achados revelaram que o plexo braquial desta espécie é constituído por fibras neurais provenientes da união das raízes dorsais e ventrais das vértebras cervicais C4 a C8 e torácica T1, e organizado em quatro troncos. Cada tronco formou um nervo ou um grupo de nervos, cuja origem variou entre os animais; na maioria, foi encontrado o tronco cranial originando o nervo subclávio, o tronco médio-cranial dando origem aos nervos supraescapular, subescapular, parte do radial, e em alguns casos ao nervo axilar, nervo musculocutâneo e ao nervo mediano; o tronco médio-caudal formou parte do nervo radial, e em alguns casos os nervos axilar, nervo musculocutâneo, nervo mediano, nervo toracodorsal, nervo ulnar e nervo cutâneo medial do antebraço, sendo os dois últimos também originados no tronco caudal