SXSAQCT and XSAQCT: XML Queryable Compressors

Recently, there has been a growing interest in queryable XML compressors, which can be used to query compressed data with minimal decompression, or even without any decompression. At the same time, there are very few such projects, which have been made available for testing and comparisons. In this paper, we report our current work on two novel queryable XML compressors; a schema-based compressor, SXSAQCT, and a schema-free compressor, XSAQCT. While the work on both compressors is in its early stage, our experiments (reported here) show that our approach may be successfully competing with other known queryable compressors

Geocoding routinely collected administrative data to measure access to alcohol outlets in Wales

ABSTRACT Objectives A substantial level of excess alcohol consumption results in a wide range of harm and the potential impact on health at the population level of a reduction in consumption is considerable. A proposed policy for reducing alcohol consumption is restricting the availability of alcohol through reducing the density of alcohol outlets. We set out to create a high spatial resolution alcohol outlet dataset suitable for evaluating longitudinal changes in chronic alcohol related conditions. Approach Requests were made for the names and location of all licensed alcohol outlets within each of the 22 Unitary Authorities in Wales, between Nov 2005 and Dec 2011. Data requested for each outlet consisted of: the date permission was granted or the licence became active, the licence expiry date or an indicated date of outlet closure, whether this premise is licensed for ON and/or OFF premise sales, the hours permissible to sell alcohol or general opening hours of the outlet and the type of premise as assigned by the LA if available. Our approach included collating, geocoding and manually matching alcohol outlet data received from each unitary authority for use in a longitudinal analysis of outlet density. Results All authorities were able to provide an actual or approximate license issue date, allowing us to summarise the number of outlets annually. Several authorities were unable to provide precise outlet closure dates, so the date of the last interaction with the outlet was used to generate an approximate end date. One-half of the unitary authorities were able to provide the On/Off sales status of outlets, and 9 were able to provide opening hours. From these data we were able to geocode 53% (range 28% to 72% by local authority) using GIS, the remaining 47% were matched using Google products to verify and extract a precise geographic location. Conclusions The collation and processing of retrospective alcohol outlet data was successfully completed to enable the building of a longitudinal exposure dataset. There was considerable variation between the unitary authorities in the quality of address data, and data related to the availability of alcohol, for example opening hours. The lack of address structure required us to devise a manual address matching process to capture the addresses that could not be geocoded. To aid future data linkage based evaluations to provide policy evidence in a timely manner, local government datasets should use standardised data fields, including addresses and Point-of-Capture address verification

Tidal restoration to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from freshwater impounded coastal wetlands

Freshwater impounded wetlands are created by artificially restricting coastal wetlands connection to tides. The decrease in salinity and altered hydrology can significantly increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, specifically methane (CH4). Restoration of freshwater impounded wetlands through tidal reintroduction can potentially reduce GHG emissions; however, studies in tropical regions are scare. This study investigates the potential for tidal restoration of impounded freshwater coastal wetlands by comparing their GHG emissions with tidally connected mangrove and saltmarshes in the Burdekin catchment in Queensland, Australia. We found that freshwater impounded wetlands had significantly higher CH4 emissions (3,633  ± 812 μg CH4 m2 hour1) than mangroves (27 ± 8 μg CH4 m2 hour1 ) and saltmarsh (13  ± 8 μg CH4 m2 hour1 ). Soil redox, moisture, carbon, nitrogen, and bulk density were all significantly correlated to methane emissions. Conversely, freshwater impounded wetlands had significantly lower nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions (0.72  ± 0.18 μg N2O m2 hour1) than mangroves and saltmarsh (0.35  ± 0.29 and 1.32  ± 0.52 μg N2O m2 hour1 respectively). Nevertheless, when converting to CO2 equivalents (CO2-eq), freshwater impounded wetlands emitted 91  ± 20 g CO2-eq m2 hour1 , compared to the much lower 0.8  ± 0.2 and 0.7  ± 0.2 g CO2-eq m2 hour1 emission rates for mangroves and saltmarsh. In conclusion, restoration of freshwater impounded wetlands through tidal restoration is likely to result in reduced GHG emissions

An estimate of \Omega_m without priors

Using mean relative peculiar velocity measurements for pairs of galaxies, we estimate the cosmological density parameter $\Omega_m$ and the amplitude of density fluctuations $\sigma_8$. Our results suggest that our statistic is a robust and reproducible measure of the mean pairwise velocity and thereby the $\Omega_m$ parameter. We get $\Omega_m = 0.30^{+0.17}_{-0.07}$ and $\sigma_8 = 1.13^{+0.22}_{-0.23}$. These estimates do not depend on prior assumptions on the adiabaticity of the initial density fluctuations, the ionization history, or the values of other cosmological parameters.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, slight changes to reflect published versio

Drivers of understory plant communities in Sierra Nevada mixed conifer forests with pyrodiversity

Background: Fire suppression in western North America increased and homogenized overstory cover in conifer forests, which likely affected understory plant communities. We sought to characterize understory plant communities and their drivers using plot-based observations from two contemporary reference sites in the Sierra Nevada, USA. These sites had long-established natural fire programs, which have resulted in restored natural fire regimes. In this study, we investigated how pyrodiversity—the diversity of fire size, severity, season, and frequency—and other environment factors influenced species composition and cover of forest understory plant communities. Results: Understory plant communities were influenced by a combination of environmental, plot-scale recent fire history, and plot-neighborhood pyrodiversity within 50 m. Canopy cover was inversely proportional to understory plant cover, Simpson’s diversity, and evenness. Species richness was strongly influenced by the interaction of plot-based fire experience and plot-neighborhood pyrodiversity within 50 m. Conclusions: Pyrodiversity appears to contribute both directly and indirectly to diverse understory plant communities in Sierra Nevada mixed conifer forests. The indirect influence is mediated through variability in tree canopy cover, which is partially related to variation in fire severity, while direct influence is an interaction between local and neighborhood fire activity

Level and source of supplemental selenium for beef steers

Selenium (Se) is deficient in many Arkansas soils; therefore, an experiment was conducted on steers to evaluate the effects of two supplemental Se sources on performance, blood metabolites, and immune function. Thirty Angus-crossbred steers were blocked by weight and assigned within block to one of 15 pens (two steers/pen). Pens were assigned randomly within blocks to one of three dietary treatments consisting of a corn-soybean meal supplement devoid of supplemental Se (negative control, NC) or corn-soybean meal supplements providing 1.7 mg supplemental Se/d as sodium selenite (inorganic Se, ISe) or as Se yeast (organic Se, OSe). Steers were offered fescue hay to allow for approximately 10% refusals, and 1.1 kg/d (as fed basis) of the appropriate grain supplement. Level and source of supplemental Se did not affect average daily gain for the 105-d trial. By d 42, steers fed both sources of supplemental Se had greater blood Se concentrations than those fed the NC. On d 63 and 84, blood Se concentrations differed among all dietary treatments (NC \u3c ISe \u3c OSe), and on d 105 steers fed both sources of supplemental Se had greater blood Se concentrations than NC. Antibody response to vaccination for bovine respiratory viruses, or in vitro lymphocyte blastogenesis did not differ among steers fed the different diets. Both sources of supplemental Se increased blood Se concentrations, the organic source more rapidly than the inorganic source; however, Se level and source had minimal effects on immune function of weaned beef steers

A predictor for toxin-like proteins exposes cell modulator candidates within viral genomes

Motivation: Animal toxins operate by binding to receptors and ion channels. These proteins are short and vary in sequence, structure and function. Sporadic discoveries have also revealed endogenous toxin-like proteins in non-venomous organisms. Viral proteins are the largest group of quickly evolving proteomes. We tested the hypothesis that toxin-like proteins exist in viruses and that they act to modulate functions of their hosts