Irrigation and drainage in the new millennium

Presented at the 2000 USCID international conference, Challenges facing irrigation and drainage in the new millennium on June 20-24 in Fort Collins, Colorado.Includes bibliographical references.Washington State University is implementing a Scientific Irrigation Scheduling (SIS) Project that is being funded by the public utility districts through the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (1998 through 2000). Scientific irrigation scheduling is defined as the use of crop evapotranspiration data and soil moisture sensors to accurately determine when and how much to irrigate. The project goal is market transformation. In other words, scientific irrigation scheduling will become a common practice that does not require continual government subsidy to be maintained. A 50% adoption rate will be a key indicator of market transformation in scientific irrigation scheduling. Surveys were conducted during 1997 and 1998 to determine the status of and direction for scientific irrigation scheduling in Washington. According to the survey results, private consultants were contracted to perform irrigation scheduling on nearly 300,000 acres per year. Conservation Districts, county extension, and the National Resource Conservation Service have assisted producers in scheduling irrigation on an additional 15,000 acres per year. Individual Farm enterprises reported scheduling another 55,000 acres of irrigation on their own. The combined effort has resulted in a 17% adoption rate of scientific irrigation scheduling on an acreage basis. Survey results also indicated that potatoes and tree fruit account for more than half of the acreage being scheduled. The main reason producers were willing to pay for irrigation scheduling is to insure the quality of high-value crops. Energy savings became important when water needed to be lifted a considerable distance; however, water conservation, high yield, fertilizer savings, and non-point pollution reduction were considered secondary benefits. Center-pivots were the most likely irrigation systems to be scheduled and a considerable proportion of drip and solid set sprinklers were scheduled, but a very small proportion of furrow systems and set-move sprinklers were scheduled. Of the producers who irrigated farms smaller than 1,000 acres, 75% of the survey respondents have personal computers and 50% have modems but less than 5% are using their computers to schedule irrigation. Since computers and communication technology are available "on-farm," Washington Irrigation Scheduling Expert (WlSE) has been developed as a web-linked and user-friendly software tool that brings together all the pieces needed to implement irrigation scheduling. WISE, soil moisture sensors and other tools will be promoted via traditional demonstration and educational methods but with a different emphasis. Instead of offering irrigators a free service, cooperators will be encouraged to produce their own irrigation schedules from the onset of their involvement with the SIS project and agricultural supply companies will be encouraged to add irrigation scheduling to their services. The goal of this paper and presentation is to document the status, tools, and progress of market transformation in Washington's SIS Project

Validation of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short among blacks

BACKGROUND: The International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Form (IPAQ-S) has been evaluated against accelerometer-determined physical activity measures in small homogenous samples of adults in the United States. There is limited information about the validity of the IPAQ-S in diverse US samples. METHODS: 142 Blacks residing in low-income housing completed the IPAQ-S and wore an accelerometer for up to 6 days. Both 1- and 10-minute accelerometer bouts were used to define time spent in light, moderate, and vigorous physical activity. RESULTS: We found fair agreement between the IPAQ-S and accelerometer-determined physical activity (r = .26 for 10-minute bout, r = .36 for 1-minute bout). Correlations were higher among men than women. When we classified participants as meeting physical activity recommendations, agreement was low (kappa = .04, 10-minute; kappa = .21, 1-minute); only 25% of individuals were classified the same by both instruments (10-minute bout). CONCLUSIONS: In one of the few studies to assess the validity of a self-reported physical activity measure among Blacks, we found moderate correlations with accelerometer data, though correlations were weaker for women. Correlations were smaller when IPAQ-S data were compared using a 10- versus a 1-minute bout definition. There was limited evidence for agreement between the instruments when classifying participants as meeting physical activity recommendations

Genome Editing Reveals Idiosyncrasy of CNGA2 Ion Channel-Directed Antibody Immunoreactivity Toward Oxytocin

Presynaptic cGMP-gated ion (CNG) channels positively or negatively modulate neurotransmitter secretion as well as the strength of synaptic transmission. Zebrafish cGMP-gated ion channel, CNGA2a (a.k.a. CNGA5), was previously reported to be specifically enriched in synaptic terminals of zebrafish oxytocin (OXT) neurons. This conclusion was based on immunoreactivity of a monoclonal antibody (mAb) clone L55/54, which was directed against the carboxy terminal tail of the CNGA2a. To study the role of CNGA2a in oxytocin neurons function, we generated zebrafish mutants of cnga2a, cnga2b and oxt genes using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-mediated genome editing. We show that mAb L55/54 specifically recognizes CNGA2a protein when expressed in heterologous cell culture system. Surprisingly, anti-CNGA2a immunoreactivity was not eliminated following knockout of either cnga2a, cnga2b or both. However, knockout of oxt resulted in total loss of anti-CNGA2a mAb immunoreactivity despite the lack of sequence and structural similarities between OXT and CNGA2a proteins. Our results provide a noteworthy lesson of differences in antibody immunoreactivity, which could only be revealed using specific genetic tools

Условия формирования и проблемы функционирования крупных диверсифицированных производственно-корпоративных структур в Украине

У статті розглянуто умови формування та функціонування, а також історія розвитку великих диверсифікованих виробничо-корпоративних структур в Україні. Пропонуються підходи оцінки результативності процесу диверсифікації з використанням різних методик. Визначено, що в даний час оцінка результативності процесу диверсифікації можлива лише непрямими математичними методами.В статье рассмотрены условия формирования и функционирования, а также история развития крупных диверсифицированных производственно-корпоративных структур в Украине. Предлагаются подходы оценки результативности процесса диверсификации с использованием разных методик. Определено, что в настоящее время оценка результативности процесса диверсификации возможна лишь косвенными математическими методами.In the article address the formation and functioning of the conditions, as well as story development of large industrial and corporate structures, becoming diversification in Ukraine. Proposes approaches assessing impact of the process of diversification, using of different methods. Proved that the current performance assessment process of diversification can only be indirect mathematical methods

The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: Evidence for radiative heating in Serpens MWC 297 and its influence on local star formation

We present SCUBA-2 450micron and 850micron observations of the Serpens MWC 297 region, part of the JCMT Gould Belt Survey of nearby star-forming regions. Simulations suggest that radiative feedback influences the star-formation process and we investigate observational evidence for this by constructing temperature maps. Maps are derived from the ratio of SCUBA-2 fluxes and a two component model of the JCMT beam for a fixed dust opacity spectral index of beta = 1.8. Within 40 of the B1.5Ve Herbig star MWC 297, the submillimetre fluxes are contaminated by free-free emission with a spectral index of 1.03+-0.02, consistent with an ultra-compact HII region and polar winds/jets. Contamination accounts for 73+-5 per cent and 82+-4 per cent of peak flux at 450micron and 850micron respectively. The residual thermal disk of the star is almost undetectable at these wavelengths. Young Stellar Objects are confirmed where SCUBA-2 850micron clumps identified by the fellwalker algorithm coincide with Spitzer Gould Belt Survey detections. We identify 23 objects and use Tbol to classify nine YSOs with masses 0.09 to 5.1 Msun. We find two Class 0, one Class 0/I, three Class I and three Class II sources. The mean temperature is 15+-2K for the nine YSOs and 32+-4K for the 14 starless clumps. We observe a starless clump with an abnormally high mean temperature of 46+-2K and conclude that it is radiatively heated by the star MWC 297. Jeans stability provides evidence that radiative heating by the star MWC 297 may be suppressing clump collapse.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figures, 7 table

JWST Pathfinder Telescope Integration

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a 6.5m, segmented, IR telescope that will explore the first light of the universe after the big bang. In 2014, a major risk reduction effort related to the Alignment, Integration, and Test (AI&T) of the segmented telescope was completed. The Pathfinder telescope includes two Primary Mirror Segment Assemblies (PMSA's) and the Secondary Mirror Assembly (SMA) onto a flight-like composite telescope backplane. This pathfinder allowed the JWST team to assess the alignment process and to better understand the various error sources that need to be accommodated in the flight build. The successful completion of the Pathfinder Telescope provides a final integration roadmap for the flight operations that will start in August 2015

Structure-Guided Evolution of Potent and Selective CHK1 Inhibitors through Scaffold Morphing

Pyrazolopyridine inhibitors with low micromolar potency for CHK1 and good selectivity against CHK2 were previously identified by fragment-based screening. The optimization of the pyrazolopyridines to a series of potent and CHK1-selective isoquinolines demonstrates how fragment-growing and scaffold morphing strategies arising from a structure-based understanding of CHK1 inhibitor binding can be combined to successfully progress fragment-derived hit matter to compounds with activity in vivo. The challenges of improving CHK1 potency and selectivity, addressing synthetic tractability, and achieving novelty in the crowded kinase inhibitor chemical space were tackled by multiple scaffold morphing steps, which progressed through tricyclic pyrimido[2,3-b]azaindoles to N-(pyrazin-2-yl)pyrimidin-4-amines and ultimately to imidazo[4,5-c]pyridines and isoquinolines. A potent and highly selective isoquinoline CHK1 inhibitor (SAR-020106) was identified, which potentiated the efficacies of irinotecan and gemcitabine in SW620 human colon carcinoma xenografts in nude mice

Cross-National Differences in Victimization : Disentangling the Impact of Composition and Context

Varying rates of criminal victimization across countries are assumed to be the outcome of countrylevel structural constraints that determine the supply ofmotivated o¡enders, as well as the differential composition within countries of suitable targets and capable guardianship. However, previous empirical tests of these ‘compositional’ and ‘contextual’ explanations of cross-national di¡erences have been performed upon macro-level crime data due to the unavailability of comparable individual-level data across countries. This limitation has had two important consequences for cross-national crime research. First, micro-/meso-level mechanisms underlying cross-national differences cannot be truly inferred from macro-level data. Secondly, the e¡ects of contextual measures (e.g. income inequality) on crime are uncontrolled for compositional heterogeneity. In this paper, these limitations are overcome by analysing individual-level victimization data across 18 countries from the International CrimeVictims Survey. Results from multi-level analyses on theft and violent victimization indicate that the national level of income inequality is positively related to risk, independent of compositional (i.e. micro- and meso-level) di¡erences. Furthermore, crossnational variation in victimization rates is not only shaped by di¡erences in national context, but also by varying composition. More speci¢cally, countries had higher crime rates the more they consisted of urban residents and regions with lowaverage social cohesion.

The Role of Historical Narrative in Biblical Thought:the Tendencies Underlying Old Testament Historiography

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68403/2/10.1177_030908928100602102.pd