Assessing landscape dust emission potential using combined ground‐based measurements and remote sensing data

Modeled estimates of aeolian dust emission can vary by an order of magnitude due to the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of emissions. To better constrain location and magnitude of emissions, a surface erodibility factor is typically employed in models. Several landscape-scale schemes representing surface dust-emission potential for use in models have recently been proposed, but validation of such schemes has only been attempted indirectly with medium-resolution remote sensing of mineral aerosol loadings and high-resolution land-surface mapping. In this study, we used dust-emission source points identified in Namibia with Landsat imagery together with field-based dust-emission measurements using a Portable In-situ Wind Erosion Laboratory (PI-SWERL) wind tunnel to assess the performance of schemes aiming to represent erodibility in global dust-cycle modeling. From analyses of the surface and samples taken at the time of wind tunnel testing, a Boosted Regression Tree analysis identified the significant factors controlling erodibility based on PI-SWERL dust flux measurements and various surface characteristics, such as soil moisture, particle size, crusting degree and mineralogy. Despite recent attention to improving the characterisation of surface dust-emission potential, our assessment indicates a high level of variability in the measured fluxes within similar geomorphologic classes. This variability poses challenges to dust modelling attempts based on geomorphology and/or spectral-defined classes. Our approach using high-resolution identification of dust sources to guide ground-based testing of emissivity offers a valuable means to help constrain and validate dust-emission schemes. Detailed determination of the relative strength of factors controlling emission can provide further improvement to regional and global dust-cycle modeling

Ornamental plants, 1985: a summary of research

Field transplant survival of Amelanchier liners produced by tissue culture / Daniel K. Struve and R. Daniel Lineberger -- An evaluation of strawdust - an alternative growing media / Elton M. Smith and Sharon A. Treaster -- Growth of container grown nursery stock produced in composted municipal sludge amended media / Elton M. Smith and Sharon A. Treaster -- Soil temperature effects on root regeneration of scarlet oak seedlings / Daniel K. Struve arid Bruno C. Moser -- Lighting Viburnum opulus 'Nanum' cuttings to increase winter survival / Elton M. Smith and Sharon A. Treaster -- Treatments of etiolated dormant rose shoots / Elton M. Smith and Sharon A. Treaster -- Evaluation of flowering crabapple susceptibility to apple scab in Ohio – 1984 / Elton M. Smith and Sharon A. Treaster -- Tolerance of azalea, cotoneaster, and euonymus to Devrinol, Goal, and Goal Combinations / Elton M. Smith and Sharon A. Treaster -- Micropropagation of chimeral african violets / R. Daniel Lineberger and Mark Druckenbrod -- capital requirements of overwintering structures for nurseries in Ohio - 1984 / Reed D. Taylor, Daryl T. Gillette, and Elton M. Smith -- annual fixed costs of overwintering plants in nurseries differentiated by type of structure for Ohio - 1984 / Daryl T. Gillette, Reed D. Taylor, and Elton M. Smith -- Comparative costs of overwintering plants in nurseries differentiated by system for Ohio - 1984 / Reed D. Taylor, Daryl T. Gillette, and Elton M. Smit

Weight status and associated comorbidities in children and adults with Down syndrome, autism spectrum disorder and intellectual and developmental disabilities

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Ptomey, L. T., Walpitage, D. L., Mohseni, M., Dreyer Gillette, M. L., Davis, A. M., Forseth, B., Dean, E. E., and Waitman, L. R. (2020) Weight status and associated comorbidities in children and adults with Down syndrome, autism spectrum disorder and intellectual and developmental disabilities. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 64: 725– 737. https://doi.org/10.1111/jir.12767, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/jir.12767. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.Background Little is known about body weight status and the association between body weight and common comorbidities in children and adults with Down syndrome (DS), autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). Methods Data were extracted from the University of Kansas Medical Center's Healthcare Enterprise Repository for Ontological Narration clinical integrated data repository. Measures included demographics (sex, age and race), disability diagnosis, comorbid health conditions, height, weight and body mass index percentiles (BMI%ile; <18 years of age) or BMI (≥18 years of age). Results Four hundred and sixty-eight individuals with DS (122 children and 346 adults), 1659 individuals with ASD (1073 children and 585 adults) and 604 individuals with other IDDs (152 children and 452 adults) were identified. A total of 47.0% (DS), 41.9% (ASD) and 33.5% (IDD) of children had overweight/obese (OW/OB), respectively. Children with DS were more likely to have OW/OB compared with children with IDD or ASD [odds ratio (OR) = 1.91, 95% confidence interval (CI): (1.49, 2.46); OR = 1.43, 95% CI: (1.19, 1.72)], respectively. A total of 81.1% (DS), 62.1% (ASD), and 62.4% (IDD) of adults were OW/OB, respectively. Adults with DS were more likely to have OW/OB compared with those with IDD [OR = 2.56, 95% CI: (2.16, 3.02)]. No significant differences were observed by race. In children with ASD, higher OW/OB was associated with significantly higher (compared with non-OW/OB) occurrence of sleep apnoea [OR = 2.94, 95% CI: (2.22, 3.89)], hypothyroidism [OR = 3.14, 95% CI: (2.17, 4.25)] and hypertension [OR = 4.11, 95% CI: (3.05, 5.54)]. In adults with DS, OW/OB was significantly associated with higher risk of sleep apnoea and type 2 diabetes [OR = 2.93, 95% CI: (2.10, 4.09); OR = 1.76, 95% CI: (1.11, 2.79) respectively]. Similarly, in adults with ASD and IDD, OW/OB was significantly associated with higher risk of sleep apnoea [OR = 3.39, 95% CI: (2.37, 4.85) and OR = 6.69, 95% CI: (4.43, 10.10)], type 2 diabetes [OR = 2.25, 95 % CI: (1.68, 3.01) and OR = 5.49, 95% CI: (3.96, 7.61)] and hypertension [OR = 3.55, 95% CI: (2.76, 4.57) and 3.97, 95% CI: (3.17, 4.97)]. Conclusion Findings suggest higher rates of OW/OB in individuals with DS compared with ASD and IDD. Given the increased risk of comorbidities associated with the increased risk of OW/OB, identification of effective interventions for this special population of individuals is critical

A personalized real-time virtual model of whole heart electrophysiology

Computer models capable of representing the intrinsic personal electrophysiology (EP) of the heart in silico are termed virtual heart technologies. When anatomy and EP are tailored to individual patients within the model, such technologies are promising clinical and industrial tools. Regardless of their vast potential, few virtual technologies simulating the entire organ-scale EP of all four-chambers of the heart have been reported and widespread clinical use is limited due to high computational costs and difficulty in validation. We thus report on the development of a novel virtual technology representing the electrophysiology of all four-chambers of the heart aiming to overcome these limitations. In our previous work, a model of ventricular EP embedded in a torso was constructed from clinical magnetic resonance image (MRI) data and personalized according to the measured 12 lead electrocardiogram (ECG) of a single subject under normal sinus rhythm. This model is then expanded upon to include whole heart EP and a detailed representation of the His-Purkinje system (HPS). To test the capacities of the personalized virtual heart technology to replicate standard clinical morphological ECG features under such conditions, bundle branch blocks within both the right and the left ventricles under two different conduction velocity settings are modeled alongside sinus rhythm. To ensure clinical viability, model generation was completely automated and simulations were performed using an efficient real-time cardiac EP simulator. Close correspondence between the measured and simulated 12 lead ECG was observed under normal sinus conditions and all simulated bundle branch blocks manifested relevant clinical morphological features

Tropically convex constraint satisfaction

A semilinear relation S is max-closed if it is preserved by taking the componentwise maximum. The constraint satisfaction problem for max-closed semilinear constraints is at least as hard as determining the winner in Mean Payoff Games, a notorious problem of open computational complexity. Mean Payoff Games are known to be in the intersection of NP and co-NP, which is not known for max-closed semilinear constraints. Semilinear relations that are max-closed and additionally closed under translations have been called tropically convex in the literature. One of our main results is a new duality for open tropically convex relations, which puts the CSP for tropically convex semilinaer constraints in general into NP intersected co-NP. This extends the corresponding complexity result for scheduling under and-or precedence constraints, or equivalently the max-atoms problem. To this end, we present a characterization of max-closed semilinear relations in terms of syntactically restricted first-order logic, and another characterization in terms of a finite set of relations L that allow primitive positive definitions of all other relations in the class. We also present a subclass of max-closed constraints where the CSP is in P; this class generalizes the class of max-closed constraints over finite domains, and the feasibility problem for max-closed linear inequalities. Finally, we show that the class of max-closed semilinear constraints is maximal in the sense that as soon as a single relation that is not max-closed is added to L, the CSP becomes NP-hard.Comment: 29 pages, 2 figure

Hierarchically coupled ultradian oscillators generating robust circadian rhythms

Ensembles of mutually coupled ultradian cellular oscillators have been proposed by a number of authors to explain the generation of circadian rhythms in mammals. Most mathematical models using many coupled oscillators predict that the output period should vary as the square root of the number of participating units, thus being inconsistent with the well-established experimental result that ablation of substantial parts of the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN), the main circadian pacemaker in mammals, does not eliminate the overt circadian functions, which show no changes in the phases or periods of the rhythms. From these observations, we have developed a theoretical model that exhibits the robustness of the circadian clock to changes in the number of cells in the SCN, and that is readily adaptable to include the successful features of other known models of circadian regulation, such as the phase response curves and light resetting of the phase