Early-middle Tertiary deposition in the Corque syncline, Altiplano plateau, Bolivia

Tertiary age rocks are exposed along north-south trending structures throughout the hinterland Altiplano plateau, central Andes. The east limb of the Corque syncline (SW Bolivia) contains the thickest and most continuous successions of late Eocene–Oligocene age non-marine strata (Potoco Formation) on the Altiplano. The Potoco is up to ~6500 m thick and has continuous exposure \u3e103 km2 making it the thickest and most extensive remnant of the mid-Tertiary Altiplano basin. Basin fill during late Eocene–Oligocene time remains the most rapid and sustained period of deposition since Andean orogenesis, recording a long-term sediment accumulation rate of ~0.5 mm/my. The Potoco consists of fine-grained sandstone, mudstone, and gypsum deposits and lithofacies indicate deposition during periodic flooding in broad, poorly confined channels, and floodplain and playa lake environments. Deposits coarsen upward and channel deposits are thicker, less extensive, and more lenticular upsection. The thickness, extent, and ephemeral depositional style exhibited by the Potoco are attributed to rapid sediment accumulation facilitated by sheetflow-dominated rivers in a region undergoing rapid subsidence and arid climate conditions. Provenance data from the succession, including paleocurrent indicators and sandstone composition, document a paleoflow reversal accompanied by a distinct variation in composition. The basal ~4200 meters coarsens up and was deposited by east-directed rivers containing lithic sandstone, shistose, gneissic, granitic, and volcanic fragments. The overlying succession coarsens up and contains lithic sandstone, shistose, and volcanic fragments deposited by west-directed rivers. Provenance trends indicate two source areas west and east of the basin during late Eocene–Oligocene time. Thrust faults, active west and east of the basin during mid-Tertiary time, substantiate applying flexural modeling to determine if crustal shortening can account for basin development. Models incorporating effective elastic thickness west (20 km) and east (13.5 km) of the deepest portion of the basin and basin depth (~4200 meters east-directed; ~3000 meters west-directed) and length (120 km east-directed; 75 km west-directed) reveal that subsidence from shortening, while non-unique, is one viable mechanism for basin formation. Potoco sedimentology, stratigraphy, provenance trends, and model results provide a testable tectonic model to explain evolution of the Altiplano Basin during mid-Tertiary orogenesis

Factors influencing the emergence of suborbital space tourism

Suborbital space tourism is becoming a reality. The suborbital space industry is predicted to grow from $340 billion to$1 trillion over the next 20 years. A literature review, conducted on references from 2012 to 2019, identified five factors associated with the development and management of safe and effective suborbital space tourism. This paper summarizes the aspects of demand, ticket cost, motivation and risk, health risk, and policy, and how each influences the development and management of suborbital space toursim

Evidence for Prosody in Silent Reading

English speakers and expressive readers emphasize new content in an ongoing discourse. Do silent readers emphasize new content in their inner voice? Because the inner voice cannot be directly observed, we borrowed the cap-emphasis technique (e.g., “toMAYto”) from the pronunciation guides of dictionaries to elicit prosodic emphasis. Extrapolating from linguistic theories of focus prosody in spoken English, we predicted and found that silent readers in experiment 1 preferred cap-emphasized, newsworthy content (“James stole the BRACELET ) when the just-read story left them wondering what was stolen (compared with control trials). Readers preferred “JAMES stole the bracelet” when left wondering who the thief was. Experiment 2 generalized our findings to newsworthy function words and to a new behavioral measure, reaction time. As predicted, “He CAN” was judged more quickly and accurately following “Can he swim,” whereas “HE can” was judged more quickly and accurately following “Who can swim?” Our results suggest that readers engage focus prosody when they read silently

Clinical implications for patients treated inappropriately for community-acquired pneumonia in the emergency department

BACKGROUND: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is one of the most common infections presenting to the emergency department (ED). Increasingly, antibiotic resistant bacteria have been identified as causative pathogens in patients treated for CAP, especially in patients with healthcare exposure risk factors. METHODS: We retrospectively identified adult subjects treated for CAP in the ED requiring hospital admission (January 2003-December 2011). Inappropriate antibiotic treatment, defined as an antibiotic regimen that lacked in vitro activity against the isolated pathogen, served as the primary end point. Information regarding demographics, severity of illness, comorbidities, and antibiotic treatment was recorded. Logistic regression was used to determine factors independently associated with inappropriate treatment. RESULTS: The initial cohort included 259 patients, 72 (27.8%) receiving inappropriate antibiotic treatment. There was no difference in hospital mortality between patients receiving inappropriate and appropriate treatment (8.3% vs. 7.0%; p = 0.702). Hospital length of stay (10.3 ± 12.0 days vs. 7.0 ± 8.9 days; p = 0.017) and 30-day readmission (23.6% vs. 12.3%; p = 0.024) were greater among patients receiving inappropriate treatment. Three variables were independently associated with inappropriate treatment: admission from long-term care (AOR, 9.05; 95% CI, 3.93-20.84), antibiotic exposure in the previous 30 days (AOR, 1.85; 95% CI, 1.35-2.52), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AOR, 2.05; 95% CI, 1.52-2.78). CONCLUSION: Inappropriate antibiotic treatment of presumed CAP in the ED negatively impacts patient outcome and readmission rate. Knowledge of risk factors associated with inappropriate antibiotic treatment of presumed CAP could advance the management of patients with pneumonia presenting to the ED and potentially improve patient outcomes

Prospectus, February 28, 2001

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2001/1007/thumbnail.jp

Construction and biological characterization of an HB-GAM/FGF-1 chimera for vascular tissue engineering

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Report on the May-June 2002 Englebright Lake deep coring campaign

This report describes the May-June 2002 Englebright Lake coring project. Englebright Lake is a 14-km-long reservoir on the Yuba River of northern California, impounded by Englebright Dam, which was completed in 1940. The sediments were cored to assess the current conditions in the reservoir as part of the California Bay-Delta Authority’s Upper Yuba River Studies Program. Sediment was collected using both hydraulic-piston and rotational coring equipment mounted on a floating drilling platform. Thirty boreholes were attempted at 7 sites spaced along the longitudinal axis of the reservoir. Complete sedimentary sections were recovered from 20 boreholes at 6 sites. In total, 335 m of sediment was cored, with 86% average recovery. The core sections (each up to 1.5 m long) were processed using a standard set of laboratory techniques, including geophysical logging of physical properties, splitting, visual descriptions, digital photography, and initial subsampling. This report presents the results of these analyses in a series of stratigraphic columns. Using the observed stratigraphy as a guide, several series of subsamples were collected for various sedimentologic, geochemical, and geochronological analyses. The results of laboratory analyses of most of these subsamples will be presented in future reports and articles

Design of an unmanned Martian polar exploration system

The design of an unmanned Martian polar exploration system is presented. The system elements include subsystems for transportation of material from earth to Mars, study of the Martian north pole, power generation, and communications. Early next century, three Atlas 2AS launch vehicles will be used to insert three Earth-Mars transfer vehicles, or buses, into a low-energy transfer orbit. Capture at Mars will be accomplished by aerobraking into a circular orbit. Each bus contains four landers and a communications satellite. Six of the twelve total landers will be deployed at 60 deg intervals along 80 deg N, and the remaining six landers at 5 deg intervals along 30 deg E from 65 deg N to 90 deg N by a combination of retrorockets and parachutes. The three communications satellites will be deployed at altitudes of 500 km in circular polar orbits that are 120 deg out of phase. These placements maximize the polar coverage of the science and communications subsystems. Each lander contains scientific equipment, two microrovers, power supplies, communications equipment, and a science computer. The lander scientific equipment includes a microweather station, seismometer, thermal probe, x-ray spectrometer, camera, and sounding rockets. One rover, designed for short-range (less than 2 km) excursions from the lander, includes a mass spectrometer for mineral analysis, an auger/borescope system for depth profiling, a deployable thermal probe, and charge coupled device cameras for terrain visualization/navigation. The second rover, designed for longer-range (2-5 km) excursions from the lander, includes radar sounding/mapping equipment, a seismometer, and laser ranging devices. Power for all subsystems is supplied by a combination of solar cells, Ni-H batteries, and radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Communications are sequenced from rovers, sounding rockets, and remote sensors to the lander, then to the satellites, through the Deep Space Network to and from earth

Identification of Differential Gene Expression in Brassica rapa Nectaries through Expressed Sequence Tag Analysis

BACKGROUND: Nectaries are the floral organs responsible for the synthesis and secretion of nectar. Despite their central roles in pollination biology, very little is understood about the molecular mechanisms underlying nectar production. This project was undertaken to identify genes potentially involved in mediating nectary form and function in Brassica rapa. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Four cDNA libraries were created using RNA isolated from the median and lateral nectaries of B. rapa flowers, with one normalized and one non-normalized library being generated from each tissue. Approximately 3,000 clones from each library were randomly sequenced from the 5' end to generate a total of 11,101 high quality expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Sequence assembly of all ESTs together allowed the identification of 1,453 contigs and 4,403 singleton sequences, with the Basic Localized Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) being used to identify 4,138 presumptive orthologs to Arabidopsis thaliana genes. Several genes differentially expressed between median and lateral nectaries were initially identified based upon the number of BLAST hits represented by independent ESTs, and later confirmed via reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT PCR). RT PCR was also used to verify the expression patterns of eight putative orthologs to known Arabidopsis nectary-enriched genes. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This work provided a snapshot of gene expression in actively secreting B. rapa nectaries, and also allowed the identification of differential gene expression between median and lateral nectaries. Moreover, 207 orthologs to known nectary-enriched genes from Arabidopsis were identified through this analysis. The results suggest that genes involved in nectar production are conserved amongst the Brassicaceae, and also supply clones and sequence information that can be used to probe nectary function in B. rapa