Geostatistical and stochastic study of flow and tracer transport in the unsaturated zone at Yucca Mountain

Yucca Mountain has been proposed by the U.S. Department of Energy as the nation’s long-term, permanent geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste. The potential repository would be located in Yucca Mountain’s unsaturated zone (UZ), which acts as a critical natural barrier delaying arrival of radionuclides to the water table. Since radionuclide transport in groundwater can pose serious threats to human health and the environment, it is important to understand how much and how fast water and radionuclides travel through the UZ to groundwater. The UZ system consists of multiple hydrogeologic units whose hydraulic and geochemical properties exhibit systematic and random spatial variation, or heterogeneity, at multiple scales. Predictions of radionuclide transport under such complicated conditions are uncertain, and the uncertainty complicates decision making and risk analysis. This project aims at using geostatistical and stochastic methods to assess uncertainty of unsaturated flow and radionuclide transport in the UZ at Yucca Mountain. Focus of this study is parameter uncertainty of hydraulic and transport properties of the UZ. The parametric uncertainty arises since limited parameter measurements are unable to deterministically describe spatial variability of the parameters. In this project, matrix porosity, permeability and sorption coefficient of the reactive tracer (neptunium) of the UZ are treated as random variables. Corresponding propagation of parametric uncertainty is quantitatively measured using mean, variance, 5th and 95th percentiles of simulated state variables (e.g., saturation, capillary pressure, percolation flux, and travel time). These statistics are evaluated using a Monte Carlo method, in which a three-dimensional flow and transport model implemented using the TOUGH2 code is executed with multiple parameter realizations of the random model parameters

Multifaceted biological insights from a draft genome sequence of the tobacco hornworm moth, Manduca sexta

International audienc

Multifaceted biological insights from a draft genome sequence of the tobacco hornworm moth, Manduca sexta

International audienc

Multifaceted biological insights from a draft genome sequence of the tobacco hornworm moth, <i>Manduca sexta</i>

Manduca sexta, known as the tobacco hornworm or Carolina sphinx moth, is a lepidopteran insect that is used extensively as a model system for research in insect biochemistry, physiology, neurobiology, development, and immunity. One important benefit of this species as an experimental model is its extremely large size, reaching more than 10 g in the larval stage. M. sexta larvae feed on solanaceous plants and thus must tolerate a substantial challenge from plant allelochemicals, including nicotine. We report the sequence and annotation of the M. sexta genome, and a survey of gene expression in various tissues and developmental stages. The Msex_1.0 genome assembly resulted in a total genome size of 419.4 Mbp. Repetitive sequences accounted for 25.8% of the assembled genome. The official gene set is comprised of 15,451 protein-coding genes, of which 2498 were manually curated. Extensive RNA-seq data from many tissues and developmental stages were used to improve gene models and for insights into gene expression patterns. Genome wide synteny analysis indicated a high level of macrosynteny in the Lepidoptera. Annotation and analyses were carried out for gene families involved in a wide spectrum of biological processes, including apoptosis, vacuole sorting, growth and development, structures of exoskeleton, egg shells, and muscle, vision, chemosensation, ion channels, signal transduction, neuropeptide signaling, neurotransmitter synthesis and transport, nicotine tolerance, lipid metabolism, and immunity. This genome sequence, annotation, and analysis provide an important new resource from a well-studied model insect species and will facilitate further biochemical and mechanistic experimental studies of many biological systems in insects