Decoding Water Law: Ten Areas of Texas Water Law Every Ag Lawyer Should Know

Texas water law is not a model of clarity. As a body of law, it is riddled with jargon, double-meaning, and esoteric context that can sometimes read and work like a Rube Goldberg device. Landowners not trained in the dark arts of Texas water rights and regulation are often (rightfully) frustrated with attempts to understand, exercise, market, and simply explain one of the most important property rights in Texas agriculture. Fear not. While not a categorical truth, much of Texas’ water law can be translated into a language that is helpful to those involved in Texas agriculture. The authors give no guarantee that this Article will be a precise decoder ring for growers, ranchers, lenders, brokers, and the like, but hopefully it will be useful to these important groups, nonetheless. This Article will include quick tips for ag practitioners dealing with water law issues in Texas. While each one of these topics could be a paper in itself, the topics will conclude with links/resources for addi- tional information

MST1R kinase accelerates pancreatic cancer progression via effects on both epithelial cells and macrophages

The MST1R (RON) kinase is overexpressed in >80% of human pancreatic cancers, but its role in pancreatic carcinogenesis is unknown. In this study, we examined the relevance of Mst1r kinase to Kras driven pancreatic carcinogenesis using genetically engineered mouse models. In the setting of mutant Kras, Mst1r overexpression increased acinar-ductal metaplasia (ADM), accelerated the progression of pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN), and resulted in the accumulation of (mannose receptor C type 1) MRC1+, (arginase 1) Arg+ macrophages in the tumor microenvironment. Conversely, absence of a functional Mst1r kinase slowed PanIN initiation, resulted in smaller tumors, prolonged survival and a reduced tumor-associated macrophage content. Mst1r expression was associated with increased production of its ligand Mst1, and in orthotopic models, suppression of Mst1 expression resulted in reduced tumor size, changes in macrophage polarization and enhanced T cell infiltration. This study demonstrates the functional significance of Mst1r during pancreatic cancer initiation and progression. Further, it provides proof of concept that targeting Mst1r can modulate pancreatic cancer growth and the microenvironment. This study provides further rationale for targeting Mst1r as a therapeutic strategy

Systematic, continental scale temporal monitoring of marine pelagic microbiota by the Australian Marine Microbial Biodiversity Initiative

Sustained observations of microbial dynamics are rare, especially in southern hemisphere waters. The Australian Marine Microbial Biodiversity Initiative (AMMBI) provides methodologically standardized, continental scale, temporal phylogenetic amplicon sequencing data describing Bacteria, Archaea and microbial Eukarya assemblages. Sequence data is linked to extensive physical, biological and chemical oceanographic contextual information. Samples are collected monthly to seasonally from multiple depths at seven sites: Darwin Harbour (Northern Territory), Yongala (Queensland), North Stradbroke Island (Queensland), Port Hacking (New South Wales), Maria Island (Tasmania), Kangaroo Island (South Australia), Rottnest Island (Western Australia). These sites span ~30° of latitude and ~38° longitude, range from tropical to cold temperate zones, and are influenced by both local and globally significant oceanographic and climatic features. All sequence datasets are provided in both raw and processed fashion. Currently 952 samples are publically available for bacteria and archaea which include 88,951,761 bacterial (72,435 unique) and 70,463,079 archaeal (24,205 unique) 16 S rRNA v1-3 gene sequences, and 388 samples are available for eukaryotes which include 39,801,050 (78,463 unique) 18 S rRNA v4 gene sequences

Prioritizing multiple therapeutic targets in parallel using automated DNA-encoded library screening

AbstractThe identification and prioritization of chemically tractable therapeutic targets is a significant challenge in the discovery of new medicines. We have developed a novel method that rapidly screens multiple proteins in parallel using DNA-encoded library technology (ELT). Initial efforts were focused on the efficient discovery of antibacterial leads against 119 targets from Acinetobacter baumannii and Staphylococcus aureus. The success of this effort led to the hypothesis that the relative number of ELT binders alone could be used to assess the ligandability of large sets of proteins. This concept was further explored by screening 42 targets from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Active chemical series for six targets from our initial effort as well as three chemotypes for DHFR from M. tuberculosis are reported. The findings demonstrate that parallel ELT selections can be used to assess ligandability and highlight opportunities for successful lead and tool discovery.</jats:p

Decoding Water Law: Ten Areas of Texas Water Law Every Ag Lawyer Should Know

Texas water law is not a model of clarity. As a body of law, it is riddled with jargon, double-meaning, and esoteric context that can sometimes read and work like a Rube Goldberg device. Landowners not trained in the dark arts of Texas water rights and regulation are often (rightfully) frustrated with attempts to understand, exercise, market, and simply explain one of the most important property rights in Texas agriculture. Fear not. While not a categorical truth, much of Texas’ water law can be translated into a language that is helpful to those involved in Texas agriculture. The authors give no guarantee that this Article will be a precise decoder ring for growers, ranchers, lenders, brokers, and the like, but hopefully it will be useful to these important groups, nonetheless. This Article will include quick tips for ag practitioners dealing with water law issues in Texas. While each one of these topics could be a paper in itself, the topics will conclude with links/resources for addi- tional information

Action Editor: P. Dayan

1 23Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your work, please use the accepted author’s version for posting to your own website or your institution’s repository. You may further deposit the accepted author’s version on a funder’s repository at a funder’s request, provided it is not made publicly available until 12 months after publication. 1 23Author&apos;s personal copy JComputNeurosci(2012)32:213–231 DOI 10.1007/s10827-011-0349-

Numerical Simulation of Fatigue Crack Growth in a Stiffened Plate

Fatigue is the most common source behind failures of mechanical structures. In order to study the phenomena, experiments have been performed by Lloyd's Register and other tests have been presented in literature. Performing real life fatigue experiments requires a long time, a considerable amount of money and it is size limited. The solution is to create and validate numerical models which are accurate and reliable.This is the main reason why the research is focusing on the prediction of the crack growth, using numerical models. The reference geometry for this study is a plate with longitudinal stiffener, since a lack of knowledge about this shape has been noticed in literature.In order to better understand the current knowledge in the topic of fracture mechanics, an extensive literature review has been performed. Considering a plate with longitudinal or transverse stiffener, the crack always appears at the weld toe, and propagates with a charactheristic semi-elliptical shape. The empirical solutions needed to compute crack propagation are presented in the British Standard 7910 (BS7910), but additional correction factors have been described in literature Anderson, 2005, Bowness and Lee, 2000, Han et al, 2014 and Newman and Raju, 1981.An additional research has been performed about the 3D modeling using the finite element method. The standard FEM can be used to compute the Stress Intensity Factor (SIF) along with a dedicated "spider web" mesh around the crack front. A valid alternative is marked by the newly introduced XFEM method, which uses an element definition with additional terms; these terms are able to consider the crack discontinuity and the stress singularity at the crack tip.The empirical equations and the correction factors have been merged in 14 sets of equations. The objective of this first study is to assess the conservativeness of the solution proposed in the BS7910. A MATLAB empirical model has been created with the equations and the Paris law crack growth. The results of these models are compared to tests from literature and to the experiments from LR. An high accuracy is achieved using the set of equations from the BS7910 and using the correct load ratio.The FEM model has been created to define a new XFEM meshing technique able to supply accurate SIF results; finally, as demonstration of the accuracy of the XFEM models, the empirical equations has been compared with the 3D finite element models.An extensive mesh convergence study was performed, reaching a good agreement for the crack in a simple plate, both using the standard FEM method and the newly introduced XFEM solution. Finally, a comparison between the new XFEM mesh and the standard mesh in a plate with transverse stiffener was performed. This latest comparison highlighted a big discrepancy in the SIF solution for the surface point of the semi-elliptical crack. This difference was demonstrated to be the consequence of an erroneous stress distribution in the standard FEM model.The research has brought to the conclusion that the empirical model using the BS7910 is able to deliver accurate results, if the correct load ratio is considered. While in the FEM model analysis, it has been demonstrated that the empirical equation from Bowness and Lee, 2000 is not accurate at predicting the stress intensity factor at the surface point. This finding was revealed thanks to the use of the XFEM finite element method along with a detailed meshing technique

Core commitments for field trials of gene drive organisms

We must ensure that trials are scientifically, politically, and socially robust, publicly accountable, and widely transparent. Gene drive organisms (GDOs), whose genomes have been genetically engineered to spread a desired allele through a population, have the potential to transform the way societies address a wide range of daunting public health and environmental challenges. The development, testing, and release of GDOs, however, are complex and often controversial. A key challenge is to clarify the appropriate roles of developers and others actively engaged in work with GDOs in decision-making processes, and, in particular, how to establish partnerships with relevant authorities and other stakeholders. Several members of the gene drive community previously proposed safeguards for laboratory experiments with GDOs (1) that, in the absence of national or international guidelines, were considered essential for responsible laboratory work to proceed. Now, with GDO development advancing in laboratories (2–5), we envision similar safeguards for the potential next step: ecologically and/or genetically confined field trials to further assess the performance of GDOs. A GDO’s propensity to spread necessitates well-developed criteria for field trials to assess its potential impacts (6). We, as a multidisciplinary group of GDO developers, ecologists, conservation biologists, and experts in social science, ethics, and policy, outline commitments below that we deem critical for responsible conduct of a field trial and to ensure that these technologies, if they are introduced, serve the public interest. Includes Supplementary materials