Variable-Volume Flushing (V-VF) device for water conservation in toilets

Thirty five percent of residential indoor water used is flushed down the toilet. Five out of six flushes are for liquid waste only, which requires only a fraction of the water needed for solid waste. Designers of current low-flush toilets (3.5-gal. flush) and ultra-low-flush toilets (1.5-gal. flush) did not consider the vastly reduced amount of water needed to flush liquid waste versus solid waste. Consequently, these toilets are less practical than desired and can be improved upon for water conservation. This paper describes a variable-volume flushing (V-VF) device that is more reliable than the currently used flushing devices (it will not leak), is simple, more economical, and more water conserving (allowing one to choose the amount of water to use for flushing solid and liquid waste)

Analysis of the Agricultural Land Market in North Central Oklahoma

This study is concerned with an analysis of the agricultural land market in north central Oklahoma during the period January, 1970 through June, 1976. The primary objectives of this study are to ascertain the levels of land values and activity in this market and to determine the important factors which influence agricultural land values. Regression anelysis is employed to identify and quantify the relationships existing between these important factors and agricultural land values in north central Oklahoma.Agricultural Economic

Development of Single-Seed Near-Infrared Spectroscopic Predictions of Corn and Soybean Constituents using Bulk Reference Values and Mean Spectra

Rapid, non-destructive single-seed compositional analyses are useful for many areas of crop science, including breeding and genetics. Seeds are sometimes unique and require preservation due to small samples, which necessitates development of methods for total non-destructive measurement. Near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) can be used for non-destructive single-seed composition prediction, but the reference methods used to develop prediction models are usually destructive. Reference methods are costly, and extensive sets of seeds must be used to obtain prediction models for multiple constituents. In this research, single-seed NIRS prediction models were developed for common constituents of soybeans and corn using composition values from bulk reference measurement and respective averaged single-seed spectra as opposed to single-seed reference and spectra. The bulk reference model and a true single-seed model for soybean protein were also compared to determine how well the bulk model performs in predicting single-seed protein. This provided a basis for evaluating bulk model performance for other constituents. Bulk model statistics indicated that bulk models should perform well for soybean protein and oil, but not well for fiber; corn bulk models should perform well for protein, oil, starch, and seed density. Bulk model predictions of single-seed soybean reference protein show, at best, that bulk models work reasonably well, with a standard error of prediction (SEP) = 1.82%) compared to an SEP of 0.97% for a true single-seed protein model. Bias correction may be needed, though, depending how the bulk model is developed. Overall, the bulk models should be useful for selecting single seeds in breeding programs targeting specific composition traits and segregating individual samples based on composition

DWNN, a novel ubiquitin-like domain, implicates RBBP6 in mRNA processing and ubiquitin-like pathways

BACKGROUND: RBBP6 is a 250 kDa splicing-associated protein that has been identified as an E3 ligase due to the presence of a RING finger domain. In humans and mice it interacts with both p53 and Rb, and plays a role in the induction of apoptosis and regulation of the cell cycle. RBBP6 has recently been shown to be highly up-regulated in oesophageal cancer, and to be a promising target for immunotherapy against the disease. RESULTS: We show here using heteronuclear NMR that the N-terminal 81 amino acids of RBBP6 constitute a novel ubiquitin-like domain, which we have called the DWNN domain. The domain lacks conserved equivalents of K(48 )and K(63), although the equivalents of K(6 )and K(29 )are highly, although not absolutely, conserved. The di-glycine motif that is characteristic of proteins involved in ubiquitination is found in the human and mouse form of the domain, although it is not present in all organisms. It forms part of a three-domain form of RBBP6 containing the DWNN domain, a zinc knuckle and a RING finger domain, which is found in all eukaryotic genomes so far examined, in the majority of cases at single copy number. The domain is also independently expressed in vertebrates as a single domain protein. CONCLUSION: DWNN is a novel ubiquitin-like domain found only at the N-terminus of the RBBP6 family of splicing-associated proteins. The ubiquitin-like structure of the domain greatly increases the likelihood that RBBP6 functions through some form of ubiquitin-like modification. Furthermore, the fact that the DWNN domain is independently expressed in higher vertebrates leads us to propose that the domain may itself function as a novel ubiquitin-like modifier of other proteins

Hard X-ray spectroscopy of the itinerant magnets RRFe4_{4}Sb12_{12} (R=R=Na, K, Ca, Sr, Ba)

Ordered states in itinerant magnets may be related to magnetic moments displaying some weak local moment characteristics, as in intermetallic compounds hosting transition metal coordination complexes. In this paper, we report on the Fe $K$-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) of the itinerant magnets $R$Fe$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ ($R=$ Na, K, Ca, Sr, Ba), aiming at exploring the electronic and structural properties of the octahedral building block formed by Fe and the Sb ligands. We find evidence for strong hybridization between the Fe $3d$ and Sb $5p$ states at the Fermi level, giving experimental support to previous electronic structure calculations of the $R$Fe$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ skutterudites. The electronic states derived from Fe 3$d$ Sb $5p$ mixing are shown to be either more occupied and/or less localized in the cases of the magnetically ordered systems, for which $R=$ Na or K, connecting the local Fe electronic structure to the itinerant magnetic properties. Moreover, the analysis of the extended region of the XAS spectra (EXAFS) suggests that bond disorder may be a more relevant parameter to explain the suppression of the ferromagnetic ordered state in CaFe$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ than the decrease of the density of states.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitte