The Great Basin Climate Study for Range Fire Management

The BLM (Bureau of Land Management) fire management personnel routinely use a fire danger computer program to estimate the effects of recent weather upon the fire hazard on the BLM rangeland sites. The program used for this purpose is the National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) which was developed by the National Forest Service (Deeming, 1978). The NFDRS was used in conjunction with fire weather stations in the Great Basin for the dual purposes of evaluating the ability of NFDRS to predict fire danger and of determining the effectiveness of the present fire station network in detecting fire weather on the Great Basin rangelands. Seasonal fire frequency and real time fire occurrence were examined with respect to climatic and weather variable to determine the meteorological parameters which are most closely related to fire occurrence. These parameters were then used to delineate zones within the Great Basin of approximately equal fire climate. The climate relationships are also discussed with regard to the possible development of pre-season fire projection models

Runoff Estimates for Small Rural Watersheds and Development of a Sound Design method. Volume II, Recommendations for Preparing Design Manuals and Appendices B, C, D, E, F, G, & H

Frequency analyses of more than 1,000 small watersheds in the United States and Puerto Rico were used to develop the estimation method for design of peak flow for ungaged watersheds. This method, called the Federal highway Administration (FHWA) method, is conceptually similar to the Bureau of Public Roads (BRP) method developed by W. D. Potter. The FHWA method relates the runoff peak to easily determined hydrophysiographic parameters and is intended for use on watersheds smaller than 50 square miles. The concept of risk is incorporated inot the design procedure. The risk is the probability that one or more events will exceed a specific peak flow within the usable lifetime of the drainage structure. The return period of the design flood peak can then be modified according to the risk the designer is willing to take. Another concept dealing with the probable maximum runoff peak derived as a function of watershed area is included. The flow obtained from this relationship is considered to be the upper limit of the design flow that may realistically be expected to ever occur. As such it may be appropriate to use in situations where the consequences of failure are extremely great

Runoff Estimates for Small Rural Watersheds and Development of a Sound Design Method: Volume I. Research Report

Foreword: This report is composed of thee volumes; Volume I is the Research Report; Volume II consists of recommendations for establishing design manuals and Appendices B, C, D, E, F, G, and H, which are the design aids required for establishing design manuals; Volume III consists of Appendix A, and accumulation of the data base used in the study, FHWA chose to arrange the report as described to facilitate distribution of the results. The methods reported herein are designated as the Federal Highway Administration Methods are designed to be applied to watersheds smaller than 50 square miles but may be used on areas up to 100 square miles in size. This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The United States Government assumes no liability for its contents or use thereof. Sufficient copies of Volumes I and II will be distributed to provide a minimum of one copy to each FHWA Regional office, FHWA Dibision office and State Highway Agency. Volume III will be distributed only upon special requirest since it will be of interest primarily to individuals wishing to verify equations of develop new questions. Direct distribution is being made to the Division offices

Runoff Estimates for Small Rural Watersheds and Development of a Sound Design Method: Volume III. Appendix A

Foreword: This report is composed of thee volumes; Volume I is the Research Report; Volume II consists of recommendations for establishing design manuals and Appendices B, C, D, E, F, G, and H, which are the design aids required for establishing design manuals; Volume III consists of Appendix A, and accumulation of the data base used in the study, FHWA chose to arrange the report as described to facilitate distribution of the results. The methods reported herein are designated as the Federal Highway Administration Methods are designed to be applied to watersheds smaller than 50 square miles but may be used on areas up to 100 square miles in size. This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The United States Government assumes no liability for its contents or use thereof. Sufficient copies of Volumes I and II will be distributed to provide a minimum of one copy to each FHWA Regional office, FHWA Dibision office and State Highway Agency. Volume III will be distributed only upon special requirest since it will be of interest primarily to individuals wishing to verify equations of develop new questions. Direct distribution is being made to the Division offices

Runoff Estimates for Small Rural Watersheds and Development of a Sound Design Method Vol. II Recommendations for Preparing Design Manuals and Appendices B, C, D, E, F, G, and H

DOT-FH-11-7809Frequency analyses of more than 1,000 small watersheds in the United States and Puerto Rico were used to develop the estimation method for design of peak flow for ungaged watersheds. This method, called the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) method, is conceptually similar to the Bureau of Public Roads (BRP) method developed by W.D. Potter. The FHWA method relates the runoff peak to easily determined hydrophysiographic parameters and is intended for use on watersheds smaller than 50 square miles. The concept test locations near Lexington, Kentucky. Pairs of test is the probability that one or more events will exceed a specified peak flow within the usable lifetime of the drainage structure. The return period of the design flood peak can then be modified according to the risk the designer is willing to take. Another concept dealing with the probable maximum runoff peak derived as a function of watershed area is included. The flow obtained from this relationship is considered to the the upper limit of the design flow that may realistically be expected to ever occur. As such it may be appropriate to use in situations where the consequences of failure are extremely great

Roles for Treg expansion and HMGB1 signaling through the TLR1-2-6 axis in determining the magnitude of the antigen-specific immune response to MVA85A

© 2013 Matsumiya et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedA better understanding of the relationships between vaccine, immunogenicity and protection from disease would greatly facilitate vaccine development. Modified vaccinia virus Ankara expressing antigen 85A (MVA85A) is a novel tuberculosis vaccine candidate designed to enhance responses induced by BCG. Antigen-specific interferon-γ (IFN-γ) production is greatly enhanced by MVA85A, however the variability between healthy individuals is extensive. In this study we have sought to characterize the early changes in gene expression in humans following vaccination with MVA85A and relate these to long-term immunogenicity. Two days post-vaccination, MVA85A induces a strong interferon and inflammatory response. Separating volunteers into high and low responders on the basis of T cell responses to 85A peptides measured during the trial, an expansion of circulating CD4+ CD25+ Foxp3+ cells is seen in low but not high responders. Additionally, high levels of Toll-like Receptor (TLR) 1 on day of vaccination are associated with an increased response to antigen 85A. In a classification model, combined expression levels of TLR1, TICAM2 and CD14 on day of vaccination and CTLA4 and IL2Rα two days post-vaccination can classify high and low responders with over 80% accuracy. Furthermore, administering MVA85A in mice with anti-TLR2 antibodies may abrogate high responses, and neutralising antibodies to TLRs 1, 2 or 6 or HMGB1 decrease CXCL2 production during in vitro stimulation with MVA85A. HMGB1 is released into the supernatant following atimulation with MVA85A and we propose this signal may be the trigger activating the TLR pathway. This study suggests an important role for an endogenous ligand in innate sensing of MVA and demonstrates the importance of pattern recognition receptors and regulatory T cell responses in determining the magnitude of the antigen specific immune response to vaccination with MVA85A in humans.This work was funded by the Wellcome Trust. MM has a Wellcome Trust PhD studentship and HM is a Wellcome Trust Senior Fello

Runoff Estimates for Small Rural Watersheds and Development of a Sound Design Method Vol. I Research Report

Potter's method for runoff peak forecasting was examined on its original watersheds and it was found to be soundly conceived. The method was modified to extend it to other watersheds in the same States for which it was originally developed. The results after modifying Potter's C parameter were found to be satisfactory. The method was simplified and extended to all of the contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. After beginning with a 7-parameter method, it was found that 3-parameters, namely area, rainfall erosivity factor and difference in elevation from top to bottom of the watershed produced peak flow estimates of virtually equal reliability . The standard error of estimates of the ten year peak flow as computed by the different equations for a random sample of 51 water sheds from throughout the United States and Puerto Rico were: 39 percent for the 3-parameter all zone, 62 percent for 7-parameter all zone, 50 percent for 3-parameter zone, and 38 percent for 7-parameter zone equations. Consequently the three parameter equations were selected for design purposes and nomographs for solving the equations were developed for each hydrophysiographic zone of the United States and Puerto Rico

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty