Influence of Local Bedrock on the Clay Mineralogy of Pre-Woodfordian Tills of the Grand River Lobe in Columbiana County, Ohio

Author Institution: Department of Geology, University of AkronThe clay mineralogy of three pre-Woodfordian tills of the Grand River lobe in Columbiana County, Ohio, shows the influence of the underlying Pennsylvanian strata of the Allegheny Plateau. The mean diffraction intensity ratios (DI) of these sandy tills range from 0.5 to 0.7. These ratios are comparable to those of the underlying bedrock; 60% of the variance of the clay mineralogy may be attributed to the bedrock. Weathered bedrock and weathered older drift are possible sources of kaolinite. Locally entrained Pennsylvanian sandstone clasts at the base of the glacier may have acted as tools for extensive abrasion of softer argillaceous shales. This abrasion may have produced tills having a higher kaolinite content than those near the edge of the Allegheny Escarpment in north-central Ohio

Chemical composition and in vitro digestibility of annual ryegrass varieties grown in greenhouse conditions

Plant breeders have recently focused on increasing the sugar content of grasses as a means to improve their nutritional value. The objective of this study was to compare cyclethe chemical composition of four annual ryegrass varieties (Lolium multiflorum Lam.): two intermediate tetraploids [L. multiflorum var. italicum, Bandito2, (conventional) and Abereve, (high sugar)] and two short cycle diploids [L. multiflorum var. westerwoldicum, Lonestar, (conventional) and Enhancer, (high sugar)] grown in greenhouses. Seeds were planted into plastic pots (16 pots per variety) and clipped three times at six-week intervals. Material was weighed, flash frozen, lyophilized and ground (1 mm). Chemical analyses and digestibility at 24 and 48 h were assessed. In vitro DM (IVDMD), OM (IVOMD) and NDF (IVNDFD) disappearance as well as in vitro true DM disappearance (IVTD) were calculated. Results were compared by preplanned orthogonal contrasts as follows: C1, intermediate tetraploids vs annual diploids, C2, conventional vs high sugar varieties. Intermediate tetraploid varieties had lower DM content, lower OM content, lower NDF and hemicellulose content. They also tended to have higher CP content, but no differences were observed in WSC content or WSC:CP. Conventional and high sugar varieties did not differ except for DM content. Intermediate tetraploid had higher in vitro DM and OM disappearance at 24 and 48 h, and higher in vitro true DM disappearance and NDF disappearance at 24h. Conventional varieties had higher digestibility at 24 h but not at 48 h. No differences in WSC were detected between intermediate tetraploids and annual diploids, or between conventional and high sugar varieties. Differences in forage quality were more important between intermediate tetraploids and annual diploids, but no differences were found between conventional and high sugar varieties. High temperatures at the greenhouse may not have allowed high sugar varieties to accumulate increased levels of WSC.En años recientes, la selección genética se ha abocado a aumentar el contenido de azúcares de los forrajes como una forma mejorar su valor nutricional. El objetivo de este estudio fue comparar la composición química de cuatro variedades de ryegrass anual (Lolium multiflorum Lam.): dos variedades tetraploides de ciclo intermedio [L. multiflorum var. Italicum, Bandito2, (convencional) y Abereve, (alto azúcar)] y dos variedades de ciclo corto [L. multiflorum var. westerwoldicum, Lonestar, (convencional) y Enhancer, (alto azúcar)], las cuales se cultivaron en invernáculos. La siembra se hizo en macetas plásticas (16 macetas por variedad y se hicieron tres cosechas (5 cm de altura) con intervalos de 6 semanas entre cosechas. El material cortado fue pesado en fresco, congelado en nitrógeno líquido, liofilizado y molido a 1 mm. Se realizaron análisis químicos y las digestibilidades a las 24 y 48 horas. Se calcularon la degradación in vitro de la materia seca, materia orgánica y FDN así como la digestibilidad in vitro real (in vitro true digestibility). Los resultados se compararon por medio de los siguientes contrastes ortogonales: C1, tetraploides intermedios vs. diploides anuales, C2, variedades convencionales vs. variedades alto azúcar. Las variedades tetraploides de ciclo intermedio mostraron menor contenido de materia seca, materia orgánica, FDN y hemicelulosa. Además tendieron a tener mayores contenidos de proteína bruta, sin mostrar diferencias en contenido de hidratos de carbono soluble o en la relación hidratos de carbono soluble: proteína bruta. Las variedades convencionales y alto azúcar no mostraron diferencias entre ellas, excepto en contenido de materia seca. Con respecto a la digestibilidad, las variedades tetraploides de ciclo intermedio mostraron mayor degradación in vitro de materia seca y materia orgánica a las 24 y 48 h, y mayores valores de digestibilidad in vitro real para la materia seca y la materia orgánica a las 24 horas. Las variedades convencionales mostraron mayor degradabilidad y digestibilidad in vitro real a las 24 h, pero no a las 48 h. No se encontraron diferencias para contenido de hidratos de carbono solubles entre tetraploides intermedios y diploides anuales, o entre variedades convencionales y alto azúcar. Las diferencias en calidad más importantes se encontraron entre tetraploides intermedios y diploides anuales, pero no entre variedades convencionales y alto azúcar. Las altas temperaturas en el invernáculo podrían haber impedido la expresión del potencial de acumulación de hidratos de carbono solubles por parte de las variedades alto azúcar.EEA AnguilFil: Alende, Mariano. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Anguil; ArgentinaFil: Fluck, A.C. Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná; BrasilFil: Volpi Lagreca, Gabriela. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Anguil; ArgentinaFil: Andrae, John. Clemson University; Estados Unido

Generalizing to Unseen Domains via Adversarial Data Augmentation

We are concerned with learning models that generalize well to different \emph{unseen} domains. We consider a worst-case formulation over data distributions that are near the source domain in the feature space. Only using training data from a single source distribution, we propose an iterative procedure that augments the dataset with examples from a fictitious target domain that is "hard" under the current model. We show that our iterative scheme is an adaptive data augmentation method where we append adversarial examples at each iteration. For softmax losses, we show that our method is a data-dependent regularization scheme that behaves differently from classical regularizers that regularize towards zero (e.g., ridge or lasso). On digit recognition and semantic segmentation tasks, our method learns models improve performance across a range of a priori unknown target domains.Comment: Accepted to NIPS 2018 (camera ready

Post-carotid stent ultrasound provides critical data to avoid rare but serious complications

SummaryCarotid stenting is a common procedure for revascularization of carotid artery stenosis. In this study, we evaluated the role of carotid ultrasound post carotid stenting. In a retrospective analysis, we identified 45 patients who received post-stent ultrasound. On routine follow-up we measured a range for peak systolic velocity of 33–150cm/s and end diastolic velocity 11–52cm/s. We also identified two cases, where immediate post-stent ultrasound provided critical data that required further intervention, and potentially avoided serious complications

Molecular vibration in cold collision theory

Cold collisions of ground state oxygen molecules with Helium have been investigated in a wide range of cold collision energies (from 1 $\mu$K up to 10 K) treating the oxygen molecule first as a rigid rotor and then introducing the vibrational degree of freedom. The comparison between the two models shows that at low energies the rigid rotor approximation is very accurate and able to describe all the dynamical features of the system. The comparison between the two models has also been extended to cases where the interaction potential He - O$_2$ is made artificially stronger. In this case vibration can perturb rate constants, but fine-tuning the rigid rotor potential can alleviate the discrepancies between the two models.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

LambdaUNet: 2.5D Stroke Lesion Segmentation of Diffusion-weighted MR Images

Diffusion-weighted (DW) magnetic resonance imaging is essential for the diagnosis and treatment of ischemic stroke. DW images (DWIs) are usually acquired in multi-slice settings where lesion areas in two consecutive 2D slices are highly discontinuous due to large slice thickness and sometimes even slice gaps. Therefore, although DWIs contain rich 3D information, they cannot be treated as regular 3D or 2D images. Instead, DWIs are somewhere in-between (or 2.5D) due to the volumetric nature but inter-slice discontinuities. Thus, it is not ideal to apply most existing segmentation methods as they are designed for either 2D or 3D images. To tackle this problem, we propose a new neural network architecture tailored for segmenting highly-discontinuous 2.5D data such as DWIs. Our network, termed LambdaUNet, extends UNet by replacing convolutional layers with our proposed Lambda+ layers. In particular, Lambda+ layers transform both intra-slice and inter-slice context around a pixel into linear functions, called lambdas, which are then applied to the pixel to produce informative 2.5D features. LambdaUNet is simple yet effective in combining sparse inter-slice information from adjacent slices while also capturing dense contextual features within a single slice. Experiments on a unique clinical dataset demonstrate that LambdaUNet outperforms existing 3D/2D image segmentation methods including recent variants of UNet. Code for LambdaUNet is released with the publication to facilitate future research

Patcher: Patch Transformers with Mixture of Experts for Precise Medical Image Segmentation

We present a new encoder-decoder Vision Transformer architecture, Patcher, for medical image segmentation. Unlike standard Vision Transformers, it employs Patcher blocks that segment an image into large patches, each of which is further divided into small patches. Transformers are applied to the small patches within a large patch, which constrains the receptive field of each pixel. We intentionally make the large patches overlap to enhance intra-patch communication. The encoder employs a cascade of Patcher blocks with increasing receptive fields to extract features from local to global levels. This design allows Patcher to benefit from both the coarse-to-fine feature extraction common in CNNs and the superior spatial relationship modeling of Transformers. We also propose a new mixture-of-experts (MoE) based decoder, which treats the feature maps from the encoder as experts and selects a suitable set of expert features to predict the label for each pixel. The use of MoE enables better specializations of the expert features and reduces interference between them during inference. Extensive experiments demonstrate that Patcher outperforms state-of-the-art Transformer- and CNN-based approaches significantly on stroke lesion segmentation and polyp segmentation. Code for Patcher is released with publication to facilitate future research.Comment: MICCAI 202

Evidence-Based Recommendations for Optimal Dietary Protein Intake in Older People: A Position Paper From the PROT-AGE Study Group

New evidence shows that older adults need more dietary protein than do younger adults to support good health, promote recovery from illness, and maintain functionality. Older people need to make up for age-related changes in protein metabolism, such as high splanchnic extraction and declining anabolic responses to ingested protein. They also need more protein to offset inflammatory and catabolic conditions associated with chronic and acute diseases that occur commonly with aging. With the goal of developing updated, evidence-based recommendations for optimal protein intake by older people, the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society (EUGMS), in cooperation with other scientific organizations, appointed an international study group to review dietary protein needs with aging (PROT-AGE Study Group). To help older people (>65 years) maintain and regain lean body mass and function, the PROT-AGE study group recommends average daily intake at least in the range of 1.0 to 1.2 g protein per kilogram of body weight per day. Both endurance-and resistance-type exercises are recommended at individualized levels that are safe and tolerated, and higher protein intake (ie, >= 1.2 g/kg body weight/d) is advised for those who are exercising and otherwise active. Most older adults who have acute or chronic diseases need even more dietary protein (ie, 1.2-1.5 g/kg body weight/d). Older people with severe kidney disease (ie, estimated GFR <30 mL/min/1.73m(2)), but who are not on dialysis, are an exception to this rule; these individuals may need to limit protein intake. Protein quality, timing of ingestion, and intake of other nutritional supplements may be relevant, but evidence is not yet sufficient to support specific recommendations. Older people are vulnerable to losses in physical function capacity, and such losses predict loss of independence, falls, and even mortality. Thus, future studies aimed at pinpointing optimal protein intake in specific populations of older people need to include measures of physical function. Copyright (C) 2013 - American Medical Directors Association, Inc