Archeological Survey of the FM 723 Expansion Project from Avenue D to FM 1093, Fort Bend County, Texas

In June 2015, AmaTerra Environmental, Inc. began an intensive archeological survey for the Farm-toMarket (FM) 723 expansion project, north of the City of Rosenberg, Fort Bend County, Texas (CSJ# 0188-09-040). Work was delayed due to a lack of right-of-entry (ROE) into portions of the project area. After ROE was granted, archaeological survey was completed in late August of 2017. The total project length is approximately 9.3 miles, or about 228.11 acres, of which 97.9 acres are proposed new Rightof-Way (ROW). AmaTerra conducted the archeological survey under Texas Antiquities Permit No. 7293. Archeological investigations consisted of a pedestrian survey, the manual excavation of 199 shovel tests, and the mechanical excavation of eight backhoe trenches throughout the Area of Potential Effect (APE). Field archeologists observed numerous landscape modifications, including, but not limited to, transportation, agricultural, and residential activities. A prehistoric archeological site, 41FB352, and a historic period archeological sites, 41FB353, were recorded during field investigations; neither is recommended as eligible to the National Register. However, Site 41FB352 within the APE is situated in close proximity to a historic family cemetery, the Briscoe Family Cemetery and it is possible that unmarked graves may be present within the APE at this location. As backhoe scraping was not permitted on this property during the survey, it remains unknown whether graves are present in the APE. Based on the results of field investigations, no additional archeological investigations are warranted for any portion of the APE accessed during this survey. However, a number of properties within the APE were not surveyed due to a lack of right-of-entry. AmaTerra recommends that survey be conducted in these parcels, as well as further investigations for unmarked graves in the portion of the Briscoe Family Cemetery parcel that overlaps the APE.No artifacts were collected during this survey and project records will be curated at the Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory in Austin

The Shifting Patterns of Agricultural Production and Productivity Worldwide

In this book we assemble a range of evidence from a range of sources with a view to developing an improved understanding of recent trends in agricultural productivity around the world. The fundamental purpose is to better understand the nature of the long-term growth in the supply of food and its principal determinants. We pursue this purpose from two perspectives. One is from a general interest in the world food situation in the long run. The other is from an interest in the implications of U.S. and global productivity patterns for U.S. agriculture.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/card_books/1001/thumbnail.jp

Pillars of Growth in Nebraska\u27s Non-Metropolitan Economy

Agriculture is a critical part of Nebraska’s economy, and changes in the fortunes of agriculture play an important role in the success of the state’s non-metropolitan regions. Trends toward consolidation and rising productivity in agriculture, however, have raised concerns about the future of non-metropolitan Nebraska. Some citizens and policymakers have begun to wonder if the economy can create sufficient job opportunities for non-metropolitan residents. The answer to this question depends not only upon the relative strength of the agricultural sector, but also upon the presence of other industries that can join agriculture as pillars for employment growth in non-metropolitan Nebraska. This study, sponsored by the University of Nebraska Rural Initiative, brings together researchers from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Creighton University to examine multiple dimensions of Nebraska’s non-metropolitan economy. In addition to agriculture, we will examine the fortunes of five other key industries: 1) manufacturing, 2) tourism, 3) trucking, 4) professional and technical services, and 5) information. This list contains industries that are traditional areas of rural economic development such as manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism, but also includes rapidly expanding industries in our state (trucking) or industries within a rapidly changing national economy (professional and technical services and information). National economic forecasts suggest that industries such as trucking, tourism, professional and technical services, and information will continue to add employment at a moderate to rapid pace over the next decade

Incentivising Use of Structured Language in Biological Descriptions: Author-Driven Phenotype Data and Ontology Production

Phenotypes are used for a multitude of purposes such as defining species, reconstructing phylogenies, diagnosing diseases or improving crop and animal productivity, but most of this phenotypic data is published in free-text narratives that are not computable. This means that the complex relationship between the genome, the environment and phenotypes is largely inaccessible to analysis and important questions related to the evolution of organisms, their diseases or their response to climate change cannot be fully addressed. It takes great effort to manually convert free-text narratives to a computable format before they can be used in large-scale analyses. We argue that this manual curation approach is not a sustainable solution to produce computable phenotypic data for three reasons: 1) it does not scale to all of biodiversity; 2) it does not stop the publication of free-text phenotypes that will continue to need manual curation in the future and, most importantly, 3) It does not solve the problem of inter-curator variation (curators interpret/convert a phenotype differently from each other). Our empirical studies have shown that inter-curator variation is as high as 40% even within a single project. With this level of variation, it is difficult to imagine that data integrated from multiple curation projects can be of high quality. The key causes of this variation have been identified as semantic vagueness in original phenotype descriptions and difficulties in using standardised vocabularies (ontologies). We argue that the authors describing phenotypes are the key to the solution. Given the right tools and appropriate attribution, the authors should be in charge of developing a project’s semantics and ontology. This will speed up ontology development and improve the semantic clarity of phenotype descriptions from the moment of publication. A proof of concept project on this idea was funded by NSF ABI in July 2017. We seek readers input or critique of the proposed approaches to help achieve community-based computable phenotype data production in the near future. Results from this project will be accessible through https://biosemantics.github.io/author-driven-production

Incentivising Use of Structured Language in Biological Descriptions: Author-Driven Phenotype Data and Ontology Production

Phenotypes are used for a multitude of purposes such as defining species, reconstructing phylogenies, diagnosing diseases or improving crop and animal productivity, but most of this phenotypic data is published in free-text narratives that are not computable. This means that the complex relationship between the genome, the environment and phenotypes is largely inaccessible to analysis and important questions related to the evolution of organisms, their diseases or their response to climate change cannot be fully addressed. It takes great effort to manually convert free-text narratives to a computable format before they can be used in large-scale analyses. We argue that this manual curation approach is not a sustainable solution to produce computable phenotypic data for three reasons: 1) it does not scale to all of biodiversity; 2) it does not stop the publication of free-text phenotypes that will continue to need manual curation in the future and, most importantly, 3) It does not solve the problem of inter-curator variation (curators interpret/convert a phenotype differently from each other). Our empirical studies have shown that inter-curator variation is as high as 40% even within a single project. With this level of variation, it is difficult to imagine that data integrated from multiple curation projects can be of high quality. The key causes of this variation have been identified as semantic vagueness in original phenotype descriptions and difficulties in using standardised vocabularies (ontologies). We argue that the authors describing phenotypes are the key to the solution. Given the right tools and appropriate attribution, the authors should be in charge of developing a project’s semantics and ontology. This will speed up ontology development and improve the semantic clarity of phenotype descriptions from the moment of publication. A proof of concept project on this idea was funded by NSF ABI in July 2017. We seek readers input or critique of the proposed approaches to help achieve community-based computable phenotype data production in the near future. Results from this project will be accessible through https://biosemantics.github.io/author-driven-production

Facial first impressions across culture : data-driven modelling of Chinese and British perceivers’ unconstrained facial impressions

People form first impressions from facial appearance rapidly, and these impressions can have considerable social and economic consequences. Three dimensions can explain Western perceivers’ impressions of Caucasian faces: approachability, youthful-attractiveness, and dominance. Impressions along these dimensions are theorized to be based on adaptive cues to threat detection or sexual selection, making it likely that they are universal. We tested whether the same dimensions of facial impressions emerge across culture by building data-driven models of first impressions of Asian and Caucasian faces derived from Chinese and British perceivers’ unconstrained judgments. We then cross-validated the dimensions with computer-generated average images. We found strong evidence for common approachability and youthful-attractiveness dimensions across perceiver and face race, with some evidence of a third dimension akin to capability. The models explained ~75% of the variance in facial impressions. In general, the findings demonstrate substantial cross-cultural agreement in facial impressions, especially on the most salient dimensions

Energy Efficient Microlith-Based Catalytic Reactor and Recuperator for Air Quality Control Applications

Precision Combustion, Inc. (PCI) and NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) have been developing, characterizing, and optimizing high temperature catalytic oxidizers (HTCO) based on PCIs patented Microlith technology to meet the requirements of future extended human spaceflight explorations. Previous efforts focused on integrating PCIs HTCO unit with a compact, simple recuperative heat exchanger to reduce the overall system size and weight. Significant improvement was demonstrated over traditional approaches of integrating the HTCO with an external recuperative heat exchanger. While the critical target performance metrics were achieved, the thermal effectiveness of PCIs recuperator remained a potential area of improvement to further reduce the energy requirements of the integrated system. Using the same material combinations and an improved recuperator design, the redesigned prototype has experimentally demonstrated 20 30% reduction (flow dependent) in steady state power consumption compared to the earlier prototype without compromising the destruction efficiency of methane and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Moreover, design modifications and improvements allow our redesigned prototype to be more easily manufactured compared to traditional brazed plate-fin recuperator designs. The redesigned prototype was delivered to MSFC for validation testing. Here, we report and discuss the performance of the improved prototype HTCO unit with a high efficiency recuperative heat exchanger based on testing at PCI and MSFC. The device is expected to provide a reliable and robust means of disposing of trace levels of methane and VOCs by oxidizing them into carbon dioxide and water in order to maintain clean air in enclosed spaces, such as crewed spacecraft cabins

Public Health Response to Imported Case of Poliomyelitis, Australia, 2007

Inactivated polio vaccine was offered, and the index case-patient and household contacts were quarantined

A Panel of Serum Biomarkers Differentiates IgA Nephropathy from Other Renal Diseases

Background and Objectives: There is increasing evidence that galactose-deficient IgA1 (Gd-IgA1) and Gd-IgA1-containing immune complexes are important for the pathogenesis of IgA nephropathy (IgAN). In the present study, we assessed a novel noninvasive multi-biomarker approach in the diagnostic test for IgAN. Materials and Methods: We compared serum levels of IgA, IgG, Gd-IgA1, Gd-IgA1-specific IgG and Gd-IgA1-specific IgA in 135 IgAN patients, 79 patients with non-IgAN chronic kidney disease (CKD) controls and 106 healthy controls. Serum was collected at the time of kidney biopsy from all IgAN and CKD patients. Results: Each serum marker was significantly elevated in IgAN patients compared to CKD (P<0.001) and healthy controls (P<0.001). While 41% of IgAN patients had elevated serum Gd-IgA1 levels, 91% of these patients exhibited Gd-IgA1-specific IgG levels above the 90th percentile for healthy controls (sensitivity 89%, specificity 92%). Although up to 25% of CKD controls, particularly those with immune-mediated glomerular diseases including lupus nephritis, also had elevated serum levels of Gd-IgA1-specific IgG, most IgAN patients had elevated levels of Gd-IgA1-specific antibody of both isotypes. Serum levels of Gd-IgA1-specific IgG were associated with renal histological grading. Furthermore, there was a trend toward higher serum levels of Gd-IgA1-specific IgG in IgAN patients with at least moderate proteinuria (≥1.0 g/g), compared to patients with less proteinuria. Conclusions Serum levels of Gd-IgA1-specific antibodies are elevated in most IgAN patients, and their assessment, together with serum levels of Gd-IgA1, improves the specificity of the assays. Our observations suggest that a panel of serum biomarkers may be helpful in differentiating IgAN from other glomerular diseases