Assessing and Communicating Climate and Water Ecosystem Services of the City of Ann Arbor Greenbelt Program

The Open Space and Parkland Preservation Millage was approved by the residents of Ann Arbor in November 2003 as a way to protect productive farmland, prevent the destruction of natural landscapes, and preserve the rural character surrounding Ann Arbor. Commonly known as the Greenbelt Program, the millage provides funds to preserve and protect open space, farmland, natural habitats, and the City’s source waters inside and outside the city limits. More than halfway through the 30-year millage in 2021, the Greenbelt Program consists of over 6,200 acres of protected land on more than 70 parcels. While successful, the program lacks adequate ways to report impact and motivate support beyond acres preserved and funds leveraged. Like many organizations working to protect land, they are in need of additional ways to assess and communicate more meaningful measures of conservation value, such as quantifying ecosystem services. Our goal was to develop a series of dynamic geoprocessing tools to quantify specific ecosystem service value of the Greenbelt’s current portfolio of properties and any new properties added in the future. This will allow the City staff and residents of Ann Arbor to have an ongoing understanding of and ability to communicate the value of individual properties and entire land conservation programs. We focused on two categories of ecosystem services: (1) above and belowground carbon storage and (2) water quality.Master of ScienceSchool for Environment and SustainabilityUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/167368/3/A2Greenbelt_376_Final_Report.pd

Harmonic nanocrystals for biolabeling: a survey of optical properties and biocompatibility.

International audienceNonlinear optical nanocrystals have been recently introduced as a promising alternative to fluorescent probes for multiphoton microscopy. We present for the first time a complete survey of the properties of five nanomaterials (KNbO3, LiNbO3, BaTiO3, KTP, and ZnO), describing their preparation and stabilization and providing quantitative estimations of their nonlinear optical response. In the light of their prospective use as biological and clinical markers, we assess their biocompatibility on human healthy and cancerous cell lines. Finally, we demonstrate the great potential for cell imaging of these inherently nonlinear probes in terms of optical contrast, wavelength flexibility, and signal photostability

Management of people with a Fontan circulation: a Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand position statement

The Fontan circulation describes the circulatory state resulting from an operation in congenital heart disease where systemic venous return is directed to the lungs without an intervening active pumping chamber. As survival increases, so too does recognition of the potential health challenges. This document aims to allow clinicians, people with a Fontan circulation, and their families to benefit from consensus agreement about management of the person with a Fontan circulation. The document was crafted with input from a multidisciplinary group of health care providers as well as individuals with a Fontan circulation and families. It is hoped that the shared common vision of long-term wellbeing will continue to drive improvements in care and quality of life in this patient population and eventually translate into improved survival. Keypoints: • Lifelong quality medical care with access to multidisciplinary services, is of prime importance. Care includes regular tests for surveillance of health status. • Transition from paediatric to adult care is an active process that should commence during early adolescence and continue until successful engagement with adult congenital cardiology care. • Children and adults with a Fontan circulation often have reduced peak exercise capacity (on average, 60–65% of predicted values). Increasingly, evidence suggests exercise training may improve exercise capacity and cardiovascular function. • People with a Fontan circulation have higher rates of anxiety and behavioural disorders, and there needs to be a low threshold for the provision of mental health care. • Pregnancy has increased maternal and fetal risks, and pre-conception multidisciplinary assessment and counselling is essential. • Atrial arrhythmias are common, often late after Fontan surgical repair and due to intra-atrial re-entry or “flutter” mediated by atrial stretch and scarring. Some anti-arrhythmic agents, most classically the type IC drugs, may allow haemodynamically unstable, life-threatening 1:1 AV conduction. • Anticoagulation with warfarin is routine care in patients with atrial arrhythmias. • In patients with recurrent atrial arrhythmias, catheter ablation or surgical conversion may be considered. • The Fontan circulation is an ideal substrate for thrombus formation and may result in intracardiac or intravascular thrombosis, ischaemic stroke, or other embolic phenomena. Antiplatelet and anticoagulant agents are commonly prescribed for thromboprophylaxis in patients with a Fontan circulation. Evidence suggests that treatment with one of these agents is advantageous, but there is no consensus on which is optimal. Despite treatment, symptomatic thromboembolic events are associated with significant mortality. • Heart failure is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Diuretics provide symptomatic relief, however standard heart failure medical therapy is not of proven benefit. • Though not well understood, there is increasing concern regarding progressive liver disease with a long-term risk of hepatocellular carcinoma. • Despite early higher mortality post heart transplant, these individuals have better long-term survival outcomes compared with many other heart transplant recipients

Harmonic Nanocrystals for Biolabeling: A Survey of Optical Properties and Biocompatibility

Nonlinear optical nanocrystals have been recently introduced as a promising alternative to fluorescent probes for multiphoton microscopy. We present for the first time a complete survey of the properties of five nanomaterials (KNbO3, LiNbO3, BaTiO3, KTP, and ZnO), describing their preparation and stabilization and providing quantitative estimations of their nonlinear optical response. In the light of their prospective use as biological and clinical markers, we assess their biocompatibility on human healthy and cancerous cell lines. Finally, we demonstrate the great potential for cell imaging of these inherently nonlinear probes in terms of optical contrast, wavelength flexibility, and signal photostability

Perspectives on ENCODE

The Encylopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Project launched in 2003 with the long-term goal of developing a comprehensive map of functional elements in the human genome. These included genes, biochemical regions associated with gene regulation (for example, transcription factor binding sites, open chromatin, and histone marks) and transcript isoforms. The marks serve as sites for candidate cis-regulatory elements (cCREs) that may serve functional roles in regulating gene expression1. The project has been extended to model organisms, particularly the mouse. In the third phase of ENCODE, nearly a million and more than 300,000 cCRE annotations have been generated for human and mouse, respectively, and these have provided a valuable resource for the scientific community.11Nsciescopu

Expanded encyclopaedias of DNA elements in the human and mouse genomes

AbstractThe human and mouse genomes contain instructions that specify RNAs and proteins and govern the timing, magnitude, and cellular context of their production. To better delineate these elements, phase III of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Project has expanded analysis of the cell and tissue repertoires of RNA transcription, chromatin structure and modification, DNA methylation, chromatin looping, and occupancy by transcription factors and RNA-binding proteins. Here we summarize these efforts, which have produced 5,992 new experimental datasets, including systematic determinations across mouse fetal development. All data are available through the ENCODE data portal (https://www.encodeproject.org), including phase II ENCODE1 and Roadmap Epigenomics2 data. We have developed a registry of 926,535 human and 339,815 mouse candidate cis-regulatory elements, covering 7.9 and 3.4% of their respective genomes, by integrating selected datatypes associated with gene regulation, and constructed a web-based server (SCREEN; http://screen.encodeproject.org) to provide flexible, user-defined access to this resource. Collectively, the ENCODE data and registry provide an expansive resource for the scientific community to build a better understanding of the organization and function of the human and mouse genomes.11Nsciescopu