Moving earth and building monuments at the Carson Mounds Site, Coahoma County, Mississippi

The application of combined techniques such as aerial imagery, sediment coring, down-hole magnetic susceptibility, and mechanized trench excavation can provide critical information on landscape formation and mound stratigraphy, specifically if they can be used to understand mound sequences and development. This paper reviews preliminary findings from recent coring and test excavations at the Carson mounds site (22CO505) in Coahoma County, Mississippi. Aerial imagery assisted in the characterization of a crevasse ridge flood deposit underlying the site and detailed field descriptions of the pedology corroborated its existence. Subsequent sediment coring and trench excavation revealed the nature of flooding in prehistory, indicating that high-intensity floods were responsible for the formation of the crevasse ridge and that lower intensity floods were potentially responsible for interruptions in mound building at the site. This suggests that the Carson settlement was initiated on an actively flooding landform. Down-hole magnetic susceptibility correlated effectively with the pedology; however, it also helped discern anthropogenic surfaces (i.e., occupational layers) that are difficult to identify visually, such as those we found in Mound C. Findings from this pilot study demonstrate the utility of sediment coring and magnetic susceptibility as effective and feasible methods for developing hypothesis-driven research

GeoLab's First Field Trials, 2010 Desert RATS: Evaluating Tools for Early Sample Characterization

As part of an accelerated prototyping project to support science operations tests for future exploration missions, we designed and built a geological laboratory, GeoLab, that was integrated into NASA's first generation Habitat Demonstration Unit-1/Pressurized Excursion Module (HDU1-PEM). GeoLab includes a pressurized glovebox for transferring and handling samples collected on geological traverses, and a suite of instruments for collecting preliminary data to help characterize those samples. The GeoLab and the HDU1-PEM were tested for the first time as part of the 2010 Desert Research and Technology Studies (DRATS), NASA's analog field exercise for testing mission technologies. The HDU1- PEM and GeoLab participated in two weeks of joint operations in northern Arizona with two crewed rovers and the DRATS science team

National Evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme in English Local Government: Evaluation of the National Programmes: Annex 2: Evaluation of the National Programmes

The report is one of a series of outputs from the national evaluation of the CBP, being undertaken by a team of researchers at the Policy Research Institute (PRI) at Leeds Metropolitan University and the Cities Research Unit at the University of West of England. The Capacity Building Programme for local government was launched in 2003 as a joint Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) / Local Government Association (LGA) initiative to support capacity building and improvement activities within local authorities in England. The evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme has been underway since late 2004. A scoping phase was conducted until May 2005, including a short evaluation of the Pilot Programmes. The main phase of the evaluation commenced in September 2005 and encompassed four main phases (see Section 1.3: p10)

A novel TP53 splicing mutation in a Li-Fraumeni syndrome family: a patient with Wilms' tumour is not a mutation carrier.

We report a Li-Fraumeni syndrome family in which we have detected a splice acceptor mutation in intron 3 of TP53. The mutation affects one of the invariant residues at the splice acceptor site, as a result of which two aberrant transcripts are produced. A child with Wilms' tumour aged 3 years in this family was shown not to be a mutation carrier

Altered dynamic postural control during gait termination following concussion

Impaired postural control is a cardinal symptom following concussion. Planned gait termination (GT) is a non-novel, dynamic task that challenges postural control in individuals with neurological deficits, and it could be an impactful measure for identifying dynamic postural control impairments following concussion. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess acute post-concussion dynamic postural control utilizing a planned GT task. The concussion participants (n= 19, age: 19.0 ± 0.8 years, height: 177.0 ± 10.1 cm, weight: 83.3 ± 20.0 kg) completed five planned GT trials during preseason baseline testing (Baseline) and on Day 1 post-concussion (Day-1). Healthy control participants (n=19, age: 20.4 ± 1.2 years, height: 173.8 ± 8.9 cm, weight: 80.2 ± 17.6 kg) completed the same trials a week apart. The dependent variables of interest included COP displacement and velocity in the mediolateral (ML) and anteroposterior (AP) axes during the three phases (braking, transitional, stabilization) of planned GT. There were significant interactions observed in both the braking ML and transitional AP displacement (p= 0.042, p= 0.030) and velocity (p= 0.027, p= 0.030). These results suggest a conservative post-concussion motor control strategy during planned GT. Further, these results support the use of dynamic postural control tasks as measures of post-concussion impairments

The Use of a Visual Motor Test to Identify Lingering Deficits in Concussed Collegiate Athletes

Background: Emerging evidence suggests neurophysiological deficits, such as visual motor coordination (VMC), may persist beyond clinical concussion recovery. Instrumented measurement of upper-limb VMC is critical for neurological evaluation post-concussion and may identify persistent deficits further elucidating persistent neurophysiological impairments not detected by the current clinical assessment battery. Aim: The aim of the study was to determine if a VMC test identifies persistent deficits in concussed collegiate student-athletes who have returned to baseline on clinical concussion assessments. Methods: Thirteen recently concussed intercollegiate student-athletes (male: 7, 18.9±0.7 years, 175.5±12.4 cm, 75.5±23.2 kg), and 13 matched control student-athletes (male: 7, 19.3±1.1 years, 173.5±11.9 cm, 75.8±19.9 kg) completed two testing sessions (T1: \u3c48 h after clinical recovery; T2: 30 days post-concussion) on a visual motor exam. The outcome measures were A* Average score (average number of lights hit on A* exam), simple visual reaction time (SVRT)-RT, and movement time (SVRT-MT) on the Dynavision D2. The dependent variables were compared with a 2 (group) × 2 (time) repeated measures ANOVAs. Results: There was no group interaction in A* average score (F(1,24)=0.036, P=0.849), SVRT-RT (F(1,22)=0.319, P=0.575), and SVRT-MT (F(1,22)=1.179, P=0.188). There was a main effect for time on A* average score (T1: 76.3±10.4 hits; T2: 82.7±11.2 hits; F(1,24)=38.1, P≤0.001) and SVRT-RT (T1: 0.31±0.04; T2: 0.29±0.04 s; F(1,22)=4.9, P=0.039). There was no main effect for SVRT-MT. There were no group differences at either time point. Conclusions: Among recently concussed collegiate student-athletes, no persistent deficits were identified in VMC beyond clinical recovery when assessed by Dynavision D2. This VMC exam may not provide a useful means of tracking recovery following concussion likely due to a substantial practice effect. Relevance for patients: While post-concussion neurophysiological deficits persist beyond clinical recovery, the laboratory based VMC assessment herein did not identify deficits at critical post-concussion time points. Therefore, other clinically translatable VMC assessments should be further investigated

Supervised Exercise Intervention and Overall Activity in CKD.

Introduction: Patients are often instructed to engage in multiple weekly sessions of exercise to increase physical activity. We aimed to determine whether assignment to a supervised exercise regimen increases overall weekly activity in individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of a pilot randomized 2 × 2 factorial design trial examining the effects of diet and exercise (10%-15% reduction in caloric intake, 3 supervised exercise sessions/wk, combined diet restriction/exercise, and control). Activity was measured as counts detected by accelerometer. Counts data were collected on all days for which an accelerometer was worn at baseline, month 2, and month 4 follow-up. The primary outcome was a relative change from baseline in log-transformed counts/min. Generalized estimating equations were used to compare the primary outcome in individuals in the exercise group and the nonexercise group. Results: We examined 111 individuals randomized to aerobic exercise or usual activity (n = 48 in the exercise group and n = 44 controls). The mean age was 57 years, 42% were female, and 28% were black. Median overall adherence over all time was 73%. Median (25th, 75th percentile) counts/min over nonsupervised exercise days at months 2 and 4 were 237.5 (6.5, 444.4) for controls and 250.9 (7.7, 529.8) for the exercise group ( Conclusion: Engaging in a supervised exercise program does not increase overall weekly physical activity in individuals with stage 3 to 4 CKD

A 5-Enolpyruvylshikimate 3-Phosphate Synthase Functions as a Transcriptional Repressor in Populus.

Long-lived perennial plants, with distinctive habits of inter-annual growth, defense, and physiology, are of great economic and ecological importance. However, some biological mechanisms resulting from genome duplication and functional divergence of genes in these systems remain poorly studied. Here, we discovered an association between a poplar (Populus trichocarpa) 5-enolpyruvylshikimate 3-phosphate synthase gene (PtrEPSP) and lignin biosynthesis. Functional characterization of PtrEPSP revealed that this isoform possesses a helix-turn-helix motif in the N terminus and can function as a transcriptional repressor that regulates expression of genes in the phenylpropanoid pathway in addition to performing its canonical biosynthesis function in the shikimate pathway. We demonstrated that this isoform can localize in the nucleus and specifically binds to the promoter and represses the expression of a SLEEPER-like transcriptional regulator, which itself specifically binds to the promoter and represses the expression of PtrMYB021 (known as MYB46 in Arabidopsis thaliana), a master regulator of the phenylpropanoid pathway and lignin biosynthesis. Analyses of overexpression and RNAi lines targeting PtrEPSP confirmed the predicted changes in PtrMYB021 expression patterns. These results demonstrate that PtrEPSP in its regulatory form and PtrhAT form a transcriptional hierarchy regulating phenylpropanoid pathway and lignin biosynthesis in Populus