Solutions Network Formulation Report. The Potential Contribution of the Ocean Surface Topography Mission to the General NOAA Oil Monitoring Environment

Data collected by the OSTM could be used to provide a solution for the GNOME DST. GNOME, developed by NOAA?s Office of Response and Restoration Hazardous Materials Response Division, geospatially models oil spill trajectories using wind, current, river flow, and tidal data. Data collected by the OSTM would supply information about ocean currents and wind speeds. This Candidate Solution is in alignment with the Coastal Management, Water Management, Disaster Management, Public Health, Ecological Forecasting, and Homeland Security National Applications and will benefit society by improving the capabilities of emergency responders who evaluate an oil spill?s probable threat

Solutions Network Formulation Report. The Potential Contribution of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission to the Mississippi Coastal Improvements Project

The 2005 hurricane season - especially Hurricane Katrina - left the Mississippi Gulf Coast devastated. In its efforts to assist in coastal re-building efforts, the U.S. Congress passed the Defense Appropriation Act of 2006. This legislation directed the Secretary of the Army, via the USACE, to generate reports discussing possible projects that would improve the State of Mississippi?s coastal region. These projects are referred to as the MsCIP. Data collected via the LDCM OLI could be used to evaluate the success of projects that result from the MsCIP by monitoring regional coastal changes associated with such projects. This Candidate Solution is in alignment with the Coastal Management, Water Management, and Disaster Management National Applications and will benefit society by improving the post-Hurricane Katrina Mississippi Gulf Coast

Solutions Network Formulation Report. Integrating Salinity Measurements from Aquarius into the Harmful Algal Blooms Observing System

This Candidate Solution suggests the use of Aquarius sea surface salinity measurements to improve the NOAA/NCDDC (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration s National Coastal Data Development Center) HABSOS (Harmful Algal Blooms Observing System) DST (decision support tool) by enhancing development and movement forecasts of HAB events as well as potential species identification. In the proposed configuration, recurring salinity measurements from the Aquarius mission would augment HABSOS sea surface temperature and in situ ocean current measurements. Thermohaline circulation observations combined with in situ measurements increase the precision of HAB event movement forecasting. These forecasts allow coastal managers and public health officials to make more accurate and timely warnings to the public and to better direct science teams to event sites for collection and further measurements

Solutions Network Formulation Report. The Potential Contribution of the International GPM Program to the NOAA Estuarine Reserves Division's System-wide Monitoring Program

Data collected via the International GPM Program could be used to provide a solution for the NOAA Estuarine Reserves Division s System-wide Monitoring Program by augmenting in situ rainfall measurements with data acquired via future satellite-acquired precipitation data. This Candidate Solution is in alignment with the Coastal Management National Application and will benefit society by assisting in estuary preservation

Solutions Network Formulation Report. Using NASA Sensors to Perform Crop Type Assessment for Monitoring Insect Resistance in Corn

The EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) is tasked to monitor for insect pest resistance to transgenic crops. Several models have been developed to understand the resistance properties of insects. The Population Genetics Simulator model is used in the EPA PIRDSS (Pest Infestation and Resistance Decision Support System). The EPA Office of Pesticide Programs uses the DSS to help understand the potential for insect pest resistance development and the likelihood that insect pest resistance will negatively affect transgenic corn. Once the DSS identifies areas of concern, crews are deployed to collect insect pest samples, which are tested to identify whether they have developed resistance to the toxins in transgenic corn pesticides. In this candidate solution, VIIRS (Visible/Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite) vegetation index products will be used to build hypertemporal layerstacks for crop type and phenology assessment. The current phenology attribute is determined by using the current time of year to index the expected growth stage of the crop. VIIRS might provide more accurate crop type assessment and also might give a better estimate on the crop growth stage

Land-use and Land-cover Change from 1974 to 2008 around Mobile Bay

This project is a Gulf of Mexico Application Pilot in which NASA Stennis Space Center (SSC) is working within a regional collaboration network of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance. NASA researchers, with support from the NASA SSC Applied Science Program Steering Committee, employed multi-temporal Landsat data to assess land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes in the coastal counties of Mobile and Baldwin, AL, between 1974 and 2008. A multi-decadal time-series, coastal LULC product unique to NASA SSC was produced. The geographic extent and nature of change was quantified for the open water, barren, upland herbaceous, non-woody wetland, upland forest, woody wetland, and urban landscapes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Coastal Development Data Center (NCDDC) will assist with the transition of the final product to the operational end user, which primarily is the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program (MBNEP). We found substantial LULC change over the 34-year study period, much more than is evident when the change occurring in the last years. Between 1974 and 2008, the upland forest landscape lost almost 6% of the total acreage, while urban land cover increased by slightly more than 3%. With exception to open water, upland forest is the dominant landscape, accounting for about 25-30% of the total area

Geospatial Method for Computing Supplemental Multi-Decadal U.S. Coastal Land-Use and Land-Cover Classification Products, Using Landsat Data and C-CAP Products

This paper discusses the development and implementation of a geospatial data processing method and multi-decadal Landsat time series for computing general coastal U.S. land-use and land-cover (LULC) classifications and change products consisting of seven classes (water, barren, upland herbaceous, non-woody wetland, woody upland, woody wetland, and urban). Use of this approach extends the observational period of the NOAA-generated Coastal Change and Analysis Program (C-CAP) products by almost two decades, assuming the availability of one cloud free Landsat scene from any season for each targeted year. The Mobile Bay region in Alabama was used as a study area to develop, demonstrate, and validate the method that was applied to derive LULC products for nine dates at approximate five year intervals across a 34-year time span, using single dates of data for each classification in which forests were either leaf-on, leaf-off, or mixed senescent conditions. Classifications were computed and refined using decision rules in conjunction with unsupervised classification of Landsat data and C-CAP value-added products. Each classification's overall accuracy was assessed by comparing stratified random locations to available reference data, including higher spatial resolution satellite and aerial imagery, field survey data, and raw Landsat RGBs. Overall classification accuracies ranged from 83 to 91% with overall Kappa statistics ranging from 0.78 to 0.89. The accuracies are comparable to those from similar, generalized LULC products derived from C-CAP data. The Landsat MSS-based LULC product accuracies are similar to those from Landsat TM or ETM+ data. Accurate classifications were computed for all nine dates, yielding effective results regardless of season. This classification method yielded products that were used to compute LULC change products via additive GIS overlay techniques

Parity proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem based on the 24 rays of Peres

A diagrammatic representation is given of the 24 rays of Peres that makes it easy to pick out all the 512 parity proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem contained in them. The origin of this representation in the four-dimensional geometry of the rays is pointed out.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures and 3 tables. Three references have been added. Minor typos have been correcte

The breast feeding mother and xenon anaesthesia: four case reports. Breast feeding and xenon anaesthesia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Four nursing mothers consented to anaesthesia for urgent surgery only on condition that their ability to breast feed would not be impaired.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Following induction of general anaesthesia with propofol and remifentanil, 65-69% xenon supplemented with remifentanil was used as an inhalational anaesthetic for maintenance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After finishing surgery the women could be extubated between 2:52 and 7:22 minutes. The women were fully alert just minutes after extubation and spent about 45 minutes in the recovery room before discharge to a regular ward. They resumed regular breast feeding some time later. The propofol concentration in the blood was measured after 0, 30, 90, and 300 minutes and in the milk after 90 and 300 minutes. Just 90 minutes after extubation, the concentration of propofol in the milk was limited (> 3 mg/l) so that pharmacological effects on the babies were excluded after oral intake. Also, no traces of xenon gas were found in the maternal milk at any time. After propofol induction and maintenance of anaesthesia with xenon in combination with a water-soluble short-acting drug like remifentanil, the concentration of propofol in maternal milk is low (> 3 mg/l 90 min after anesthesia) and harmless after oral intake.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results, as well as the rapid elimination and absence of metabolism of xenon, are of great interest to nursing mothers. General anaesthesia with propofol for induction only, combined with remifentanil and xenon for maintenance, has not yet been described in breast feeding mothers.</p

Expanding the MTM1 mutational spectrum: novel variants including the first multi-exonic duplication and development of a locus-specific database

Myotubular myopathy (MIM#310400), the X-linked form of Centronuclear myopathy (CNM) is mainly characterized by neonatal hypotonia and inability to maintain unassisted respiration. The MTM1 gene, responsible for this disease, encodes myotubularin - a lipidic phosphatase involved in vesicle trafficking regulation and maturation. Recently, it was shown that myotubularin interacts with desmin, being a major regulator of intermediate filaments. We report the development of a locus-specific database for MTM1 using the Leiden Open Variation database software (http://www.lovd.nl/MTM1), with data collated for 474 mutations identified in 472 patients (by June 2012). Among the entries are a total of 25 new mutations, including a large deletion encompassing introns 2-15. During database implementation it was noticed that no large duplications had been reported. We tested a group of eight uncharacterized CNM patients for this specific type of mutation, by multiple ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) analysis. A large duplication spanning exons 1-5 was identified in a boy with a mild phenotype, with results pointing toward possible somatic mosaicism. Further characterization revealed that this duplication causes an in-frame deletion at the mRNA level (r.343_444del). Results obtained with a next generation sequencing approach suggested that the duplication extends into the neighboring MAMLD1 gene and subsequent cDNA analysis detected the presence of a MTM1/MAMLD1 fusion transcript. A complex rearrangement involving the duplication of exon 10 has since been reported, with detection also enabled by MLPA analysis. It is thus conceivable that large duplications in MTM1 may account for a number of CNM cases that have remained genetically unresolved