COMMERCIAL CODE Leases: Provide Regulations Relating to Leases of Goods

The Act amends Georgia\u27s Commercial Code to add a new Article 2A, designed to uniformly and comprehensively address the legal issues raised by leasing transactions in goods. This addition to Georgia\u27s Commercial Code follows Article 2A of the Uniform Commercial Code as amended in 1990

COMMERCIAL CODE Leases: Provide Regulations Relating to Leases of Goods

The Act amends Georgia\u27s Commercial Code to add a new Article 2A, designed to uniformly and comprehensively address the legal issues raised by leasing transactions in goods. This addition to Georgia\u27s Commercial Code follows Article 2A of the Uniform Commercial Code as amended in 1990

Evaluation of the Impacts of Radio-Marking Devices on Feral Horses and Burros in a Captive Setting

Radio-collars and other radio-marking devices have been invaluable tools for wildlife managers for \u3e40 years. These marking devices have improved our understanding of wildlife spatial ecology and demographic parameters and provided new data facilitating model development for species conservation and management. Although these tools have been used on virtually all North American ungulates, their deployment on feral horses (Equus ferus caballus) or burros (E. asinus) has been limited. To determine if radio-collars and radio-tags could be safely deployed on feral equids, we conducted a 1-year observational study in 2015 to investigate fit and wear of radio-collars on feral horses and burros kept in pastures/pens at the Bureau of Land Management contracted adoption facility in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, USA. We assessed the impact of radio-collars and transmitter tags on individual behavior, body condition, and evaluated neck surface for effects. We tested 2 radio-collar shapes (teardrop and oval) and a radio-tag (i.e., avian backpack) braided into the mane and tail of horses. Behavior of mares did not differ between radio-collared (n = 12) and control (uncollared; n = 12) individuals. Despite the small sample size, collared burro jennies (n = 4) spent more time standing than controls (n = 4). Stallions wearing radio-collars (n = 9) fed less, moved less, and stood more than controls (n = 8). During the study, we did not detect injuries to the necks of mares or burro jennies, but stallions developed small sores (that healed while still wearing radio-collars and re-haired within 3 months). Two radio-collars occasionally flipped forward over the ears onto the foreheads of stallions. Although our study confirmed that radio-collars could be safely deployed on captive mares and jennies, stallions proved challenging for a variety of reasons. While our conclusions were optimistic, longer studies will be required to ensure radio-collar safety on free-ranging feral horses and burros

Seismicity on the western Greenland Ice Sheet : surface fracture in the vicinity of active moulins

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 120 (2015): 1082–1106, doi:10.1002/2014JF003398.We analyzed geophone and GPS measurements collected within the ablation zone of the western Greenland Ice Sheet during a ~35 day period of the 2011 melt season to study changes in ice deformation before, during, and after a supraglacial lake drainage event. During rapid lake drainage, ice flow speeds increased to ~400% of winter values, and icequake activity peaked. At times >7 days after drainage, this seismicity developed variability over both diurnal and longer periods (~10 days), while coincident ice speeds fell to ~150% of winter values and showed nightly peaks in spatial variability. Approximately 95% of all detected seismicity in the lake basin and its immediate vicinity was triggered by fracture propagation within near-surface ice (<330 m deep) that generated Rayleigh waves. Icequakes occurring before and during drainage frequently were collocated with the down flow (west) end of the primary hydrofracture through which the lake drained but shifted farther west and outside the lake basin after the drainage. We interpret these results to reveal vertical hydrofracture opening and local uplift during the drainage, followed by enhanced seismicity and ice flow on the downstream side of the lake basin. This region collocates with interferometric synthetic aperture radar-measured speedup in previous years and could reflect the migration path of the meltwater supplied to the bed by the lake. The diurnal seismic signal can be associated with nightly reductions in surface melt input that increase effective basal pressure and traction, thereby promoting elevated strain in the surficial ice.Research by J. Carmichael was supported by a NASA NESSF Fellowship grant NNX08AU82H and NSF grant ANT-0424589. The fieldwork and additional analyses were supported by the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs (NSF-OPP) through ARC-1023382, awarded to I. Joughin, and ARC-1023364, awarded to S. B. Das and M. D. Behn. Matt King is a recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project number FT110100207).2015-12-2

Quantification of habitat fragmentation reveals extinction risk in terrestrial mammals

Although habitat fragmentation is often assumed to be a primary driver of extinction, global patterns of fragmentation and its relationship to extinction risk have not been consistently quantified for any major animal taxon. We developed high-resolution habitat fragmentation models and used phylogenetic comparative methods to quantify the effects of habitat fragmentation on the world's terrestrial mammals, including 4,018 species across 26 taxonomic Orders. Results demonstrate that species with more fragmentation are at greater risk of extinction, even after accounting for the effects of key macroecological predictors, such as body size and geographic range size. Species with higher fragmentation had smaller ranges and a lower proportion of high-suitability habitat within their range, andmost high-suitability habitat occurred outside of protected areas, further elevating extinction risk. Our models provide a quantitative evaluation of extinction risk assessments for species, allow for identification of emerging threats in species not classified as threatened, and provide maps of global hotspots of fragmentation for the world's terrestrial mammals. Quantification of habitat fragmentation will help guide threat assessment and strategic priorities for global mammal conservation

Fracture propagation to the base of the Greenland Ice Sheet during supraglacial lake drainage

Author Posting. © The Authors, 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of American Association for the Advancement of Science for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science 320 (2008): 778-781, doi:10.1126/science.1153360.Surface meltwater that reaches the base of an ice sheet creates a mechanism for the rapid response of ice flow to climate change. The process whereby such a pathway is created through thick, cold ice has not, however, been previously observed. We describe the rapid (<2 hours) drainage of a large supraglacial lake down 980 m through to the bed of the Greenland Ice Sheet initiated by water-driven fracture propagation evolving into moulin flow. Drainage coincided with increased seismicity, transient acceleration, ice sheet uplift and horizontal displacement. Subsidence and deceleration occurred over the following 24 hours. The short-lived dynamic response suggests an efficient drainage system dispersed the meltwater subglacially. The integrated effect of multiple lake drainages could explain the observed net regional summer ice speedup.Support was provided jointly by NSF and NASA through ARC-0520077 (S.B.D., M.P.B., I.M.H.) and ARC- 520382 (I.J.); The WHOI OCCI and Clark Arctic Research Initiative provided additional support to S.B.D., M.D.B., and D.L.; and a NERC (UK) Research Fellowship supported M.A.K

Multiple generation distinct toxicant exposures induce epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of enhanced pathology and obesity

Three successive multiple generations of rats were exposed to different toxicants and then bred to the transgenerational F5 generation to assess the impacts of multiple generation different exposures. The current study examines the actions of the agricultural fungicide vinclozolin on the F0 generation, followed by jet fuel hydrocarbon mixture exposure of the F1 generation, and then pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane on the F2 generation gestating females. The subsequent F3 and F4 generations and F5 transgenerational generation were obtained and F1-F5 generations examined for male sperm epigenetic alterations and pathology in males and females. Significant impacts on the male sperm differential DNA methylation regions were observed. The F3-F5 generations were similar in ∼50% of the DNA methylation regions. The pathology of each generation was assessed in the testis, ovary, kidney, and prostate, as well as the presence of obesity and tumors. The pathology used a newly developed Deep Learning, artificial intelligence-based histopathology analysis. Observations demonstrated compounded disease impacts in obesity and metabolic parameters, but other pathologies plateaued with smaller increases at the F5 transgenerational generation. Observations demonstrate that multiple generational exposures, which occur in human populations, appear to increase epigenetic impacts and disease susceptibility

Interpreting ambiguous ‘trace’ results in Schistosoma mansoni CCA Tests: Estimating sensitivity and specificity of ambiguous results with no gold standard

Background The development of new diagnostics is an important tool in the fight against disease. Latent Class Analysis (LCA) is used to estimate the sensitivity and specificity of tests in the absence of a gold standard. The main field diagnostic for Schistosoma mansoni infection, Kato-Katz (KK), is not very sensitive at low infection intensities. A point-of-care circulating cathodic antigen (CCA) test has been shown to be more sensitive than KK. However, CCA can return an ambiguous ‘trace’ result between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’, and much debate has focused on interpretation of traces results. Methodology/Principle findings We show how LCA can be extended to include ambiguous trace results and analyse S. mansoni studies from both Côte d’Ivoire (CdI) and Uganda. We compare the diagnostic performance of KK and CCA and the observed results by each test to the estimated infection prevalence in the population. Prevalence by KK was higher in CdI (13.4%) than in Uganda (6.1%), but prevalence by CCA was similar between countries, both when trace was assumed to be negative (CCAtn: 11.7% in CdI and 9.7% in Uganda) and positive (CCAtp: 20.1% in CdI and 22.5% in Uganda). The estimated sensitivity of CCA was more consistent between countries than the estimated sensitivity of KK, and estimated infection prevalence did not significantly differ between CdI (20.5%) and Uganda (19.1%). The prevalence by CCA with trace as positive did not differ significantly from estimates of infection prevalence in either country, whereas both KK and CCA with trace as negative significantly underestimated infection prevalence in both countries. Conclusions Incorporation of ambiguous results into an LCA enables the effect of different treatment thresholds to be directly assessed and is applicable in many fields. Our results showed that CCA with trace as positive most accurately estimated infection prevalence

Continued deceleration of Whillans Ice Stream, West Antarctica

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2005. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 32 (2005): L22501, doi:10.1029/2005GL024319.Earlier observations indicated that Whillans Ice Stream slowed from 1973 to 1997. We collected new GPS observations of the ice stream's speed in 2003 and 2004. These data show that the ice stream is continuing to decelerate at rates of about 0.6%/yr2, with faster rates near the grounding line. Our data also indicate that the deceleration extends over the full width of the ice plain. Extrapolation of the deceleration trend suggests the ice stream could stagnate sometime between the middle of the 21st and 22nd Centuries.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF-OPP-0229659). IJ’s contribution was supported by the Cryospheric Sciences Program of NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise