Effect of soybean sudden death syndrome on seed quality and agronomic trait QTLs

Soybean production has grown over the years and soybean has become one of the main crops in the world. Protecting and advancing soybean production has become a main goal for soybean producers and breeders. The following chapters look at the soybean-pest interaction for one of the leading soybean diseases called Fusarium virguliforme. that causes sudden death syndrome (SDS) in soybean, and potential genetic regions controlling seed quality traits. Chapter two compares Fusarium virguliforme, Fv inoculated fields vs non-inoculated fields for soybean agronomic and seed quality traits. SDS is one of the leading soybean pests in the United States. This study found an increase in seed protein content due to SDS, which has not previously been reported. Chapter three explores quantitative trait loci (QTL) in two soybean populations controlling the seed quality traits of germination, vigor, weight, protein, and oil content of Fv inoculated and non-inoculated environments. This study identified 168 QTL for seed quality of which many were novel QTL. Of these, there were 14 QTL identified for seed vigor and 54 for germination. To-date, published research shows that only three QTL have been identified for seed germination and no QTL for seed vigor in soybean have been previously reported. Chapter three also found different QTL expressions in the same genomic regions of the Fv inoculated and non-inoculated environments, which has not been reported. Seed oil, seed protein, and seed weight are important traits for consumers of soybean seed. Seed germination and vigor are important traits to producers of soybean. The QTL switching due to the Fv environments could give an idea of which genes are influenced by Fv. The results from this research help advance our knowledge in soybean-pest interactions and may be used to enhance world-wide production of soybean

Conversion to Ethanol and Biodiesel from Microalgae

There have been many attempts in finding alternative, more environmentally safe, ways to produce ethanol and biodiesel. Different algae strains have been used and studied. Spirulina and Selenastrum were used in this experiment to produce ethanol and biodiesel respectively. Alcohol conversion was conducted by first fermenting Spirulina followed by simple and fractional distillation. Fermentation converts the carbohydrates into the resulting alcohol. Distillation purifies the alcohol, lowering the density as more water is removed from the product. Analysis of the resulting product was then gathered by determining density of the product. For biodiesel production, KOH and methanol were mixed to produce methoxide ion, converting Selenastrum into a biofuel. Several ways to lyse the cell wall were explore

Will the First Through Fifth Years Please Stand Up? Quantifying National SBAE Teacher Experience

Research often references years of experience specific to participants, yet no compiled report exists for secondary school-based agricultural education (SBAE) to holistically quantify years of teaching experience. In addition, definitions accounting for experience fall short of capturing the myriad ways experience counts in the broader teaching profession. Our study addresses this missing piece of the teacher retention puzzle. Using Quiñones, Ford, and Teachout’s (1994) conceptual framework for work experience measures, our study quantified teacher experience in the National Association for Agricultural Education (NAAE). We analyzed National SBAE teacher experience through descriptive statistics, compared experience by region using an ANOVA model, and compared SBAE to the national teaching profession. We found practical significance in the difference between SBAE’s population of 1-3 year teachers and 10-19 year teachers compared to the national teacher average. We pose questions around teacher recruitment and retention relative to the specific experience demographic of SBAE and the generational trends accompanying such demographics

mockrobiota: a Public Resource for Microbiome Bioinformatics Benchmarking.

Mock communities are an important tool for validating, optimizing, and comparing bioinformatics methods for microbial community analysis. We present mockrobiota, a public resource for sharing, validating, and documenting mock community data resources, available at http://caporaso-lab.github.io/mockrobiota/. The materials contained in mockrobiota include data set and sample metadata, expected composition data (taxonomy or gene annotations or reference sequences for mock community members), and links to raw data (e.g., raw sequence data) for each mock community data set. mockrobiota does not supply physical sample materials directly, but the data set metadata included for each mock community indicate whether physical sample materials are available. At the time of this writing, mockrobiota contains 11 mock community data sets with known species compositions, including bacterial, archaeal, and eukaryotic mock communities, analyzed by high-throughput marker gene sequencing. IMPORTANCE The availability of standard and public mock community data will facilitate ongoing method optimizations, comparisons across studies that share source data, and greater transparency and access and eliminate redundancy. These are also valuable resources for bioinformatics teaching and training. This dynamic resource is intended to expand and evolve to meet the changing needs of the omics community

Development and use of prediction models for classification of cardiovascular risk of remote Indigenous Australians

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death for Indigenous Australians. There is widespread belief that current tools have deficiencies for assessing CVD risk in this high-risk population. We sought to develop a 5-year CVD risk score using a wide range of known risk factors to further improve CVD risk prediction in this population. Methods: We used clinical and demographic information on Indigenous people aged between 30 and 74 years without a history of CVD events who participated in the Well Person’s Health Check (WPHC), a community-based survey. Baseline assessments were conducted between 1998 and 2000, and data were linked to administrative hospitalisation and death records for identification of CVD events. We used Cox proportional hazard models to estimate the 5-year CVD risk, and the Harrell’s c-statistic and the modified Hosmer-Lemeshow (mH-L) χ2 statistic to assess the model discrimination and calibration, respectively. Results: The study sample consisted of 1,583 individuals (48.1% male; mean age 45.0 year). The risk score consisted of sex, age, systolic blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, waist circumference, triglycerides, and albumin creatinine ratio. The bias-corrected c-statistic was 0.72 and the bias-corrected mH-L χ2 statistic was 12.01 (p-value, 0.212), indicating good discrimination and calibration, respectively. Using our risk score, the CVD risk of the Indigenous Australians could be stratified to a greater degree compared to a recalibrated Framingham risk score. Conclusions: A seven-factor risk score could satisfactorily stratify 5-year risk of CVD in an Indigenous Australian cohort. These findings inform future research targeting CVD risk in Indigenous Australians

Linked data and inclusion health: Harmonised international data linkage to identify determinants of health inequalities

A recent article in The Lancet establishing the principles of inclusion health, highlighted substantial gaps in our understanding of the drivers of health inequalities in socially excluded groups such as people with a history of incarceration, people who experience homelessness, sex workers, people with mental illness, and people who inject drugs1. Cross-sectoral data linkage of electronic health records with services working with socially excluded groups was one of the key recommendations of this article. The magnitude of health disparities observed in people that experience social exclusion necessitates an international public health response and addressing the determinants of social exclusion has been identified as a key component of closing the gap of Indigenous disadvantage2. This symposium will establish data linkage as a key component of the inclusion health and will complement the efforts of the Pan American Health Oranization's (PAHO) Commission on Equity and Health Inequalities in the Americas. Traditional survey methodology is costly and often results in studies that are highly parochial in nature. Due to difficulties recruiting and retaining marginalized groups, these studies are commonly forced to adopt methodological concessions, often selecting the most convenient participants (i.e., selection bias) or incurring increased rates of loss-to-follow-up (i.e., attrition bias). Conversely, global studies aimed at modelling the burden of disease are often not sufficiently nuanced to answer specific inferential research questions. Data-linkage has the potential to overcome these common biases and limitations. Thus, harmonised international data-linkage studies are an important component of the inclusion health response to identify the determinants of health inequalities in socially excluded groups and inform the global inclusion health agenda. This symposium will bring together facilitators from three countries with extensive experience conducting data linkage studies that generate evidence on health and social inequality in socially excluded groups. Using a current multinational study as an example, barriers to international data-linkage studies, methodological solutions, and distributed approaches to generating international comparative evidence will be presented. Innovative examples of cross-sectoral approaches to linkage with social service, correctional and national survey data will be discussed. The development of a novel framework for identifying social exclusion exposures and determinants of health inequalities typically not captured in administrative health data will also be discussed. The session will conclude with a discussion aimed at forming the foundation of an international data linkage project to address these current gaps identified in the inclusion health series and best practice for translation to policy and practice to address health disparities in socially excluded groups. References • Aldridge et al. Morbidity and mortality in homeless individuals, prisoners, sex workers, and individuals with substance use disorders in high-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet. 2017;391(10117):241-250. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31869-X • Greenwood M et al. Challenges in health equity for Indigenous peoples in Canada. The Lancet. 2018;Epub ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30177-

Taxon-Specific Aerosolization of Bacteria and Viruses In an Experimental Ocean-Atmosphere Mesocosm

Ocean-derived, airborne microbes play important roles in Earth’s climate system and human health, yet little is known about factors controlling their transfer from the ocean to the atmosphere. Here, we study microbiomes of isolated sea spray aerosol (SSA) collected in a unique ocean–atmosphere facility and demonstrate taxon-specific aerosolization of bacteria and viruses. These trends are conserved within taxonomic orders and classes, and temporal variation in aerosolization is similarly shared by related taxa. We observe enhanced transfer into SSA of Actinobacteria, certain Gammaproteobacteria, and lipid-enveloped viruses; conversely, Flavobacteriia, some Alphaproteobacteria, and Caudovirales are generally under-represented in SSA. Viruses do not transfer to SSA as efficiently as bacteria. The enrichment of mycolic acid-coated Corynebacteriales and lipid-enveloped viruses (inferred from genomic comparisons) suggests that hydrophobic properties increase transport to the sea surface and SSA. Our results identify taxa relevant to atmospheric processes and a framework to further elucidate aerosolization mechanisms influencing microbial and viral transport pathways

EgoActive: Integrated wireless wearable sensors for capturing infant egocentric auditory-visual statistics and autonomic nervous system function ‘in the wild’

There have been sustained efforts toward using naturalistic methods in developmental science to measure infant behaviors in the real world from an egocentric perspective because statistical regularities in the environment can shape and be shaped by the developing infant. However, there is no user-friendly and unobtrusive technology to densely and reliably sample life in the wild. To address this gap, we present the design, implementation and validation of the EgoActive platform, which addresses limitations of existing wearable technologies for developmental research. EgoActive records the active infants’ egocentric perspective of the world via a miniature wireless head-mounted camera concurrently with their physiological responses to this input via a lightweight, wireless ECG/acceleration sensor. We also provide software tools to facilitate data analyses. Our validation studies showed that the cameras and body sensors performed well. Families also reported that the platform was comfortable, easy to use and operate, and did not interfere with daily activities. The synchronized multi-modal data from the EgoActive platform can help tease apart complex processes that are important for child development to further our understanding of areas ranging from executive function to emotion processing and social learning

A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.Peer reviewe