Need to integrate equipment for center pivot application of animal wastes, The

Presented at the 15th annual Central Plains irrigation conference and exposition proceedings on February 4-5, 2003 at the City Limits Convention Center in Colby, Kansas.Includes bibliographical references

Selecting sprinkler packages for land application of livestock wastewater

Presented at the Central Plains irrigation short course and exposition on February 5-6, 2001 at the Holiday Inn in Kearney, Nebraska.Includes bibliographical references

Review of mechanized irrigation performance for agricultural wastewater reuse projects, A

Presented at the 2006 Central Plains irrigation conference on February 21-22 in Colby, Kansas.Includes bibliographical references

Identifying Advantages and Disadvantages of Variable Rate Irrigation – An Updated Review

Variable rate irrigation (VRI) sprinklers on mechanical move irrigation systems (center pivot or lateral move) have been commercially available since 2004. Although the number of VRI, zone or individual sprinkler, systems adopted to date is lower than expected there is a continued interest to harness this technology, especially when climate variability, regulatory nutrient management, water conservation policies, and declining water for agriculture compound the challenges involved for irrigated crop production. This article reviews the potential advantages and potential disadvantages of VRI technology for moving sprinklers, provides updated examples on such aspects, suggests a protocol for designing and implementing VRI technology and reports on the recent advancements. The advantages of VRI technology are demonstrated in the areas of agronomic improvement, greater economic returns, environmental protection and risk management, while the main drawbacks to VRI technology include the complexity to successfully implement the technology and the lack of evidence that it assures better performance in net profit or water savings. Although advances have been made in VRI technologies, its penetration into the market will continue to depend on tangible and perceived benefits by producers

Thermo-responsive Diblock Copolymer Worm Gels in Non-polar Solvents

Benzyl methacrylate (BzMA) is polymerized using a poly(lauryl methacrylate) macromolecular chain transfer agent (PLMA macro-CTA) using reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization at 70 °C in n-dodecane. This choice of solvent leads to an efficient dispersion polymerization, with polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) occurring via the growing PBzMA block to produce a range of PLMA–PBzMA diblock copolymer nano-objects, including spheres, worms, and vesicles. In the present study, particular attention is paid to the worm phase, which forms soft free-standing gels at 20 °C due to multiple inter-worm contacts. Such worm gels exhibit thermo-responsive behavior: heating above 50 °C causes degelation due to the onset of a worm-to-sphere transition. Degelation occurs because isotropic spheres interact with each other much less efficiently than the highly anisotropic worms. This worm-to-sphere thermal transition is essentially irreversible on heating a dilute solution (0.10% w/w) but is more or less reversible on heating a more concentrated dispersion (20% w/w). The relatively low volatility of n-dodecane facilitates variable-temperature rheological studies, which are consistent with eventual reconstitution of the worm phase on cooling to 20 °C. Variable-temperature 1H NMR studies conducted in d26-dodecane confirm partial solvation of the PBzMA block at elevated temperature: surface plasticization of the worm cores is invoked to account for the observed change in morphology, because this is sufficient to increase the copolymer curvature and hence induce a worm-to-sphere transition. Small-angle X-ray scattering and TEM are used to investigate the structural changes that occur during the worm-to-sphere-to-worm thermal cycle; experiments conducted at 1.0 and 5.0% w/w demonstrate the concentration-dependent (ir)reversibility of these morphological transitions

HLA class I and II diversity contributes to the etiologic heterogeneity of non-Hodgkin lymphoma subtypes

A growing number of loci within the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) region have been implicated in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) etiology. Here, we test a complementary hypothesis of "heterozygote advantage" regarding the role of HLA and NHL, whereby HLA diversity is beneficial and homozygous HLA loci are associated with increased disease risk. HLA alleles at class I and II loci were imputed from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using SNP2HLA for: 3,617 diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (DLBCL), 2,686 follicular lymphomas (FL), 2,878 chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphomas (CLL/SLL), 741 marginal zone lymphomas (MZL), and 8,753 controls of European descent. Both DLBCL and MZL risk were elevated with homozygosity at class I HLA-B and -C loci (OR DLBCL=1.31, 95% CI=1.06-1.60; OR MZL=1.45, 95% CI=1.12-1.89) and class II HLA-DRB1 locus (OR DLBCL=2.10, 95% CI=1.24-3.55; OR MZL= 2.10, 95% CI=0.99-4.45). Increased FL risk was observed with the overall increase in number of homozygous HLA class II loci (p-trend<0.0001, FDR=0.0005). These results support a role for HLA zygosity in NHL etiology and suggests that distinct immune pathways may underly the etiology of the different NHL subtypes

Harnessing the NEON data revolution to advance open environmental science with a diverse and data-capable community

It is a critical time to reflect on the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) science to date as well as envision what research can be done right now with NEON (and other) data and what training is needed to enable a diverse user community. NEON became fully operational in May 2019 and has pivoted from planning and construction to operation and maintenance. In this overview, the history of and foundational thinking around NEON are discussed. A framework of open science is described with a discussion of how NEON can be situated as part of a larger data constellation—across existing networks and different suites of ecological measurements and sensors. Next, a synthesis of early NEON science, based on >100 existing publications, funded proposal efforts, and emergent science at the very first NEON Science Summit (hosted by Earth Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder in October 2019) is provided. Key questions that the ecology community will address with NEON data in the next 10 yr are outlined, from understanding drivers of biodiversity across spatial and temporal scales to defining complex feedback mechanisms in human–environmental systems. Last, the essential elements needed to engage and support a diverse and inclusive NEON user community are highlighted: training resources and tools that are openly available, funding for broad community engagement initiatives, and a mechanism to share and advertise those opportunities. NEON users require both the skills to work with NEON data and the ecological or environmental science domain knowledge to understand and interpret them. This paper synthesizes early directions in the community’s use of NEON data, and opportunities for the next 10 yr of NEON operations in emergent science themes, open science best practices, education and training, and community building

Using an integrated approach to utilizing center pivots for livestock waste management

Presented at the 2008 Central Plains irrigation conference on February 19-20 in Greeley, Colorado

Variable rate irrigation 2010 field results for Central Plains conference

Presented at Proceedings of the 23rd annual Central Plains irrigation conference held in Burlington, Colorado on February 22-23, 2011.Includes bibliographical references