MANAGEMENT AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF COST AND RETURN BUDGETS: EXTENSION'S ROLE IN FORMULATION AND USE

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Evaluation of the Storm Cell Identification and Tracking Algorithm used by the WSR-88D

The Storm Cell Identification and Tracking (SCIT) algorithm used by the WSR-88D radar identifies storm cells and projects their future movements. It can be extremely useful in making short-term predictions about the impact that a thunderstorm may have on a localized area, allowing people to prepare for an approaching storm. In order to assess the accuracy of the Storm Prediction Forecast algorithm within the SCIT, 48 storms in New York and 24 storms in Kansas were chosen and the error between their forecast tracks and their actual paths was determined. These regions were chosen to look for any significant differences in algorithm performance in two disparate geographical regions and to include a region of the U.S. for which the SCIT algorithm has not been previously evaluated. The storms were chosen based on their severity, all being tornadic at some point during their lifespan. The Storm Position Forecast algorithm acts to predict positions for an identified cell in 15-minute intervals, out to a maximum of 60 minutes. To verify that the algorithm improves with time with respect to a given storm cell, successive scans were also analyzed to verify an improvement in the forecast tracks. Once the errors for each position forecast were calculated, comparisons were done between several different parameters to search for correlations with the errors, including distance to the radar station, dBZ value, lead-time, year and time of day. The errors were broken down further based on direction - where a storm went versus its projection. The most outstanding result discovered was in the separation of error into individual directions. For both the New York and Kansas storms, there was a prominent trend for the storm’s actual path to be to the right of the projected path. The reason for this preferential rightward error can only be hypothesized here and would be an area for further research

Labor requirements of beef cows

Caption title.Includes bibliographical references (page 14)

Reading Molly Bloom

EnglishMaster of Arts (M.A.

Productivity of farm land in Missouri

This report is essentially the material contained in the thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Graduate School, University of Missouri--P. [4].Digitized 2007 AES.Includes bibliographical references (pages 42-43)

Splenic Rupture in a COVID-19 Patient – A Case Report

Background: It is well known that the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) causes coagulation changes, requiring frequent monitoring for potential sequelae such as myocardial infarction and stroke. Non-traumatic splenic rupture is a rare and poorly understood occurrence in the clinical setting. Possible causes of nontraumatic splenic rupture include neoplasm, infection, inflammatory disease, iatrogenic and mechanical causes. Furthermore, increased intrasplenic tension, increased abdominal pressure, and thrombotic vascular occlusion are possible mechanisms. The Case: We report a case of splenic rupture in a COVID-19 patient. Our patient was a 52-year-old black man, presenting with diarrhea and moderate dyspnea, who was found to be COVID-19 positive. He had a past medical history significant for end-stage renal disease, chronic anemia, and aortic valve replacement. In an otherwise uneventful, 7-day hospital course, the patient’s stay abruptly resulted in a nontraumatic splenic rupture and demise. In this report, we have evaluated the likelihood of COVID-19 causing splenic rupture in a patient with no prior splenic disease. Conclusion: This case highlights the possibility of splenic rupture in otherwise normally recovering COVID-19 patients, particularly in the presence of comorbid conditions of renal failure and anticoagulation, with increased abdominal pressure during routine defecation. This information may assist in furthering the pathophysiology of COVID-19 and its life-threatening complications. In patients with COVID-19, non-traumatic splenic rupture should be considered as one of the differential diagnoses in patients who present with abdominal pain and early recognition of the same, owing to a high index of suspicion, can be lifesaving

Loss of the sphingolipid desaturase DEGS1 causes hypomyelinating leukodystrophy.

Sphingolipid imbalance is the culprit in a variety of neurological diseases, some affecting the myelin sheath. We have used whole-exome sequencing in patients with undetermined leukoencephalopathies to uncover the endoplasmic reticulum lipid desaturase DEGS1 as the causative gene in 19 patients from 13 unrelated families. Shared features among the cases include severe motor arrest, early nystagmus, dystonia, spasticity, and profound failure to thrive. MRI showed hypomyelination, thinning of the corpus callosum, and progressive thalamic and cerebellar atrophy, suggesting a critical role of DEGS1 in myelin development and maintenance. This enzyme converts dihydroceramide (DhCer) into ceramide (Cer) in the final step of the de novo biosynthesis pathway. We detected a marked increase of the substrate DhCer and DhCer/Cer ratios in patients' fibroblasts and muscle. Further, we used a knockdown approach for disease modeling in Danio rerio, followed by a preclinical test with the first-line treatment for multiple sclerosis, fingolimod (FTY720, Gilenya). The enzymatic inhibition of Cer synthase by fingolimod, 1 step prior to DEGS1 in the pathway, reduced the critical DhCer/Cer imbalance and the severe locomotor disability, increasing the number of myelinating oligodendrocytes in a zebrafish model. These proof-of-concept results pave the way to clinical translation

Variability of Microbial Particulate ATP Concentrations in Subeuphotic Microbes Due to Underlying Metabolic Strategies in the South Pacific Ocean

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the primary energy storage molecule in metabolic pathways. It is common in marine studies to use particulate ATP (PATP) concentrations as representative of microbial biomass. However, there is growing evidence from culture studies, models, and transcriptional data that PATP concentration varies across microbes and conditions, thus compromising interpretations in environmental settings. Importantly, there is a lack of open ocean studies assessing variations in PATP concentrations and thus a deficiency of information on the key biogeochemical drivers for variability in microbial PATP independent of biomass. In sampling the U.S. GO-SHIP P06E zonal transect (32.5°S) across the eastern South Pacific, from the subtropical gyre to the upwelling waters off Chile, we conducted the first comprehensive transect survey quantifying PATP. PATP concentrations increased toward the upwelling region of the transect, but varied vertically when normalized against three measures of biomass: particulate phosphorus, microbial abundance, and microbial biovolume. Generally, greater biomass-normalized PATP concentrations were observed below the deep chlorophyll maximum. Subdividing the P06E transect into four biogeochemical regimes highlighted distinct metabolic strategies used by microbes. Between these regimes, we found PATP concentrations were representative of biomass in upper surface waters. However, below the deep chlorophyll maximum we observed higher biomass normalized PATP concentrations that we hypothesize were due to less availability of energy sources in those subeuphotic zone waters and abundances of chemoautotrophs in the microbial community. This finding suggests that stored energy was more important for these deeper microbes