Effects of nitrogen fertilization on soil carbon dynamics in a corn-soybean rotation in Iowa

The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) over the last century has led to an increased interest in soil C dynamics and sequestering C in soil. The focus of this study is to investigate CO2 emissions and soil C changes with various N application rates in a corn-soybean rotation. The study consists of seven sites across Iowa. Each experiment consists of four selected N rates of 0, 90, 180 and 225 kg ha−1 replicated four times in a randomized complete block design in a corn-soybean rotation. Soil samples were collected at 0-5, 5-10, 10-15, 15-30 and 30-60 cm increments for soil organic carbon (SOC), total soil N (TN), particulate organic matter carbon (POMC), and associated mineral fraction C (MFC). Field soil CO2 emissions from the same N rate treatments were measured during the growing season using a Li-Cor 6400 Infrared Gas Analyzer every seven to 10 days at the Boone, Floyd, and Warren sites in 2002, and Tama site in 2003. Soil laboratory incubation, microbial biomass, and N mineralization studies were conducted on the soils from Boone, Floyd, and Tama sites. Results indicated cumulative soil CO2-C emissions varied in response to N fertilization. Higher N rate treatments had lower cumulative CO2-C than the 0 kg ha−1 N rate treatment when N fertilizer was applied to the corn crop. However, N fertilizer rates of 90, 180 and 225 kg ha−1 N applied to corn the previous year showed higher cumulative CO2-C emissions than the 0 kg ha−1 N rate treatment in the soybean season. In a laboratory soil incubation study, N fertilized soils emitted significantly less CO2-C than the non-fertilized soils. Nitrogen fertilization significantly increased inorganic soil N concentration prior to a 56-day laboratory incubation. After the 56-day incubation period, inorganic soil N concentration was significantly lower for the 0 kg ha−1 N rate treatments than the higher N rate treatments. Nitrogen fertilization did not have a significant effect on microbial biomass carbon (MBC). Results indicate N fertilization does not significantly affect soil SOC, POMC, or MFC at the 0-5, 5-10, and 15-30 cm depths. Nitrogen fertilization had variable effects on crop biomass production along with TC and TN potentially returned to the soil via biomass. Overall, after 2 years of N fertilizer application to corn and one year of soybean with no N fertilizer application, no significant changes in soil SOC, POMC, and MFC were observed in the short period of time

Mucosal malignant melanomas in head and neck surgery: a retrospective study of six patients and review of the literature

Introduction: Of all malignant processes of the oral mucosa, 0.5% are malignant melanomas. Because of late diagnosis, pattern of growth, close proximity to the bone (particularly in palatinal localizations), and the correlated infiltration, malignant melanomas have a bad prognosis. Patients and methods: In this retrospective study, six cases of patients with oral mucosal malignant melanoma are evaluated, and a critical review of the literature is presented. The female to male proportion was 1:1 with an average age of 60.2years; all patients were treated between January 1999 and July 2007. A neck dissection was performed on two patients because of clinically positive lymph nodes; one patient received interleukin 2 therapy, and three patients received postoperative radiotherapy. Two male patients died. Conclusions: We recommend biopsy on every growing lesion, pigmented or nonpigmented, for the required diagnosis and, in cases of malignant melanoma, wide excision as a second step. Neck dissections should be performed in patients with clinically positive lymph nodes. Concerning interleukin 2 therapy, further studies should be performed in order to evaluate a routine applicatio

Deep Normalizing Flows for State Estimation

Safe and reliable state estimation techniques are a critical component of next-generation robotic systems. Agents in such systems must be able to reason about the intentions and trajectories of other agents for safe and efficient motion planning. However, classical state estimation techniques such as Gaussian filters often lack the expressive power to represent complex underlying distributions, especially if the system dynamics are highly nonlinear or if the interaction outcomes are multi-modal. In this work, we use normalizing flows to learn an expressive representation of the belief over an agent's true state. Furthermore, we improve upon existing architectures for normalizing flows by using more expressive deep neural network architectures to parameterize the flow. We evaluate our method on two robotic state estimation tasks and show that our approach outperforms both classical and modern deep learning-based state estimation baselines.Comment: Accepted to FUSION 202

iPhone 3G student developer competition

Project Partners: Reynolds Journalism Institute/Missouri School of Journalism, College of Engineering, Trulaske College of Business, College of Education, College of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources, Apple Inc and AT&T Inc.Proposal for the 2008 project: "iPhone 3G Student Developer Competition." Partners: Reynolds Journalism Institute/Missouri School of Journalism, College of Engineering, Trulaske College of Business, College of Education, College of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources, Apple Inc and AT&T Inc. Project Description: The above partners propose to sponsor a student contest, modeled on last year's successful RJI/Adobe AIR Student Competition, to develop, test and market native iPhone applications designed to improve the practice and the business of American journalism. Finalist teams will receive private consulting at Apple Inc.'s world headquarters in Cupertino, CA. The project's sponsors will host a symposium in Spring 2009 on the MU campus to showcase the competition as a model for interdisciplinary education and entrepreneurship. The winning student team will attend Apple's 2009 Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco.MU Interdisciplinary Innovations Fun

A case report of metastasis of malignant mesothelioma to the oral gingiva

Introduction: Metastatic mesothelioma to the oral cavity arises from the pleura or peritoneum and distant hematogenous metastases are seen in more than half of cases but only a few cases are reported to the oral cavity Case: A 75 year old male suffering from metastatic mesothelioma presents an hyperplasia of the attached gingiva. Malignant mesothelioma is a rare tumour arising from pleura, pericardium or peritoneum. Conclusion: This article highlights the importance of biopsy and histopathological diagnosis of oral lesions especially in case of a malignant history

Effects of Grazing Crop Residues of bt-Corn Hybrids on Performance of Pregnant Beef Cows

To determine the effects of grazing crop residues from bt-corn hybrids on performance of pregnant beef cows, one non bt-corn hybrid (Pioneer 3489) and three bt-corn hybrids (Pioneer 34RO7 and Novartis NX6236 with the Yieldgard event and Novartis N64Z4 with the Knockout event) were planted in duplicate 7.1-acre fields in 1998 and 1999. Thirty Angus x Charolais x Simmental cows in midgestation were allotted amongst two drylots or the eight crop residue fields to strip-graze for 126 days. Cow body condition scores were visually estimated biweekly and alfalfa-grass hay was supplemented to maintain a mean body condition score of 5 on a 9-point scale. Corn stalks and ear shanks from Pioneer 3489 corn had a higher (P\u3c.05) infestation of corn borers than did any of the bt-corn hybrids. Mean yields of harvested grain, dropped ears or grain, or crop residue dry matter (DM) or organic matter (OM) over the two years were not significantly affected by corn hybrid, but values for bt-corn hybrids were not equivalent to the non bt-corn hybrid. At grazing initiation, crop residues from Novartis NX6236 and N64Z4 had higher (P\u3c.05) concentrations of in vitro digestible organic matter (IVOMD) and lower (P\u3c.05) concentrations of acid detergent fiber (ADF) and acid detergent lignin (ADL) than Pioneer 3489 or Pioneer 34RO7. Rates of change in the concentrations of IVOMD, neutral detergent fiber (NDF), ADF, ADL and crude protein (CP) over winter were not significantly affected by corn hybrid, but rates for bt-corn hybrids were not equivalent to non bt-corn hybrids. Forage selected during feeding by fistulated steers did not differ in IVOMD concentrations between winter feeding systems or NDF, ADF, CP or acid detergent insoluble nitrogen (ADIN) concentrations between corn hybrids. Intakes of forage digestible DM, NDF and ADF did not differ between winter feeding systems, but were not equivalent to the non bt-corn hybrid. Mean amounts of hay required to maintain body condition score of cows maintained in a drylot were greater than cows grazing crop residues (3199 vs 825 lb DM/cow), but did not differ between corn hybrids

Mental Health Treatment Involvement and Religious Coping among African American, Hispanic, and White Veterans of the Wars of Iraq and Afghanistan

Although racial/ethnic differences have been found in the use of mental health services for depression in the general population, research among Veterans has produced mixed results. This study examined racial/ethnic differences in the use of mental health services among 148 Operation Enduring/Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) Veterans with high levels of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and evaluated whether religious coping affected service use. No differences between African American, Hispanic, and Non-Hispanic white Veterans were found in use of secular mental health services or religious counseling. Women Veterans were more likely than men to seek secular treatment. After controlling for PTSD symptoms, depression symptom level was a significant predictor of psychotherapy attendance but not medication treatment. African American Veterans reported higher levels of religious coping than whites. Religious coping was associated with participation in religious counseling, but not secular mental health services

Peritumoral endothelial indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase expression is an early independent marker of disease relapse in colorectal cancer and is influenced by DNA mismatch repair profile

Targeting immune checkpoint molecules has become a major new strategy in the treatment of several cancers. Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO)-inhibitors are a potential next-generation immunotherapy, currently investigated in multiple phase I-III trials. IDO is an intracellular immunosuppressive enzyme and its expression/ activity has been associated with worse prognosis in several cancers. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression pattern of IDO in colorectal cancer (CRC). In a cohort of 94 CRC patients, primary tumors (PTs) with corresponding tumor-draining lymph nodes (TDLNs, n = 93) and extranodal/distant metastases (n = 27) were retrospectively analyzed by immunohistochemical staining for IDO, CD8 and Foxp3. 45 MSS and 37 MSI-H tumors were selected to compare IDO expression, as these tumors are considered to have different immunogenicity. A highly consistent expression pattern of IDO was observed in the PT, TDLNs and metastases, indicating that immune resistance may be determined very early in the disease course. IDO was expressed both by tumoral cells and host endothelial cells and these expressions were highly correlated (p < 0.001). IDO expression was observed more frequently in the MSI-H subset compared with the MSS subset (43% vs 22% for tumoral expression (p = 0.042) and 38% vs 16% for endothelial expression (p = 0.021)). Endothelial IDO expression was demonstrated to be a negative prognostic marker for recurrence free survival independent of disease stage and DNA mismatch repair (MMR) status (HR 20.67, 95% CI: 3.05-139.94; p = 0.002). These findings indicate that endothelial IDO expression in primary CRC, in addition to the MMR profile, may be helpful in disease stratification.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Pre-treatment of blood samples reveal normal blood hypocretin/orexin signal in narcolepsy type 1

The hypocretin/orexin system regulates arousal through central nervous system mechanisms and plays an important role in sleep, wakefulness and energy homeostasis. It is unclear whether hypocretin peptides are also present in blood due to difficulties in measuring reliable and reproducible levels of the peptides in blood samples. Lack of hypocretin signalling causes the sleep disorder narcolepsy type 1, and low concentration of cerebrospinal fluid hypocretin-l/oreadn-A peptide is a hallmark of the disease. This measurement has high diagnostic value, but performing a lumbar puncture is not without discomfort and possible complications for the patient. A blood-based test to assess hypocretin-1 deficiency would therefore be of obvious benefit. We here demonstrate that heating plasma or scrum samples to 65 degrees C for 30 min at pH 8 significantly increases hypocretin-1 immunoreactivity enabling stable and reproducible measurement of hypocretin-1 in blood samples. Specificity of the signal was verified by high-performance liquid chromatography and by measuring blood samples from mice lacking hypocretin. Unspecific background signal in the assay was high. Using our method, we show that hypocretin-1 immunoreactivity in blood samples from narcolepsy type 1 patients does not differ from the levels detected in control samples. The data presented here suggest that hypocretin-1 is present in the blood stream in the low picograms per millilitres range and that peripheral hypocretin-1 concentrations are unchanged in narcolepsy type 1