Antibiotic Accumulation in an Outdoor Anaerobic Poultry Manure Lagoon

There is an increasing trend towards the concentration of poultry populations. With the increased popularity of confinement housing and the purchasing of the feed, less land is needed to raise and keep poultry. A serious problem arising from this change is that manure disposal is becoming increasingly difficult for owners of large poultry flocks. Lagoons have been used as a means of poultry waste disposal. This method of manure treatment is not new. The stabilization of waste in a lagoon is limited by the biological population which in turn is controlled by: nutrition, temperature, oxygen, and toxic materials. Oxytetracycline is a broad-spectrum antibiotic and is known to be excreted in quite large amounts by humans and chicks when administered orally. The quantity of oxytetracycline in the feed ration and in the feces was also assayed to determine the amount of antibiotic passing through the chicken and being deposited, initially in the lagoon

Nonnative Ungulate Impacts on Greater Sage-grouse Late Brood-rearing Habitat in the Great Basin, USA

Domestic livestock grazing is the dominant land use on much of the current range inhabited by greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; sage-grouse) in the western United States. Nonnative feral horses (Equus ferus caballus) also inhabit important sage-grouse seasonal habitats. Overabundant feral horse populations and improper grazing by domestic cattle (Bos taurus) can impact the health of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) and desert shrub rangeland communities and native wildlife. These impacts to sage-grouse can be exacerbated when they affect late brood-rearing habitat, which provide the forbs and arthropods required to fledge broods. Managers require better information regarding the extent of these impacts. In 2020, we assessed the potential impact of feral horses and domestic cattle on sage-grouse late brood-rearing habitats in western Utah and eastern Nevada, USA. We acquired late brood-rearing location data from sage-grouse marked with global positioning system and very-high frequency radio-transmitters from 2016 to 2020 for North Utah data, 2017 to 2018 for South Utah data, and 1961 to 2017 for both east and west Nevada data to delineate late brood-rearing habitats. Using these location data, we compared 8 sites (4 pairs) within horse and non-horse use areas to assess sage-grouse habitat quality characteristics between areas that have been predominantly horse and cattle grazed versus sites that have been predominantly cattle grazed. For each pairing, 1 site was located within and the other outside of a Bureau of Land Management herd management area boundary, and both sites shared similar habitat characteristics (i.e., topography, dominant vegetation, soils, and climate) and selection probability for broods. We collected vegetation and dung count data at each site to assess characteristics related to habitat quality for sage-grouse brood-rearing, based on ungulate presence. We used a mixed model analysis of variance to detect differences between each paired site comparison (α \u3c 0.01). Horses or evidence of horse presence (i.e., dung) were not detected at our non-horse sites allowing for an unbiased comparison between paired sites. Cattle presence was noted at all our paired sites. Average annual grass frequency was 0.74 in horse and 0.17 in non-horse use areas (P = 0.20), and average annual grass cover was 4.0% compared to 0.2% in horse use areas (P = 0.32). Average annual grass biomass was 0.45 kg/ha in horse and 0.04% in non-horse use areas (P = 0.34). Vegetation height was 44.2 cm in non-horse compared to 34.5 cm in horse use areas (P = 0.23). These results suggest that increased ungulate grazing and year-long use of late brood-rearing habitat by feral horses coupled with livestock grazing may impair habitat suitability, particularly considering ecological impacts from invasive plant species. Our results suggest that managing late brood-rearing habitats to reduce the frequency and intensity of year-long grazing by feral horses can be best accomplished by reducing horse numbers and the seasonal distribution of grazing by domestic livestock

Temporal Correlation of Hard X-rays and Meter/Decimeter Radio Structures in Solar Flares

We investigate the relative timing between hard X-ray (HXR) peaks and structures in metric and decimetric radio emissions of solar flares using data from the RHESSI and Phoenix-2 instruments. The radio events under consideration are predominantly classified as type III bursts, decimetric pulsations and patches. The RHESSI data are demodulated using special techniques appropriate for a Phoenix-2 temporal resolution of 0.1s. The absolute timing accuracy of the two instruments is found to be about 170 ms, and much better on the average. It is found that type III radio groups often coincide with enhanced HXR emission, but only a relatively small fraction ($\sim$ 20%) of the groups show close correlation on time scales $<$ 1s. If structures correlate, the HXRs precede the type III emissions in a majority of cases, and by 0.69$\pm$0.19 s on the average. Reversed drift type III bursts are also delayed, but high-frequency and harmonic emission is retarded less. The decimetric pulsations and patches (DCIM) have a larger scatter of delays, but do not have a statistically significant sign or an average different from zero. The time delay does not show a center-to-limb variation excluding simple propagation effects. The delay by scattering near the source region is suggested to be the most efficient process on the average for delaying type III radio emission

Survey on solar X-ray flares and associated coherent radio emissions

The radio emission during 201 X-ray selected solar flares was surveyed from 100 MHz to 4 GHz with the Phoenix-2 spectrometer of ETH Zurich. The selection includes all RHESSI flares larger than C5.0 jointly observed from launch until June 30, 2003. Detailed association rates of radio emission during X-ray flares are reported. In the decimeter wavelength range, type III bursts and the genuinely decimetric emissions (pulsations, continua, and narrowband spikes) were found equally frequently. Both occur predominantly in the peak phase of hard X-ray (HXR) emission, but are less in tune with HXRs than the high-frequency continuum exceeding 4 GHz, attributed to gyrosynchrotron radiation. In 10% of the HXR flares, an intense radiation of the above genuine decimetric types followed in the decay phase or later. Classic meter-wave type III bursts are associated in 33% of all HXR flares, but only in 4% they are the exclusive radio emission. Noise storms were the only radio emission in 5% of the HXR flares, some of them with extended duration. Despite the spatial association (same active region), the noise storm variations are found to be only loosely correlated in time with the X-ray flux. In a surprising 17% of the HXR flares, no coherent radio emission was found in the extremely broad band surveyed. The association but loose correlation between HXR and coherent radio emission is interpreted by multiple reconnection sites connected by common field lines.Comment: Solar Physics, in pres

GraphFind: enhancing graph searching by low support data mining techniques

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Biomedical and chemical databases are large and rapidly growing in size. Graphs naturally model such kinds of data. To fully exploit the wealth of information in these graph databases, a key role is played by systems that search for all exact or approximate occurrences of a query graph. To deal efficiently with graph searching, advanced methods for indexing, representation and matching of graphs have been proposed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This paper presents GraphFind. The system implements efficient graph searching algorithms together with advanced filtering techniques that allow approximate search. It allows users to select candidate subgraphs rather than entire graphs. It implements an effective data storage based also on low-support data mining.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>GraphFind is compared with Frowns, GraphGrep and gIndex. Experiments show that GraphFind outperforms the compared systems on a very large collection of small graphs. The proposed low-support mining technique which applies to any searching system also allows a significant index space reduction.</p

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson

Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at \sqrt{s}=7\TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section for top quark pairs(\ttbar) in $pp$ collisions at \sqrt{s}=7 \TeV is presented using data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in two different topologies: single lepton (electron $e$ or muon $\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least four jets, and dilepton ($ee$, $\mu\mu$ or $e\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least two jets. In a data sample of 2.9 pb-1, 37 candidate events are observed in the single-lepton topology and 9 events in the dilepton topology. The corresponding expected backgrounds from non-\ttbar Standard Model processes are estimated using data-driven methods and determined to be $12.2 \pm 3.9$ events and $2.5 \pm 0.6$ events, respectively. The kinematic properties of the selected events are consistent with SM \ttbar production. The inclusive top quark pair production cross-section is measured to be \sigmattbar=145 \pm 31 ^{+42}_{-27} pb where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measurement agrees with perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 30 pages plus author list (50 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, CERN-PH number and final journal adde

Measurement of the top quark pair cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV using final states with an electron or a muon and a hadronically decaying τ lepton

A measurement of the cross section of top quark pair production in proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is reported. The data sample used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.05 fb -1. Events with an isolated electron or muon and a τ lepton decaying hadronically are used. In addition, a large missing transverse momentum and two or more energetic jets are required. At least one of the jets must be identified as originating from a b quark. The measured cross section, σtt-=186±13(stat.)±20(syst.)±7(lumi.) pb, is in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction

Expected Performance of the ATLAS Experiment - Detector, Trigger and Physics

A detailed study is presented of the expected performance of the ATLAS detector. The reconstruction of tracks, leptons, photons, missing energy and jets is investigated, together with the performance of b-tagging and the trigger. The physics potential for a variety of interesting physics processes, within the Standard Model and beyond, is examined. The study comprises a series of notes based on simulations of the detector and physics processes, with particular emphasis given to the data expected from the first years of operation of the LHC at CERN