Employment Trends in Textiles and Apparel, 1973-2005

[Excerpt] The article “examines employment trends in the textile and apparel industries, reviewing the likely causes of both the recent historical and projected declines, their varied effects across occupations groups, and the response American producers have developed to adapt to the rapidly changing economic realities”

A complex speciation-richness relationship in a simple neutral model

Speciation is the "elephant in the room" of community ecology. As the ultimate source of biodiversity, its integration in ecology's theoretical corpus is necessary to understand community assembly. Yet, speciation is often completely ignored or stripped of its spatial dimension. Recent approaches based on network theory have allowed ecologists to effectively model complex landscapes. In this study, we use this framework to model allopatric and parapatric speciation in networks of communities and focus on the relationship between speciation, richness, and the spatial structure of communities. We find a strong opposition between speciation and local richness, with speciation being more common in isolated communities and local richness being higher in more connected communities. Unlike previous models, we also find a transition to a positive relationship between speciation and local richness when dispersal is low and the number of communities is small. Also, we use several measures of centrality to characterize the effect of network structure on diversity. The degree, the simplest measure of centrality, is found to be the best predictor of local richness and speciation, although it loses some of its predictive power as connectivity grows. Our framework shows how a simple neutral model can be combined with network theory to reveal complex relationships between speciation, richness, and the spatial organization of populations.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, 50 reference

A Comparative Study of the Flora and Soils of Great Duck and Little Duck Islands, Maine, USA

Strong environmental gradients and varied land-use practices have generated a mosaic of habitats harboring distinct plant communities on islands on the coast of Maine. Botanical studies of Maine\u27s islands, however, are generally limited in number and scope. Baseline studies of Maine\u27s islands are necessary for assessing vegetation dynamics and changes in habitat conditions in relation to environmental impacts imposed by climate change, rising sea levels, invasive species, pests and pathogens, introduced herbivores, and human disturbance. We conducted a survey of the vascular plants and soils of forest, field, and ocean-side communities of Great Duck and Little Duck Islands, ME. These islands differ in environmental and land-use features, and in particular the presence of mammalian herbivores; Great Duck Island has had over a century of continuous mammalian herbivory while Little Duck Island has been largely free of mammalian herbivores over the last 100 years. We recorded 235 vascular plant species in 61 families on the Duck Islands, 106 of which were common to both islands. The composition, abundances, and diversity of plant species substantially differed within similar plant communities between the islands. These differences were particularly evident in the forest communities where Little Duck Island had significantly greater sapling regeneration and a more recent peak in tree recruitment. Soil properties also significantly differed between these islands, with a higher pH in all three communities and higher P, Ca, and K in field, forest, and ocean-side communities, respectively, on Little Duck Island, and higher soluble salts in forest and ocean-side communities of Great Duck Island. Together, our findings suggest that soil characteristics and the dominance and regeneration of vascular plant species can differ substantially even between adjacent islands with otherwise similar geologic characteristics and glacial history, and that mammalian herbivory along with other ecological factors may be important drivers of these differences

Biological Inventories of Schoodic and Corea Peninsulas, Coastal Maine, 1996

This project was designed to complete a preliminary biological inventory of US Navy and Acadia National Park lands on Schoodic and Corea Peninsulas in coastal Maine, with the overall goal of providing the Navy and the National Park Service with natural resource information sufficient for management decisions. In this region, lands administered by these agencies are adjacent to each other and present a unique opportunity to cooperatively assess and manage natural resources. Prior to 1994, basic biological information on the Schoodic Peninsula region was scarce. A preliminary biological inventory was undertaken in 1994, which surveyed amphibians and reptiles, terrestrial mammals, and vascular plants (Mittelhauser, et al. 1995). The present project involved intensive studies of three taxonomic groups not studied in the 1994 survey (bats, landbirds, and bryophyte plants) and follow-up studies of amphibians, terrestrial mammals, and vascular plants. Specific objectives were to: (1) compile species lists for taxa not previously studied; (2) update species and habitat information of taxa studied in 1994; (3) identify federal and state-listed endangered or threatened species and other species of local or state-level management concern; and (4) organize available data for further resource management decisions. The study area included all US Navy lands on Corea Heath and Big Moose Island (approximately 250 hectares) and all Acadia National Park lands on Schoodic Peninsula and Big Moose Island (approximately 800 ha). Corea Heath is designated as a Maine Critical Area, and recognized as a one of the largest and most southerly coastal raised peatlands in North America. The jack pine (Pinus banksiana) stands on Schoodic Peninsula, Big Moose Island, and Corea Heath also are designated Maine Critical Areas. Hence the region is of considerable interest in terms of the biology and conservation of its ecological communities

DNA contamination within recombinant adeno-associated virus preparations correlates with decreased CD34+ cell clonogenic potential.

Recombinant adeno-associated viruses (rAAV) are promising for applications in many genome editing techniques through their effectiveness as carriers of DNA homologous donors into primary hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), but they have many outstanding concerns. Specifically, their biomanufacturing and the variety of factors that influence the quality and consistency of rAAV preps are in question. During the process of rAAV packaging, a cell line is transfected with several DNA plasmids that collectively encode all the necessary information to allow for viral packaging. Ideally, this process results in the packaging of complete viral particles only containing rAAV genomes; however, this is not the case. Through this study, we were able to leverage single-stranded virus (SSV) sequencing, a next-generation sequencing-based method to quantify all DNA species present within rAAV preps. From this, it was determined that much of the DNA within some rAAV preps is not vector-genome derived, and there is wide variability in the contamination by DNA across various preps. Furthermore, we demonstrate that transducing CD34+ HSPCs with preps with higher contaminating DNA resulted in decreased clonogenic potential, altered transcriptomic profiles, and decreased genomic editing. Collectively, this study characterized the effects of DNA contamination within rAAV preps on CD34+ HSPC cellular potential

Reinventing ‘Towel City USA’: Textiles, Tourism and the Future of the Southeastern Mill Town

Throughout the southeastern region of the United States it is common to find towns that were built by textile companies in the late 19th century with the express purpose of manufacturing textile products. Textile companies sought rural areas within this region to build factories and then surrounded the factories with homes, schools, and stores designed to attract and keep workers (Suggs, 2002)

Nat Genet

The function of the majority of genes in the mouse and human genomes remains unknown. The mouse embryonic stem cell knockout resource provides a basis for the characterization of relationships between genes and phenotypes. The EUMODIC consortium developed and validated robust methodologies for the broad-based phenotyping of knockouts through a pipeline comprising 20 disease-oriented platforms. We developed new statistical methods for pipeline design and data analysis aimed at detecting reproducible phenotypes with high power. We acquired phenotype data from 449 mutant alleles, representing 320 unique genes, of which half had no previous functional annotation. We captured data from over 27,000 mice, finding that 83% of the mutant lines are phenodeviant, with 65% demonstrating pleiotropy. Surprisingly, we found significant differences in phenotype annotation according to zygosity. New phenotypes were uncovered for many genes with previously unknown function, providing a powerful basis for hypothesis generation and further investigation in diverse systems.Comment in : Genetic differential calculus. [Nat Genet. 2015] Comment in : Scaling up phenotyping studies. [Nat Biotechnol. 2015

Effects of Cattle Disturbance on Aquatic Macroinvertebrates in Missouri Farm Ponds

I surveyed macroinvertebrate assemblages in ponds in three grazing regimes (ungrazed, rotationally grazed, and continuously grazed) in spring and summer of 2019 on the Osage Plains ecoregion of Missouri. Total suspended solids, turbidity, and organophosphates were lower in ungrazed ponds than in both grazed treatments, and water transparency and aquatic macrophyte cover was significantly higher. Richness was positively correlated with average depth, deepest depth, and water transparency and negatively correlated with turbidity and organophosphate levels. Overall, ungrazed ponds supported higher taxa richness and diversity across all taxa, as well as higher Diptera: Chironomidae, Odonata, and Trichoptera richness. Ungrazed ponds contained 29 unique genera and three unique families compared to two unique genera and two families in rotationally grazed ponds, and one 6 unique genera and one family in continuously grazed units. PerMANOVA results confirmed differences in habitat variables between ungrazed treatments and both grazed treatments; PCA analysis indicated that decreased taxa abundances were mostly associated with nitrate, bank slope, temperature, and pH and, while transparency and vegetation (emergent and cattails) were associated with increased abundances. PerMANOVA results confirmed seasonal differences in ungrazed ponds and continuously grazed treatments for total taxa and families. Chironomid communities differed between treatments and between seasons for ungrazed ponds and both grazing treatments. Fish presence reduced abundance of total taxa across seasons and in spring and Chironomidae taxa across seasons

Employment Trends in Textiles and Apparel, 1973-2005

[Excerpt] The article “examines employment trends in the textile and apparel industries, reviewing the likely causes of both the recent historical and projected declines, their varied effects across occupations groups, and the response American producers have developed to adapt to the rapidly changing economic realities”.emp8tx97.pdf: 596 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020