Investigating the functional and adaptive significance of leaf size and shape variation in Jamesbrittenia (Scrophulariaceae (s.s). tribe Manulae) : an experimental and comparative approach

The adaptive significance of variety in leaf forms remains a mystery for many plant groups. This study aimed, using a combined experimental and comparative approach, to investigate the functional significance of leaf size and shape variation, as well as the patterns of leaf form variation in the genus Jamesbrittenia within the context of phylogenetic history. Leaf sizes 63-measured Jamesbrittenia varied between 0.006cm² (in J. microphylla) and 6.52cm² (in J. megaphylla). Correlations between leaf form and the environment suggest leaf size and shape are primarily adapted to water availability, with only leaf dimension being significantly associated with temperature, while, soil fertility shows no relationship with leaf size. Life history is important, however, as broader leaved annuals and species with shorter-lived leaves are associated with more arid habitats. Results of the experimental trials suggest that the primary function leaf size and shape reduction is to reduce water loss, and not to increase heat shedding. While larger leaves transpire more on a leaf-by-leaf basis, transpiration may be higher in broader leaved species at the whole-plant due to higher total plant transpiration. Thus, it is suggested a reduction in leaf size and dimension in Jamesbrittenia is an adaptation to more arid environments. Alternatively, a change in life history may enable a plant to escape harsh periods and capitalise on favourable times. A small- to intermediate-leaved, perennial ancestor is inferred for Jamesbrittenia, which was associated with arid regions in either the summer or winter rainfall regions of southern Africa. Shifts to an annual life history in Jamesbrittenia are associated with a shift to drier habitats, particularly in the arid winter rainfall region of South Africa

The role of water and nutrient availability in determining above and below ground allocations in a C4 grass Stipagrotis ciliata desf. de Winter

In order to understand the impacts climate change will have on plants it is important to understand the role of functional diversity in determining plant success across a range of environments. Two populations of Stipagrostis ciliata were compared at two sites - drier coastal and wetter inland - that varied in their water and nutrient availability. Analysis indicates an inverse relationship between rainfall and N availability, with the drier coastal site having significantly lower soil and plant δ¹⁵N (Zadi= -1.964, p<0.05). Plant percent N decreased by 63% between the coastal and inland site. Mean root: shoot ratios also differed significantly between sites (Zadi= -1.964, p<0.05). Although total rooting depth did not appear to differ between sites, in total more root material was found per plant at the inland site, with 40% of all root material occurring directly below the plant. At the coastal site, a greater proportion of root material was allocated laterally in the upper 10cm of soil. As expected, water use efficiency, based on δ¹³C, was higher at the drier coastal site. It is proposed that plants will alter above and below- ground allocation depending on the nature of the limiting resource. In dry environments, more root material in upper soil layers, and a faster growth rate associated with higher shoot allocation, may enhance water uptake. Where nutrients are limiting, increased root biomass might increase nutrient, especially N interception. Competition may also be higher at low nutrient sites

History of the Innovation of Damage Control for Management of Trauma Patients: 1902-2016

Objective: To review the history of the innovation of damage control (DC) for management of trauma patients. Background: DC is an important development in trauma care that provides a valuable case study in surgical innovation. Methods: We searched bibliographic databases (1950-2015), conference abstracts (2009-2013), Web sites, textbooks, and bibliographies for articles relating to trauma DC. The innovation of DC was then classified according to the Innovation, Development, Exploration, Assessment, and Long-term study model of surgical innovation. Results: The innovation\u27\u27 of DC originated from the use of therapeutic liver packing, a practice that had previously been abandoned after World War II because of adverse events. It then developed\u27\u27 into abbreviated laparotomy using rapid conservative operative techniques.\u27\u27 Subsequent exploration\u27\u27 resulted in the application of DC to increasingly complex abdominal injuries and thoracic, peripheral vascular, and orthopedic injuries. Increasing use of DC laparotomy was followed by growing reports of postinjury abdominal compartment syndrome and prophylactic use of the open abdomen to prevent intra-abdominal hypertension after DC laparotomy. By the year 2000, DC surgery had been widely adopted and was recommended for use in surgical journals, textbooks, and teaching courses ( assessment\u27\u27 stage of innovation). Long-term study\u27\u27 of DC is raising questions about whether the procedure should be used more selectively in the context of improving resuscitation practices. Conclusions: The history of the innovation of DC illustrates how a previously abandoned surgical technique was adapted and readopted in response to an increased understanding of trauma patient physiology and changing injury patterns and trauma resuscitation practices

Elevated Pressure Improves the Extraction and Identification of Proteins Recovered from Formalin-Fixed, Paraffin-Embedded Tissue Surrogates

Proteomic studies of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues are frustrated by the inability to extract proteins from archival tissue in a form suitable for analysis by 2-D gel electrophoresis or mass spectrometry. This inability arises from the difficulty of reversing formaldehyde-induced protein adducts and cross-links within FFPE tissues. We previously reported the use of elevated hydrostatic pressure as a method for efficient protein recovery from a hen egg-white lysozyme tissue surrogate, a model system developed to study formalin fixation and histochemical processing.In this study, we demonstrate the utility of elevated hydrostatic pressure as a method for efficient protein recovery from FFPE mouse liver tissue and a complex multi-protein FFPE tissue surrogate comprised of hen egg-white lysozyme, bovine carbonic anhydrase, bovine ribonuclease A, bovine serum albumin, and equine myoglobin (55∶15∶15∶10∶5 wt%). Mass spectrometry of the FFPE tissue surrogates retrieved under elevated pressure showed that both the low and high-abundance proteins were identified with sequence coverage comparable to that of the surrogate mixture prior to formaldehyde treatment. In contrast, non-pressure-extracted tissue surrogate samples yielded few positive and many false peptide identifications. Studies with soluble formalin-treated bovine ribonuclease A demonstrated that pressure modestly inhibited the rate of reversal (hydrolysis) of formaldehyde-induced protein cross-links. Dynamic light scattering studies suggest that elevated hydrostatic pressure and heat facilitate the recovery of proteins free of formaldehyde adducts and cross-links by promoting protein unfolding and hydration with a concomitant reduction in the average size of the protein aggregates.These studies demonstrate that elevated hydrostatic pressure treatment is a promising approach for improving the recovery of proteins from FFPE tissues in a form suitable for proteomic analysis

The Precaution Adoption Process Model in Describing Emergency Action Plan Adoption

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the ability of the Precaution Adoption Process Model (PAPM) to classify athletic trainers (ATs) and athletic directors (ADs) readiness to act with regards to adopting an emergency action plan (EAP), and describe factors influencing PAPM stages. Method: We used a cross-sectional questionnaire design to evaluate readiness to act for developing an EAP among ATs and ADs working in United States high schools. The PAPM is a participant-driven model to identify someone’s readiness to act or change and has seven stages: Unaware, Unengaged, Undecided, Decided not to Act, Decided to Act, Acting and Maintaining. Prevalence ratios (PRs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated. Results: A majority of ATs and ADs reported maintaining an EAP in their secondary school (AT “Maintaining” = 84.4%, AD “Maintaining” = 68.7%). ADs were more likely to be staged as “Decided not to Act” (PR=0.14, 95% CI= 0.05, 0.41) for the development of an EAP compared to ATs. ATs were more likely to be staged as “Maintaining” (PR=1.23, 95% CI = 1.16, 1.30) for the development of an EAP compared to ADs. Conclusions: The PAPM appears to be able to classify AT and AD readiness to act with adoption of an EAP. However, statistical modeling struggles to identify predictors for the various stages. Future research should aim to use the PAPM stages in the development of tailored interventions

Effects of Training and Testosterone on Muscle-Fiber Types and Locomotor Performance in Male Six-Lined Racerunners (\u3cem\u3eAspidoscelis sexlineata\u3c/em\u3e)

Testosterone (T) is thought to affect a variety of traits important for fitness, including coloration, the size of sexual ornaments, aggression, and locomotor performance. Here, we investigated the effects of experimentally elevated T and locomotor training on muscle physiology and running performance in a nonterritorial male lizard species (Aspidoscelis sexlineata). Additionally, several morphological attributes were quantified to examine other characters that are likely affected by T and/or a training regimen. Neither training alone nor training with T supplementation resulted in increased locomotor performance. Instead, we found that T and training resulted in a decrease in each of three locomotor performance variables as well as in hematocrit, ventral coloration, and testis size. Strikingly, neither the size nor the fiber composition of the iliofibularis or gastrocnemius muscles was different among the two treatments or a group of untrained control animals. Hence, the relationships among T, training, and associated characters are not clear. Our results offer important insights for those hoping to conduct laboratory manipulations on nonmodel organisms and highlight the challenges of studying both training effects and the effects of steroid hormones on locomotor performance

Reducing Baylisascaris procyonis Roundworm Larvae in Raccoon Latrines

Baylisascaris procyonis roundworms, a parasite of raccoons, can infect humans, sometimes fatally. Parasite eggs can remain viable in raccoon latrines for years. To develop a management technique for parasite eggs, we tested anthelmintic baiting. The prevalence of eggs decreased at latrines, and larval infections decreased among intermediate hosts, indicating that baiting is effective

Concurrent and long-term associations between the endometrial microbiota and endometrial transcriptome in postpartum dairy cows

peer-reviewedBackground Fertility in dairy cows depends on ovarian cyclicity and on uterine involution. Ovarian cyclicity and uterine involution are delayed when there is uterine dysbiosis (overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria). Fertility in dairy cows may involve a mechanism through which the uterine microbiota affects ovarian cyclicity as well as the transcriptome of the endometrium within the involuting uterus. The hypothesis was that the transcriptome of the endometrium in postpartum cows would be associated with the cyclicity status of the cow as well as the microbiota during uterine involution. The endometrium of first lactation dairy cows was sampled at 1, 5, and 9 weeks postpartum. All cows were allowed to return to cyclicity without intervention until week 5 and treated with an ovulation synchronization protocol so that sampling at week 9 was on day 13 of the estrous cycle. The endometrial microbiota was measured by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and principal component analysis. The endometrial transcriptome was measured by mRNA sequencing, differential gene expression analysis, and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis. Results The endometrial microbiota changed from week 1 to week 5 but the week 5 and week 9 microbiota were similar. The endometrial transcriptome differed for cows that were either cycling or not cycling at week 5 and cyclicity status depended in part on the endometrial microbiota. Compared with cows cycling at week 5, there were large changes in the transcriptome of cows that progressed from non-cycling at week 5 to cycling at week 9. There was evidence for concurrent and longer-term associations between the endometrial microbiota and transcriptome. The week 1 endometrial microbiota had the greatest effect on the subsequent endometrial transcriptome and this effect was greatest at week 5 and diminished by week 9. Conclusions The cumulative response of the endometrial transcriptome to the microbiota represented the combination of past microbial exposure and current microbial exposure. The endometrial transcriptome in postpartum cows, therefore, depended on the immediate and longer-term effects of the uterine microbiota that acted directly on the uterus. There may also be an indirect mechanism through which the microbiome affects the transcriptome through the restoration of ovarian cyclicity postpartum

Auroral zone effects on hydrogen geocorona structure and variability

The instantaneous structure of planetary exospheres is determined by the time history of energy dissipation, chemical, and transport processes operative during a prior time interval set by intrinsic atmospheric time scales. The complex combination of diurnal and magnetospheric activity modulations imposed on the Earth's upper atmosphere no doubt produce an equally complex response, especially in hydrogen, which escapes continuously at exospheric temperatures. Vidal-Madjar and Thomas (1978) have discussed some of the persistent large scale structure which is evident in satellite ultraviolet observations of hydrogen, noting in particular a depletion at high latitudes which is further discussed by Thomas and Vidal-Madjar (1978). The latter authors discussed various causes of the H density depletion, including local neutral temperature enhancements and enhanced escape rates due to polar wind H+ plasma flow or high latitude ion heating followed by charge exchange. We have reexamined the enhancement of neutral escape by plasma effects including the recently observed phenomenon of low altitude transverse ion acceleration. We find that, while significant fluxes of neutral H should be produced by this phenomenon in the auroral zone, this process is probably insufficient to account for the observed polar depletion. Instead, the recent exospheric temperature measurements from the Dynamics Explorer-2 spacecraft suggest that neutral heating in and near the high latitude cusp may be the major contributor to depleted atomic hydrogen densities at high latitudes.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25686/1/0000240.pd