Recommendation for consideration in the development of Nepal's Irrigation Master Plan. Part 1 - Management of irrigation systems for effective O & M and resource mobilization; Part 2 - Farmer managed irrigation systems. Occasional paper

Irrigation management / Farmer managed irrigation systems / Resource management / Agricultural production / Nepal

Ticked Off: An Analysis of the Inadequate Diagnosis and Treatment of Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States and has a high prevalence among people in the northeast. Lyme disease can be a debilitating illness if not diagnosed early, and can lead to long-term health problems for many patients. This thesis serves as a review of scientific literature on Lyme disease, with the prevalence, symptomology, the bacterial mechanism of infection, the diagnostic process, transmission, and treatment therapies. Further research and development could lead to better primary care for those suffering with Lyme disease

Will Washington Provide Its Own Feedstocks for Biofuels?

The study finds that Washington State’s field corn, sugar beet and canola production could satisfy only a small percentage of the State’s annual gasoline or diesel consumption. Linear programming projections for 2008 showed a relatively close match between projected and actual production. Projections for 2009-2011 showed no increase in the State’s capacity to increase biofuel crop feedstocks. In comparison to crop feedstocks, Washington’s total annual lignocellulosic biomass is abundant. However, only a fraction of the biomass could be converted to biofuel due to high costs of collection and processing, competing markets for some biomass, and limitations in current technology.biofuels, biofuel feedstocks, canola, cellulosic inventories, grain corn, linear programming, Washington State

Renal endothelial dysfunction in acute kidney ischemia reperfusion injury

Acute kidney injury is associated with alterations in vascular tone that contribute to an overall reduction in GFR. Studies in animal models indicate that ischemia triggers alterations in endothelial function that contribute significantly to the overall degree and severity of a kidney injury. Putative mediators of vasoconstriction that may contribute to the initial loss of renal blood flow and GFR are highlighted. In addition, there is discussion of how intrinsic damage to the endothelium impairs homeostatic responses in vascular tone as well as promotes leukocyte adhesion and exacerbating the reduction in renal blood flow. The timing of potential therapies in animal models as they relate to the evolution of AKI, as well as the limitations of such approaches in the clinical setting are discussed. Finally, we discuss how acute kidney injury induces permanent alterations in renal vascular structure. We posit that the cause of the sustained impairment in kidney capillary density results from impaired endothelial growth responses and suggest that this limitation is a primary contributing feature underlying progression of chronic kidney disease

The Economic Value of Biochar in Crop Production and Carbon Sequestration

This paper estimates the economic value of biochar application on agricultural cropland for carbon sequestration and its soil amendment properties. In particular, we consider the carbon emissions avoided when biochar is applied to agricultural soil, instead of agricultural lime, the amount of carbon sequestered, and the value of carbon offsets, assuming there is an established carbon trading mechanism for biochar soil application. We use winter wheat production in Eastern Whitman County, Washington as a case study, and consider different carbon offset price scenarios and different prices of biochar to estimate a farm profit. Our findings suggest that it may be profitable to apply biochar as a soil amendment under some conditions if the biochar market price is low enough and/or a carbon offset market exists.Biochar, Carbon sequestration, Crop, Farm profitability, Soil amendment

Irrigation development: The management and use of irrigation in the mountains of Nepal

Irrigation systems / Irrigation management / Policy / Nepal

Anti-angiogenic activity of kidney derived endothelial cells

poster abstractThe identification of novel endogenous mediators of angiogenic/vasculogenic processes may provide for novel therapeutic targets to modulate blood vessel growth in disease states, such as cardiovascular disease or cancer. Studies in our lab have shown that blood vessels in kidney have little endogenous regenerative capacity. Kidney derived microvascular endothelial cells (KEC) were isolated from rat kidney or from transgenic mice bearing the temperature sensitive SV40 mutant (and subsequently grown at non-permissive temperature, 37oC). Both rat and mouse KECs manifested significantly reduced growth rates when compared with several commonly used EC lines (rat pulmonary EC, HUVEC and human cord blood colony forming ECs). In 2D matrigel assays, all commonly used ECs faithfully formed characteristic branching structures; while all KECs failed to form stabile branching structures. Time-course analysis of branching activity demonstrated that KEC initially formed primitive branching nodes within 3 hours of culture, but these structures regressed such that no branched structures were observed between 6-12 hours. Co-culture of KECs with any branching competent EC impaired branching dose dependently. When co-cultured with ECFC, labeled KECs incorporated into primitive ECFC branches within the first 3 hours of plating. However, when compared with ECFC branches, ECFC-KEC mixed branches showed a more rapid regression of the branched structures between 12-24 hrs. Interestingly, conditioned media from KEC did not affect branching of competent ECFC. Taken together, these data indicate that KEC have anti-angiogenic activity that may destabilize ECs during angiogenesis. The anti-angiogenic activity requires cell-cell contact, suggesting the possible presence of an angio-inhibitory molecule on the cell surface of KECs. Current and future studies seek to generate additional KEC lines, and will determine if KEC cell fractions mediate the anti-angiogenic effect. In addition, we will seek to determine if KECs mitigate progression of angiogenic dependent tumor formation in vivo

Ocean Chlorophyll Studies from a U-2 Aircraft Platform

Chlorophyll gradient maps of large ocean areas were generated from U-2 ocean color scanner data obtained over test sites in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The delineation of oceanic features using the upward radiant intensity relies on an analysis method which presupposes that radiation backscattered from the atmosphere and ocean surface can be properly modeled using a measurement made at 778 nm. An estimation of the chlorophyll concentration was performed by properly ratioing radiances measured at 472 nm and 548 nm after removing the atmospheric effects. The correlation between the remotely sensed data and in-situ surface chlorophyll measurements was validated in two sets of data. The results show that the correlation between the in-situ measured chlorophyll and the derived quantity is a negative exponential function and the correlation coefficient was calculated to be -0.965

Long-Term Stability of Horseshoe Orbits

Unlike Trojans, horseshoe coorbitals are not generally considered to be long-term stable (Dermott and Murray, 1981; Murray and Dermott, 1999). As the lifetime of Earth's and Venus's horseshoe coorbitals is expected to be about a Gyr, we investigated the possible contribution of late-escaping inner planet coorbitals to the lunar Late Heavy Bombardment. Contrary to analytical estimates, we do not find many horseshoe objects escaping after first 100 Myr. In order to understand this behaviour, we ran a second set of simulations featuring idealized planets on circular orbits with a range of masses. We find that horseshoe coorbitals are generally long lived (and potentially stable) for systems with primary-to-secondary mass ratios larger than about 1200. This is consistent with results of Laughlin and Chambers (2002) for equal-mass pairs or coorbital planets and the instability of Jupiter's horseshoe companions (Stacey and Connors, 2008). Horseshoe orbits at smaller mass ratios are unstable because they must approach within 5 Hill radii of the secondary. In contrast, tadpole orbits are more robust and can remain stable even when approaching within 4 Hill radii of the secondary.Comment: Accepted for MNRA