Cultural Resources Survey for the Montana Vista Proposed Wastewater Facility System, El Paso County, Texas

TRC conducted an intensive, linear pedestrian survey of two proposed option routes for residential wastewater collectors for the Montana Vista Proposed Wastewater Facility System in East El Paso. The project area is located within El Paso County, Texas. The project proposes approximately 188,285 feet of 8-inch sewer lines throughout the residential streets, which will reach depths of approximately 25 feet. A proposed collection line will run along Greg Rd/Edgemere Blvd for approximately 13,150 feet. This collector line will consist of 12-inch, 15-inch, and 18-inch sewer pipes that will reach depths of approximately 35 feet. This proposed collector line will tie into an existing 30-inch line at the intersection of Edgemere Blvd and Tim Floyd. The majority of the roads within the overall project area are paved. Three isolated prehistoric artifacts (two El Paso brownware sherds and one uniface fragment tool) were identified. In addition, the areas appeared highly impacted by localized dumping of furniture, tires, building material, construction material, modern glass beer bottles, off-road vehicle tracks, and windblown trash. The archeological pedestrian survey was conducted under TAC #7153. No further work is recommended for the project area

Cultural Resources Survey for the Village of Vinton Wastewater Pipeline Systems, El Paso County, Texas

TRC conducted an intensive, linear pedestrian survey of a proposed route for a sanitary sewer gravity line that will convey flows from the City of Vinton to a regional lift station. The regional lift station will be constructed by El Paso Water Utilities on their property. The sewer gravity line will range between 12 and 18 feet in diameter with a total length of more than 5,000 feet. Of the 5,000 feet, only 700 feet will cross the Rio Grande. The project area is located within El Paso County, Texas. The proposed line will cross Doniphan Rd, railroad tracks and easement, and the Rio Grande. The project area is within the floodplain of the Rio Grande. Several modern trash dumping episodes were noted within the project area. The trash dumps consisted of modern ceramic tile fragments, roofing material, concrete fragments, wind-blown trash, miscellaneous milled wood, aluminum cans, and furniture fragments. No significant cultural materials were located or identified. The archeological pedestrian survey was conducted under TAC #7890. No further work is recommended for the project area

Cultural Resources Survey for the Hillcrest Colonia First Time Water Project, El Paso County, Texas

TRC conducted intensive, linear pedestrian surveys of six (6) proposed routes. These lines are part of an approximate total of 58,180 linear feet of 8-inch potable water lines, 13,130 linear feet of 12-inch potable water lines, 11,240 linear feet of 16-inch potable water lines, and approximately 120 potable water service line household connections (3/4-inch). These potable water lines will connect to approximately 63 fire hydrants. The current neighborhood does not contain any existing water and wastewater facilities for residents. The residents of these areas currently use private water storage tanks, which typically have a capacity of up to 2,500 gallons. Currently, water is delivered by the truckload to fill private water storage tanks. The current wastewater disposal system is via individual septic tanks. The proposed potable water distribution system will provide residents with a safe and reliable potable water service and will meet fire protection needs. Along with the potable water lines, household connections, and fire hydrants, 32,500 square yards of pavement cut and replacement will take place, as well as the installation of thirteen 16- inch gate valves, twenty 12-inch gate valves, and fifty-seven 8-inch gate valves. The project area is located within El Paso County, Texas. Numerous modern trash dumping episodes were noted within the project area. The trash dumps consisted of modern ceramic tile fragments, roofing material, concrete fragments, wind-blown trash, miscellaneous milled wood, aluminum cans, furniture fragments, dead animal remains, mattresses, glass bottles, tires, and miscellaneous clothes and shoes. No significant cultural materials were located or identified. The archeological pedestrian survey was conducted under TAC #7907. No further work is recommended for the project area

A Cultural Resource Survey for the Proposed Dawson’s West Kermit 3D Seismic Project, Kermit, Loving and Winkler Counties, Texas

CRC, LLC was contracted by Dawson Geophysical of Midland, Texas to conduct a 100-percent intensive pedestrian survey of within a 43-square mile area located within the southern portion of Loving County and western Winkler County, Texas. The proposed project entails 3D seismic survey within this 43-square mile area with both source and receiver lines. The project area is on University of Texas lands. CRC conducted the cultural resource survey from July 5, to August 9, 2017. Marron was brought onto the project to record cultural resources that were identified by CRC and complete the report. Marron’s fieldwork began on August 10 and finished August 20, 2017. Dr. John Griggs of CRC was the Principal Investigator for the project. Toni R. Goar served as Project Manager for Marron’s phases of the project. All work was completed under THC Permit 8084. The total length of seismic lines surveyed was 758.42 kilometers (471.36 miles) with a 30-meter survey width. Total area surveyed within the 43-square mile area was 2,207.53 hectares (5,454.72 acres). Twenty-three (23) sites and 142 isolated occurrences were recorded. Twenty-two (22) sites are recommended as not eligible to the National Register of Historic Places, due to the lack of radiocarbon material and deflated state of the areas. One site, (41LV87) has an undetermined eligibility based on the unknown potential for buried cultural deposits. Further testing is recommended to best determine the sites integrity. All of the sites will be avoided by a reroute around each site. At each site, a 50-foot buffer was flagged and an additional 50-foot area outside the buffer was inspected for cultural resources. This “work zone” will be used during the seismic survey to avoid the sites. The isolated occurrences do not meet the criteria for eligibility to the NRHP and no further treatment is recommended

Exploring the origin of lithium, carbon, strontium, and barium with four new ultra metal-poor stars

We present an elemental abundance analysis for four newly discovered ultra metal-poor stars from the Hamburg/ESO survey, with [Fe/H] ≤ -4. Based on high-resolution, high signal-to-noise spectra, we derive abundances for 17 elements in the range from L

Phosphorylation of eIF4GII and 4E-BP1 in response to nocodazole treatment: a reappraisal of translation initiation during mitosis

Translation mechanisms at different stages of the cell cycle have been studied for many years, resulting in the dogma that translation rates are slowed during mitosis, with cap-independent translation mechanisms favored to give expression of key regulatory proteins. However, such cell culture studies involve synchronization using harsh methods, which may in themselves stress cells and affect protein synthesis rates. One such commonly used chemical is the microtubule de-polymerization agent, nocodazole, which arrests cells in mitosis and has been used to demonstrate that translation rates are strongly reduced (down to 30% of that of asynchronous cells). Using synchronized HeLa cells released from a double thymidine block (G 1/S boundary) or the Cdk1 inhibitor, RO3306 (G 2/M boundary), we have systematically re-addressed this dogma. Using FACS analysis and pulse labeling of proteins with labeled methionine, we now show that translation rates do not slow as cells enter mitosis. This study is complemented by studies employing confocal microscopy, which show enrichment of translation initiation factors at the microtubule organizing centers, mitotic spindle, and midbody structure during the final steps of cytokinesis, suggesting that translation is maintained during mitosis. Furthermore, we show that inhibition of translation in response to extended times of exposure to nocodazole reflects increased eIF2α phosphorylation, disaggregation of polysomes, and hyperphosphorylation of selected initiation factors, including novel Cdk1-dependent N-terminal phosphorylation of eIF4GII. Our work suggests that effects on translation in nocodazole-arrested cells might be related to those of the treatment used to synchronize cells rather than cell cycle status

Chemical abundance gradients from open clusters in the Milky Way disk: results from the APOGEE survey

Metallicity gradients provide strong constraints for understanding the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. We report on radial abundance gradients of Fe, Ni, Ca, Si, and Mg obtained from a sample of 304 red-giant members of 29 disk open clusters, mostly concentrated at galactocentric distances between ~8 - 15 kpc, but including two open clusters in the outer disk. The observations are from the APOGEE survey. The chemical abundances were derived automatically by the ASPCAP pipeline and these are part of the SDSS III Data Release 12. The gradients, obtained from least squares fits to the data, are relatively flat, with slopes ranging from -0.026 to -0.033 dex/kpc for the alpha-elements [O/H], [Ca/H], [Si/H] and [Mg/H] and -0.035 dex/kpc and -0.040 dex/kpc for [Fe/H] and [Ni/H], respectively. Our results are not at odds with the possibility that metallicity ([Fe/H]) gradients are steeper in the inner disk (R_GC ~7 - 12 kpc) and flatter towards the outer disk. The open cluster sample studied spans a significant range in age. When breaking the sample into age bins, there is some indication that the younger open cluster population in our sample (log age < 8.7) has a flatter metallicity gradient when compared with the gradients obtained from older open clusters.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, To appear in Astronomische Nachrichten, special issue "Reconstruction the Milky Way's History: Spectroscopic surveys, Asteroseismology and Chemo-dynamical models", Guest Editors C. Chiappini, J. Montalb\'an, and M. Steffen, AN 2016 (in press)

The Open Cluster Chemical Analysis and Mapping Survey: Local Galactic Metallicity Gradient with APOGEE using SDSS DR10

The Open Cluster Chemical Analysis and Mapping (OCCAM) Survey aims to produce a comprehensive, uniform, infrared-based dataset for hundreds of open clusters, and constrain key Galactic dynamical and chemical parameters from this sample. This first contribution from the OCCAM survey presents analysis of 141 members stars in 28 open clusters with high-resolution metallicities derived from a large uniform sample collected as part of the SDSS-III/Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). This sample includes the first high-resolution metallicity measurements for 22 open clusters. With this largest ever uniformly observed sample of open cluster stars we investigate the Galactic disk gradients of both [M/H] and [alpha/M]. We find basically no gradient across this range in [alpha/M], but [M/H] does show a gradient for R_{GC} < 10 kpc and a significant flattening beyond R_{GC} = 10 kpc. In particular, whereas fitting a single linear trend yields an [M/H] gradient of -0.09 +/- 0.03$ dex/kpc --- similar to previously measure gradients inside 13 kpc --- by independently fitting inside and outside 10 kpc separately we find a significantly steeper gradient near the Sun (7.9 <= R_{GC} <= 10) than previously found (-0.20 +/- 0.08 dex/kpc) and a nearly flat trend beyond 10 kpc (-0.02 +/- 0.09 dex/kpc).Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, ApJ letters, in pres

The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment: First Detection of High Velocity Milky Way Bar Stars

Commissioning observations with the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III, have produced radial velocities (RVs) for ~4700 K/M-giant stars in the Milky Way bulge. These high-resolution (R \sim 22,500), high-S/N (>100 per resolution element), near-infrared (1.51-1.70 um; NIR) spectra provide accurate RVs (epsilon_v~0.2 km/s) for the sample of stars in 18 Galactic bulge fields spanning -1-32 deg. This represents the largest NIR high-resolution spectroscopic sample of giant stars ever assembled in this region of the Galaxy. A cold (sigma_v~30 km/s), high-velocity peak (V_GSR \sim +200 km/s) is found to comprise a significant fraction (~10%) of stars in many of these fields. These high RVs have not been detected in previous MW surveys and are not expected for a simple, circularly rotating disk. Preliminary distance estimates rule out an origin from the background Sagittarius tidal stream or a new stream in the MW disk. Comparison to various Galactic models suggests that these high RVs are best explained by stars in orbits of the Galactic bar potential, although some observational features remain unexplained.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Structural validation of ORTO-11-ES for the diagnosis of orthorexia nervosa

Purpose The ORTO-11-ES questionnaire is a tool to assess the pathological obsession displayed by some individuals regarding healthy eating. The aims of this study were (1) to confirm the factor structure of the Spanish version of ORTO-11-ES using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and (2) to examine the possible association between the ORTO-11-ES score, gender and body mass index (BMI). Methods The sample comprised 492 students from the University of Castilla la Mancha, Spain. Of these, 280 were women (56.9%). Participants were surveyed using the ORTO-11-ES questionnaire. Results The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the 11 elements and 3 domains of this tool as the better fitting model; for the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and the Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI), the values were 0.94 and 0.91, respectively, and the Root Mean-Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) was 0.058. The tendency towards orthorexic behavior is more associated with the female gender. The BMI had no influence on the tendency for ON. Conclusions This study is the first attempt to confirm the three-factor structure of a Spanish version of the ORTO-15 questionnaire. These findings suggest that the ORTO-11-ES may be a valuable tool for identifying subjects with specific eating behavior patterns. This information may be useful for health professionals involved in the research, development and implementation of interventions catered to individuals suffering from this eating disorder. Level of evidence Level V, descriptive cross-sectional study