Defining A Region: The Great River Road In Missouri

The Great River Road (GRR) is an established roadway along both the east and west banks of the Mississippi River which serves to connect people to the geography of this area. In this study, the socio-economic characteristics present in Missouri are analyzed to determine if a more formal GRR region exists in Missouri. County-level data from five-year estimates (2014 – 2018) conducted by the United States Census Bureau are used to give greater insight on any unifying characteristics the GRR may have in Missouri. Social, economic, housing, and demographic information combined with spatial pattern analysis help identify evidence of a ‘region’ based around the GRR in Missouri. This spatial data analysis provides information to confirm the presence of a more accurate GRR regional border of the GRR with a subsequent proposal of subregions

Differential Effects of First Year Wheat Genotype on the Suppression of Take-All Disease and the Establishment of Suppressive Microbial Agents in the Rhizosphere

Recent research in the UK has found that the wheat cultivar grown in the first year can have a significant impact on the amount of take-all that develops in the second year, regardless of the cultivar planted in year two. ‘Einstein’ is one such cultivar that reduces take-all disease (reduced take-all buildup or TAB) and may possess a gene that encourages favorable populations of Pseudomonas to colonize the rhizosphere. Cultivar Einstein is a parent to the wheat cultivar ‘Bobtail’ that was released by Oregon State University in 2012. This study aims to determine if the low TAB trait has been inherited by Bobtail, if the trait is robust across the UK and US field environments, and how first year Bobtail compares to other cultivars commonly grown in the PNW in regard to take-all development. The secondary objective was to determine if DAPG-producing pseudomonad prevalence is associated with reduced take-all disease, and whether these pseudomonads might play a role in establishing a priority effect by the first year cultivar. Field experiments were conducted to determine the influence of different first year wheat cultivars on take-all levels in subsequent field and greenhouse studies. PCR targeting an essential gene in the biosynthetic pathway of the antibiotic 2,4‐diacetlyphloroglucinon (DAPG) was run on serial dilutions of Pseudomonas fluorescens populations derived from rhizosphere washes of wheat planted in soil previously exposed to different wheat cultivars. We successfully identified that soil from first year Bobtail wheat consistently resulted in less take-all and accumulated significantly more 2,4-DAPG producing P. fluorescens than soil from other cultivars (p<0.001), and that the two effects were correlated (r = - 0.25, p<0.001), suggesting that Bobtail may have inherited one or more genes associated with take-all resistance and Pseudomonas accumulation from its parents. An intermediate level of take-all suppression in some other cultivars may be regulated by a different mechanism. The first-year cultivar effect dominated the response in subsequent plantings (p<0.001), and its impact was not specific to the first year cultivar. These results suggest that wheat genetics may be used to produce an environment favorable to soil microbiome components that suppress take-all, an approach that is cost effective and sustainable over conventional chemical control. This microbiome effect may be determined, in part, by populations of 2,4 DAPG-producing pseudomonads, which have also been shown to induce resistance to a diversity of other important wheat diseases

Concert recording 2017-04-18

[Track 1]. Fresa y chocolate / Rebeca Mauleon -- [Track 2]. Philly mambo / Cal Tjader arranged by Fernando Valencia -- [Track 3]. Sabor / Joao Donato arranged by Valencia -- [Track 4]. Guachi guara / Cal Tjader arranged by Valencia -- [Track 5]. Machito\u27s blues / Oscar Hernandez -- [Track 6]. Cuidate compay / Poncho Sanchez arranged by Valencia -- [Track 7]. No te vayas todavia / Andres Cepeda arranged by Valencia -- [Track 8]. Viaje / Doug Beavers -- [Track 9]. Bemba colora / Jose Fumero arranged by Valencia

A pilot investigation of the Graduated Recovery Intervention Program (GRIP) for first episode psychosis

The Graduated Recovery Intervention Program (GRIP) is a new individual cognitive-behavioral therapy program designed to facilitate functional recovery in people who have experienced an initial episode of psychosis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and tolerability of the GRIP intervention, and to compare the effectiveness of GRIP versus treatment as usual (TAU) for improving specific clinical and psychosocial outcomes. Forty-six individuals with first episode psychosis were randomized to GRIP + TAU or TAU alone. Primary outcomes focused on social and role functioning, and quality of life. Secondary outcomes included psychotic symptoms, depression, substance use, social support, attitudes toward medications, well-being, and hospitalizations. The results indicate that GRIP was well-tolerated, as evidenced by good attendance and low drop-out rates, and well-received (based on positive feedback from participants). Although the majority of mixed-model analyses were not statistically significant, examination of within-group changes and effect sizes suggest an advantage for GRIP over TAU in improving functional outcomes. These advantages and the fact that the GRIP intervention demonstrated feasibility and tolerability suggest that this intervention is worthy of further investigation

Building biosecurity for synthetic biology.

The fast-paced field of synthetic biology is fundamentally changing the global biosecurity framework. Current biosecurity regulations and strategies are based on previous governance paradigms for pathogen-oriented security, recombinant DNA research, and broader concerns related to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Many scholarly discussions and biosecurity practitioners are therefore concerned that synthetic biology outpaces established biosafety and biosecurity measures to prevent deliberate and malicious or inadvertent and accidental misuse of synthetic biology's processes or products. This commentary proposes three strategies to improve biosecurity: Security must be treated as an investment in the future applicability of the technology; social scientists and policy makers should be engaged early in technology development and forecasting; and coordination among global stakeholders is necessary to ensure acceptable levels of risk

Regulation of CLU gene expression by oncogenes and epigenetic factors implications for tumorigenesis

In no other field has the function of clusterin (CLU) been more controversial than in cancer genetics. After more than 20 years of research, there is still uncertainty with regard to the role of CLU in human cancers. Some investigators believe CLU to be an oncogene, others-an inhibitor of tumorigenesis. However, owing to the recent efforts of several laboratories, the role of CLU in important cellular processes like proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation, and transformation is beginning to emerge. The "enigmatic" CLU is becoming less so. In this chapter, we will review the work of research teams interested in understanding how CLU is regulated by oncogenic signaling. We will discuss how and under what circumstances oncogenes and epigenetic factors modify CLU expression, with important consequences for mammalian tumorigenesis

CropPol: a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination

Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions. Here, we present CropPol, a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination. It contains measurements recorded from 202 crop studies, covering 3,394 field observations, 2,552 yield measurements (i.e. berry weight, number of fruits and kg per hectare, among others), and 47,752 insect records from 48 commercial crops distributed around the globe. CropPol comprises 32 of the 87 leading global crops and commodities that are pollinator dependent. Malus domestica is the most represented crop (32 studies), followed by Brassica napus (22 studies), Vaccinium corymbosum (13 studies), and Citrullus lanatus (12 studies). The most abundant pollinator guilds recorded are honey bees (34.22% counts), bumblebees (19.19%), flies other than Syrphidae and Bombyliidae (13.18%), other wild bees (13.13%), beetles (10.97%), Syrphidae (4.87%), and Bombyliidae (0.05%). Locations comprise 34 countries distributed among Europe (76 studies), Northern America (60), Latin America and the Caribbean (29), Asia (20), Oceania (10), and Africa (7). Sampling spans three decades and is concentrated on 2001-05 (21 studies), 2006-10 (40), 2011-15 (88), and 2016-20 (50). This is the most comprehensive open global data set on measurements of crop flower visitors, crop pollinators and pollination to date, and we encourage researchers to add more datasets to this database in the future. This data set is released for non-commercial use only. Credits should be given to this paper (i.e., proper citation), and the products generated with this database should be shared under the same license terms (CC BY-NC-SA). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Evaluation of individual and ensemble probabilistic forecasts of COVID-19 mortality in the United States

Short-term probabilistic forecasts of the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States have served as a visible and important communication channel between the scientific modeling community and both the general public and decision-makers. Forecasting models provide specific, quantitative, and evaluable predictions that inform short-term decisions such as healthcare staffing needs, school closures, and allocation of medical supplies. Starting in April 2020, the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub (https://covid19forecasthub.org/) collected, disseminated, and synthesized tens of millions of specific predictions from more than 90 different academic, industry, and independent research groups. A multimodel ensemble forecast that combined predictions from dozens of groups every week provided the most consistently accurate probabilistic forecasts of incident deaths due to COVID-19 at the state and national level from April 2020 through October 2021. The performance of 27 individual models that submitted complete forecasts of COVID-19 deaths consistently throughout this year showed high variability in forecast skill across time, geospatial units, and forecast horizons. Two-thirds of the models evaluated showed better accuracy than a naïve baseline model. Forecast accuracy degraded as models made predictions further into the future, with probabilistic error at a 20-wk horizon three to five times larger than when predicting at a 1-wk horizon. This project underscores the role that collaboration and active coordination between governmental public-health agencies, academic modeling teams, and industry partners can play in developing modern modeling capabilities to support local, state, and federal response to outbreaks