A Brief History and Guide to Turfgrass Management on Sports Fields

The purpose of this senior project is to provide future Cal Poly Baseball student assistants with a guide and schedule that outlines the tasks to be done weekly during baseball season as well as during the off-season. Along with the schedule, techniques for effective mowing and watering will be included. Lastly, a history of the industry and the importance of turf management will be included. By providing a guide, future student assistants will have access to job-specific information that will allow them to be effective Cal Poly Baseball turf assistants

Warehouse commodity classification from fundamental principles. Part I: Commodity & burning rates

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the burning behavior of an individual Group A plastic commodity over time. The objective of the study was to evaluate the use of a nondimensional parameter to describe the time-varying burning rate of a fuel in complex geometries. The nondimensional approach chosen to characterize burning behavior over time involved comparison of chemical energy released during the combustion process with the energy required to vaporize the fuel, measured by a B-number. The mixed nature of the commodity and its package, involving polystyrene and corrugated cardboard, produced three distinct stages of combustion that were qualitatively repeatable. The results of four tests provided flame heights, mass-loss rates and heat fluxes that were used to develop a phenomenological description of the burning behavior of a plastic commodity. Three distinct stages of combustion were identified. Time-dependent and time-averaged B-numbers were evaluated from mass-loss rate data using assumptions including a correlation for turbulent convective heat transfer. The resultant modified B-numbers extracted from test data incorporated the burning behavior of constituent materials, and a variation in behavior was observed as materials participating in the combustion process varied. Variations between the four tests make quantitative values for each stage of burning useful only for comparison, as errors were high. Methods to extract the B-number with a higher degree of accuracy and future use of the results to improve commodity classification for better assessment of fire danger are discussed. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

A New Family of Jumonji C Domain-Containing KDM Inhibitors Inspired by Natural Product Purpurogallin

Aberrant epigenetic modifications are involved in cancer development. Jumonji C domain-containing histone lysine demethylases (KDMs) are found mainly up-regulated in breast, prostate, and colon cancer. Currently, growing interest is focusing on the identification and development of new inhibitors able to block the activity of KDMs and thus reduce tumor progression. KDM4A is known to play a role in several cellular physiological processes, and was recently found overexpressed in a number of pathological states, including cancer. In this work, starting from the structure of purpurogallin 9aa, previously identified as a natural KDM4A inhibitor, we synthesized two main sets of compound derivatives in order to improve their inhibitory activity against KDM4A in vitro and in cells, as well as their antitumor action. Based on the hypothetical biogenesis of the 5-oxo-5H-benzo[7]annulene skeleton of the natural product purpurogallin (Salfeld, 1960; Horner et al., 1961; Dürckheimer and Paulus, 1985; Tanaka et al., 2002; Yanase et al., 2005) the pyrogallol and catechol units were first combined with structural modifications at different positions of the aryl ring using enzyme-mediated oxidative conditions, generating a series of benzotropolone analogs. Two of the synthetic analogs of purpurogallin, 9ac and 9bc, showed an efficient inhibition (50 and 80%) of KDM4A in enzymatic assays and in cells by increasing levels of its specific targets, H3K9me3/2 and H3K36me3. However, these two compounds/derivatives did not induce cell death. We then synthesized a further set of analogs of these two compounds with greater structural diversification. The most potent of these analogs, 9bf, displayed the highest KDM4A inhibitory enzymatic activity in vitro (IC50 of 10.1 and 24.37 μM) in colon cancer cells, and the strongest antitumor action in several solid and hematological human cancer cell lines with no toxic effect in normal cells. Our findings suggest that further development of this compound and its derivatives may lead to the identification of new therapeutic antitumor agents acting through inhibition of KDM4A

Diabetes is an independent predictor for severe osteoarthritis: Results from a longitudinal cohort study

OBJECTIVE-To evaluate if type 2 diabetes is an independent risk predictor for severe oste-oarthritis (OA). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS-Population-based cohort study with an age-and sex-stratified random sample of 927 men and women aged 40-80 years and followed over 20 years (1990-2010). RESULTS-Rates of arthroplasty (95% CI) were 17.7 (9.4-30.2) per 1,000 person-years in patients with type 2 diabetes and 5.3 (4.1-6.6) per 1,000 person-years in those without (P < 0.001). Type 2 diabetes emerged as an independent risk predictor for arthroplasty: hazard ratios (95% CI), 3.8 (2.1-6.8) (P < 0.001) in an unadjusted analysis and 2.1 (1.1-3.8) (P = 0.023) after adjustment for age, BMI, and other risk factors for OA. The probability of arthroplasty increased with disease duration of type 2 diabetes and applied to men and women, as well as subgroups according to age and BMI. Our findings were corroborated in cross-sectional evaluation by more severe clinical symptoms of OA and structural joint changes in subjects with type 2 diabetes compared with those without type 2 diabetes. CONCLUSIONS-Type 2 diabetes predicts the development of severe OA independent of age and BMI. Our findings strengthen the concept of a strong metabolic component in the pathogenesis of OA.\ua9 2013 by the American Diabetes Association

Warehouse Commodity Classification from Fundamental Principles

Abstract In warehouse storage applications, it is important to classify the burning behavior of commodities and rank them according to their material flammability for early fire detection and suppression operations. In this study, a preliminary approach towards commodity classification is presented that models the early stage of large-scale warehouse fires by decoupling the problem into separate processes of heat and mass transfer. Two existing nondimensional parameters are used to represent the physical phenomena at the large-scale: a mass transfer number that directly incorporates the material properties of a fuel, and the soot yield of the fuel that controls the radiation observed in the large-scale. To facilitate modeling, a mass transfer number (or B-number) was experimentally obtained using mass-loss (burning rate) measurements from bench-scale tests, following from a procedure that was developed in Part I of this paper. Two fuels are considered: corrugated cardboard and polystyrene. Corrugated cardboard provides a source of flaming combustion in a warehouse and is usually the first item to ignite and sustain flame spread. Polystyrene is typically used as the most hazardous product in large-scale fire testing. The nondimensional mass transfer number was then used to model in-rack flame heights on 6.1 − 9.1 m (20 − 30 ft) stacks of 'C' flute corrugated cardboard * Corresponding author Email address: [email protected] (K.J. Overholt) Preprint submitted to Fire Safety Journal January 11, 2011 boxes on rack-storage during the initial period of flame spread (involving flame spread over the corrugated cardboard face only). Good agreement was observed between the model and large-scale experiments during the initial stages of fire growth, and a comparison to previous correlations for in-rack flame heights is included

Does subclinical inflammation contribute to impairment of function of knee joints in aged individuals? High prevalence of ultrasound inflammatory findings

Objectives. To investigate the prevalence of knee US findings of inflammation and structural damage in aged individuals (≥60 years) of a long-term population-based cohort and to correlate these findings with demographic, clinical and laboratory parameters. Methods. Cross-sectional clinical and US investigation of both knee joints during the 2010 follow-up of the prospective population-based Bruneck Study. Demographic variables, physical activity, comorbidities, medications, pain, and functional scales related to the knee joints were recorded. US-assessed parameters were synovial hypertrophy, power Doppler signal, joint effusion, cartilage abnormalities, osteophytes, enthesopathy and bursitis. Statistics included univariate and multivariate regression analysis. Results. A total of 488 subjects (mean age 72.5 years; 53.5% females, 46.5% males) were examined by clinical assessment, and 433 of these underwent US examination of both knees. Both inflammatory and structural abnormalities were found in 296 (68.8%) subjects. Inflammatory abnormalities were significantly associated with age in years, male gender, diabetes and the presence of knee joint symptoms. In the multivariate analysis, age, male gender and knee swelling emerged as independent predictors of inflammation [odds ratio (OR) (95% CI) = 1.06 (1.03, 1.09), 2.55 (1.55, 4.21) and 5.92 (1.99, 17.58), respectively]. Conclusion. The present study showed a high prevalence of US inflammatory abnormalities in the knee joints of a normal aged population. These data suggest a substantial contribution of inflammation in progressive impairment of joint function with age

3-(6-Phenylimidazo [2,1-b][1,3,4]thiadiazol-2-yl)-1HIndole derivatives as new anticancer agents in the treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

A new series of imidazo[2,1-b][1,3,4]thiadiazole derivatives was efficiently synthesized and screened for their in vitro antiproliferative activity on a panel of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells, including SUIT-2, Capan-1 and Panc-1. Compounds 9c and 9l, showed relevant in vitro antiproliferative activity on all three pre-clinical models with half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) ranging from 5.11 to 10.8 μM, while the compounds 9e and 9n were active in at least one cell line. In addition, compound 9c significantly inhibited the migration rate of SUIT-2 and Capan-1 cells in the scratch wound-healing assay. In conclusion, our results will support further studies to increase the library of imidazo [2,1-b][1,3,4] thiadiazole derivatives for deeper understanding of the relationship between biological activity of the compounds and their structures in the development of new antitumor compounds against pancreatic diseases