Contribution of Point Source Inputs of Phosphorus from a Bunker Silo in a Small Agricultural Watershed in Southern Ontario, Canada

Nutrient losses from agricultural operations contributes to the issue of eutrophication of freshwater systems. Although many studies have been conducted on diffuse nutrient losses from fertilizer application, there is a paucity of studies on point source phosphorus (P) loss from bunker silos. Furthermore, the build-up of legacy P in the landscape from historical land management practices can create critical source areas of P that contribute to P loads long after those practices cease. The goal of this thesis is to quantify the contribution of a dairy farm (dominated by bunker silo losses) to watershed P losses, and to monitor P concentrations in surface and groundwater across a riparian zone to characterize the sorption potential of its sediments and infer whether the riparian zone may be acting as a sink for P, or a source of previously retained (legacy) P to the stream. Stream discharge was monitored continuously throughout the study, and automatic water samplers were deployed in the stream above, and below the bunker silo to analyze soluble reactive P (SRP), total dissolved P (TDP), and total P (TP) on an event basis. The riparian zone was equipped with a series of nested wells and piezometers along a three transects to monitor groundwater P levels, and to determine the hydraulic conductivity of the riparian groundwater. A transect was also installed on the unaffected side of the transect as a reference. The farmyard contribution to watershed P losses over a one-year period was 32% (SRP) and 22% (TP). Cumulative loads over the entire study suggest that the farmyard P losses were 21.2 kg/ha SRP and 120 kg/ha TP. Peak P concentrations occurred during snowmelt and thaw events and were smaller during periods of baseflow. However, after the bunker silo was refilled in mid-summer months, both SRP and TP were considerably elevated. Large amounts of P were found to be stored in the riparian soil, however, estimated contributions of riparian P to the overall loads were negligible. This may be a result of missed flowpaths during site set-up, or an occurrence of upwelling of P in the streambed. The results of this research suggest that this particular farmyard bunker silo contributes large amounts of P to the adjacent stream on an annual basis. This study should be used as a starting point for future studies examining livestock farmyard nutrient losses

Hearing, Cognitive Decline, and the Value of Hearing Interventions

The term “dementia” includes a wide array of diseases. Millions of Americans are affected by these diseases, especially with aging. Its prevalence makes dementia a candidate for exploratory research in understanding its various etiologies and cause-effect relationships in hopes of developing treatment. Numerous studies have been conducted in an attempt to discern whether a causal relationship exists between hearing loss and dementia, as hearing loss frequently precedes dementia. Some publications have reported a correlation between hearing loss treatment and a decreased dementia incidence rate. This review seeks to investigate the associations between hearing loss and dementia, the efficacy of hearing interventions as a preventative measure, and the potential for using these measures as treatment for dementia

Design Thinking for Innovation. Stress Testing Human Factors in Ideation Sessions

This paper reports on a series of studies that attempt to unpick the factors that contribute to successful team ideation. Ideation is a popular, structured approach to creative thinking, where the goal is to produce many viable and innovative ideas and concepts. This is often accomplished through structured collaborative workshops that include ‘Design Thinking’ techniques and methods. The reported studies involved manipulating variables in controlled experiments with subjects (AKA ideators). The sample of ideators, were tasked with generating ideas to solve a challenge and the outcome of their work was measured by quantity and quality of output. The latter criterion was assessed by an expert panel using a standardised evaluation framework. Four variables were employed to understand idea generation success factors. These were identified as common and thus easily applied factors in typical ideation scenarios and included varying levels of participant stimulation (before sessions), presence or absence of a facilitator, application of ‘Design Thinking’ technique (or not) and lastly, participant profile based on professional background. In this case, participant characteristics were split between designers and non-designers. The different experiments were run, with participants generating ideas in a timeboxed activity in which their outputs were assessed against the various experimental conditions. The findings suggest that counter orthodox thinking, applying the methods (e.g. Round Robin) is less effective than the influence of ideators’ differing professional background and their level of stimulation. These conclusions in turn suggest the possibility of extending the effectiveness of workshop facilitation to increase efficiency and quality of output. The paper concludes with pointers on improving ideation. In particular, increasing levels of engagement and immersion among participants and using aspects of game theory are seen a possible areas of further investigation

Assembly of functional diversity in an oceanic island flora

Oceanic island floras are well known for their morphological peculiarities and exhibit striking examples of trait evolution1–3. These morphological shifts are commonly attributed to insularity and are thought to be shaped by the biogeographical processes and evolutionary histories of oceanic islands2,4. However, the mechanisms through which biogeography and evolution have shaped the distribution and diversity of plant functional traits remain unclear5. Here we describe the functional trait space of the native flora of an oceanic island (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain) using extensive field and laboratory measurements, and relate it to global trade-offs in ecological strategies. We find that the island trait space exhibits a remarkable functional richness but that most plants are concentrated around a functional hotspot dominated by shrubs with a conservative life-history strategy. By dividing the island flora into species groups associated with distinct biogeographical distributions and diversification histories, our results also suggest that colonization via long-distance dispersal and the interplay between inter-island dispersal and archipelago-level speciation processes drive functional divergence and trait space expansion. Contrary to our expectations, speciation via cladogenesis has led to functional convergence, and therefore only contributes marginally to functional diversity by densely packing trait space around shrubs. By combining biogeography, ecology and evolution, our approach opens new avenues for trait-based insights into how dispersal, speciation and persistence shape the assembly of entire native island floras.Fil: Barajas Barbosa, Martha Paola. Martin-luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg; Alemania. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig; Alemania. Universität Göttingen; AlemaniaFil: Craven, Dylan. Data Observatory Foundation; Chile. Universidad Mayor; ChileFil: Weigelt, Patrick. Universität Göttingen; AlemaniaFil: Denelle, Pierre. Universität Göttingen; AlemaniaFil: Otto, Rüdiger. Universidad de La Laguna; EspañaFil: Díaz, Sandra Myrna. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Price, Jonathan. University Of Hawaii At Hilo; Estados UnidosFil: Fernández Palacios, José María. Universidad de La Laguna; EspañaFil: Kreft, Holger. Universität Göttingen; Alemani

Accurate cell tracking and lineage construction in live-cell imaging experiments with deep learning

Live-cell imaging experiments have opened an exciting window into the behavior of living systems. While these experiments can produce rich data, the computational analysis of these datasets is challenging. Single-cell analysis requires that cells be accurately identified in each image and subsequently tracked over time. Increasingly, deep learning is being used to interpret microscopy image with single cell resolution. In this work, we apply deep learning to the problem of tracking single cells in live-cell imaging data. Using crowdsourcing and a human-in-the-loop approach to data annotation, we constructed a dataset of over 11,000 trajectories of cell nuclei that includes lineage information. Using this dataset, we successfully trained a deep learning model to perform cell tracking within a linear programming framework. Benchmarking tests demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance on the task of cell tracking with respect to multiple accuracy metrics. Further, we show that our deep learning-based method generalizes to perform cell tracking for both fluorescent and brightfield images of the cell cytoplasm, despite having never been trained those data types. This enables analysis of live-cell imaging data collected across imaging modalities. A persistent cloud deployment of our cell tracker is available at http://www.deepcell.org

The Kinematics and Dark Matter Fractions of TNG50 Galaxies at z=2 from an Observational Perspective

We contrast the gas kinematics and dark matter contents of $z=2$ star-forming galaxies (SFGs) from state-of-the-art cosmological simulations within the $\Lambda$CDM framework to observations. To this end, we create realistic mock observations of massive SFGs ($M_*>4\times10^{10} M_{\odot}$, SFR $>50~M_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$) from the TNG50 simulation of the IllustrisTNG suite, resembling near-infrared, adaptive-optics assisted integral-field observations from the ground. Using observational line fitting and modeling techniques, we analyse in detail the kinematics of seven TNG50 galaxies from five different projections per galaxy, and compare them to observations of twelve massive SFGs by Genzel et al. (2020). The simulated galaxies show clear signs of disc rotation but mostly exhibit more asymmetric rotation curves, partly due to large intrinsic radial and vertical velocity components. At identical inclination angle, their one-dimensional velocity profiles can vary along different lines of sight by up to $\Delta v=200$ km s$^{-1}$. From dynamical modelling we infer rotation speeds and velocity dispersions that are broadly consistent with observational results. We find low central dark matter fractions compatible with observations ($f_{\rm DM}^v(<R_e)=v_{\rm DM}^2(R_e)/v_{\rm circ}^2(R_e)\sim0.32\pm0.10$), however for disc effective radii $R_e$ that are mostly too small: at fixed $R_e$ the TNG50 dark matter fractions are too high by a factor of $\sim2$. We speculate that the differences in gas kinematics and dark matter content compared to the observations may be due to physical processes that are not resolved in sufficient detail with the numerical resolution available in current cosmological simulations.Comment: 25 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Cellular characterisation of advanced osteoarthritis knee synovium

Objectives Osteoarthritis (OA) is increasingly recognised as a whole joint disease, with an important role for synovium. However, the repertoire of immune cells and fibroblasts that constitute OA synovium remains understudied. This study aims to characterise the cellular composition of advanced OA synovium and to explore potential correlations between different cell types and patient demographics or clinical scores. Methods Synovium, collected from 10 patients with advanced OA during total knee replacement surgery, was collagenase-digested, and cells were stained for flow cytometry analysis. Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded synovium was sectioned, stained with immunofluorescence, and imaged using the multiplex Cell DIVE platform. Patient demographics and clinical scores were also collected. Results The proportion of immune cells in OA synovium varied between patients (8–38% of all cells). Macrophages and T cells were the dominant immune cell populations, together representing 76% of immune cells. Age positively correlated with the proportion of macrophages, and negatively correlated with T cells. CCR6+ T cells were found in 6/10 patients; these patients had a higher mean Kellgren-Lawrence grade across the three knee compartments. Immunofluorescence staining showed that macrophages were present in the lining as well as distributed throughout the sublining, while T and B cells were mainly localised near vessels in the sublining. Fibroblast subsets (CD45−PDPN+) based on the expression of CD34/CD90 or FAP/CD90 were identified in all patient samples, and some populations correlate with the percentage of immune cells or clinical scores. Immunofluorescence staining showed that FAP expression was particularly strong in the lining layer, but also present throughout the sublining layer. CD90 expression was exclusively found around vessels in the sublining, while CD34 was mostly found in the sublining but also occasionally in the lining layer. Conclusions There are significant differences in the relative proportions and subsets of immune cells in OA synovium; exploratory correlative analyses suggest that these differences might be correlated with age, clinical scores, or fibroblast subsets. Additional studies are required to understand how different cell types affect OA pathobiology, and if the presence or proportion of cell subsets relates to disease phenotypes