New Mexico pecan production

Presented at Urbanization of irrigated land and water transfers: a USCID water management conference on May 28-31, 2008 in Scottsdale, Arizona.Includes bibliographical references.Pecans are a major agricultural crop in New Mexico. Currently there are approximately 11,000 hectares of pecans in the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, consuming more than one third of the annual diversion. The research presented here provides previously unavailable broad-scale estimates of pecan ET and pecan yield response to water. The data at the foundation of this paper were generated using the Regional ET Estimation Model (REEM) developed at New Mexico State University for agricultural and riparian vegetation (Samani et al. 2005, 2006, 2007). REEM uses remotely sensed satellite data to calculate ET as a residual of the energy balance. This research extends the results of REEM to an analysis of yield response to water in irrigated pecan production in the EBID. The study region is rapidly urbanizing and experiencing growing competition for scarce surface and groundwater supplies. The results of this research provide new insight into pecan water use and yields. This research illustrates the linkages that can be made between remote sensing technology, farm-level water management, and yield outcomes. This research sheds new light on the long-standing practice of deficit irrigation in pecans, the yield and conservation impacts of this practice, as well as water conservation policy implications

Remote sensing techology

Presented at Irrigation district sustainability - strategies to meet the challenges: USCID irrigation district specialty conference held on June 3-6, 2009 in Reno, Nevada.Includes bibliographical references.Irrigated agriculture is the largest water user in New Mexico; in southern New Mexico's Lower Rio Grande region, agriculture uses about one million acre-feet of water each year. Previous research has estimated that the average irrigation efficiency in the area is 44%. This relatively low aggregate efficiency indicates a large potential for water savings from agriculture. In order to determine the potential water savings, the amount of water depleted by crop evapotranspiration (ET) in the Mesilla Valley section of the EBID was estimated using satellite information and ground-level measurements to calculate plant consumptive water use on scales ranging from individual farms to the larger watershed. Two areas of potential water savings were evaluated using the satellite-generated consumptive use information: 1) potential water saving at the farm level and 2) potential water saving at the district level. This study found that the majority of farms in the study region were growing crops under deficit irrigation conditions. Therefore, irrigation improvements at the farm-level are likely to increase both yields and water depletion. Potential water savings at the district level were evaluated by comparing the total volume of water diverted for irrigation versus aggregate ET. From the satellite-generated ET data, district-level efficiency was determined to be 55% in 2002 (a full allocation year). Thus, there appears to be a potential for improving district-level efficiency. This can be accomplished by using regional ET depletion values to plan water releases from the reservoir and improve the diversion and distribution within the canal networks

Molecular subtypes of breast cancer in relation to paclitaxel response and outcomes in women with metastatic disease: results from CALGB 9342

INTRODUCTION: The response to paclitaxel varies widely in metastatic breast cancer. We analyzed data from CALGB 9342, which tested three doses of paclitaxel in women with advanced disease, to determine whether response and outcomes differed according to HER2, hormone receptor, and p53 status. METHODS: Among 474 women randomly assigned to paclitaxel at a dose of 175, 210, or 250 mg/m(2), adequate primary tumor tissue was available from 175. Immunohistochemistry with two antibodies and fluorescence in situ hybridization were performed to evaluate HER2 status; p53 status was determined by immunohistochemistry and sequencing. Hormone receptor status was obtained from pathology reports. RESULTS: Objective response rate was not associated with HER2 or p53 status. There was a trend toward a shorter median time to treatment failure among women with HER2-positive tumors (2.3 versus 4.2 months; P = 0.067). HER2 status was not related to overall survival (OS). Hormone receptor expression was not associated with differences in response but was associated with longer OS (P = 0.003). In contrast, women with p53 over-expression had significantly shorter OS than those without p53 over-expression (11.5 versus 14.4 months; P = 0.002). In addition, triple negative tumors were more frequent in African-American than in Caucasian patients, and were associated with a significant reduction in OS (8.7 versus 12.9 months; P = 0.008). CONCLUSION: None of the biomarkers was predictive of treatment response in women with metastatic breast cancer; however, survival differed according to hormone receptor and p53 status. Triple negative tumors were more frequent in African-American patients and were associated with a shorter survival

Sensitivity of Metrics of Phylogenetic Structure to Scale, Source of Data and Species Pool of Hummingbird Assemblages along Elevational Gradients

Patterns of phylogenetic structure of assemblages are increasingly used to gain insight into the ecological and evolutionary processes involved in the assembly of co-occurring species. Metrics of phylogenetic structure can be sensitive to scaling issues and data availability. Here we empirically assess the sensitivity of four metrics of phylogenetic structure of assemblages to changes in (i) the source of data, (ii) the spatial grain at which assemblages are defined, and (iii) the definition of species pools using hummingbird (Trochilidae) assemblages along an elevational gradient in Colombia. We also discuss some of the implications in terms of the potential mechanisms driving these patterns. To explore how source of data influence phylogenetic structure we defined assemblages using three sources of data: field inventories, museum specimens, and range maps. Assemblages were defined at two spatial grains: coarse-grained (elevational bands of 800-m width) and fine-grained (1-km2 plots). We used three different species pools: all species contained in assemblages, all species within half-degree quadrats, and all species either above or below 2000 m elevation. Metrics considering phylogenetic relationships among all species within assemblages showed phylogenetic clustering at high elevations and phylogenetic evenness in the lowlands, whereas those metrics considering only the closest co-occurring relatives showed the opposite trend. This result suggests that using multiple metrics of phylogenetic structure should provide greater insight into the mechanisms shaping assemblage structure. The source and spatial grain of data had important influences on estimates of both richness and phylogenetic structure. Metrics considering the co-occurrence of close relatives were particularly sensitive to changes in the spatial grain. Assemblages based on range maps included more species and showed less phylogenetic structure than assemblages based on museum or field inventories. Coarse-grained assemblages included more distantly related species and thus showed a more even phylogenetic structure than fine-grained assemblages. Our results emphasize the importance of carefully selecting the scale, source of data and metric used in analysis of the phylogenetic structure of assemblages

Digital Pheromone Implementation of PSO with Velocity Vector Accelerated by Commodity Graphics Hardware

In this paper, a model for Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) implementation of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) using digital pheromones to coordinate swarms within ndimensional design spaces is presented. Particularly, the velocity vector computations are carried out on graphics hardware. Previous work by the authors demonstrated the capability of digital pheromones within PSO for searching n-dimensional design spaces with improved accuracy, efficiency and reliability in serial, parallel and GPU computing environments. The GPU implementation was limited to computing the objective function values alone. Modern GPUs have proven to outperform the number of floating point operations when compared to CPUs through inherent data parallel architecture and higher bandwidth capabilities. This paper presents a method to implement velocity vector computations on a GPU along with objective function evaluations. Three different modes of implementation are studied and presented - First, CPU-CPU where objective function and velocity vector are calculated on CPU alone. Second, GPU-CPU where objective function is computed on the GPU and velocity vector is computed on GPU. Third, GPU-GPU where objective function and velocity vector are both evaluated on the GPU. The results from these three implementations are presented followed by conclusions and recommendations on the best approach for utilizing the full potential of GPUs for PSO

Strong mitochondrial DNA support for a Cretaceous origin of modern avian lineages

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Determining an absolute timescale for avian evolutionary history has proven contentious. The two sources of information available, paleontological data and inference from extant molecular genetic sequences (colloquially, 'rocks' and 'clocks'), have appeared irreconcilable; the fossil record supports a Cenozoic origin for most modern lineages, whereas molecular genetic estimates suggest that these same lineages originated deep within the Cretaceous and survived the K-Pg (Cretaceous-Paleogene; formerly Cretaceous-Tertiary or K-T) mass-extinction event. These two sources of data therefore appear to support fundamentally different models of avian evolution. The paradox has been speculated to reflect deficiencies in the fossil record, unrecognized biases in the treatment of genetic data or both. Here we attempt to explore uncertainty and limit bias entering into molecular divergence time estimates through: (i) improved taxon (<it>n </it>= 135) and character (<it>n = </it>4594 bp mtDNA) sampling; (ii) inclusion of multiple cladistically tested internal fossil calibration points (<it>n </it>= 18); (iii) correction for lineage-specific rate heterogeneity using a variety of methods (<it>n </it>= 5); (iv) accommodation of uncertainty in tree topology; and (v) testing for possible effects of episodic evolution.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The various 'relaxed clock' methods all indicate that the major (basal) lineages of modern birds originated deep within the Cretaceous, although temporal intraordinal diversification patterns differ across methods. We find that topological uncertainty had a systematic but minor influence on date estimates for the origins of major clades, and Bayesian analyses assuming fixed topologies deliver similar results to analyses with unconstrained topologies. We also find that, contrary to expectation, rates of substitution are not autocorrelated across the tree in an ancestor-descendent fashion. Finally, we find no signature of episodic molecular evolution related to either speciation events or the K-Pg boundary that could systematically mislead inferences from genetic data.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The 'rock-clock' gap has been interpreted by some to be a result of the vagaries of molecular genetic divergence time estimates. However, despite measures to explore different forms of uncertainty in several key parameters, we fail to reconcile molecular genetic divergence time estimates with dates taken from the fossil record; instead, we find strong support for an ancient origin of modern bird lineages, with many extant orders and families arising in the mid-Cretaceous, consistent with previous molecular estimates. Although there is ample room for improvement on both sides of the 'rock-clock' divide (e.g. accounting for 'ghost' lineages in the fossil record and developing more realistic models of rate evolution for molecular genetic sequences), the consistent and conspicuous disagreement between these two sources of data more likely reflects a genuine difference between estimated ages of (i) stem-group origins and (ii) crown-group morphological diversifications, respectively. Further progress on this problem will benefit from greater communication between paleontologists and molecular phylogeneticists in accounting for error in avian lineage age estimates.</p

PLUMAGE ONTOGENY AND TAXONOMIC STATUS OF THE DUSKY STARFRONTLET COELIGENA-ORINA WETMORE

Volume: 108Start Page: 127End Page: 13