Indigenous Rights and Climate Change: The Influence of Climate Change on the Quantification of Reserved Instream Water Rights for American Indian Tribes

The people indigenous to the Western portion of the lands now referred to as North America have relied on aquatic species for physical, cultural, and spiritual sustenance for millenia. Such indigenous peoples, referred to in the American legal system as Indian tribes, are entitled to water rights for fish habitat pursuant to the Winters Doctrine, which holds that the federal government impliedly reserved water rights for tribes when reservations were created. Recently, the methodology for quantifying these rights has been the Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM) and/or one of its major components, the Physical Habitat Simulation Model (PHABSIM). These models result in water right claims for fixed quantities of water, which—although not required by law—result in instream water rights that are decreed without any means for adjustment to account for changing conditions. Ultimately, climate change will likely alter the amount of water necessary to protect aquatic habitat, rendering obsolete any water right that is based on a fixed quantity. As climate change continues to worsen, we argue that quantifying reserved water rights for inflexible fixed quantities imposes an unreasonable burden on American Indian tribes. Instead, we suggest the application of a number of integrated technical and legal solutions to mitigate the uncertainty Indian tribes currently face from climate change as they seek to protect their rights, resources, and homelands

Causal Dependence Plots

Explaining artificial intelligence or machine learning models is increasingly important. To use such data-driven systems wisely we must understand how they interact with the world, including how they depend causally on data inputs. In this work we develop Causal Dependence Plots (CDPs) to visualize how one variable--an outcome--depends on changes in another variable--a predictor--$\textit{along with any consequent causal changes in other predictor variables}$. Crucially, CDPs differ from standard methods based on holding other predictors constant or assuming they are independent. CDPs make use of an auxiliary causal model because causal conclusions require causal assumptions. With simulations and real data experiments, we show CDPs can be combined in a modular way with methods for causal learning or sensitivity analysis. Since people often think causally about input-output dependence, CDPs can be powerful tools in the xAI or interpretable machine learning toolkit and contribute to applications like scientific machine learning and algorithmic fairness

Impact Remediation: Optimal Interventions to Reduce Inequality

A significant body of research in the data sciences considers unfair discrimination against social categories such as race or gender that could occur or be amplified as a result of algorithmic decisions. Simultaneously, real-world disparities continue to exist, even before algorithmic decisions are made. In this work, we draw on insights from the social sciences and humanistic studies brought into the realm of causal modeling and constrained optimization, and develop a novel algorithmic framework for tackling pre-existing real-world disparities. The purpose of our framework, which we call the "impact remediation framework," is to measure real-world disparities and discover the optimal intervention policies that could help improve equity or access to opportunity for those who are underserved with respect to an outcome of interest. We develop a disaggregated approach to tackling pre-existing disparities that relaxes the typical set of assumptions required for the use of social categories in structural causal models. Our approach flexibly incorporates counterfactuals and is compatible with various ontological assumptions about the nature of social categories. We demonstrate impact remediation with a real-world case study and compare our disaggregated approach to an existing state-of-the-art approach, comparing its structure and resulting policy recommendations. In contrast to most work on optimal policy learning, we explore disparity reduction itself as an objective, explicitly focusing the power of algorithms on reducing inequality

Neue Erkenntnisse zur Ertragsrelevanz der Kraut- und Knollenfäule

Zur Kontrolle der Kraut- und Knollenfäule (Phytophthora infestans) im ökologischen Kartoffelanbau wurde in einem EU-Forschungsprojekt ein Systemansatz entwickelt. Ziel war unter anderem, den Einsatz von Kupferfungiziden zu reduzieren

Trans-species transfer of Wolbachia: microinjection of Wolbachia from Litomosoides sigmodontis into Acanthocheilonema viteae

This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Intracellular bacteria of the genus Wolbachia are found in most filarial nematodes, but are lacking in some species like Acanthocheilonema viteae. Due to their symbiotic nature and their role in the pathology of filarial infections they are considered to be potential targets for intervention against filarial infections in man. Infection of A. viteae (a species which does not naturally carry Wolbachia) with Wolbachia bacteria could allow comparative studies on the effect of the endobacterium on the parasite and on the host's immune systems. As a step towards such studies we microinjected adult female A. viteae with Wolbachia obtained from Litomosoides sigmodontis. The bacteria were isolated from L. sigmodontis by density-gradient centrifugation, microinjected into A. viteae worms and bacterial DNA detected by PCR with Wolbachia specific primers (ftsZ gene). Microinjected worms were cultured in vitro, and 81% survived for 10 days. Implantation of microinjected worms into Meriones unguiculatus, the rodent host of A. viteae resulted in 38% survival. The DNA of the microinjected worms recovered from jirds 8 weeks after implantation contained Wolbachia DNA as shown by PCR, suggesting that Wolbachia of L. sigmodontis can be horizontally transmitted to A. viteae.Peer Reviewe

Copper(ii) Nitroaromatic Schiff Base Complexes: Synthesis, Biological Activity And Their Interaction With Dna And Albumins

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Copper(II) complexes of the Schiff base ligands 2-((5-nitrofuran-2-yl)methyleneamino)phenol (HL1) and 2-(4-nitrobenzylideneamino)phenol (HL2) were prepared and characterized using physicochemical and spectroscopic techniques. In these complexes the Schiff base ligands acted as a bidentate donor bound to Cu2+ through the oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the deprotonated form. The electron paramagnetic resonance spectra, carried out on [CuCl(L1)(phen)]center dot 0.5H(2)O and [CuCl(L2)(phen)]center dot 2H(2)O complexes, showed the presence of only mononuclear forms. The Cu2+ complexes and ligands were evaluated for their in vitro trypanocidal activity. The complex [CuCl(L1)(phen)]center dot 0.5H(2)O was more active than the free Schiff base and also presented a superior effect to benznidazole, the reference drug. The antiproliferative activity of the Schiff bases and Cu2+ complexes were evaluated for their effect on seven tumor cell lines and showed a cytostatic and in some cases a cytotoxic effect. These compounds also presented binding properties to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and moderate ability to quench the intrinsic fluorescence of albumins.2818797Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG)Fundacao Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ)FIOCRUZConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Procedimento Blupis e seleção massal em cana-de-açúcar.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi comparar a seleção via procedimento BLUP individual simulado (BLUPIS) versus seleção massal em famílias de irmãos-completos de cana-de-açúcar. Foram utilizadas 80 famílias originadas de cruzamentos biparentais da série RB03. O experimento foi desenvolvido em área experimental, localizado no Município de São Tomé, Paraná. O delineamento experimental foi em blocos incompletos, com cinco repetições por família. Para seleção considerou-se a variável tonelada de sólidos solúveis por hectare (TSH). Utilizou-se o modelo 35 do programa computacional Selegen REML/BLUP, via procedimento BLUPIS para a indicação do número de clones potenciais a serem selecionados. Estes resultados foram correlacionados com o número de clones selecionados via seleção massal dentro das famílias. A seleção clonal via procedimento BLUPIS indica maior número de clones promissores para caracteres quantitativos dentro de famílias com elevados efeitos genotípicos

A Four-Antigen Mixture for Rapid Assessment of Onchocerca volvulus Infection

Caused by the filarial parasite Onchocerca volvulus, onchocerciasis is a neglected tropical disease associated with blindness and severe dermatitis. Available diagnostic methods are either invasive, require hours or days to perform, and/or need sophisticated equipment to be conducted. Thus, there is an urgent need for simple and rapid technologies for the specific diagnosis of Onchocerca volvulus infection. Here we investigated whether luciferase immunoprecipitation systems (LIPS) can produce a more rapid and specific test for diagnosis of O. volvulus infection. Using modified versions of previously identified Onchocerca-specific antigens, LIPS tests detected antibodies to all four O. volvulus antigens and easily distinguished the O. volvulus-infected samples from uninfected samples. We also tested these four different antigens in a simpler format as a combined mixture and distinguished 100% of the confirmed cases from the uninfected controls. A rapid 15-minute version of this mixture test (QLIPS) also allowed distinction of 100% of the cases from those uninfected and performed even better in identifying Onchocerca from other cross-reactive parasitic infections. This study suggests that this rapid LIPS test (QLIPS) has the potential to be used in point-of-care detection of onchocerciasis and thereby may provide a new tool for diagnosis and the monitoring of transmission control measures