Sector-Based Water Demand Forecasting: Commercial Greenhouses

With rising electricity prices, forecasting water demand has become an essential part of the success of any water utility. Numerous forecasting methods have been suggested, but none have been able to characterize the unique consumer mixes that exist for every utility. This work focuses on a water utility located in Essex County, Ontario, Canada. Examination of the utilities consumer breakdown showed that almost 80% of their capacity was being consumed by commercial greenhouse operations. Current forecasting practices in this region for this sector are almost non-existent, assuming fixed demand for all greenhouse operations. This study presents three papers that focus on evaluation and simplification of forecasting techniques for commercial greenhouse operations. The first paper examines influential factors which drive greenhouse water consumption, with an emphasis on practicality. The second paper evaluates several forecasting model architectures ranging from elementary to complex in order to determine the most suitable method(s). The third paper compares water usage between two crops (tomatoes and bell peppers) in an effort to evaluate a crop to crop forecast technique that relies on one crops watering data in order to produce forecasts for another crop

Ukraine At The Fulcrum: A Nuclear House Of Cards

The foundation of preserving and enhancing global nuclear security rests on three fundamental pillars: nuclear disarmament; preventing further proliferation of nuclear weapons; and international cooperation aimed at safeguarding nuclear materials. Today, experts argue that the recent decision of Russian president Vladimir Putin to cut cooperative efforts to secure nuclear materials are placing in peril the future of international efforts to promote global nuclear security. We argue that in addition to the clear erosion of the third pillar of nuclear security, there are more threatening ramifications resulting from the recent actions of Russia in Ukraine. The aggressive actions of Russia in Ukraine, together with the unwillingness of the international community to exert sufficient pressure on Russia to honor the promises made to Ukraine in exchange for giving up nuclear weapons in 1990s (the Budapest Memorandum) are detrimental to non-proliferation objectives and reach far beyond the geographic boundaries of the current conflict. In addition, they may disrupt both further nuclear disarmament and stimulate proliferation of nuclear weapons. To the government of any country who has resisted the push toward nuclearization based on trust placed in international agreements, the inactions and/or inability of the international community to resist or reverse Russia’s illegal actions must cause great concern. If binding diplomatic agreements are seen to only bind one party – the weaker party – that party will understandably be very hesitant to place full faith in any diplomatic document short of a binding treaty that has clear and required enforcement mechanisms. This is especially true when the stakes are a country’s national security and ultimately its sovereignty. If any one of these nations moved toward nuclear status, the atomic dominos would surely begin to tumble, and the delicate nuclear equilibrium that defines the global nuclear security landscape today would be lost

Elastic properties of model porous ceramics

The finite element method (FEM) is used to study the influence of porosity and pore shape on the elastic properties of model porous ceramics. The Young's modulus of each model was found to be practically independent of the solid Poisson's ratio. At a sufficiently high porosity, the Poisson's ratio of the porous models converged to a fixed value independent of the solid Poisson's ratio. The Young's modulus of the models is in good agreement with experimental data. We provide simple formulae which can be used to predict the elastic properties of ceramics, and allow the accurate interpretation of empirical property-porosity relations in terms of pore shape and structure.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figure

Stepping Forward With MD: Current Research on Five Common Types

The muscular dystrophies (MDs) encompass a range of genetic diseases characterized primarily by skeletal muscle wasting, with possible weakening of the heart. Clinical manifestations of these diseases have been documented for more than a century; however, the molecular defects that cause MD were only discovered in the last twenty years. Some forms of the disease, including Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and congenital muscular dystrophy (CMD), result from mutations in genes coding for proteins crucial to muscle cell structure. In these forms of MD, symptoms result from a deficiency of dystrophin or an associated protein in the dystrophin-glycoprotein complex (DGC), a structure that preserves function of normal muscle fibers. Another form of MD, limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD), is caused by a mutation encoding a protein component of the plasma membrane. Still other forms of the disease exist; fascioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) and myotonic dystrophy (DM) result from nucleotide repeats and silencer deletions on skeletal muscle genes, respectively. In these forms of MD, symptoms are due to abnormal pre-mRNA splicing. This paper reviews current literature on the molecular basis and therapeutic strategies of five types of MD

A decade of monitoring Atlantic cod Gadus morhua spawning aggregations in Massachusetts Bay using passive acoustics

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Caiger, P. E., Dean, M. J., DeAngelis, A. I., Hatch, L. T., Rice, A. N., Stanley, J. A., Tholke, C., Zemeckis, D. R., & Van Parijs, S. M. A decade of monitoring Atlantic cod Gadus morhua spawning aggregations in Massachusetts Bay using passive acoustics. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 635, (2020): 89-103, doi:10.3354/meps13219.Atlantic cod Gadus morhua populations in the northeast USA have failed to recover since major declines in the 1970s and 1990s. To rebuild these stocks, managers need reliable information on spawning dynamics in order to design and implement control measures; discovering cost-effective and non-invasive monitoring techniques is also favorable. Atlantic cod form dense, site-fidelic spawning aggregations during which they vocalize, permitting acoustic detection of their presence at such times. The objective of this study was to detect spawning activity of Atlantic cod using multiple fixed-station passive acoustic recorders to sample across Massachusetts Bay during the winter spawning period. A generalized linear modeling approach was used to investigate spatio-temporal trends of cod vocalizing over 10 consecutive winter spawning seasons (2007-2016), the longest such timeline of any passive acoustic monitoring of a fish species. The vocal activity of Atlantic cod was associated with diel, lunar, and seasonal cycles, with a higher probability of occurrence at night, during the full moon, and near the end of November. Following 2009 and 2010, there was a general decline in acoustic activity. Furthermore, the northwest corner of Stellwagen Bank was identified as an important spawning location. This project demonstrated the utility of passive acoustic monitoring in determining the presence of an acoustically active fish species, and provides valuable data for informing the management of this commercially, culturally, and ecologically important species.Thanks to Eli Bonnell, Genevieve Davis, Julianne Bonell, Samara Haver, and Eric Matzen for assistance in MARU deployments, Dana Gerlach and Heather Heenehan for help in passive acoustic data analysis, and the NEFSC passive acoustics group for useful discussions. Funding for 2007−2012 passive acoustic surveys was provided by Excelerate Energy and Neptune LNG to Cornell University. Fieldwork for 2013−2015 was funded through the 2013−2014 NOAA Saltonstall-Kennedy grant program (Award No. NA14NMF4270027), and jointly funded by The Nature Conservancy, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and the Cabot Family Charitable Foundation. Funding for 2016 SoundTrap data was provided by NOAA’s Ocean Acoustics Program (4 Sanctuaries Project)

University Faculty and Their Knowledge & Acceptance of Biological Evolution

Misconceptions about biological evolution specifically and the nature of science in general are pervasive in our society and culture. The view that biological evolution explains life’s origin(s) and that hypotheses become theories, which then become laws are just two examples of commonly held misconceptions. These misconceptions are reinforced in the media, in people’s personal lives, and in some unfortunate cases in the science classroom. Misconceptions regarding the nature of science (NOS) have been shown to be related to understanding and acceptance of biological evolution. Previous work has looked at several factors that are related to an individual’s understanding of biological evolution, acceptance of biological evolution, and his/her understanding of the NOS. The study presented here investigated understanding and acceptance of biological evolution among a highly educated population: university faculty. To investigate these variables we surveyed 309 faculty at a major public Midwestern university. The questions at the core of our investigation covered differences across and between faculty disciplines, what influence theistic position or other demographic responses had, and what model best described the relationships detected. Our results show that knowledge of biological evolution and acceptance of biological evolution are positively correlated for university faculty. Higher knowledge of biological evolution positively correlates with higher acceptance of biological evolution across the entire population of university faculty. This positive correlation is also present if the population is broken down into distinct theistic views (creationist and non-creationist viewpoints). Greater knowledge of biological evolution also positively correlates with greater acceptance of biological evolution across different levels of science education. We also found that of the factors we examined, theistic view has the strongest relationship with knowledge and acceptance of biological evolution. These results add support to the idea that a person’s theistic view is a driving force behind his or her resistance to understanding and accepting biological evolution. We also conclude that our results support the idea that effective science instruction can have a positive effect on both understanding and acceptance of biological evolution and that understanding and acceptance are closely tied variables

Fruit vending machines as a means of contactless purchase: Exploring factors determining US consumers’ willingness to try, buy and pay a price premium for fruit from a vending machine during the coronavirus pandemic

During the coronavirus pandemic, buying and consumption patterns of US consumers shifted towards contactless buying. While the topic of online buying is well explored within the existing literature on this topic, purchasing fruit from a vending machine is still yet to be investigated. This exploratory study used quantitative data to examine the factors driving US consumers’ willingness to try, buy and pay a premium for fruit from vending machines. An online survey of 391 US consumers was conducted to fill this research gap between 7 July and 10 July 2022. This survey was distributed via Amazon Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing platform which is widely used for consumer research. Smart PLS 4 facilitated the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis, as this method well suited for testing exploratory models with complex relations between the latent variables. Results indicated that COVID-19 pandemic-related benefits, quality benefits, value-related benefits and experiential benefits were the most important predictors that determined willingness to try, buy and pay a price premium when purchasing fruit from a vending machine

Dictyostelium Myosin Bipolar Thick Filament Formation: Importance of Charge and Specific Domains of the Myosin Rod

Myosin-II thick filament formation in Dictyostelium is an excellent system for investigating the phenomenon of self-assembly, as the myosin molecule itself contains all the information required to form a structure of defined size. Phosphorylation of only three threonine residues can dramatically change the assembly state of myosin-II. We show here that the C-terminal 68 kDa of the myosin-II tail (termed AD-Cterm) assembles in a regulated manner similar to full-length myosin-II and forms bipolar thick filament (BTF) structures when a green fluorescent protein (GFP) “head” is added to the N terminus. The localization of this GFP-AD-Cterm to the cleavage furrow of dividing Dictyostelium cells depends on assembly state, similar to full-length myosin-II. This tail fragment therefore represents a good model system for the regulated formation and localization of BTFs. By reducing regulated BTF assembly to a more manageable model system, we were able to explore determinants of myosin-II self-assembly. Our data support a model in which a globular head limits the size of a BTF, and the large-scale charge character of the AD-Cterm region is important for BTF formation. Truncation analysis of AD-Cterm tail fragments shows that assembly is delicately balanced, resulting in assembled myosin-II molecules that are poised to disassemble due to the phosphorylation of only three threonines

Mafia and psychopathy

Background In popular culture, Mafia members are often portrayed as ruthless, callous and remorseless, but there is no empirical research on their personality traits. Aims The goal of this research was to examine levels of psychopathic traits among Mafia members who have been convicted of a criminal offence. Methods The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) rated 30 Italian adult male prisoners who had been convicted for Mafia-related crimes (86% resident in one 6-month period) and 39 next adjacent convicted men who were not enrolled in any criminal organisation. Results Mafia members obtained lower PCL-R total scores, interpersonal and affective (PCL-R factor 1) scores and lifestyle scores (factor 2) than the other offenders. Logistic regression analysis showed that lower PCL-R factor 1 scores with higher factor 2 scores in the absence of a history of substance misuse disorder distinguished Mafia from non-Mafia offenders. A probability curve confirmed an exponential growth in the probability of classification as a Mafia member in relation to lower PCL-R factor 1 scores. Conclusions Our findings bring new hope for resocialisation of convicted Mafia members, because they showed significant antisocial traits but they maintained a capacity for emotional connection and greater likelihood of engaging with training and resocialisation programmes than other imprisoned offenders in Italy