NDBC Ocean Wave Observation System Update

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) is modifying its ocean wave observation system due to parts obsolescence. The modified system is named Ocean Wave Linux (OWL). OWL will replace the NDBC’s older and now obsolete Digital Directional Wave Module (DDWM). Once OWL completes operational verification, the DDWM will be phased out of the NDBC’s operational weather buoy network

Maine Blueberry Advisory Committee Research Report

The 1990 edition of the Maine Blueberry Advisory Committee Research Reports was prepared for the Maine Wild Blueberry Commission and the University of Maine Wild Blueberry Advisory Committee by researchers with the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station and Maine Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Maine, Orono. Projects in this report include: 1. Biology and action thresholds of secondary blueberry pests 2. Control of blueberry maggot 3. Control of secondary blueberry pests 4. Application of steam as a method of controlling secondary pest insects on lowbush blueberry: a feasibility study 5. Pollination of the lowbush blueberry by native bees 6. Nitrogen-phosphorus study 7. Potassium study 8. Multiple cropping of wild stands 9. Phosphorus dose/response curve 10. Improvement in the color and texture of the canned blueberry 11. The effect of fertilization and irrigation on blueberry fruit quality 12. Investigation of preprocess changes (chemical, microbiological, and/or physical) that could lead to the development of a simple and inexpensive method to measure preprocess berry spoilage 13. The effect of postharvest handling on the dietary fiber and ellagic acid content of lowbush blueberries 14. Determination of pesticide residue levels in freshly harvested and processed lowbush blueberries 15. Evaluation of Defoliating Diseases 16. Vacuum Sanitation for Disease Control 17. Evaluation and modification of commercial herbicide applications 18. Evaluation of the suitability of remote sensing to evaluate plant cover in lowbush blueberry fields 19. Evaluation of Sethoxydin (POAST) in lowbush blueberry fields 20. Seedling pruning study 21. Evaluation of norflurazon (SOLICAM) with or without hexazinone (VELPAR) for bunchberry control 22. Selective wiper and mechanical control of dogbane and bracken fern 23. Evaluation of norflurazon (SOLICAM) in fall vs spring for oatgrass control 24. Evaluation of sulfonyl urea herbicides for bunchberry control 25. Evaluation of postemergence applications of DPX-L5300 for bunchberry control 26. Effect of time of application and formulation of hexazinone (VELPAR) on blueberry and bunchberry 27. Investigations of lowbush blueberry fruit-bud cold hardiness 28. The economics of investing in irrigation for lowbush blueberries 29. Effects of irrigation on lowbush blueberry yield and quality 30. Groundwater and surface water development for blueberry irrigation 31. Design, fabrication and testing of an experimental sterilizer for blueberry field

From Neural Arbors to Daisies

Pyramidal neurons in layers 2 and 3 of the neocortex collectively form an horizontal lattice of long-range, periodic axonal projections, known as the superficial patch system. The precise pattern of projections varies between cortical areas, but the patch system has nevertheless been observed in every area of cortex in which it has been sought, in many higher mammals. Although the clustered axonal arbors of single pyramidal cells have been examined in detail, the precise rules by which these neurons collectively merge their arbors remain unknown. To discover these rules, we generated models of clustered axonal arbors following simple geometric patterns. We found that models assuming spatially aligned but independent formation of each axonal arbor do not produce patchy labeling patterns for large simulated injections into populations of generated axonal arbors. In contrast, a model that used information distributed across the cortical sheet to generate axonal projections reproduced every observed quality of cortical labeling patterns. We conclude that the patch system cannot be built during development using only information intrinsic to single neurons. Information shared across the population of patch-projecting neurons is required for the patch system to reach its adult state

Overexpression of extracellular superoxide dismutase reduces acute radiation induced lung toxicity

BACKGROUND: Acute RT-induced damage to the lung is characterized by inflammatory changes, which proceed to the development of fibrotic lesions in the late phase of injury. Ultimately, complete structural ablation will ensue, if the source of inflammatory / fibrogenic mediators and oxidative stress is not removed or attenuated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine whether overexpression of extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC-SOD) in mice ameliorates acute radiation induced injury by inhibiting activation of TGFβ1 and downregulating the Smad 3 arm of its signal transduction pathway. METHODS: Whole thorax radiation (single dose, 15 Gy) was delivered to EC-SOD overexpressing transgenic (XRT-TG) and wild-type (XRT-WT) animals. Mice were sacrificed at 1 day, 1 week, 3, 6, 10 and 14 weeks. Breathing rates, right lung weights, total/differential leukocyte count, activated TGFβ1 and components of its signal transduction pathway (Smad 3 and p-Smad 2/3) were assessed to determine lung injury. RESULTS: Irradiated wild-type (XRT-WT) animals exhibited time dependent increase in breathing rates and right lung weights, whereas these parameters were significantly less increased (p < 0.05) at 3, 6, 10 and 14 weeks in irradiated transgenic (XRT-TG) mice. An inflammatory response characterized predominantly by macrophage infiltration was pronounced in XRT-WT mice. This acute inflammation was significantly attenuated (p < 0.05) in XRT-TG animals at 1, 3, 6 and 14 weeks. Expression of activated TGFβ1 and components of its signal transduction pathway were significantly reduced (p < 0.05) at later time-points in XRT-TG vs. XRT-WT. CONCLUSION: This study shows that overexpression of EC-SOD confers protection against RT-induced acute lung injury. EC-SOD appears to work, in part, via an attenuation of the macrophage response and also decreases TGFβ1 activation with a subsequent downregulation of the profibrotic TGFβ pathway

Global circulation patterns of seasonal influenza viruses vary with antigenic drift.

Understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of emergence and circulation of new human seasonal influenza virus variants is a key scientific and public health challenge. The global circulation patterns of influenza A/H3N2 viruses are well characterized, but the patterns of A/H1N1 and B viruses have remained largely unexplored. Here we show that the global circulation patterns of A/H1N1 (up to 2009), B/Victoria, and B/Yamagata viruses differ substantially from those of A/H3N2 viruses, on the basis of analyses of 9,604 haemagglutinin sequences of human seasonal influenza viruses from 2000 to 2012. Whereas genetic variants of A/H3N2 viruses did not persist locally between epidemics and were reseeded from East and Southeast Asia, genetic variants of A/H1N1 and B viruses persisted across several seasons and exhibited complex global dynamics with East and Southeast Asia playing a limited role in disseminating new variants. The less frequent global movement of influenza A/H1N1 and B viruses coincided with slower rates of antigenic evolution, lower ages of infection, and smaller, less frequent epidemics compared to A/H3N2 viruses. Detailed epidemic models support differences in age of infection, combined with the less frequent travel of children, as probable drivers of the differences in the patterns of global circulation, suggesting a complex interaction between virus evolution, epidemiology, and human behaviour.T.B. was supported by a Newton International Fellowship from the Royal Society and through NIH U54 GM111274. S.R. was supported by MRC (UK, Project MR/J008761/1), Wellcome Trust (UK, Project 093488/Z/10/Z), Fogarty International Centre (USA, R01 TW008246‐01), DHS (USA, RAPIDD program), NIGMS (USA, MIDAS U01 GM110721‐01) and NIHR (UK, Health Protection Research Unit funding). The Melbourne WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza was supported by the Australian Government Department of Health and thanks N. Komadina and Y.‐M. Deng. The Atlanta WHO Collaborating Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology and Control of Influenza was supported by the U.S. Department of 13 Health and Human Services. NIV thanks A.C. Mishra, M. Chawla‐Sarkar, A.M. Abraham, D. Biswas, S. Shrikhande, AnuKumar B, and A. Jain. Influenza surveillance in India was expanded, in part, through US Cooperative Agreements (5U50C1024407 and U51IP000333) and by the Indian Council of Medical Research. M.A.S. was supported through NSF DMS 1264153 and NIH R01 AI 107034. Work of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research was supported by U117512723. P.L., A.R. & M.A.S were supported by EU Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007‐2013] under Grant Agreement no. 278433-­‐PREDEMICS and ERC Grant agreement no. 260864. C.A.R. was supported by a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society.This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently under infinite embargo pending publication of the final version

Expert range maps of global mammal distributions harmonised to three taxonomic authorities

AimComprehensive, global information on species' occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species' only available distributional information and play an increasing role in conservation assessments and macroecology. We provide global range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species harmonised to the taxonomy of the Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) mobilised from two sources, the Handbook of the Mammals of the World (HMW) and the Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World (CMW).LocationGlobal.TaxonAll extant mammal species.MethodsRange maps were digitally interpreted, georeferenced, error-checked and subsequently taxonomically aligned between the HMW (6253 species), the CMW (6431 species) and the MDD taxonomies (6362 species).ResultsRange maps can be evaluated and visualised in an online map browser at Map of Life (mol.org) and accessed for individual or batch download for non-commercial use.Main conclusionExpert maps of species' global distributions are limited in their spatial detail and temporal specificity, but form a useful basis for broad-scale characterizations and model-based integration with other data. We provide georeferenced range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species as shapefiles, with species-level metadata and source information packaged together in geodatabase format. Across the three taxonomic sources our maps entail, there are 1784 taxonomic name differences compared to the maps currently available on the IUCN Red List website. The expert maps provided here are harmonised to the MDD taxonomic authority and linked to a community of online tools that will enable transparent future updates and version control

Contribution of copy number variants to schizophrenia from a genome-wide study of 41,321 subjects

Copy number variants (CNVs) have been strongly implicated in the genetic etiology of schizophrenia (SCZ). However, genome-wide investigation of the contribution of CNV to risk has been hampered by limited sample sizes. We sought to address this obstacle by applying a centralized analysis pipeline to a SCZ cohort of 21,094 cases and 20,227 controls. A global enrichment of CNV burden was observed in cases (OR=1.11, P=5.7×10−15), which persisted after excluding loci implicated in previous studies (OR=1.07, P=1.7 ×10−6). CNV burden was enriched for genes associated with synaptic function (OR = 1.68, P = 2.8 ×10−11) and neurobehavioral phenotypes in mouse (OR = 1.18, P= 7.3 ×10−5). Genome-wide significant evidence was obtained for eight loci, including 1q21.1, 2p16.3 (NRXN1), 3q29, 7q11.2, 15q13.3, distal 16p11.2, proximal 16p11.2 and 22q11.2. Suggestive support was found for eight additional candidate susceptibility and protective loci, which consisted predominantly of CNVs mediated by non-allelic homologous recombination

No Reliable Association between Runs of Homozygosity and Schizophrenia in a Well-Powered Replication Study

It is well known that inbreeding increases the risk of recessive monogenic diseases, but it is less certain whether it contributes to the etiology of complex diseases such as schizophrenia. One way to estimate the effects of inbreeding is to examine the association between disease diagnosis and genome-wide autozygosity estimated using runs of homozygosity (ROH) in genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism arrays. Using data for schizophrenia from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (n = 21,868), Keller et al. (2012) estimated that the odds of developing schizophrenia increased by approximately 17% for every additional percent of the genome that is autozygous (β = 16.1, CI(β) = [6.93, 25.7], Z = 3.44, p = 0.0006). Here we describe replication results from 22 independent schizophrenia case-control datasets from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (n = 39,830). Using the same ROH calling thresholds and procedures as Keller et al. (2012), we were unable to replicate the significant association between ROH burden and schizophrenia in the independent PGC phase II data, although the effect was in the predicted direction, and the combined (original + replication) dataset yielded an attenuated but significant relationship between Froh and schizophrenia (β = 4.86,CI(β) = [0.90,8.83],Z = 2.40,p = 0.02). Since Keller et al. (2012), several studies reported inconsistent association of ROH burden with complex traits, particularly in case-control data. These conflicting results might suggest that the effects of autozygosity are confounded by various factors, such as socioeconomic status, education, urbanicity, and religiosity, which may be associated with both real inbreeding and the outcome measures of interest