Baffle Type Energy Dissipator for Pipe Outlets

The baffle type energy dissipator described in this paper was developed through laboratory experimentation for use in soil conservation work. It is designed to reduce the energy in high velocity pipe flow so that the water may be discharged safely into an erodible channel. This structure can be adapted to meet the many field conditions encountered in erosion control work in agriculture and elsewhere, such as at pipe outlets draining terraces or ditches, highway culverts, and drop inlet spillway outlets. Pipe sizes commonly used in such applications range from 10 to 48 in in diameter and have flows from 10 to 250 cfs discharging into channels of various widths

The cardiomyocyte "redox rheostat": Redox signalling via the AMPK-mTOR axis and regulation of gene and protein expression balancing survival and death.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) play a key role in development of heart failure but, at a cellular level, their effects range from cytoprotection to induction of cell death. Understanding how this is regulated is crucial to develop novel strategies to ameliorate only the detrimental effects. Here, we revisited the fundamental hypothesis that the level of ROS per se is a key factor in the cellular response by applying different concentrations of H2O2 to cardiomyocytes. High concentrations rapidly reduced intracellular ATP and inhibited protein synthesis. This was associated with activation of AMPK which phosphorylated and inhibited Raptor, a crucial component of mTOR complex-1 that regulates protein synthesis. Inhibition of protein synthesis by high concentrations of H2O2 prevents synthesis of immediate early gene products required for downstream gene expression, and such mRNAs (many encoding proteins required to deal with oxidant stress) were only induced by lower concentrations. Lower concentrations of H2O2 promoted mTOR phosphorylation, associated with differential recruitment of some mRNAs to the polysomes for translation. Some of the upregulated genes induced by low H2O2 levels are cytoprotective. We identified p21Cip1/WAF1 as one such protein, and preventing its upregulation enhanced the rate of cardiomyocyte apoptosis. The data support the concept of a "redox rheostat" in which different degrees of ROS influence cell energetics and intracellular signalling pathways to regulate mRNA and protein expression. This sliding scale determines cell fate, modulating survival vs death

Glimpses of the Work of the Cooperative Hydraulics Laboratory

This booklet is presented with the compliments of the California Institute of Technology to those attending the meetings of the Soil Conservation Service held on the campus at Pasadena, February 14 to 19, 1944. Its purpose is two-fold : (i) To acquaint our guests with the Cooperative Hydraulics Laboratory and the work of its staff, and (2) to provide notes on the discussions presented by members of the staff at these meetings

An integrated climate and water resource climate service prototype for long term water allocation in the Upper Yellow River Region of China

Water Resourcing in China has historically been a complex issue requiring the ability to deal with regular floods, droughts and diverse water needs. Climate change represents another challenge to this sector, albeit one that is not traditionally considered by water managers. In this sector in China water management is predominantly based on historic, seasonal and annual forecast data while multi-annual and (multi-)decadal data are seldom used. In this paper, we present the co-development of a climate service prototype designed to provide water managers with insights into the impacts of climate change on the Upper Yellow River region for the next century. The paper is an outcome from our project that encouraged water resource planners and water resource managers to utilise long-term climate information to understand the uncertainties and the challenges our changing climate is likely to have in the region. Using an interdisciplinary team and adopting a user-centred, co-production approach, a prototype web-based data visualisation tool was developed. The development of the prototype was based on a design specification constructed from the findings of detailed interviews that allowed it to be developed and tested under SARS-CoV-2 pandemic restrictions that prevented the typical development process to be undertaken. The developed prototype presents climate information and communicates uncertainties regarding climate change in the remainder of the century through data sets that are typically used by the water sector in China in a simple, easy to understand style. Models that estimate river levels under different extraction scenarios and results about estimated river level and flow, and flood risk are also presented. The prototype was shown to be successful, as key messages relating to the impact of climate change and the challenges for water resource management could be effectively communicated through the tool interface. Practical implications Understanding the impacts of climate change on water resourcing is complicated and multifaceted. There is a need for better data about what water there is and how it is moving around between and within catchments. Estimates of past, present and future climate variables along with historical measurements of river flow can be used to help visualise some of the uncertainties and changes that may happen in the next 50 years. In addition, there is a need to understand changing water demands and water resource management practices. Current water resource management practices are based on historical conditions and assumptions that are less likely to hold true in a more variable and warmer climate. Communicating how future changes will impact future water resourcing is critical to water resources in a changing climate (Belcher et al. 2018). This research outlines the construction of a tool to visualise the impacts of climate change on water availability in part of China that is typically water scarce, using models developed using the Soil Water Assessment Toolkit (SWAT). A model of the Upper Yellow River (UYR) was developed to demonstrate the impact of climate change on river levels in the catchment based on climate variables. The rainfall-runoff model was based on climate predictions from the CMIP5 assessment HadGEM3-GC3.05 climate model and incorporated information about water resource allocations for different administrative regions of the catchment The general climate trend for the region is that it is expected to become significantly warmer. The total amount of precipitation is likely to be about the same, and yet it is expected that overall, the catchment will become significantly drier over time as winter shortens and summer lengthens. The outputs from the model reflect the changes in climate variables. The uncertainties were communicated via a Web based tool. Water resource managers in China helped to coproduce the tool by participating in workshops and providing feedback on prototypes. The workshops helped scientists and water resource managers to communicate about climate change impacts on water resources and water resource management

Increasing precipitation variability on daily-to-multiyear timescales in a warmer world

This is the final version. Available on open access from the American Association for the Advancement of Science via the DOI in this recordData and materials availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper, supplementary materials, and/or linked repositories. The GPCP precipitation data is acquired from https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/gpcp-daily-global precipitation-climatology-project. The IMERG precipitation data is acquired from https://gpm.nasa.gov/data/directory. For the HadGEM3-GC3.05 PPE simulations, two-dimensional fields can be accessed from https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/f1a2fc3c120f400396a92f5de84d596a, and post-processed three dimensional fields can be accessed from https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/GHWGG0.The hydrological cycle intensifies under global warming with precipitation increases. How the increased precipitation varies temporally at a given location has vital implications for regional climates and ecosystem services. Based on ensemble climate model projections under a high emission scenario, here we show that approximately two-thirds of land on Earth will face a “wetter and more variable” hydroclimate on daily to multiyear timescales. This means wider swings between wet and dry extremes. Such an amplification of precipitation variability is particularly prominent over climatologically wet regions, with percentage increases in variability more than twice those in mean precipitation. Thermodynamic effects, linked to increased moisture availability, increase precipitation variability uniformly everywhere. It is the dynamic effects (negative) linked to weakened circulation variability that make precipitation variability changes strongly region dependent. The increase in precipitation variability poses a new challenge to the climate resilience of infrastructures and human society.National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaChina Postdoctoral Science FoundationInternational Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of SciencesUK–China Research Innovation Partnership Fun

P20-19 LB. Extensive HLA-driven viral diversity following a single-source HIV-1 outbreak in rural China

Background: High rates of mutation in HIV infected individual allow the virus to adapt rapidly in vivo to selective forces such as anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and host immune pressure. This provides an opportunity to determine the relative contribution of different components of the immune response to HIV-1 infection in driving viral diversity, which may also facilitate assessment of their role in controlling viral replication. It is accepted that HIV-1-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTL) may drive the selection of viral variants that can escape T-cell recognition but the extent of this selective pressure has been controversial. Methods: Two digit HLA typing; ELISPOT assay; HIV-1 sequence analysis; HIV sequence clustering and phylogenetic analysis of HLA associations using the neighbour-joining method, S-Plus 8.0, “Partitioning around medoids” (PAM) method and Stratification analysis by Mantel-Haenszel tests Results: Here we describe the consequences of HLA-associated selection on viral diversity in the main targets of T-cell recognition following an outbreak of HIV-1 in a cohort of 258 former plasma donors in rural China. The surprising finding that all the donors appear to have been infected with the same strain of clade B HIV-1 ensured that the analysis was not confounded by “founder effect”. At least 32.63% (232/711) of the mutations in the gag, pol and nef genes leading to amino acid substitutions were associated with class I HLA molecules: of these, 27.16% (63/232) were found within or close to known CD8+ T-cell epitopes. Conclusion: Taken together our data confirm that CD8+ T-cell pressure has a major impact on HIV-1 viral diversity and represent an important element of viral control in the infected host

HLA Class I and Class II Associations in Dengue Viral Infections in a Sri Lankan Population

BACKGROUND: HLA class I and class II alleles have been shown to be associated with the development of dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF)/dengue shock syndrome (DSS) in different populations. However, the majority of studies have been based on limited numbers of patients. In this study we aimed to investigate the HLA-class I and class II alleles that are positively and negatively associated with the development of DSS in a cohort of patients with DHF and also the alleles associated with development of DHF during primary dengue infections in a Sri Lankan population. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The allele frequencies of HLA class I and class II alleles were compared in 110 patients with DHF and 119 individuals from the population who had never reported a symptomatic dengue infection at the time of recruitment. We found that HLA-A*31 (corrected P = 0.01) and DRB1*08 (corrected P = 0.009) were associated with susceptibility to DSS when infected with the dengue virus, during secondary dengue infection. The frequency of DRB1*08 allele was 28.7 times higher than in the normal population in patients with DSS. HLA-A*31 allele was increased 16.6 fold in DHF who developed shock when compared to those who did not develop shock. A*24 (corrected P = 0.03) and DRB1*12 (corrected P = 0.041) were strongly associated with the development of DHF during primary dengue infection. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These data suggest that certain HLA alleles confer susceptibility/protection to severe dengue infections. As T cell epitope recognition depend on the HLA type of an individual, it would be now important to investigate how epitope specific T cells associate with primary and secondary dengue infections and in severe dengue infections