Nutrient Export at Meadowbrook Farm, Madison County, Kentucky: Steps Toward Improving Local and Regional Water Quality

Excess nutrient levels in surface water continues to be one of the leading causes of water degradation in the United States today. Excess nutrients usually are sourced from agricultural- practices in the form of non-point-source contamination. Both large- and small-scale farming practices can result in excess nutrients contaminating local water ways, mostly injected during and shortly after rain events. The most prevalent nutrients in these cases include dissolved and solid forms of nitrogen and phosphorus. In Madison County, Kentucky, we investigate the nutrient export from Meadowbrook Farm, located within the Muddy Creek watershed, which flows into the Kentucky River and ultimately into the Mississippi river drainage basin. This small-scale farm, owned and operated by Eastern Kentucky University, raises typical crops and livestock. We quantify the nutrient export from the Farm in the form of dissolved nitrogen (ammonium, NH4+; nitrate, NO3-), dissolved phosphorus (orthophosphate, PO43-), and total phosphorus (ΣP). We sampled water flowing over an instrumented weir, situated within the Farm’s Big Runoff Channel (BRC), during six different storm events in the 2018 field season. We determined nutrient concentrations during storms coupled with respective discharge measurements. Then, we used a cubic spline function embedded within Microsoft Excel that interpolated between data points to produce a continuous curve for each nutrient species and discharge. The area under these curves generates total water volume and nutrient export values for each storm event. The largest storm event (6-7 July) exported 4.1 kg of P-PO4; 11.3 kg of total phosphorus; 3.3 kg of N-NH4; and 1.7 kg of N-NO3 [5 kg N]. An approximate linear relationship between total storm water volume and P-PO4, ΣP, and N-NO3 is observed. However, these relationships are not robust enough to reliably estimate iv nutrient transport for any rainfall event from discharge data alone. The next step is to test if better relationships occur between nutrient export and rainfall intensity, rain event frequency, or other possible parameters. The overall aim is to estimate annual nutrient export with confidence in order to: (1) test the efficacy of mediation efforts to on the Farm; and (2) to compare annual nutrient export values to those of other studies

Slowly varying envelope kinetic simulations of pulse amplification by Raman backscattering

A numerical code based on an eikonal formalism has been developed to simulate laser-plasma interactions, specifically Raman backscatter(RBS). In this code, the dominant laser modes are described by their wave envelopes, avoiding the need to resolve the laser frequency; appropriately time-averaged equations describe particle motion. The code is fully kinetic, and thus includes critical physics such as particle trapping and Landau damping which are beyond the scope of the commonly used fluid three-wave equations. The dominant forces on the particles are included: the ponderomotive force resulting from the beat wave of the forward and backscattered laser fields and the self-consistent plasma electric field. The code agrees well, in the appropriate regimes, with the results from three-wave equations and particle-in-cell simulations. The effects of plasma temperature on RBS amplification are studied. It is found that increasing the plasma temperature results in modification to particle trapping and the saturation of RBS, even before the onset of Landau damping of the plasma wave. This results in a reduction in the coupling efficiency compared to predictions based on the three-wave equations.open192

The HP0256 gene product is involved in motility and cell envelope architecture of Helicobacter pylori

Background: Helicobacter pylori is the causative agent for gastritis, and peptic and duodenal ulcers. The bacterium displays 5-6 polar sheathed flagella that are essential for colonisation and persistence in the gastric mucosa. The biochemistry and genetics of flagellar biogenesis in H. pylori has not been fully elucidated. Bioinformatics analysis suggested that the gene HP0256, annotated as hypothetical, was a FliJ homologue. In Salmonella, FliJ is a chaperone escort protein for FlgN and FliT, two proteins that themselves display chaperone activity for components of the hook, the rod and the filament. Results: Ablation of the HP0256 gene in H. pylori significantly reduced motility. However, flagellin and hook protein synthesis was not affected in the HP0256 mutant. Transmission electron transmission microscopy revealed that the HP0256 mutant cells displayed a normal flagellum configuration, suggesting that HP0256 was not essential for assembly and polar localisation of the flagella in the cell. Interestingly, whole genome microarrays of an HP0256 mutant revealed transcriptional changes in a number of genes associated with the flagellar regulon and the cell envelope, such as outer membrane proteins and adhesins. Consistent with the array data, lack of the HP0256 gene significantly reduced adhesion and the inflammatory response in host cells. Conclusions: We conclude that HP0256 is not a functional counterpart of FliJ in H. pylori. However, it is required for full motility and it is involved, possibly indirectly, in expression of outer membrane proteins and adhesins involved in pathogenesis and adhesion

Smoking cessation during pregnancy: the influence of partners, family and friends on quitters and non-quitters

This research compared pregnant quitters’ and non-quitters’ accounts of how partners, family and friends influenced their smoking cessation attempts. Qualitative secondary data analysis was carried out on a purposive sample of motivational interview transcripts undertaken by research midwives with pregnant women as part of SmokeChange, a smoking cessation intervention. Interviews with all quitters in the intervention group (n = 12) were analysed comparatively with interviews from a matched sample of non-quitters (n = 12).The discourses of both revealed similarity in how their partners, family and friends influenced their cessation efforts: salient others were simultaneously perceived by both groups of women as providing drivers and barriers to quit attempts; close associates who smoked were often perceived to be as supportive as those who did not. However, women who quit smoking during pregnancy talked more about receiving active praise/encouragement than those who did not. While close associates play an important role in women’s attempts to stop smoking during pregnancy, the support they provide varies; further research is needed to develop a better understanding of how key relationships help or hinder cessation during pregnancy

Pathways to functional outcomes in schizophrenia spectrum disorders: Meta-analysis of social cognitive and neurocognitive predictors

The current meta-analysis explored relationships between functional outcomes in schizophrenia spectrum disorders and different domains of neurocognition and social cognition. Literature searches were conducted in PsycINFO, PubMed, and ProQuest to identify articles reporting correlations between cognition domains and functional outcomes. Of 1361 articles identified, 166 met all inclusion criteria (12,868 participants; 518 correlations). Fifty-three random-effects meta-analyses yielded mean correlation estimates for relationships between neurocognition and social cognition and functional outcomes. Overall, associations between social cognition and neurocognition, and functional outcomes demonstrated significant small-to-medium effect sizes. Social cognition explained more unique variance in functioning than neurocognition (7.3% vs. 4.4%; 9.2% total average variance). Social cognition also mediated the relationship between neurocognition and functional outcomes. A significant proportion of the variance in the relationships between cognition and functional outcomes remained unexplained. These findings suggest that integrated interventions targeting both neurocognition and social cognition may optimally improve functional outcomes. Standardized measurement of cognition and functioning, longitudinal studies, and tests of additional moderators (e.g., first episode samples) in future research were identified as important future directions

Common HLA Alleles Associated with Health, but Not with Facial Attractiveness

Three adaptive hypotheses have been proposed to explain the link between the human leucocyte antigen (HLA) genes, health measures and facial attractiveness: inbreeding avoidance, heterozygote advantage and frequency-dependent selection. This paper reports findings that support a new hypothesis relating HLA to health. We suggest a new method to quantify the level of heterozygosity. HLA heterozygosity did not significantly predict health measures in women, but allele frequency did. Women with more common HLA alleles reported fewer cold and flu bouts per year, fewer illnesses in the previous year and rated themselves healthier than women with rare alleles. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show a positive correlation between HLA allele frequency and general health measures. We propose that certain common HLA alleles confer resistance to prevalent pathogens. Nevertheless, neither HLA heterozygosity nor allele frequency significantly predicted how healthy or attractive men rated the female volunteers. Three non-mutually exclusive explanations are put forward to explain this finding

Detector Description and Performance for the First Coincidence Observations between LIGO and GEO

For 17 days in August and September 2002, the LIGO and GEO interferometer gravitational wave detectors were operated in coincidence to produce their first data for scientific analysis. Although the detectors were still far from their design sensitivity levels, the data can be used to place better upper limits on the flux of gravitational waves incident on the earth than previous direct measurements. This paper describes the instruments and the data in some detail, as a companion to analysis papers based on the first data.Comment: 41 pages, 9 figures 17 Sept 03: author list amended, minor editorial change