Evaluation of HCMM data for assessing soil moisture and water table depth

Soil moisture in the 0-cm to 4-cm layer could be estimated with 1-mm soil temperatures throughout the growing season of a rainfed barley crop in eastern South Dakota. Empirical equations were developed to reduce the effect of canopy cover when radiometrically estimating the soil temperature. Corrective equations were applied to an aircraft simulation of HCMM data for a diversity of crop types and land cover conditions to estimate the soil moisture. The average difference between observed and measured soil moisture was 1.6% of field capacity. Shallow alluvial aquifers were located with HCMM predawn data. After correcting the data for vegetation differences, equations were developed for predicting water table depths within the aquifer. A finite difference code simulating soil moisture and soil temperature shows that soils with different moisture profiles differed in soil temperatures in a well defined functional manner. A significant surface thermal anomaly was found to be associated with shallow water tables

Evaluation of HCMM data for assessing soil moisture and water table depth

Data were analyzed for variations in eastern South Dakota. Soil moisture in the 0-4 cm layer could be estimated with 1-mm soil temperatures throughout the growing season of a rainfed barley crop (% cover ranging from 30% to 90%) with an r squared = 0.81. Empirical equations were developed to reduce the effect of canopy cover when radiometrically estimating the 1-mm soil temperature, r squared = 0.88. The corrective equations were applied to an aircraft simulation of HCMM data for a diversity of crop types and land cover conditions to estimate the 0-4 cm soil moisture. The average difference between observed and measured soil moisture was 1.6% of field capacity. HCMM data were used to estimate the soil moisture for four dates with an r squared = 0.55 after correction for crop conditions. Location of shallow alluvial aquifers could be accomplished with HCMM predawn data. After correction of HCMM day data for vegetation differences, equations were developed for predicting water table depths within the aquifer (r=0.8)

Privacy threat model in lifelogging

The lifelogging activity enables a user, the lifelogger, to passively capture multimodal records from a first-person perspective and ultimately create a visual diary encompassing every possible aspect of her life with unprecedented details. In recent years it has gained popularity among different groups of users. However, the possibility of ubiquitous presence of lifelogging devices especially in private spheres has raised serious concerns with respect to personal privacy. Different practitioners and active researchers in the field of lifelogging have analysed the issue of privacy in lifelogging and proposed different mitigation strategies. However, none of the existing works has considered a well-defined privacy threat model in the domain of lifelogging. Without a proper threat model, any analysis and discussion of privacy threats in lifelogging remains incomplete. In this paper we aim to fill in this gap by introducing a first-ever privacy threat model identifying several threats with respect to lifelogging. We believe that the introduced threat model will be an essential tool and will act as the basis for any further research within this domain

Cattle welfare aspects of production systems in the tropics

There is a growing demand for animal products, especially food for human consumption, including in developing countries in tropical regions of the world. Simultaneously, animal welfare and a reduced environmental impact are increasingly important to modern consumers and non-consumers. Increased efficiency of existing animal production systems is key to meeting the growing demand of animal products without ignoring societal concerns. Adequate animal welfare can play an important role in improving production and addressing consumer demands. This review describes the main cattle production systems in the tropics and considers how they meet the need for transparent animal welfare conditions. Several challenges to overcome are highlighted, including lack of information about the real cattle welfare status in the tropics. Adequate assessment protocols and improvements in animal nutrition, infrastructure, animal health and farming-related education need special attention in the region. Better animal welfare could improve tropical animal production in terms of productivity, and increase the volume of meat and milk delivered. It could also guarantee consumer acceptance and future consumption of animal products, secure incomes, alleviate poverty and reduce migration to urban areas and countryside abandonment

MET nucleotide variations and amplification in advanced ovarian cancer: characteristics and outcomes with c-Met inhibitors.

PurposeMET alterations including amplifications and nucleotide variations have been associated with resistance to therapy and aggressive clinical behavior.Experimental designThe medical records of patients presenting to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Phase I Clinic with relapsed or metastatic ovarian cancers and known MET nucleotide variation or amplification status were reviewed retrospectively (n=178). Categorical and continuous clinical and molecular characteristics were compared using Fisher's exact and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests, respectively. Univariate and multivariate survival were assessed via Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analysis, respectively.ResultsMET amplification occurred in 4 (3.5%) of 113 patients, whereas nonsynonomous nucleotide variations were present in 9 (7.4%) of 122 patients. No patients exhibited concomitant amplification and variation. MET variations were observed only in white women with high-grade ovarian tumors, whereas amplifications were observed in both black and white women with high-grade serous ovarian primary tumors. No patients (n=4) exhibiting a MET alteration achieved an objective response when treated on a c-Met inhibitor phase I trial. In addition, ovarian cancer patients treated with a c-Met inhibitor with multikinase activity trended towards a longer time-to-failure compared with those treated with a c-Met-specific inhibitor (median: 1.5 vs. 4.5 months, p=0.07).ConclusionsMET alterations occur in a minority of patients with ovarian cancer. c-Met inhibitors with multikinase activity may exhibit less activity in ovarian cancer than c-Met specific drugs. These findings warrant further investigation

Adiabatic decaying vacuum model for the universe

We study a model that the entropy per particle in the universe is constant. The sources for the entropy are the particle creation and a lambda decaying term. We find exact solutions for the Einstein field equations and show the compatibilty of the model with respect to the age and the acceleration of the universe.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Integrating precision medicine through evaluation of cell of origin in treatment planning for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

Precision medicine is modernizing strategies for clinical study design to help improve diagnoses guiding individualized treatment based on genetic or phenotypic characteristics that discriminate between patients with similar clinical presentations. Methodology to personalize treatment choices is being increasingly employed in clinical trials, yielding favorable correlations with improved response rates and survival. In patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), disease characteristics and outcomes may vary widely, underscoring the importance of patient classification through identification of sensitive prognostic features. The discovery of distinct DLBCL molecular subtypes based on cell of origin (COO) is redefining the prognosis and treatment of this heterogeneous cancer. Owing to significant molecular and clinical differences between activated B-cell-like (ABC)- and germinal center B-cell-like (GCB)-DLBCL subtypes, COO identification offers opportunities to optimize treatment selection. Widespread adoption of COO classification would greatly improve treatment and prognosis; however, limitations in interlaboratory concordance between immunohistochemistry techniques, cost, and availability of gene expression profiling tools undermine universal integration in the clinical setting. With advanced methodology to determine COO in a real-world clinical setting, therapies targeted to specific subtypes are under development. The focus here is to review applications of precision medicine exemplified by COO determination in DLBCL patients

A Declarative Framework for Specifying and Enforcing Purpose-aware Policies

Purpose is crucial for privacy protection as it makes users confident that their personal data are processed as intended. Available proposals for the specification and enforcement of purpose-aware policies are unsatisfactory for their ambiguous semantics of purposes and/or lack of support to the run-time enforcement of policies. In this paper, we propose a declarative framework based on a first-order temporal logic that allows us to give a precise semantics to purpose-aware policies and to reuse algorithms for the design of a run-time monitor enforcing purpose-aware policies. We also show the complexity of the generation and use of the monitor which, to the best of our knowledge, is the first such a result in literature on purpose-aware policies.Comment: Extended version of the paper accepted at the 11th International Workshop on Security and Trust Management (STM 2015

A novel TBP-TAF complex on RNA Polymerase II-transcribed snRNA genes

Initiation of transcription of most human genes transcribed by RNA polymerase II (RNAP II) requires the formation of a preinitiation complex comprising TFIIA, B, D, E, F, H and RNAP II. The general transcription factor TFIID is composed of the TATA-binding protein and up to 13 TBP-associated factors. During transcription of snRNA genes, RNAP II does not appear to make the transition to long-range productive elongation, as happens during transcription of protein-coding genes. In addition, recognition of the snRNA gene-type specific 3′ box RNA processing element requires initiation from an snRNA gene promoter. These characteristics may, at least in part, be driven by factors recruited to the promoter. For example, differences in the complement of TAFs might result in differential recruitment of elongation and RNA processing factors. As precedent, it already has been shown that the promoters of some protein-coding genes do not recruit all the TAFs found in TFIID. Although TAF5 has been shown to be associated with RNAP II-transcribed snRNA genes, the full complement of TAFs associated with these genes has remained unclear. Here we show, using a ChIP and siRNA-mediated approach, that the TBP/TAF complex on snRNA genes differs from that found on protein-coding genes. Interestingly, the largest TAF, TAF1, and the core TAFs, TAF10 and TAF4, are not detected on snRNA genes. We propose that this snRNA gene-specific TAF subset plays a key role in gene type-specific control of expression