Buttress form of the central African rain forest tree Microberlinia bisulcata , and its possible role in nutrient acquisition

Buttressing is a trait special to tropical trees but explanations for its occurrence remain inconclusive. The two main hypotheses are that they provide structural support and/or promote nutrient acquisition. Studies of the first are common but the second has received much less attention. Architectural measurements were made on adult and juvenile trees of the ectomycorrhizal species Microberlinia bisulcata, in Korup (Cameroon). Buttressing on this species is highly distinctive with strong lateral extension of surface roots of the juveniles leading to a mature buttress system of a shallow spreading form on adults. This contrasts with more vertical buttresses, closer to the stem, found on many other tropical tree species. No clear relationship between main buttress and large branch distribution was found. Whilst this does not argue against the essential structural role of buttresses for these very large tropical trees, the form on M. bisulcata does suggest a likely second role, that of aiding nutrient acquisition. At the Korup site, with its deep sandy soils of very low phosphorus status, and where most nutrient cycling takes place in a thin surface layer of fine roots and mycorrhizas, it appears that buttress form could develop from soil-surface root exploration for nutrients by juvenile trees. It may accordingly allow M. bisulcata to attain the higher greater competitive ability, faster growth rate, and maximum tree size that it does compared with other co-occurring tree species. For sites across the tropics in general, the degree of shallowness and spatial extension of buttresses of the dominant species is hypothesized to increase with decreasing nutrient availabilit

The &Spaces Library

Capstone project for LIS 2005 involving the redesign of public library institutions with a focus on physical space. Conference poster, PowerPoint, and paper attached

Mutations in KEOPS-Complex Genes Cause Nephrotic Syndrome with Primary Microcephaly

Galloway-Mowat syndrome (GAMOS) is an autosomal-recessive disease characterized by the combination of early-onset nephrotic syndrome (SRNS) and microcephaly with brain anomalies. Here we identified recessive mutations in OSGEP, TP53RK, TPRKB, and LAGE3, genes encoding the four subunits of the KEOPS complex, in 37 individuals from 32 families with GAMOS. CRISPR-Cas9 knockout in zebrafish and mice recapitulated the human phenotype of primary microcephaly and resulted in early lethality. Knockdown of OSGEP, TP53RK, or TPRKB inhibited cell proliferation, which human mutations did not rescue. Furthermore, knockdown of these genes impaired protein translation, caused endoplasmic reticulum stress, activated DNA-damage-response signaling, and ultimately induced apoptosis. Knockdown of OSGEP or TP53RK induced defects in the actin cytoskeleton and decreased the migration rate of human podocytes, an established intermediate phenotype of SRNS. We thus identified four new monogenic causes of GAMOS, describe a link between KEOPS function and human disease, and delineate potential pathogenic mechanisms

Introduction - Screening Women’s Imprisonment: Agency and Exploitation in Orange is the New Black.

Introduction to the special edition of Television & New Media

Concurrent Session 5C

Community Engagement to Advance Construction Ethics / Sarah Merrill, Moral ReSources While teaching Ethics to engineering and construction industry students extending back to the late 1980s, I was asked to collect the case studies of construction contractors and others, concerning major ethical stress in the building trades and construction process. Behind most disastrous collapses, (e.g., the Rana Plaza case of 2013) are serious ethical issues. My new book _The International Casebook in Construction Ethics _ (and Ebook with limited on demand print copies), field tested on my engineering/construction technologies students, has over one hundred case studies on all aspects of construction ethics, including newer issues like Adaptation to Climate Change, Mandates for Improving Ventilation in an era of Respiratory Viruses, Sustainable and Regenerative Building, and Sick Building Syndrome. I need more exposure (being retired since 2017) and ideas for community engagement as well as public policy initiatives to get this material into the hands of workers in the skilled building trades, construction managers, and the public. I would lead a short discussion about Construction Ethics and hear ideas from this wonderful forum of participants in Ethics Across the Curriculum, a field I helped to found many years ago. Unless more community engagement occurs, construction will not see the changes we need to make, to reduce its damaging global environmental impacts, energy use, and production of unhealthy buildings. Teaching Value Sensitive Design / William Frey, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez Value sensitive design responds effectively to the disengagement of STEM students from ethical issues. It is interdisciplinary and consists of discovering, translating, and verifying values. This presentation will disseminate three projects that use VSD to promote research in community engagement: A graduate student studied a community’s development, management, and governance of an aqueduct designed to produce and distribute clean water. She found that the community aqueduct design is robust and can also be applied to community managed microgrids to generate electricity. A graduate student studied the flight of STEM graduates in Puerto Rico to North America; this brain drain has intensified Puerto Rico’s diaspora. She identified eleven work expectations (“expectativas laborales”), tested their robustness in western Puerto Rico, and ranked them in terms of their importance. This list will help technically oriented businesses in western Puerto Rico recruit and retain STEM graduates. It also provides a preliminary list of the constituents of meaningful work for this group. Two natural disasters have caused a shortage of affordable housing in Puerto Rico. One group of STEM students examined the feasibility of micro-homes while another examined houses built from recycled storage containers. This presentation will introduce value sensitive design using a “heuristic” developed by Flanagan, Howe, and Nissenbaum. It will also incorporate work on resolving value conflicts by Diego Gracia. Finally, it will focus on disseminating the projects supported by NSF SES 1449489, Cultivating Responsible Wellbeing in STEM. Session Chair: David Schwan, Central Washington Universit

Television & New Media : Volume 17, Number 6, September 2016

1. Screening Women\u27s Imprisonment : Agency and Exploitation in Orange is the New Black 2. Postfeminism Meets the Women in Prison Genre : Previlege and Spectatorship in Orange is the New Black 3. There is No Such Thing as a post-racial Prison : Neoliberal Multiculturalism and the White Savior Complex on Orange is the New Black 4. Extended "Visiting Hours" : Deconstructing Identity in Netflix\u27s Promotional Campaigns for Orange is the New Black 5. "Everything Is Different the Second Time Around" : The Stigma of Temporality on Orange is the New Black Etc

Improvement of solvent exchange for supercritical dried aerogels

The solvent exchange as one of the most important steps during the manufacturing process of organic aerogels was investigated. This step is crucial as a preparatory step for the supercritical drying, since the pore solvent must be soluble in supercritical carbon dioxide to enable solvent extraction. The development and subsequent optimization of a suitable system with a peristaltic pump for automatic solvent exchange proved to be a suitable approach. In addition, the influence of zeolites on the acceleration of the process was found to be beneficial. To investigate the process, the water content in acetone was determined at different times using Karl Fischer titration. The shrinkage, densities, as well as the surface areas of the aerogels were analyzed. Based on these, the influence of various process parameters on the final structure of the obtained aerogels was investigated and evaluated. Modeling on diffusion in porous materials completes this study

Description of Medwayella independencia (Siphonaptera, Stivaliidae), a new species of flea from Mindanao Island, the Philippines and their phoretic mites, and miscellaneous flea records from the Malay Archipelago

Medwayella independencia, a new species of flea, is described from the tupaiid host Urogale everetti (Thomas) from Mindanao Island, Philippines. Several other species of fleas are also recorded from the Philippines including a single male of Lentistivalius philippinensis Hastriter & Bush, 2013 (previously known only from two males), the bat fleas Thaumapsylla breviceps orientalis Smit and Thaumapsylla longiforceps Traub, a single unidentified female species of Macrostylophora Ewing collected from the murid Bullimus bagobos Mearns, and a pair of Medwayella robinsoni ssp. from Sundasciurus hoogstraali (Sanborn) from Busuanga Island, Philippines. Representatives of Medwayella Traub, 1972 and Macrostylophora have not previously been recorded from the Philippines. A key to the male sex of Medwayella is provided. Phoretic mites of the genus Psylloglyphus (family Winterschmidtiidae) were present under the abdominal sclerites of several male and female specimens of M. independencia. This is the second report of a phoretic mite on a species of Medwayella Traub. The co-evolutionary implications between phoretic mites and fleas are discussed

Is early outpatient satisfaction with substance dependence care a predictor of early dropout ? Results of the SUBUSQOL cohort

International audienc

Relationships between coping, anxiety, depression and health-related quality of life in outpatients with substance use disorders: results of the SUBUSQOL study

International audienc