Optimizing the Environmental and Economic Sustainability of Remote Community Infrastructure

Remote communities such as rural villages, post-disaster housing camps, and military forward operating bases are often located in remote and hostile areas with limited or no access to established infrastructure grids. Operating these communities with conventional assets requires constant resupply, which yields a significant logistical burden, creates negative environmental impacts, and increases costs. For example, a 2000-member isolated village in northern Canada relying on diesel generators required 8.6 million USD of fuel per year and emitted 8500 tons of carbon dioxide. Remote community planners can mitigate these negative impacts by selecting sustainable technologies that minimize resource consumption and emissions. However, the alternatives often come at a higher procurement cost and mobilization requirement. To assist planners with this challenging task, this paper presents the development of a novel infrastructure sustainability assessment model capable of generating optimal tradeoffs between minimizing environmental impacts and minimizing life-cycle costs over the community’s anticipated lifespan. Model performance was evaluated using a case study of a hypothetical 500-person remote military base with 864 feasible infrastructure portfolios and 48 procedural portfolios. The case study results demonstrated the model’s novel capability to assist planners in identifying optimal combinations of infrastructure alternatives that minimize negative sustainability impacts, leading to remote communities that are more self-sufficient with reduced emissions and costs

Lombricultura : Un ayudante práctico para iniciarse con 2 ó 3 simples pasos

Esta guía es para Ud. que desea saber cómo abordar la cría de lombrices rojas, una actividad amigable con él entorno que posibilita transformar desechos de origen vegetal y animal en abono, una manera de reinsertar un simple desperdicio (¿basura?) como fertilizante a nuestro ya castigado entorno. Un fertilizante con propiedades que lo distinguen por su excelencia y sentar bases para abordar corrientes de residuos diversas con nuestras “vedetes rojas”, desde los desperdicios que surgen en su hogar hasta corrientes de residuos originados ya sea en la producción vegetal, desde la huerta hasta cultivos extensivos y en la cría de distintos animales (aves, cerdos, conejos, cabras, vacas, caballos, etc.) a partir de sus estiércoles. Parece adecuado centrar la práctica en el lombricultivo a escala familiar. Una modalidad simple de procesar los residuos y que, además de familiarizarnos con su manejo, permite la obtención de una población de lombrices para luego utilizarlas como semillero para abordar la reconversión de corrientes de residuos vinculados con la producción animal a cualquier escala (véase estratégias de conducción).Estación Experimental Agropecuaria BarilocheFil: Schuldt, Miguel. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bariloche. Agencia de Extension Rural El Bolson; ArgentinaFil: Schuldt, Miguel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas; ArgentinaFil: Pareja, E. Asociación de Productores El Bolsón; ArgentinaFil: Castrillo, Nelson. Asociación de Productores El Bolsón; ArgentinaFil: Butto, A. Asociación de Productores El Bolsón; ArgentinaFil: Cardozo, Andrea. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bariloche. Agencia de Extensión Rural El Bolsón; Argentin

HOLISMOKES -- II. Identifying galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses in Pan-STARRS using convolutional neural networks

We present a systematic search for wide-separation (Einstein radius >1.5"), galaxy-scale strong lenses in the 30 000 sq.deg of the Pan-STARRS 3pi survey on the Northern sky. With long time delays of a few days to weeks, such systems are particularly well suited for catching strongly lensed supernovae with spatially-resolved multiple images and open new perspectives on early-phase supernova spectroscopy and cosmography. We produce a set of realistic simulations by painting lensed COSMOS sources on Pan-STARRS image cutouts of lens luminous red galaxies with known redshift and velocity dispersion from SDSS. First of all, we compute the photometry of mock lenses in gri bands and apply a simple catalog-level neural network to identify a sample of 1050207 galaxies with similar colors and magnitudes as the mocks. Secondly, we train a convolutional neural network (CNN) on Pan-STARRS gri image cutouts to classify this sample and obtain sets of 105760 and 12382 lens candidates with scores pCNN>0.5 and >0.9, respectively. Extensive tests show that CNN performances rely heavily on the design of lens simulations and choice of negative examples for training, but little on the network architecture. Finally, we visually inspect all galaxies with pCNN>0.9 to assemble a final set of 330 high-quality newly-discovered lens candidates while recovering 23 published systems. For a subset, SDSS spectroscopy on the lens central regions proves our method correctly identifies lens LRGs at z~0.1-0.7. Five spectra also show robust signatures of high-redshift background sources and Pan-STARRS imaging confirms one of them as a quadruply-imaged red source at z_s = 1.185 strongly lensed by a foreground LRG at z_d = 0.3155. In the future, we expect that the efficient and automated two-step classification method presented in this paper will be applicable to the deeper gri stacks from the LSST with minor adjustments.Comment: 18 pages and 11 figures (plus appendix), submitted to A&

Lombricultura en 3 simples fases : compostaje, lombricomposta y humificación

El presente trabajo tiene por objeto simplificar los procesos de reconversión de la materia orgánica sometida al lombricompostaje , sin dejar de lado el abanico de posibilidades de aplicación de diversas estrategias de manejo de las poblaciones de lombrices “rojas” (mal llamadas Californianas) y principalmente atendiendo a las necesidades/posibilidades de aplicación para cada modalidad de conducción de las lombrices y centrado en la economía de mano de obra para atender al lombricultivo de Eisenia fetida y Eisenia andrei. Con esta contribución se pretende delinear un ayudante práctico apuntando a la autosuficiencia del lombricultor que se inicia y deseé agregar valor al desperdicio que poseé para reconvertirlo en un abono de excelencia. Esta guía responde a necesidades detectadas en alumnos de nuestros cursos y capacitaciones, tanto presenciales como a distancia. La guía resulta, en buena medida, de actividades en curso en Colonia Cushamen y Fofo Cahuel (Chubut), que se integran con la apicultura regional y el manejo en torno a diversos cultivos (forrajes) y producciones (caprinos en particular) con miras a la autosuficiencia productiva, incluso con proyecciones en lo comercial (v.gr. lacto-quesero).Estación Experimental Agropecuaria BarilocheFil: Schuldt, Miguel. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bariloche. Agencia de Extension Rural El Bolson; ArgentinaFil: Schuldt, Miguel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas; ArgentinaFil: Pareja, E. Asociación de Productores El Bolsón; ArgentinaFil: Castrillo, Nelson. Asociación de Productores El Bolsón; ArgentinaFil: Butto, A. Asociación de Productores El Bolsón; ArgentinaFil: Cardozo, Andrea. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bariloche. Agencia de Extensión Rural El Bolsón; Argentin

Determinación de edades (clases) en poblaciones de Eisenia fetida (Annelida: Lumbricidae) y sus implicancias reprobiológicas

En el marco de la conducción de lombricultivos importa acotar la evolución de los animales hacia la madurez y establecer vinculaciones con dietas y estrategias de manejo de los cultivos. El presente trabajo tiene por objeto efectuar un análisis crítico de la información disponible al respecto, plantear propuestas metodológicas, proponer definiciones y criterios, intentando mejorar las posibilidades para comparar experiencias. Surgen así las siguientes observaciones y recomendaciones: a) Para relevar y monitorear las poblaciones conviene distinguir 4 clases (estamentos): cocones (1), juveniles (2), subadultos (3) y adultos (4). Las clases 1-3 corresponden a la edad prereproductiva; b) Cada sustrato admite un número dado de animales, relacionados con el tipo y el grado de envejecimiento de la materia orgánica (MO); c) Para el seguimiento de la población, resulta conveniente expresar los resultados como densidades por lecho nominales (dn) y efectivas (de); d) Un rápido crecimiento implica acceder antes a la maduración sexual, pero no garantiza que la producción de cocones sea superior; e) Las dietas formuladas sobre la base de estiércoles pertenecientes a una misma especie permiten un mejor crecimiento de los individuos que las mezclas con estiércoles de distintas especies; f) La madurez sexual se alcanza a partir de los 0,25 g, independientemente de la dieta; g) La producción de cocones se halla sujeta a fluctuaciones estacionales y a pesar de decaer con la edad de los animales, estos no presentan una edad posreproductiva; h) El grado de apiñamiento de los animales incide negativamente sobre la frecuencia de las puestas, constituyendo el factor que más importa al momento de expandir un cultivo; i) Se recomienda expresar la producción de cocones como cocones/adulto o cocones/semana/adulto; j) La fecundidad de las lombrices varía de 0 a 9 embriones/cocón, usualmente de 2 a 4 y eventualmente 12; j) El Potencial Reproductor R”= x(bnp) informa acerca de instancias críticas (fugas, colonización de sustratos y situaciones derivadas del grado de apiñamiento)

Learning-based Calibration of Flux Crosstalk in Transmon Qubit Arrays

Superconducting quantum processors comprising flux-tunable data and coupler qubits are a promising platform for quantum computation. However, magnetic flux crosstalk between the flux-control lines and the constituent qubits impedes precision control of qubit frequencies, presenting a challenge to scaling this platform. In order to implement high-fidelity digital and analog quantum operations, one must characterize the flux crosstalk and compensate for it. In this work, we introduce a learning-based calibration protocol and demonstrate its experimental performance by calibrating an array of 16 flux-tunable transmon qubits. To demonstrate the extensibility of our protocol, we simulate the crosstalk matrix learning procedure for larger arrays of transmon qubits. We observe an empirically linear scaling with system size, while maintaining a median qubit frequency error below $300$ kHz

iPSCORE: A Resource of 222 iPSC Lines Enabling Functional Characterization of Genetic Variation across a Variety of Cell Types.

Large-scale collections of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) could serve as powerful model systems for examining how genetic variation affects biology and disease. Here we describe the iPSCORE resource: a collection of systematically derived and characterized iPSC lines from 222 ethnically diverse individuals that allows for both familial and association-based genetic studies. iPSCORE lines are pluripotent with high genomic integrity (no or low numbers of somatic copy-number variants) as determined using high-throughput RNA-sequencing and genotyping arrays, respectively. Using iPSCs from a family of individuals, we show that iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes demonstrate gene expression patterns that cluster by genetic background, and can be used to examine variants associated with physiological and disease phenotypes. The iPSCORE collection contains representative individuals for risk and non-risk alleles for 95% of SNPs associated with human phenotypes through genome-wide association studies. Our study demonstrates the utility of iPSCORE for examining how genetic variants influence molecular and physiological traits in iPSCs and derived cell lines

A first assessment of the impact of the extreme 2018 summer drought on Central European forests

In 2018, Central Europe experienced one of the most severe and long-lasting summer drought and heat wave ever recorded. Before 2018, the 2003 millennial drought was often invoked as the example of a “hotter drought”, and was classified as the most severe event in Europe for the last 500 years. First insights now confirm that the 2018 drought event was climatically more extreme and had a greater impact on forest ecosystems of Austria, Germany and Switzerland than the 2003 drought. Across this region, mean growing season air temperature from April to October was more than 3.3°C above the long-term average, and 1.2°C warmer than in 2003. Here, we present a first impact assessment of the severe 2018 summer drought and heatwave on Central European forests. In response to the 2018 event, most ecologically and economically important tree species in temperate forests of Austria, Germany and Switzerland showed severe signs of drought stress. These symptoms included exceptionally low foliar water potentials crossing the threshold for xylem hydraulic failure in many species and observations of widespread leaf discoloration and premature leaf shedding. As a result of the extreme drought stress, the 2018 event caused unprecedented drought-induced tree mortality in many species throughout the region. Moreover, unexpectedly strong drought-legacy effects were detected in 2019. This implies that the physiological recovery of trees was impaired after the 2018 drought event, leaving them highly vulnerable to secondary drought impacts such as insect or fungal pathogen attacks. As a consequence, mortality of trees triggered by the 2018 events is likely to continue for several years. Our assessment indicates that many common temperate European forest tree species are more vulnerable to extreme summer drought and heat waves than previously thought. As drought and heat events are likely to occur more frequently with the progression of climate change, temperate European forests might approach the point for a substantial ecological and economic transition. Our assessment also highlights the urgent need for a pan-European ground-based monitoring network suited to track individual tree mortality, supported by remote sensing products with high spatial and temporal resolution to track, analyse and forecast these transitions

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Multi-omics integration identifies key upstream regulators of pathomechanisms in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy due to truncating MYBPC3 mutations

BACKGROUND: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common genetic disease of the cardiac muscle, frequently caused by mutations in MYBPC3. However, little is known about the upstream pathways and key regulators causing the disease. Therefore, we employed a multi-omics approach to study the pathomechanisms underlying HCM comparing patient hearts harboring MYBPC3 mutations to control hearts. RESULTS: Using H3K27ac ChIP-seq and RNA-seq we obtained 9310 differentially acetylated regions and 2033 differentially expressed genes, respectively, between 13 HCM and 10 control hearts. We obtained 441 differentially expressed proteins between 11 HCM and 8 control hearts using proteomics. By integrating multi-omics datasets, we identified a set of DNA regions and genes that differentiate HCM from control hearts and 53 protein-coding genes as the major contributors. This comprehensive analysis consistently points toward altered extracellular matrix formation, muscle contraction, and metabolism. Therefore, we studied enriched transcription factor (TF) binding motifs and identified 9 motif-encoded TFs, including KLF15, ETV4, AR, CLOCK, ETS2, GATA5, MEIS1, RXRA, and ZFX. Selected candidates were examined in stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes with and without mutated MYBPC3. Furthermore, we observed an abundance of acetylation signals and transcripts derived from cardiomyocytes compared to non-myocyte populations. CONCLUSIONS: By integrating histone acetylome, transcriptome, and proteome profiles, we identified major effector genes and protein networks that drive the pathological changes in HCM with mutated MYBPC3. Our work identifies 38 highly affected protein-coding genes as potential plasma HCM biomarkers and 9 TFs as potential upstream regulators of these pathomechanisms that may serve as possible therapeutic targets