COVID-19 Response: Resources for Small and Mid-Size Farms in Mississippi

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a number of new and difficult challenges for families, small business owners, and food producers across the country. This Issue Brief provides an overview of the resources available to small and mid-size farms facing such challenges in Mississippi. The first section outlines current benefit programs that these farms can utilize, including loans and unemployment benefits, as a result of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and related federal actions. The second section provides policies that the State of Mississippi could enact to provide additional assistance to farms dealing with the crisis

COVID‐19 Response: Feeding Mississippi Children During School Closure

Across the country, states have needed to use school closures and remote learning as strategies for reducing the spread of COVID‐19. On April 14, 2020, Mississippi leaders announced that children would stay home from their school facilities for the rest of the academic year. Extended school closures make it difficult to meet children’s nutritional needs: students who rely on free and reduced‐price meals from the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) lose their best source of daily nutrition. About 74% of Mississippi public school students qualify for free or reduced‐price meals; the change could thus negatively impact over 344,000 school‐age children and their families. There are, however, ways for policymakers, schools, and community organizations to ensure that Mississippi children’s nutritional needs are met during this time. This fact sheet outlines opportunities to ensure the availability of adequate meals for low‐income children in Mississippi

Delta Directions Consortium (DDC): Summary of Collaborative Pathways

The Delta Directions Consortium is an interdisciplinary network of individuals, academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and foundations that work together to create positive social change in the multi-state Mississippi Delta Region. Goals include improving public health and promoting socioeconomic development. The Consortium is not an independent non-profit organization but, rather, an alliance of partners committed to collaborative and innovative problem-solving. This document provides a summary of pathways for partners in the Delta Directions Consortium, with emphasis on substantive topics and projects. It should be read as a living document to frame ideas and approaches that will be adapted in response to the needs and interests of core partners and diverse stakeholders

Characterizing along- and across-fault fluid-flow properties for assessing flow rates and overburden fluid migration along faults: a case study from the North Sea

Assessing fault zones as fluid-migration pathways requires the characterization of permeability both across and along faults, as well as the adjacent volume. The hydraulic properties of the Vette Fault Zone, North Sea, are described by modelling the mixing of host-rock lithologies into the fault zone, and the fault width is derived from empirical relationships as a function of throw and clay content. To better understand the sensitivity related to the uncertainties in overburden lithologies and fault-width correlations, a parametric study with 1125 model realizations were solved in a 2D steady-state, single-phase, subsurface flow model. The fault zone, included as a discrete permeable structure, significantly alters the flow field compared to a model that only considers lithological juxtaposition. The most prominent hydraulic communication in the Vette Fault Zone is downwards from the storage reservoir where sand is mixed into the fault zone. Increasing the host-rock permeability in the overburden also increases the fault permeability and shifts the inflection point for down-fault flow, causing the pressurized reservoir to drain towards the overburden and the top surface. For CO 2 storage application, the models highlighted the potential for downward communication along the fault for brine, and the CO 2 capillary sealing towards the overburden. Thematic collection: This article is part of the Fault and top seals 2022 collection available at: www.lyellcollection.org/topic/collections/fault-and-top-seals-2022 </jats:p

A study of energy partition during arc initiation

This paper presents an analysis of energy partition among various physical processes during the formation of an electrical arc. Experimental work was conducted to accurately determine the energy delivered into the discharge. The transient voltage and current waveforms have been measured. An analytical model was developed which allows estimation of the energy partition in the discharge to be performed in order to evaluate risks associated with different energy components: thermal, kinetic-acoustic and light. Approximately 60% of the electrical energy is converted into mechanical work, subsequently contributing to the pressure rise. The results obtained will help in studies of safety considerations regarding hazards associated with plasma discharges in transient faults/sparks and during the onset of arcing faults (flash and blast hazards)

Association between preterm brain injury and exposure to chorioamnionitis during fetal life

Preterm infants are susceptible to inflammation-induced white matter injury but the exposures that lead to this are uncertain. Histologic chorioamnionitis (HCA) reflects intrauterine inflammation, can trigger a fetal inflammatory response, and is closely associated with premature birth. In a cohort of 90 preterm infants with detailed placental histology and neonatal brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data at term equivalent age, we used Tract-based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) to perform voxel-wise statistical comparison of fractional anisotropy (FA) data and computational morphometry analysis to compute the volumes of whole brain, tissue compartments and cerebrospinal fluid, to test the hypothesis that HCA is an independent antenatal risk factor for preterm brain injury. Twenty-six (29%) infants had HCA and this was associated with decreased FA in the genu, cingulum cingulate gyri, centrum semiovale, inferior longitudinal fasciculi, limbs of the internal capsule, external capsule and cerebellum (p < 0.05, corrected), independent of degree of prematurity, bronchopulmonary dysplasia and postnatal sepsis. This suggests that diffuse white matter injury begins in utero for a significant proportion of preterm infants, which focuses attention on the development of methods for detecting fetuses and placentas at risk as a means of reducing preterm brain injury

Lipid Remodeling in Hepatocyte Proliferation and Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Hepatocytes undergo profound metabolic rewiring when primed to proliferate during compensatory regeneration and in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the metabolic control of these processes is not fully understood. In order to capture the metabolic signature of proliferating hepatocytes, we applied state-of-the-art systems biology approaches to models of liver regeneration, pharmacologically and genetically activated cell proliferation, and HCC. APPROACH AND RESULTS: Integrating metabolomics, lipidomics, and transcriptomics, we link changes in the lipidome of proliferating hepatocytes to altered metabolic pathways including lipogenesis, fatty acid desaturation, and generation of phosphatidylcholine (PC). We confirm this altered lipid signature in human HCC and show a positive correlation of monounsaturated PC with hallmarks of cell proliferation and hepatic carcinogenesis. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, we demonstrate that specific lipid metabolic pathways are coherently altered when hepatocytes switch to proliferation. These represent a source of targets for the development of therapeutic strategies and prognostic biomarkers of HCC.J.L.G., Z.H. and M.V. are funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC grant MC UP A90 1006 & MC PC 13030). J.L.G. and Z.H. are supported by the Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, NIHR. M.A., A.V-P., F.O., Q.M.A. and M.V. are members of the EPoS consortium, which is funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Program of the European Union under Grant Agreement 634413. F.O. is supported by MRC program grants (MR/K0019494/1 and MR/R023026/1). J.L is supported by MRC PhD studentship and a CRUK program grant (C18342/A23390). M.V. and A.V-P. are supported by MRC MDU and MRC DMC (MC UU 12012/2). Q.M.A. received additional research support from The Liver Research Trust and is a Newcastle NIHR Biomedical Research Centre investigator. M.A., M.V., A.V-P. and J.L.G. received research support from the Evelyn Trust and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (Gastroenterology Theme)

Satellite derived offshore migratory movements of southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) from Australian and New Zealand wintering grounds

Funding: Australian Marine Mammal Center Grant 13/48 AIM, SDG, DH, AL http://www.marinemammals.gov.au/ The Australian Marine Mammal Center was involved in study design and anlaysis through the involvement in the project by AMMC staff, Dr Mike Double and Dr Virgina Andrews-Goff Princess Melikoff Trust Marine Mammal Conservation Program KC New Zealand Department of Conservation SC.Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) migrate between Austral-winter calving and socialising grounds to offshore mid- to high latitude Austral-summer feeding grounds. In Australasia, winter calving grounds used by southern right whales extend from Western Australia across southern Australia to the New Zealand sub-Antarctic Islands. During the Austral-summer these whales are thought to migrate away from coastal waters to feed, but the location of these feeding grounds is only inferred from historical whaling data. We present new information on the satellite derived offshore migratory movements of six southern right whales from Australasian wintering grounds. Two whales were tagged at the Auckland Islands, New Zealand, and the remaining four at Australian wintering grounds, one at Pirates Bay, Tasmania, and three at Head of Bight, South Australia. The six whales were tracked for an average of 78.5 days (range: 29 to 150) with average individual distance of 38 km per day (range: 20 to 61 km). The length of individually derived tracks ranged from 645–6,381 km. Three likely foraging grounds were identified: south-west Western Australia, the Subtropical Front, and Antarctic waters, with the Subtropical Front appearing to be a feeding ground for both New Zealand and Australian southern right whales. In contrast, the individual tagged in Tasmania, from a sub-population that is not showing evidence of post-whaling recovery, displayed a distinct movement pattern to much higher latitude waters, potentially reflecting a different foraging strategy. Variable population growth rates between wintering grounds in Australasia could reflect fidelity to different quality feeding grounds. Unlike some species of baleen whale populations that show movement along migratory corridors, the new satellite tracking data presented here indicate variability in the migratory pathways taken by southern right whales from Australia and New Zealand, as well as differences in potential Austral summer foraging grounds.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe