Impacts of an Invasive Snail (Tarebia granifera) on Nutrient Cycling in Tropical Streams: The Role of Riparian Deforestation in Trinidad, West Indies

Non-native species and habitat degradation are two major catalysts of environmental change and often occur simultaneously. In freshwater systems, degradation of adjacent terrestrial vegetation may facilitate introduced species by altering resource availability. Here we examine how the presence of intact riparian cover influences the impact of an invasive herbivorous snail, Tarebia granifera, on nitrogen (N) cycling in aquatic systems on the island of Trinidad. We quantified snail biomass, growth, and N excretion in locations where riparian vegetation was present or removed to determine how snail demographics and excretion were related to the condition of the riparian zone. In three Neotropical streams, we measured snail biomass and N excretion in open and closed canopy habitats to generate estimates of mass- and area-specific N excretion rates. Snail biomass was 2 to 8 times greater and areal N excretion rates ranged from 3 to 9 times greater in open canopy habitats. Snails foraging in open canopy habitat also had access to more abundant food resources and exhibited greater growth and mass-specific N excretion rates. Estimates of ecosystem N demand indicated that snail N excretion in fully closed, partially closed, and open canopy habitats supplied 2%, 11%, and 16% of integrated ecosystem N demand, respectively. We conclude that human-mediated riparian canopy loss can generate hotspots of snail biomass, growth, and N excretion along tropical stream networks, altering the impacts of an invasive snail on the biogeochemical cycling of N

Accounting Problems Under the Excess Profits Tax

DNA vaccines based on subunits from pathogens have several advantages over other vaccine strategies. DNA vaccines can easily be modified, they show good safety profiles, are stable and inexpensive to produce, and the immune response can be focused to the antigen of interest. However, the immunogenicity of DNA vaccines which is generally quite low needs to be improved. Electroporation and co-delivery of genetically encoded immune adjuvants are two strategies aiming at increasing the efficacy of DNA vaccines. Here, we have examined whether targeting to antigen-presenting cells (APC) could increase the immune response to surface envelope glycoprotein (Env) gp120 from Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV- 1). To target APC, we utilized a homodimeric vaccine format denoted vaccibody, which enables covalent fusion of gp120 to molecules that can target APC. Two molecules were tested for their efficiency as targeting units: the antibody-derived single chain Fragment variable (scFv) specific for the major histocompatilibility complex (MHC) class II I-E molecules, and the CC chemokine ligand 3 (CCL3). The vaccines were delivered as DNA into muscle of mice with or without electroporation. Targeting of gp120 to MHC class II molecules induced antibodies that neutralized HIV-1 and that persisted for more than a year after one single immunization with electroporation. Targeting by CCL3 significantly increased the number of HIV-1 gp120-reactive CD8(+) T cells compared to non-targeted vaccines and gp120 delivered alone in the absence of electroporation. The data suggest that chemokines are promising molecular adjuvants because small amounts can attract immune cells and promote immune responses without advanced equipment such as electroporation.Funding Agencies|Research Council of Norway; Odd Fellow</p

The global aerosol synthesis and science project (GASSP): Measurements and modeling to reduce uncertainty

This is the final version of the article. Available from American Meteorological Society via the DOI in this record.The largest uncertainty in the historical radiative forcing of climate is caused by changes in aerosol particles due to anthropogenic activity. Sophisticated aerosol microphysics processes have been included in many climate models in an effort to reduce the uncertainty. However, the models are very challenging to evaluate and constrain because they require extensive in situ measurements of the particle size distribution, number concentration, and chemical composition that are not available from global satellite observations. The Global Aerosol Synthesis and Science Project (GASSP) aims to improve the robustness of global aerosol models by combining new methodologies for quantifying model uncertainty, to create an extensive global dataset of aerosol in situ microphysical and chemical measurements, and to develop new ways to assess the uncertainty associated with comparing sparse point measurements with low-resolution models. GASSP has assembled over 45,000 hours of measurements from ships and aircraft as well as data from over 350 ground stations. The measurements have been harmonized into a standardized format that is easily used by modelers and nonspecialist users. Available measurements are extensive, but they are biased to polluted regions of the Northern Hemisphere, leaving large pristine regions and many continental areas poorly sampled. The aerosol radiative forcing uncertainty can be reduced using a rigorous model–data synthesis approach. Nevertheless, our research highlights significant remaining challenges because of the difficulty of constraining many interwoven model uncertainties simultaneously. Although the physical realism of global aerosol models still needs to be improved, the uncertainty in aerosol radiative forcing will be reduced most effectively by systematically and rigorously constraining the models using extensive syntheses of measurements.GASSP was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) under Grants NE/J024252/1, NE/J022624/1, and NE/J023515/1; ACID-PRUF under Grants NE/I020059/1 and NE/I020148/1; the European Union BACCHUS project under Grant 603445-BACCHUS; ACTRIS under Grants 262254 and 654109; and by the UK–China Research and Innovation Partnership Fund through the Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP) China as part of the Newton Fund. We made use of the N8 HPC facility funded from the N8 consortium and an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Grant to use ARCHER (EP/K000225/1) and the JASMIN facility (www.jasmin.ac.uk/) via the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis funded by NERC and the UK Space Agency and delivered by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. We acknowledge the following additional funding: the Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award (Carslaw); a doctoral training grant from the Natural Environment Research Council and a CASE studentship with the Met Office Hadley Centre (Regayre); the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement FP7-280025 (Stier); the Department of Energy under DE-SC0007178 (Zhang); the U.S. National Science Foundation under ATM-745986 (Snider); the NOAA Global Change Program (Nenes); NASA Global Tropospheric Experiment Program, the NASA Tropospheric Composition Program, the NASA Radiation Sciences Program, and the NASA Earth Venture Suborbital Project (Anderson); the NOAA Climate Program Office (Quinn); NSF Atmospheric Chemistry Program, the NASA Global Tropospheric Experiment, and NASA Earth Science Project Office (Clarke); German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) CLOUD12 project Grant 01LK1222B (Kristensen); Swedish Research Council (VR), the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (SPRS) for access to the icebreaker Oden and logistical support (Leck); the Department of Energy (DE-SC0007178) and the Max Planck Society (Andreae, Poeschl); the global environment research fund of the Ministry of the Environment in Japan (2-1403), the Arctic Challenge for Sustainability (ArCS) project of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) in Japan, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI (Grants JP16H01770, JP26701004, and JP26241003) (Kondo, Oshima); Lufthansa for enabling CARIBIC and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for financing the CARIBIC instruments operation as part of the Joint Project IAGOS-D (Hermann); the Collaborative Innovation Center of Climate Change supported by the Jiangsu provincial government and the JirLATEST supported by the Ministry of Education, China (Ding and Chi); the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany (Schmale); the NOAA Atmospheric Composition and Climate Program, the NASA Radiation Sciences Program, and the NASA Upper Atmosphere Research Program supporting the NOAA SP2 BC data acquisition and analysis (Schwarz); DOE (BER/ASR) DE-SC0016559 and EPA STAR 83587701-0 (the EPA has not reviewed this manuscript and no endorsement should be inferred) (Jimenez); and Environment and Climate Change Canada (Leaitch)

The Cerebellum Link to Neuroticism: A Volumetric MRI Association Study in Healthy Volunteers

Prior research suggests an association between reduced cerebellar volumes and symptoms of depression and anxiety in patients with mood disorders. However, whether a smaller volume in itself reflects a neuroanatomical correlate for increased susceptibility to develop mood disorders remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between cerebellar volume and neurotic personality traits in a non-clinical subject sample. 3T Structural magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired, and trait depression and anxiety scales of the revised NEO personality inventory were assessed in thirty-eight healthy right-handed volunteers. Results showed that cerebellar volume corrected for total brain volume was inversely associated with depressive and anxiety-related personality traits. Cerebellar gray and white matter contributed equally to the observed associations. Our findings extend earlier clinical observations by showing that cerebellar volume covaries with neurotic personality traits in healthy volunteers. The results may point towards a possible role of the cerebellum in the vulnerability to experience negative affect. In conclusion, cerebellar volumes may constitute a clinico-neuroanatomical correlate for the development of depression- and anxiety-related symptoms

Diffractive Dijet Production at sqrt(s)=630 and 1800 GeV at the Fermilab Tevatron

We report a measurement of the diffractive structure function $F_{jj}^D$ of the antiproton obtained from a study of dijet events produced in association with a leading antiproton in $\bar pp$ collisions at $\sqrt s=630$ GeV at the Fermilab Tevatron. The ratio of $F_{jj}^D$ at $\sqrt s=630$ GeV to $F_{jj}^D$ obtained from a similar measurement at $\sqrt s=1800$ GeV is compared with expectations from QCD factorization and with theoretical predictions. We also report a measurement of the $\xi$ ($x$-Pomeron) and $\beta$ ($x$ of parton in Pomeron) dependence of $F_{jj}^D$ at $\sqrt s=1800$ GeV. In the region $0.035<\xi<0.095$, $|t|<1$ GeV$^2$ and $\beta<0.5$, $F_{jj}^D(\beta,\xi)$ is found to be of the form $\beta^{-1.0\pm 0.1} \xi^{-0.9\pm 0.1}$, which obeys $\beta$-$\xi$ factorization.Comment: LaTeX, 9 pages, Submitted to Phys. Rev. Letter

A Study of B0 -> J/psi K(*)0 pi+ pi- Decays with the Collider Detector at Fermilab

We report a study of the decays B0 -> J/psi K(*)0 pi+ pi-, which involve the creation of a u u-bar or d d-bar quark pair in addition to a b-bar -> c-bar(c s-bar) decay. The data sample consists of 110 1/pb of p p-bar collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.8 TeV collected by the CDF detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider during 1992-1995. We measure the branching ratios to be BR(B0 -> J/psi K*0 pi+ pi-) = (8.0 +- 2.2 +- 1.5) * 10^{-4} and BR(B0 -> J/psi K0 pi+ pi-) = (1.1 +- 0.4 +- 0.2) * 10^{-3}. Contributions to these decays are seen from psi(2S) K(*)0, J/psi K0 rho0, J/psi K*+ pi-, and J/psi K1(1270)

Search for Single-Top-Quark Production in p-pbar Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.8 TeV

We search for standard model single-top-quark production in the W-gluon fusion and W* channels using 106 pb^-1 of data from p-pbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.8 TeV collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We set an upper limit at 95% C.L. on the combined W-gluon fusion and W* single-top cross section of 14 pb, roughly six times larger than the standard model prediction. Separate 95% C.L. upper limits in the W-gluon fusion and W* channels are also determined and are found to be 13 and 18 pb, respectively.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Measurement of the polar-angle distribution of leptons from W boson decay as a function of the W transverse momentum in proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt{s}=1.8 TeV

We present a measurement of the coefficient alpha_2 of the leptonic polar-angle distribution from W boson decays, as a function of the W transverse momentum. The measurement uses an 80+/-4 pb^{-1} sample of proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt{s}=1.8 TeV collected by the CDF detector and includes data from both the W->e+nu and W->mu+nu decay channels. We fit the W boson transverse mass distribution to a set of templates from a Monte Carlo event generator and detector simulation in several ranges of the W transverse momentum. The measurement agrees with the Standard Model expectation, whereby the ratio of longitudinally to transversely polarized W bosons, in the Collins-Soper W rest frame, increases with the W transverse momentum at a rate of approximately 15% per 10 GeV/c.Comment: 47 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Physical Review