Liberty County Strategic Plan 2016 - 2036

In the fall of 2015, the County of Liberty and Texas Target Communities partnered to create a task force to represent the community. The task force was integral to the planning process, contributing the thoughts, desires, and opinions of community members—as well as their enthusiasm about Liberty’s future. This fourteen-month planning process ended in August 2016. The result of this collaboration is the County of Liberty Strategic Plan, which is the official policy guide for the community’s growth over the next twenty years.Liberty Strategic Plan 2036 provides a guide for the future growth of the county. This document was developed by Texas Target Communities in partnership with the County of Liberty

Liberty County Master Drainage Plan Stormwater Solutions

Team Stormwater Solutions has been tasked with developing a sustainable, effective, and budget-friendly storm water mitigation plan for Liberty County, Texas, acting on behalf of Texas Target Communities and AgriLife Extension. Throughout the length of this semester, the team modeled the hydrological response of the county, decided what mitigations practices to use in which areas, developed a cost estimate for these practices, and developed a maintenance plan with specific roles within the various county governments for its ongoing upkeep.Liberty County is located northeast of Houston, TX. Three major communities lie within Liberty County, and they are: Liberty, Dayton, and Cleveland. The Trinity River also passes through the heart of the county. The majority of the land in Liberty County is wetlands, especially near the banks of the Trinity River, and so due to the land being below sea level, flooding is a big issue for the county and its residents. In recent years, Liberty County has had some serious issues with flooding due to intense and periodic storm events. With the expansion of the Houston area, and with the construction of the 99 Corridor, Liberty County is predicting a lot of growth in terms of population in the near future. With an increase in population comes an increase in more urbanized areas. These new urbanized areas will increase the peak flow of a precipitation event as well as the peak time. With this information and predicted growth, Liberty County is faced with the problem of creating a master drainage plan in order to prevent future precipitation events from creating worse flooding issues. For the purposes of our project, we were asked to design the master drainage plan for Liberty County. We are to create a design that utilizes Low Impact Development (LID) practices, and we are to account for the predicted growth of Liberty County by getting the projected runoff of a precipitation event back down to predevelopment levels. Our plan of action to address this problem is to create a drainage plan by utilizing the SCS Curve Number Method. By using the curve number method, we have created a hydrograph for a 10-yr, 12-hr storm, which is the storm that the county officials specifically preferred. We used GIS (geographic information systems) and SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) in order to delineate a watershed with multiple sub basin watersheds within the county. We focused on the smaller watersheds that the cities are primarily in, and the areas where the expected growth is to occur. We utilized GIS in order to calculate the area (acres), the length of the stream (ft), the slope (ft/ft), the soil, and the land use for each watershed that we are interested in. By knowing all of this pertinent information for each watershed, we were able to calculate the peak flow and peak time for each watershed for predevelopment. After calculating the peak flows and times, we then created different scenarios based on the predicted growth of Liberty County. With information provided by the Texas A&M Architecture group, we accounted for predicted growth by changing the land use curve number to values for higher development for each watershed. By changing the land use in each watershed, we achieved higher flow rates and earlier peak times as predicted. After achieving the new peak flows and peak times for future development, we began implementing the curve numbers for our recommended LID practices into our design. Three LID practices that we chose within our design are rain gardens, rainwater harvesting, and permeable pavement. By implementing these LID practices, we were able to reduce the new peak flows and peak times back down to acceptable levels, or in this case predevelopment levels. Overall, our design solution was a success in reducing the peak flow, peak time, and the total flow of future conditions back down to predevelopment conditions. By creating hydrographs, we were able to visually see the difference in peak flow, peak time, and total flow that new urbanization would bring as compared to predevelopment levels. Our results prove that with urbanization, runoff will increase at alarming rates, and that with the implementation of the recommended LID practices, these runoff conditions would be reduced to acceptable levels

Advances in Targeted Therapy for the Treatment of Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer is an international public health crisis, affecting several hundred thousand women annually. While not universally protective due to other risk factors, many such cases are preventable with vaccination against high-risk serotypes of the human papilloma virus (HPV 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 53, 58). Advanced-stage and recurrent cervical cancers are typically lethal and have been the focus in recent years of the integration of immune checkpoint inhibitors (CPIs) to improve survival. We have consolidated information regarding the role of the immune system in both disease progression and disease clearance with the aid of targeted therapies and immunotherapeutic agents. Additionally, we have characterized the treatment modalities currently indicated as the standard of care—such as bevacizumab and the immune CPIs—and those recently approved or in development, including Tivdak, Vigil, and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells

Resident Memory T Cells and Their Effect on Cancer

Resident memory T (TRM) cells are a unique subset of CD8+ T cells that are present within certain tissues and do not recirculate through the blood. Long term memory establishment and maintenance are dependent on tissue population of memory T cells. They are characterized by dual CD69/CD103 positivity, and play a role in both response to viral infection and local cancer immunosurveillance. Human TRM cells demonstrate the increased expression of adhesion molecules to facilitate tissue retention, have reduced proliferation and produce both regulatory and immune responsive cytokines. TRM cell phenotype is often characterized by a distinct expression profile driven by Runx3, Blimp1, and Hobit transcription factors. The accumulation of TRM cells in tumors is associated with increased survival and response to immunotherapies, including anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4. In this review, we explore potential mechanisms of TRM cell transformation and maintenance, as well as potential applications for the use of TRM cells in both the development of supportive therapies and establishing more accurate prognoses

Comment on Seibert, M.K.; Rees, W.E. Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition. <i>Energies</i> 2021, <i>14</i>, 4508

This paper exposes the many flaws in the article “Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition, authored by Siebert and Rees and recently published in Energies as a Review. Our intention in submitting this critique is to expose and rectify the original article’s non-scientific approach to the review process that includes selective (and hence biased) screening of the literature focusing on the challenges related to renewable energies, without discussing any of the well-documented solutions. In so doing, we also provide a rigorous refutation of several statements made by a Seibert–Rees paper, which often appear to be unsubstantiated personal opinions and not based on a balanced review of the available literature

Comment on Seibert, M.K.; Rees, W.E. Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition. Energies 2021, 14, 4508

This paper exposes the many flaws in the article &ldquo;Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition, authored by Siebert and Rees and recently published in Energies as a Review. Our intention in submitting this critique is to expose and rectify the original article&rsquo;s non-scientific approach to the review process that includes selective (and hence biased) screening of the literature focusing on the challenges related to renewable energies, without discussing any of the well-documented solutions. In so doing, we also provide a rigorous refutation of several statements made by a Seibert&ndash;Rees paper, which often appear to be unsubstantiated personal opinions and not based on a balanced review of the available literature