ECOREGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN LATE-20TH-CENTURY LAND-USE AND LAND-COVER CHANGE IN THE U.S. NORTHERN GREAT PLAINS

Land-cover and land-use change usually results from a combination of anthropogenic drivers and biophysical conditions found across multiple scales, ranging from parcel to regional levels. A group of four Level III ecoregions located in the u.s. northern Great Plains is used to demonstrate the similarities and differences in land change during nearly a 30-year period (1973-2000) using results from the U.S. Geological Survey\u27s Land Cover Trends project. There were changes to major suites of land-cover; the transitions between agriculture and grassland/shrubland and the transitions among wetland, water, agriculture, and grassland/shrubland were affected by different factors. Anthropogenic drivers affected the land-use tension (or land-use competition) between agriculture and grassland/shrubland land-covers, whereas changes between wetland and water land-covers, and their relationship to agriculture and grassland/shrubland land-covers, were mostly affected by regional weather cycles. More land-use tension between agriculture and grassland/shrubland landcovers occurred in ecoregions with greater amounts of economically marginal cropland. Land-cover change associated with weather variability occurred in ecoregions that had large concentrations of wetlands and water impoundments, such as the Missouri River reservoirs. The Northwestern Glaciated Plains ecoregion had the highest overall estimated percentage of change because it had both land-use tension between agriculture and grassland/shrubland land-covers and wetland-water changes

The Report of the Intensive Survey of the Richard B. Russell Dam and Lake, Savannah River, Georgia and South Carolina

https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/archanth_books/1207/thumbnail.jp

I have such a hard time hitting myself, I thought it\u27d be easier : Perspectives of hospitalized patients on injecting drugs into vascular access devices

Background: Hospital patients who use drugs may require prolonged parenteral antimicrobial therapy administered through a vascular access device (VAD). Clinicians\u27 concerns that patients may inject drugs into these devices are well documented. However, the perspectives of patients on VAD injecting are not well described, hindering the development of informed clinical guidance. This study was conducted to elicit inpatient perspectives on the practice of injecting drugs into VADs and to propose strategies to reduce associated harms.Methods: Researchers conducted a focused ethnography and completed semi-structured interviews with 25 inpatients at a large tertiary hospital in Western Canada that experiences a high rate of drug-related presentations annually.Results: A few participants reported injecting into their VAD at least once, and nearly all had heard of the practice. The primary reason for injecting into a VAD was easier venous access since many participants had experienced significant vein damage from injection drug use. Several participants recognized the risks associated with injecting into VADs, and either refrained from the practice or took steps to maintain their devices while using them to inject drugs. Others were uncertain how the devices functioned and were unaware of potential harms.Conclusions: VADs are important for facilitating completion of parenteral antimicrobial therapy and for other medically necessary care. Prematurely discharging patients who inject into their VAD from hospital, or discontinuing or modifying therapy, results in inequitable access to health care for a structurally vulnerable patient population. Our findings demonstrate a need for healthcare provider education and non-stigmatizing clinical interventions to reduce potential harms associated with VAD injecting. Those interventions could include providing access to specialized pain and withdrawal management, opioid agonist treatment, and harm reduction services, including safer drug use education to reduce or prevent complications from injecting drugs into VADs

Molecular Competition in G1 Controls When Cells Simultaneously Commit to Terminally Differentiate and Exit the Cell Cycle

Terminal differentiation is essential for the development and maintenance of tissues in all multi-cellular organisms and is associated with permanent exit from the cell cycle. Failure to permanently exit the cell cycle can result in cancer and disease. However, the molecular mechanisms and timing that coordinate differentiation commitment and cell cycle exit are not yet understood. Using live, single-cell imaging of cell cycle progression and differentiation commitment during adipogenesis, we show that a rapid switch mechanism engages exclusively in G1 to trigger differentiation commitment simultaneously with permanent exit from the cell cycle. We identify a molecular competition in G1 between when the differentiation switch is triggered and when the proliferative window closes that allows mitogen and differentiation stimuli to control the balance between terminally differentiating cells produced and progenitor cells kept in reserve, a parameter of critical importance for enabling proper development of tissue domains and organs. Zhao et al. show that in terminally differentiating cells, a rapid switch mechanism engages exclusively during a G1 period to trigger simultaneous differentiation commitment and permanent cell cycle exit. A molecular competition in each G1 period allows cells to control the balance the terminally differentiating cells produced and progenitor cells kept in reserve

High-frequency spinal cord stimulation at 10 kHz for the treatment of painful diabetic neuropathy: design of a multicenter, randomized controlled trial (SENZA-PDN)

Background: Painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN), a debilitating and progressive chronic pain condition that significantly impacts quality of life, is one of the common complications seen with long-standing diabetes mellitus. Neither pharmacological treatments nor low-frequency spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has provided significant and long-term pain relief for patients with PDN. This study aims to document the value of 10-kHz SCS in addition to conventional medical management (CMM) compared with CMM alone in patients with refractory PDN. Methods: In a prospective, multicenter, randomized controlled trial (SENZA-PDN), 216 subjects with PDN will be assigned 1:1 to receive 10-kHz SCS combined with CMM or CMM alone after appropriate institutional review board approvals and followed for 24 months. Key inclusion criteria include (1) symptoms of PDN for at least 12 months, (2) average pain intensity of at least 5 cm—on a 0- to 10-cm visual analog scale (VAS)—in the lower limbs, and (3) an appropriate candidate for SCS. Key exclusion criteria include (1) large or gangrenous ulcers or (2) average pain intensity of at least 3 cm on VAS in the upper limbs or both. Along with pain VAS, neurological assessments, health-related quality of life, sleep quality, and patient satisfaction will be captured. The primary endpoint comparing responder rates (≥50% pain relief) and safety rates between the treatment groups will be assessed at 3 months. Several secondary endpoints will also be reported on. Discussion: Enrollment commenced in 2017 and was completed in 2019. This study will help to determine whether 10-kHz SCS improves clinical outcomes and health-related quality of life and is a cost-effective treatment for PDN that is refractory to CMM

A Theory of Cheap Control in Embodied Systems

We present a framework for designing cheap control architectures for embodied agents. Our derivation is guided by the classical problem of universal approximation, whereby we explore the possibility of exploiting the agent's embodiment for a new and more efficient universal approximation of behaviors generated by sensorimotor control. This embodied universal approximation is compared with the classical non-embodied universal approximation. To exemplify our approach, we present a detailed quantitative case study for policy models defined in terms of conditional restricted Boltzmann machines. In contrast to non-embodied universal approximation, which requires an exponential number of parameters, in the embodied setting we are able to generate all possible behaviors with a drastically smaller model, thus obtaining cheap universal approximation. We test and corroborate the theory experimentally with a six-legged walking machine. The experiments show that the sufficient controller complexity predicted by our theory is tight, which means that the theory has direct practical implications. Keywords: cheap design, embodiment, sensorimotor loop, universal approximation, conditional restricted Boltzmann machineComment: 27 pages, 10 figure

The Grizzly, April 20, 2006

Tour of Asia Adds Spice to Diversity Week • USGA Meeting Tackles Hate Crimes at Ursinus • Dr. Mel King Discusses the Power of Love • Pornography Pastime • 2006 Senior Giving Campaign • Opinions: Diversity Issues at Ursinus College: A Cry for Change; Drawing the Line: Moral Predicament of Abortion, Part III; Diversity Week: Tradition Continues • Bears Lose to Washington • Easter Massacrehttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1713/thumbnail.jp

Measuring Terrestrial Area of Habitat (AOH) and Its Utility for the IUCN Red List

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species includes assessment of extinction risk for 98 512 species, plus documentation of their range, habitat, elevation, and other factors. These range, habitat and elevation data can be matched with terrestrial land cover and elevation datasets to map the species’ area of habitat (AOH; also known as extent of suitable habitat; ESH). This differs from the two spatial metrics used for assessing extinction risk in the IUCN Red List criteria: extent of occurrence (EOO) and area of occupancy (AOO). AOH can guide conservation, for example, through targeting areas for field surveys, assessing proportions of species’ habitat within protected areas, and monitoring habitat loss and fragmentation. We recommend that IUCN Red List assessments document AOH wherever practical

Evolutionary relationships between Rhynchosporium lolii sp. nov. and other Rhynchosporium species on grass.

Copyright: 2013 King et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedThe fungal genus Rhynchosporium (causative agent of leaf blotch) contains several host-specialised species, including R. commune (colonising barley and brome-grass), R. agropyri (couch-grass), R. secalis (rye and triticale) and the more distantly related R. orthosporum (cocksfoot). This study used molecular fingerprinting, multilocus DNA sequence data, conidial morphology, host range tests and scanning electron microscopy to investigate the relationship between Rhynchosporium species on ryegrasses, both economically important forage grasses and common wild grasses in many cereal growing areas, and other plant species. Two different types of Rhynchosporium were found on ryegrasses in the UK. Firstly, there were isolates of R. commune that were pathogenic to both barley and Italian ryegrass. Secondly, there were isolates of a new species, here named R. lolii, that were pathogenic only to ryegrass species. R. lolii was most closely related to R. orthosporum, but exhibited clear molecular, morphological and host range differences. The species was estimated to have diverged from R. orthosporum ca. 5735 years before the present. The colonisation strategy of all of the different Rhynchosporium species involved extensive hyphal growth in the sub-cuticular regions of the leaves. Finally, new species-specific PCR diagnostic tests were developed that could distinguish between these five closely related Rhynchosporium species.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio