Enzymatic transhalogenation of dendritic RGD peptide constructs with the fluorinase

We thank EPSRC and the Scottish Imaging Network (SINAPSE) for grants. DO’H thanks the Royal Society for a Wolfson Research Merit Award and ST is grateful to the John and Kathleen Watson Scholarship for financial support. We are grateful to Dr Catherine Botting and Dr Sally Shirran of the St Andrews Mass Spectrometry Service for MALDI-MS acquisitions. We also thank Dr Sally Pimlott of the University of Glasgow for the use of radiochemistry facilities. Open access via RSC Gold for Gold.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

THE ADOPTION AND DIFFUSION OF LEVEL FIELDS AND BASINS

Strategic investments in agriculture often are lumpy and irreversible, with significant impacts on operating and fixed costs. Leveling cotton fields to zero slope in central Arizona is a strategic decision made by relatively younger farmers who are farming fine-textured soils in irrigation districts with higher expected water costs. The diffusion of the technology across the region between 1968-89 appears to be both a function of institutional changes (e.g., the Groundwater Management Act of 1980, the Central Arizona Project) and the long-run expected price changes induced by these new policies.Crop Production/Industries,

Die Spacer Thickness Reproduction for Central Incisor Crown Fabrication with Combined Computer-aided Design and 3D Printing Technology: An in vitro Study

Statement of problem The inability to control die spacer thickness has been reported. However, little information is available on the congruency between the computer-aided design parameters for die spacer thickness and the actual printout. Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy and precision of the die spacer thickness achieved by combining computer-aided design and 3-dimensional printing technology. Material and Methods An ivorine maxillary central incisor was prepared for a ceramic crown. The prepared tooth was duplicated by using polyvinyl siloxane duplicating silicone, and 80 die-stone models were produced from Type IV dental stone. The dies were randomly divided into 5 groups with assigned die spacer thicknesses of 25 μm, 45 μm, 65 μm, 85 μm, and 105 μm (n=16). The printed resin copings, obtained from a printer (ProJet DP 3000; 3D Systems), were cemented onto their respective die-stone models with self-adhesive resin cement and stored at room temperature until sectioning into halves in a buccolingual direction. The internal gap was measured at 5 defined locations per side of the sectioned die. Images of the printed resin coping/die-stone model internal gap dimensions were obtained with an inverted bright field metallurgical microscope at ×100 magnification. The acquired digital image was calibrated, and measurements were made using image analysis software. Mixed models (α=.05) were used to evaluate accuracy. A false discovery rate at 5% was used to adjust for multiple testing. Coefficient of variation was used to determine the precision for each group and was evaluated statistically with the Wald test (α=.05). Results The accuracy, expressed in terms of the mean differences between the prescribed die spacer thickness and the measured internal gap (standard deviation), was 50 μm (11) for the 25 μm group simulated die spacer thickness, 30 μm (10) for the 45 μm group, 15 μm (14) for the 65 μm group, 3 μm (23) for the 85 μm group, and -10 μm (32) for the 105 μm group. The precision mean of the measurements, expressed as a coefficient of variation, ranged between 14% and 33% for the 5 groups. Conclusions For the accuracy evaluation, statistically significant differences were found for all the groups, except the group of 85 μm. For the precision assessment, the coefficient of variation was above 10% for all groups, showing the printer’s inability to reproduce the uniform internal gap within the same group

Spatiotemporal variability in the O-18-salinity relationship of seawater across the tropical Pacific Ocean

The relationship between salinity and the stable oxygen isotope ratio of seawater (δ18Osw) is of utmost importance to the quantitative reconstruction of past changes in salinity from δ18O values of marine carbonates. This relationship is often considered to be uniform across water masses, but the constancy of the δ18Osw-salinity relationship across space and time remains uncertain, as δ18Osw responds to varying atmospheric vapor sources and pathways, while salinity does not. Here we present new δ18Osw-salinity data from sites spanning the tropical Pacific Ocean. New data from Palau, Papua New Guinea, Kiritimati, and Galápagos show slopes ranging from 0.09 ‰/psu in the Galápagos to 0.32‰/psu in Palau. The slope of the δ18Osw-salinity relationship is higher in the western tropical Pacific versus the eastern tropical Pacific in observations and in two isotope-enabled climate model simulations. A comparison of δ18Osw-salinity relationships derived from short-term spatial surveys and multiyear time series at Papua New Guinea and Galápagos suggests spatial relationships can be substituted for temporal relationships at these sites, at least within the time period of the investigation. However, the δ18Osw-salinity relationship varied temporally at Palau, likely in response to water mass changes associated with interannual El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability, suggesting nonstationarity in this local δ18Osw-salinity relationship. Applying local δ18Osw-salinity relationships in a coral δ18O forward model shows that using a constant, basinwide δ18Osw-salinity slope can both overestimate and underestimate the contribution of δ18Osw to carbonate δ18O variance at individual sites in the western tropical Pacific.We are grateful for the dedicated water samplers who enabled this research: Lori J. Bell and Gerda Ucharm of the Coral Reef Research Foundation, Palau; Rosa Maritza Motoche Gonzalez and the Fuerza Aerea Ecuatoriana, Santa Cruz, Galapagos, Ecuador; Taonateiti Kabiri and the students of Tennessee Primary School, London, Kiritimati; and the Manus Weather Observers, U.S. Department of Energy ARM Climate Research Facility, Manus, Papua New Guinea. We would like to thank the Galapagos National Park, the Kiritimati Ministry of Environment Lands and Agricultural Development for sample permits, and the Charles Darwin Research Station for logistical support. Funding sources for this work includes NSF-AGS-PF 1049664 to J.L.C., NSF P2C2-1203785 to K.M.C., J.L.C., and D.N. This research was also supported by the Office of Biological and Environment Research of the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility. Isotope data are available as supporting information associated with the manuscript. (1049664 - NSF-AGS-PF; P2C2-1203785 - NSF; Office of Biological and Environment Research of the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility

High Time for Conservation: Adding the Environment to the Debate on Marijuana Liberalization

The liberalization of marijuana policies, including the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana, is sweeping the United States and other countries. Marijuana cultivation can have significant negative collateral effects on the environment that are often unknown or overlooked. Focusing on the state of California, where by some estimates 60% -- 70% of the marijuana consumed in the United States is grown, we argue that (a) the environmental harm caused by marijuana cultivation merits a direct policy response, (b) current approaches to governing the environmental effects are inadequate, and (c) neglecting discussion of the environmental impacts of cultivation when shaping future marijuana use and possession policies represents a missed opportunity to reduce, regulate, and mitigate environmental harm

Four Centuries of Change in Northeastern United States Forests

The northeastern United States is a predominately-forested region that, like most of the eastern U.S., has undergone a 400-year history of intense logging, land clearance for agriculture, and natural reforestation. This setting affords the opportunity to address a major ecological question: How similar are today's forests to those existing prior to European colonization? Working throughout a nine-state region spanning Maine to Pennsylvania, we assembled a comprehensive database of archival land-survey records describing the forests at the time of European colonization. We compared these records to modern forest inventory data and described: (1) the magnitude and attributes of forest compositional change, (2) the geography of change, and (3) the relationships between change and environmental factors and historical land use. We found that with few exceptions, notably the American chestnut, the same taxa that made up the pre-colonial forest still comprise the forest today, despite ample opportunities for species invasion and loss. Nonetheless, there have been dramatic shifts in the relative abundance of forest taxa. The magnitude of change is spatially clustered at local scales (<125 km) but exhibits little evidence of regional-scale gradients. Compositional change is most strongly associated with the historical extent of agricultural clearing. Throughout the region, there has been a broad ecological shift away from late successional taxa, such as beech and hemlock, in favor of early- and mid-successional taxa, such as red maple and poplar. Additionally, the modern forest composition is more homogeneous and less coupled to local climatic controls