Spectral Imaging for Forest Fire Detection

In the past decade, forest fires were responsible for approximately 32,230 deaths, up 20.5% since 2009, and 157.9 billion dollars of damage, up 90.6% since 2009 (U.S. Fire Administration). Furthermore, countless habitats and water resources were destroyed, and pollution increased due to fires. Advanced space technology has been employed to monitor the earth and mitigate potential damage inflicted by forest fires. The primary technology used for this purpose is the GOES Series of satellites in geosynchronous orbit and equipped with infrared imagers. These imagers provide images at a ground resolution of 1 km, a resolution that is insufficient to detect fires in their early stages. Another method of observing forest fires from space is through the use of spectral imaging performed by smaller imagers, ideally incorporated on the many Low Earth Orbit communication satellites being developed. The significantly lower altitudes of Low Earth Orbit satellites may provide better ground resolution to detect early fire stages. These smaller imager utilize spectral imaging to create an electromagnetic “signature” of burning biomass. If a scientific camera can adequately acquire this data, and the data can be analyzed and reported as a fire signature, this imaging technique could be implemented with aerospace systems, including drones or balloonsats, to monitor high fire risk areas. This experiment analyzes the wavelength signature created when pine needles are burning. When combustion takes place within pine needles, potassium is emitted around 770-780nm. The experiments conducted in this research use an array of PCO imagers and filters close to controlled fires to detect the potassium emission released in burning pine needles during the combustion process. Overall, this project aims to analyze the validity and effectiveness of this imaging technique, which the future application of incorporating the imagers on LEO satellites in mind. Through the process of collecting biomass samples, igniting these samples and observing the fire with a PCO camera and camera acquisition software, executing post-processing analysis of the images, the effectiveness of this technique should be reasonably determined

AMPHIPODS ARE STRONG INTERACTORS IN THE FOOD WEB OF A BROWN-WATER SALMON RIVER

Marine derived biomass from salmon carcasses is incorporated into coastal Pacific Rim salmon river systems via the organisms and structures of the freshwater foodweb. In brown water rivers of Western Kamchatka, the foodweb is dominated by ubiquitous benthic amphipods (Anisogammarus kygi) that consume salmon carcass material. We hypothesized that A. kygi are a strong interactor in the feedback loop which links dead spawner biomass to juvenile salmonid growth. We found that A. kygi had a complex life cycle with anadromous and resident forms. A. kygi dominated the macro-benthos, comprising more than 88.0% (SE=.01, N=7) of invertebrate biomass, and were highly mobile within the system, exhibiting upstream migrations of ovigerous females (23 ind/m3 ± 5), drift of juveniles, and re-distribution during carcass loading. A. kygi was observed feeding on 97% of salmon carcasses examined (N=100), making up 98.8% (SE .007) of invertebrate consumers, at densities up to 3,000 carcass-1. Amphipods were an important food item for rearing salmonids, especially during the summer when fish diets reached a peak of 88.7% (SE=6.0%) amphipods in 2005, and 68% (SE=18%) amphipods in 2006. The condition factor of salmonid juveniles (K) increased from spring to summer, particularly in juvenile chum, whose spring diet was 76.83% (SE 0.05) amphipods, corroborating the importance of an amphipod based diet for salmonids in this river. We concluded that A .kygi is a strong interactor in the Utkholok system. We also observed abundance of A. kygi in six other brown water rivers of western Kamchatka which suggests that the amphipod-mediated feedback of marine derived nutrients described for the Utkholok, is typical of brown water systems with salmon

Sentactics®: A Virtual Treatment of Underlying Forms

This study tested the effects of Sentactics®, a computer-automated version of Treatment of Underlying Forms (TUF). Results showed that treatment effects derived from Sentactics® replicated those of clinician-delivered TUF, improving agrammatic patients’ ability to comprehend and produce complex sentences and resulting in generalization to untrained linguistically related forms, of lesser complexity. Additionally, no differences were found in a comparison of the relative effectiveness of computer-delivered Sentactics® and clinician-delivered TUF. These results provide further support for the efficacy of the TUF protocol and demonstrate the viability of computerized therapies in the field of aphasia treatment

From elements to modules: regulatory evolution in Ascomycota fungi

available in PMC 2010 April 12.Regulatory divergence is likely a major driving force in evolution. Comparative transcriptomics provides a new glimpse into the evolution of gene regulation. Ascomycota fungi are uniquely suited among eukaryotes for studies of regulatory evolution, because of broad phylogenetic scope, many sequenced genomes, and facility of genomic analysis. Here we review the substantial divergence in gene expression in Ascomycota and how this is reconciled with the modular organization of transcriptional networks. We show that flexibility and redundancy in both cis-regulation and trans-regulation can lead to changes from altered expression of single genes to wholesale rewiring of regulatory modules. Redundancy thus emerges as a major driving force facilitating expression divergence while preserving the coherent functional organization of a transcriptional response.National Library of Medicine (U.S.) (NLM training grant 5T15LM007359)Burroughs Wellcome Fund (Career Award at the Scientific Interface)National Institute of General Medical Sciences (U.S.) (NIGMS R01GM083989-01)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CAREER award (#0447887))Human Frontier Science Program (Strasbourg, France) (Research grant)Alfred P. Sloan FoundationNational Institutes of Health (U.S.) (PIONEER award

Development of a Global Health Curriculum at Christiana Care Health System: An Independent Academic Health Center and Member of the Delaware Health Sciences Alliance

Work in Progress (16 PowerPoint slides) The Global Health Program at Christiana Care Health System (CCHS) is an innovative, multi-disciplinary educational program seeking to improve the public health knowledge base and skills of interested health professionals through didactic, simulation and clinical experiences. A recent AAMC survey revealed 30% ofU.S.medical students participated in an international elective in 2006 versus 15% in 1997. In a resident survey at CCHS in 2010, 70% of residents responded that it was important to have global health education. These figures indicate an increasing interest in global health during residency training. In order to draw interest from a variety of backgrounds, we developed a multi-disciplinary global health training program. The curriculum is designed to include CCHS staff and our colleagues at other Delaware Health Sciences Alliance (DHSA) institutions, includingNemoursA.I.DuPontHospitalfor Children,ThomasJeffersonUniversityand the University of Delaware. The core curriculum consists of a monthly lecture series, including local and guest speakers. The lectures are recorded and accessible to CCHS affiliates via intranet. In addition, we plan to incorporate a journal club, a skills workshop and develop a global health site to foster an international partnership and resident elective rotations. Since the program began in August 2011, we have had five meetings. Attendance has steadily increased in number and diversity; attendees now include undergraduates, medical students, residents, fellows, attending physicians, nurses, administrators and medical librarians. We initiated a post-meeting survey at our December meeting which demonstrated a mean increase in the level of awareness of the topic by 27%. Global health awareness allowsU.S.based health professionals to be more culturally competent and effective in advocating for the needs of the underserved in their own communities. By inviting all disciplines at multiple institutions we hope to create a community that supports and sustains global health. Learning Objectives: At the end of this session, participants will: 1. Identify the importance of a global health curriculum for training residents that are culturally aware and equipped to work in underserved populations both locally and abroad. 2. Acquire the information to initiate a global health program in a teaching hospital. 3. Learn how to incorporate a multi-disciplinary approach to global health education

Dataset on Psychosocial Risk Factors in Cases of Fatal and Near-Fatal Physical Child Abuse

This article presents the psychosocial risk factors identified in the cases of 20 children less than four years of age who were victims of fatal or near-fatal physical abuse during a 12 month period in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. These data are related to the article “History, injury, and psychosocial risk factor commonalities among cases of fatal and near-fatal physical child abuse” (Pierce et al., 2017) [1]

Comparison of marker types and map assumptions using Markov chain Monte Carlo-based linkage analysis of COGA data

We performed multipoint linkage analysis of the electrophysiological trait ECB21 on chromosome 4 in the full pedigrees provided by the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). Three Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)-based approaches were applied to the provided and re-estimated genetic maps and to five different marker panels consisting of microsatellite (STRP) and/or SNP markers at various densities. We found evidence of linkage near the GABRB1 STRP using all methods, maps, and marker panels. Difficulties encountered with SNP panels included convergence problems and demanding computations