Hillslope coupled stream morphology, flow conditions, and their effects on detrital sedimentology in Garnet Canyon, Teton Range, Wyoming

Characterizing stream erosion in any steep mountain landscape is arduous, but the challenge level increases when the stream flows through a glaciated catchment frequently modified by hillslope debris. Glacial landforms and stochastic mass wasting in alpine systems may interfere with sediment delivery to downstream sites where detrital sediments are often collected to represent upstream bedrock sources. To use detrital sediments as indicators of erosion, we need to understand potential sediment accumulation in flat glaciated reaches or behind rockfall barriers. This study investigates the stream channel in Garnet Canyon, a glaciated catchment located in the central Teton Range, to describe hillslope coupled channel morphology and the subsequent effects on sediment transport throughout the catchment. Stream cross-section surveys and sediment size measurements of the surface bedload were collected in the field within a glacially flattened segment of Garnet Canyon. Calculations of shear stress conditions allowed evaluation of the importance of mineral densities on potential grain entrainment. The length of the Garnet Canyon stream observed in this study was coupled with hillslope deposits. Critical shear stresses were sufficient to move gravel-sized sediments through all sections when calculated with quartz mineral density and through most sections when applying apatite mineral density. These results verify the application of detrital sediments to evaluate erosion rates or spatial bedrock sources because snowmelt stream flow efficiently moves entrained sediment past glacially reduced slopes and potential talus barriers

Siouxland Dairy Lenders Seminar Focus On Dairy Enterprise Issues

Agricultural lenders in the six Northwest Iowa counties serve over 100 dairymen, representing production from over 57,000 cows. Add to that Siouxland producers in the surrounding states and the numbers double. A review of programing for dairy lenders in Siouxland found that little programing had been directed to dairy lenders specifically in recent years. With the stresses of low milk prices, variable feed prices and high land prices, lenders were often using dated budgets and formulas to evaluate profitability of dairy enterprises. A Dairy Lenders Seminar for the Siouxland area was developed based on the Tri- State Lenders Conference (IA, IL, WI) as a template, conducted and evaluated in November 2017. 41 lenders came from four states, representing 14 lending institutions plus four other industries. From those that returned program evaluations their attendance translated to 65 dairies, 69,725 milking cows and 97,400 acres producing feed for those cows. Overall, 88 percent of respondents were mostly, or completely satisfied with the activity and 100 percent would recommend the activity to others. In addition, 65 percent anticipated benefiting economically as a direct result of what they learned from this Extension activity. When asked about the presenters, 100 percent were mostly or completely satisfied with their knowledge and responses to questions. Over 73 percent of the lenders indicated that one or more of their clients planned on expanding their herds; Fourteen percent predicted at least one of their clients would exit the industry; and 17 percent believed that one or more of their clients would add robotic milkers to their operations. We evaluated increase in the level of understanding and found that the highest change was in the understanding comparing profitability of conventional, organic and grazing dairies at 88 percent. Next, was dairy component markets and how it affects farm-gate prices plus the information on analyzing enterprises for profitability, both at 55 percent. Finally, plans to adopt a practice or technology as the result of a program is the truest measure of success for Extension programs, with 100 percent of respondents indicating the commodity market updates would be most likely. Overall, this initial Siouxland Dairy lenders Seminar was highly successful and will be held annually in the future

Geology and Aquifer Sensitivity of Quaternary Glacial Deposits Overlying a Portion of the Mahomet Buried Bedrock Valley Aquifer System

To characterize the distribution of Holocene and Late Quaternary deposits and to assess the contamination potential of the Mahomet Aquifer, surficial geologic and aquifer sensitivity maps of the Gibson City East 7.5-Minute Quadrangle were created. Geologic data, extent, and thickness of the geologic materials were coupled with LiDAR topographic data and analyzed using ESRI’s ArcGIS 10.6.1. Aquifer sensitivity to contamination was calculated based on the depth to the first aquifer unit, aquifer thickness, and the lithology of the aquifer materials. The surficial geologic mapping identified five lithostratigraphic units: the Cahokia Formation, the Equality Formation, the Henry Formation, and the Yorkville and Batestown Members of the Lemont Formation. The southeast to northwest trending Illiana Morainic System is the most prominent feature in the study area and delineates the maximum extent of the glaciers during the Livingston Phase of glaciation. Postglacial deposits of the Cahokia Formation, alluvium, interfinger, and overlie with glacial outwash of the Henry Formation along channels and drainage ways downslope of the moraine. The areas of least sensitivity are located over the Illiana Morainic System, whereas the greatest potential to contamination occurs where the thickest deposits of the Henry Formation and Cahokia Formation lie at or just below the land surface

Hooked on a Feeling: Influence of Brief Exposure to Familiar Music on Feelings of Emotion in Individuals with Alzheimer\u27s Disease

BACKGROUND: Research has indicated that individuals with Alzheimer\u27s-type dementia (AD) can experience prolonged emotions, even when they cannot recall the eliciting event. Less is known about whether music can modify the emotional state of individuals with AD and whether emotions evoked by music linger in the absence of a declarative memory for the eliciting event. OBJECTIVE: We examined the effects of participant-selected recorded music on self-reported feelings of emotion in individuals with AD, and whether these feelings persisted irrespective of declarative memory for the emotion-inducing stimuli. METHODS: Twenty participants with AD and 19 healthy comparisons (HCs) listened to two 4.5-minute blocks of self-selected music that aimed to induce either sadness or happiness. Participants reported their feelings at baseline and three times post-induction and completed recall and recognition tests for the music selections after each induction. RESULTS: Participants with AD had impaired memory for music selections compared to HCs. Both groups reported elevated sadness and negative affect after listening to sad music and increased happiness and positive affect after listening to happy music, relative to baseline. Sad/negative and happy/positive emotions endured up to 20 minutes post-induction. CONCLUSION: Brief exposure to music can induce strong and lingering emotions in individuals with AD. These findings extend the intriguing phenomenon whereby lasting emotions can be prompted by stimuli that are not remembered declaratively. Our results underscore the utility of familiar music for inducing emotions in individuals with AD and may ultimately inform strategies for using music listening as a therapeutic tool with this population

Herbicide-resistant weeds : from research and knowledge to future needs

Synthetic herbicides have been used globally to control weeds in major field crops. This has imposed a strong selection for any trait that enables plant populations to survive and reproduce in the presence of the herbicide. Herbicide resistance in weeds must be minimized because it is a major limiting factor to food security in global agriculture. This represents a huge challenge that will require great research efforts to develop control strategies as alternatives to the dominant and almost exclusive practice of weed control by herbicides. Weed scientists, plant ecologists and evolutionary biologists should join forces and work towards an improved and more integrated understanding of resistance across all scales. This approach will likely facilitate the design of innovative solutions to the global herbicide resistance challenge

Exploring face perception in disorders of development: evidence from Williams syndrome and autism

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) and autism are characterized by different social phenotypes but have been said to show similar atypicalities of face-processing style. Although the structural encoding of faces may be similarly atypical in these two developmental disorders, there are clear differences in overall face skills. The inclusion of both populations in the same study can address how the profile of face skills varies across disorders. The current paper explored the processing of identity, eye-gaze, lip-reading, and expressions of emotion using the same participants across face domains. The tasks had previously been used to make claims of a modular structure to face perception in typical development. Participants with WS (N=15) and autism (N=20) could be dissociated from each other, and from individuals with general developmental delay, in the domains of eye-gaze and expression processing. Individuals with WS were stronger at these skills than individuals with autism. Even if the structural encoding of faces appears similarly atypical in these groups, the overall profile of face skills, as well as the underlying architecture of face perception, varies greatly. The research provides insights into typical and atypical models of face perception in WS and autism

Educating Dairy and Beef Producers on Environmental Issues and Regulatory Concerns for Smaller Farms

Livestock producers in Iowa have seen a progression of regulations and compliance enforcement throughout the past two decades. Awareness through Extension meetings and information put out by commodity groups has played a substantial role in bringing confinement feeding operations and large CAFO feedlots into compliance. For small to medium-sized feedlots and dairies that may or may not be classified as CAFOs, the education and outreach was not formalized prior to the EPA beginning their recent compliance reviews. This issue surfaced because of EPA interpretation of regulations and the subsequent impact on livestock producers. The message from EPA was not well defined and still remains a challenge for livestock producers, extension personnel, and agribusiness (advisers) and agency staff

Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements

The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies1–11. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion-related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. Here we show that six patients with focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region necessary for the normal generation of emotions and, in particular, social emotions12–14, produce an abnor- mally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of judgements on moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours (for example, having to sacrifice one person’s life to save a number of other lives)7,8. In contrast, the VMPC patients’ judgements were normal in other classes of moral dilemmas. These findings indicate that, for a selective set of moral dilemmas, the VMPC is critical for normal judgements of right and wrong. The findings support a necessary role for emotion in the generation of those judgements

Integrating incremental learning and episodic memory models of the hippocampal region.

By integrating previous computational models of corticohippocampal function, the authors develop and test a unified theory of the neural substrates of familiarity, recollection, and classical conditioning. This approach integrates models from 2 traditions of hippocampal modeling, those of episodic memory and incremental learning, by drawing on an earlier mathematical model of conditioning, SOP (A. Wagner, 1981). The model describes how a familiarity signal may arise from parahippocampal cortices, giving a novel explanation for the finding that the neural response to a stimulus in these regions decreases with increasing stimulus familiarity. Recollection is ascribed to the hippocampus proper. It is shown how the properties of episodic representations in the neocortex, parahippocampal gyrus, and hippocampus proper may explain phenomena in classical conditioning. The model reproduces the effects of hippocampal, septal, and broad hippocampal region lesions on contextual modulation of classical conditioning, blocking, learned irrelevance, and latent inhibition