Ecology of forage fish following cessation of overharvest of walleye in Henderson Lake, Ontario

I examined the forage base of Henderson Lake, Ontario following collapse of its walleye stock due to overexploitation, and an inexplicable decline of the ninespine stickleback population. In response to these events a very large yellow perch year class was produced. Subsequently, adult perch density increased while growth, mortality, size at maturity and fecundity decreased. Continued stunting in young yellow perch could not be attributed to direct interspecific competition with abundant shiners. As northern pike activity increased shiner activity declined but yellow perch remained active and available as prey. Thus, small perch occurred much more frequently in the diets of northern pike than did shiners. The large numbers of stunted yellow perch may provide excellent forage for enhancing the recovery of the walleye population

A Platform-Independent Method for Detecting Errors in Metagenomic Sequencing Data: DRISEE

We provide a novel method, DRISEE (duplicate read inferred sequencing error estimation), to assess sequencing quality (alternatively referred to as “noise” or “error”) within and/or between sequencing samples. DRISEE provides positional error estimates that can be used to inform read trimming within a sample. It also provides global (whole sample) error estimates that can be used to identify samples with high or varying levels of sequencing error that may confound downstream analyses, particularly in the case of studies that utilize data from multiple sequencing samples. For shotgun metagenomic data, we believe that DRISEE provides estimates of sequencing error that are more accurate and less constrained by technical limitations than existing methods that rely on reference genomes or the use of scores (e.g. Phred). Here, DRISEE is applied to (non amplicon) data sets from both the 454 and Illumina platforms. The DRISEE error estimate is obtained by analyzing sets of artifactual duplicate reads (ADRs), a known by-product of both sequencing platforms. We present DRISEE as an open-source, platform-independent method to assess sequencing error in shotgun metagenomic data, and utilize it to discover previously uncharacterized error in de novo sequence data from the 454 and Illumina sequencing platforms.</p

Editors' Note

This note provides some information and statistics about the AMP 2015 conference from which these papers originated, and acknowledges the support and funding received by the conference organizers and editors of this volume

Interventions to Promote the Development of Motor Performance Skills in Primary School Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Controlled Trials

Background: The development of proficiency in motor performance skills (MPS) builds the foundation for the complex movement skills required to participate in a range of sports and physical activities throughout the lifespan. Objective: To assess the efficacy of different intervention approaches on developing MPS proficiency in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and examine the intervention factors that influence change. Method: Searches were completed in three databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science) up to March 2022. Only randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or controlled trials (CTs), that evaluated the effectiveness of interventions on overall MPS proficiency or specific MPS such as balance, running speed and agility, bilateral coordination, jumping, ball skills and push-ups in children (4–13 years old) were included. The DerSimonian and Laird random-effects model was used to compute the meta-analyses. The effect sizes were reported as Hedges’ g. Using a random-effects model, potential sources of heterogeneity were identified, including subgroup analyses (type of intervention), and single training factor analysis (total number of weeks, session frequency, total intervention time, total number of training sessions). In addition, a multivariate meta-regression calculation was performed for balance. The GRADE framework was applied to assess certainty of evidence. Results: Seventeen interventions (13 RCTs and 4 CTs) revealed significant differences among groups favouring the intervention group with moderate to very large effects. Significant (p 0.05) small-to-large effects of interventions were evident on overall motor performance skills (ES = 2.43), ball skills (ES = 2.95), jumping (ES = 1.89), bilateral coordination (ES = 2.21), push-ups (ES = 1.92), balance (ES = 1.56), running speed and agility (ES = 1.31). Multivariate meta-regression for balance revealed that total sessions, total intervention time and session frequency predicted (p = 0.009, p0.001, p = 0.036, respectively) the effects of interventions on change in balance performance. Conclusion: Structured interventions that explicitly teach traditional FMS or promote the development and learning of movement skills specifically associated with a type of physical activity or sport, effectively improve MPS in children with ASD. Education settings should implement ‘planned’ movement experiences or interventions as a strategy to promote MPS proficiency in children with ASD

Ke Ao: A Low-Cost 1U CubeSat for Aerospace Education and Research in Hawaii

The Ke Ao satellite is a low-cost 1U CubeSat designed and developed by an undergraduate team of engineering students at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) in collaboration with the Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory (HSFL). The primary goal of the mission is to take one or more pictures from space and automatically identify the Hawaiian Islands using Machine Learning Algorithms - this will demonstrate improved onboard operational autonomy in space. A secondary goal of this project is to promote Aerospace Education and Workforce training in Hawaii. The Ke Ao project was inspired by the Hiapo CubeSat initiative of the Hawaii Science and Technology Museum as a unique platform used to provide engaging meaningful hands-on STEM curriculum for Hawaii students K-12. The realization that low-cost flight hardware, in the order of ～$10k, is practically non-existent, and therefore the barrier to launch a flight-capable CubeSat is still high for small organizations and schools with low budgets. The Ke Ao project started in the Fall of 2019 with the Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) Aerospace Technologies with Electrical, Mechanical, and Computer Science Engineering Students at UH and continued to be facilitated under the Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Course within the College of Engineering throughout the year of 2020. The project was impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic but this enabled the student team to improve on the design and simulations. Hiapo and Ke Ao also inspired the NASA Artemis CubeSat Kit project being developed at the HSFL. The Artemis CubeSat Kit will be used as an educational tool for teaching aerospace and distribution in the public domain. The development of these three CubeSats allowed for synergistic development and multipurpose designs and gave the students a wide breadth of design experiences. This paper will expand on the design and development for the main objectives for Ke Ao (1) take one or more pictures of the Hawaiian Islands from space; (2) cost shall be no more than$10,000 with built parts; and (3) launch-ready via the NASA CSLI application and requirements. To address these objectives Ke Ao uses spaceflight capable but low-cost hardware flown in previous CubeSat missions and consists of seven primary subsystems: Attitude Determination and Control System, Communications, Electrical Power Systems, On-Board Computer and Flight Software, Payload, Structure and Mechanisms, and Thermal Control Systems. Ke Ao will use onboard magnetic torquers to control the attitude of the payload and take pictures of the Hawaiian Islands. The data will be transmitted to the HSFL ground stations in Hawaii and through the SatNOGS ground station network across the World. Ke Ao’s mission and primary goals are in line with the 2018 NASA Strategic Plan’s Strategic Objective 3.3 to Inspire and Engage the Public in Aeronautics, Space, and Science and contribute to the Nation’s science literacy

A novel method for metal–diamond composite coating deposition with cold spray and formation mechanism

This paper describes the application of cold spray to the deposition of a diamond grade pre-coated with Cu and Ni. This is the first time that pre-coated diamond powders are used as the sole feedstock without the addition of binders (ductile phases) in cold spraying. The experimental results showed that it was possible to manufacture thick metal–diamond composite coatings onto an Al alloy substrate with high diamond fraction in the coating and without phase change. Results from this paper also have demonstrated a new methodology for the deposition of metal–diamond/ceramic composite coating with the cold spray technique

Assessing the influence of oil and grease and salt content on fish canning wastewater biodegradation through respirometric tests

Fish canning industry wastewaters have high organic matter, oil and grease and salt (NaCl) content, which make difficult a proper treatment before discharge. In this work, their treatment was evaluated via activated sludge aerobic biological process through respirometric tests. Inhibition was found to be significant for NaCl concentr ations higher than 17.5 g/L. On the other hand, the oil and grease content affects the wastewater biodegradability in the same way that the organic matter content expressed as chemical oxygen demand: the lower oil and grease and organic matter concentrations, the lower the percentage of wastewater biodegradability. As a final conclusion, the aerobic biological treatment process by activated sludge proved to be appropriate to treat fish canning industrial wastewaters, leading to high organic matter degradation rates (average value of 4900 mg O2 /g COD .d). Additionally, the experimental results achieved with the respirometric tests may be useful for the design of activated sludge plants to treat this type of wastewaters.This work was co-financed by FCT/MEC and FEDER under Programe PT2020 (Project UID/EQU/50020/2013), by QREN, ON2 and FEDER (Project NORTE-07-0162-FEDER-000050) and by ValorPeixe e Valorizaç~ao de Subprodutos e Aguas Residuais da Indústria de Conservas de Peixe, project in co-promotion I&DT QREN, nº 13634, financed by FEDER through POFC e Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade for which the authors are thankful. The authors also wish to thank the cannery in study for wastewater samples. Raquel O. Cristóvão thanks FCT for the Post-doc Scholarship (SFRH/ BPD/81564/2011).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo