Assessment of carbon in woody plants and soil across a vineyard-woodland landscape

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Quantification of ecosystem services, such as carbon (C) storage, can demonstrate the benefits of managing for both production and habitat conservation in agricultural landscapes. In this study, we evaluated C stocks and woody plant diversity across vineyard blocks and adjoining woodland ecosystems (wildlands) for an organic vineyard in northern California. Carbon was measured in soil from 44 one m deep pits, and in aboveground woody biomass from 93 vegetation plots. These data were combined with physical landscape variables to model C stocks using a geographic information system and multivariate linear regression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Field data showed wildlands to be heterogeneous in both C stocks and woody tree diversity, reflecting the mosaic of several different vegetation types, and storing on average 36.8 Mg C/ha in aboveground woody biomass and 89.3 Mg C/ha in soil. Not surprisingly, vineyard blocks showed less variation in above- and belowground C, with an average of 3.0 and 84.1 Mg C/ha, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This research demonstrates that vineyards managed with practices that conserve some fraction of adjoining wildlands yield benefits for increasing overall C stocks and species and habitat diversity in integrated agricultural landscapes. For such complex landscapes, high resolution spatial modeling is challenging and requires accurate characterization of the landscape by vegetation type, physical structure, sufficient sampling, and allometric equations that relate tree species to each landscape. Geographic information systems and remote sensing techniques are useful for integrating the above variables into an analysis platform to estimate C stocks in these working landscapes, thereby helping land managers qualify for greenhouse gas mitigation credits. Carbon policy in California, however, shows a lack of focus on C stocks compared to emissions, and on agriculture compared to other sectors. Correcting these policy shortcomings could create incentives for ecosystem service provision, including C storage, as well as encourage better farm stewardship and habitat conservation.</p

A virtual reality collaborative planning simulator and its method for three machines in a fully mechanized coal mining face

The existing automatic control program and its parameters for three machines in a fully mechanized Coal Mining face are static and simplex and are therefore inadequate for satisfying the complex and dynamic environment of underground coal mines. To overcome this problem, a collaborative mathematical model is established that includes the effects of a dynamic environment. A virtual reality collaborative planning simulator with methods for the three machines is also proposed based on a multi-agent system. According to the dynamic characteristics of the environment, equipment, and technologies, a fully mechanized Unity3D simulator (FMUnitySim) is designed in terms of multiple factors and multiple dimensions. The factors affecting the coordinated operation of the three machines are analyzed and modeled. The communication modes, coordination, and redundant sensing process among multiple agents, which include the shearer agent and the scraper conveyor agent, are also investigated in detail. Using this system, the key parameters of the three machines can be planned and adjusted online to design and distinctly observe the corresponding collaborative simulations of coordinated operation with multiple perspectives and in real time. Tests of different maximum shearer haulage speeds for regular or reverse transporting coal are designed; their key parameters, including the average shearer haulage speed, average follower distance, and average scraper conveyor load, are planned and simulated using FMUnitySim. The optimal parameter combination is obtained by analyzing and comparing the simulation results. The proposed FMUnitySim offers an effective means and theoretical basis for the rapid planning and safe automatic production of a fully mechanized Coal Mining face

From Cleanroom to Desktop: Emerging Micro-Nanofabrication Technology for Biomedical Applications

This review is motivated by the growing demand for low-cost, easy-to-use, compact-size yet powerful micro-nanofabrication technology to address emerging challenges of fundamental biology and translational medicine in regular laboratory settings. Recent advancements in the field benefit considerably from rapidly expanding material selections, ranging from inorganics to organics and from nanoparticles to self-assembled molecules. Meanwhile a great number of novel methodologies, employing off-the-shelf consumer electronics, intriguing interfacial phenomena, bottom-up self-assembly principles, etc., have been implemented to transit micro-nanofabrication from a cleanroom environment to a desktop setup. Furthermore, the latest application of micro-nanofabrication to emerging biomedical research will be presented in detail, which includes point-of-care diagnostics, on-chip cell culture as well as bio-manipulation. While significant progresses have been made in the rapidly growing field, both apparent and unrevealed roadblocks will need to be addressed in the future. We conclude this review by offering our perspectives on the current technical challenges and future research opportunities

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe

24 GHz microwave mode converter optimized for superconducting ECR ion source SECRAL

<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);">Over-sized round waveguide with a diameter about 033 0 mm excited in the TE01 mode has been widely adopted for microwave transmission and coupling to the ECR (Electron Cyclotron Resonance) plasma with the superconducting ECR ion sources operating at 24 or 28 GHz, such as SECRAL and VENUS. In order to study the impact of different microwave modes on ECRH (Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating) efficiency and especially the production of highly charged ions, a set of compact and efficient TE01-HE11 mode conversion and coupling system applicable to 24 GHz SECRAL whose overall length is 330 mm has been designed, fabricated and tested. Good agreements between off-line tests and calculation results have been achieved, which indicates the TE01-HE11 converter meets the application design. The detailed results of the optimized coupling system will be presented in the paper. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.</span

Seismic performance assessment of a pile-supported wharf retrofitted with different slope strengthening strategies

202308 bcchAccepted ManuscriptOthersNational Natural Science Foundation of China; State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering; National Key Research and Development Program of ChinaPublishe

Genetically switched D-lactate productionin <I>Escherichia coli </I>

NatuurwetenskappeMikrobiologiePlease help us populate SUNScholar with the post print version of this article. It can be e-mailed to: [email protected]