Uncle Harve

Short Story Contest, First Plac

Density and Germination Characteristics of Seeds of \u3cem\u3eBromus tectorum\u3c/em\u3e in Field Seedbanks

Bromus tectorum is a highly invasive exotic weed that has spread over millions of hectares of grazing land in the semi-arid regions of far western North America. The annual grass is an important grazing resource, but herbage production is highly variable among years, depending on the amount and periodicity of precipitation. When production is abundant, the accumulations of fine-textured, early-maturing herbage increase the chance of ignition and the rate of spread of wildfires. On certain years the area burned in such fires may be several million hectares. Such fires destroy forage resources and degrade watershed quality on extensive areas as well as threaten human property and lives. Bromus tectorum plants can produce a very large number of caryopses. Caryopses that fail to find a safe site for germination acquire a dormancy in the field that leads to the building of large seedbanks (Young et al., 1968). It is critical for managers to have estimates of the size and extent of Bromus tectorum seedbanks during the planning and implementation of pasture restoration treatments. Our objective was to obtain an estimate of Bromus tectorum seedbank size and germinability through bioassay of samples obtained from a variety of plant communities and to relate this information to site characteristics easily ascertained by pasture managers

Perennial Grass Emergence and Establishment Using a Micro-Nutrient Seed Treatment

Resource managers have become increasingly frustrated with restoration seeding failures in semi-arid and arid environments. In response to this frustration, some resource managers have attempted restoration seedings using non-conventional methodologies such as propriety seed treatments. The exact nature of these propriety treatments is often confidential, but they generally consist of either nutrient or micro-nutrient enrichment or inoculation with unspecified micro-organisms. One of the more popular propriety seed treatment used in Nevada, USA, is GERM-N-8®. This product is a suspension of nutrients (N 2%, P 14%, and K 3%) applied to dry seed. Resource managers often report excellent success using these propriety treatments, but lack of experimental design make it impossible to assign cause and effect

How to test and deliver a Universal Basic Income

Charlie Young explores how we can test a universal basic income in the UK and beyond. Drawing on research for the RSA, he maps a version of this idea that brings together a heterogeneous field of proposals, and explains that the quality of experimental design impacts on how well the policy is understood and whether it is supported by the public

Phase-Shift Cyclic-Delay Diversity for MIMO OFDM Systems

Phase-shift cyclic-delay diversity (PS CDD) scheme and space-frequency-block-code (SFBC) PS CDD are developed for multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The proposed PS CDD scheme preserves the diversity advantage of traditional CDD in uncorrelated multiantenna channels, and furthermore removes frequency-selective nulling problem of the traditional CDD in correlated multiantenna channels

Link adaptation for energy-efficient uplink coordinated multi-point receptions

We investigate link adaptation methods for energy-efficient uplink coordinated multi-point receptions. A system model for practical cellular networks is introduced, in which only a subset of base stations participates in cooperative link adaptation and cooperative decoding for uplink transmissions. To cope with channel-state-information (CSI) mismatch incurred from the system model, link adaptation controllers implementing rate back-off from the maximum achievable rate calculated with the mismatched CSI is introduced. From analytical and simulation results, it is concluded that under a certain condition, the rate back-off does not help to improve energy efficiency, where, for example, the condition holds when the CSI errors are modeled as additive Gaussian random variables. Furthermore, energy efficiency of multi-user spatial-division-multiple-access uplink transmissions is studied in isolated cooperative cellular networks. In this scenario, an analytical expression for the optimal link adaptation achieving maximum energy efficiency is obtained

Link adaptation for energy-efficient uplink coordinated multi-point receptions

We investigate link adaptation methods for energy-efficient uplink coordinated multi-point receptions. A system model for practical cellular networks is introduced, in which only a subset of base stations participates in cooperative link adaptation and cooperative decoding for uplink transmissions. To cope with channel-state-information (CSI) mismatch incurred from the system model, link adaptation controllers implementing rate back-off from the maximum achievable rate calculated with the mismatched CSI is introduced. From analytical and simulation results, it is concluded that under a certain condition, the rate back-off does not help to improve energy efficiency, where, for example, the condition holds when the CSI errors are modeled as additive Gaussian random variables. Furthermore, energy efficiency of multi-user spatial-division-multiple-access uplink transmissions is studied in isolated cooperative cellular networks. In this scenario, an analytical expression for the optimal link adaptation achieving maximum energy efficiency is obtained

Negotiating jurisdictional boundaries in response to new genetic possibilities in breast cancer care:The creation of an 'oncogenetic taskscape'

Changes in the nature and structure of healthcare pathways have implications for healthcare professionals' jurisdictional boundaries. The introduction of treatment focused BRCA1 and 2 genetic testing (TFGT) for newly diagnosed patients with breast cancer offers a contemporary example of pathway change brought about by technological advancements in gene testing and clinical evidence, and reflects the cultural shift towards genomics. Forming part of an ethnographically informed study of patient and practitioner experiences of TFGT at a UK teaching hospital, this paper focuses on the impact of a proposal to pilot a mainstreamed TFGT pathway on healthcare professionals' negotiations of professional jurisdiction. Based upon semi-structured interviews (n = 19) with breast surgeons, medical oncologists and members of the genetics team, alongside observations of breast multidisciplinary team meetings, during the time leading up to the implementation of the pilot, we describe how clinicians responded to the anticipated changes associated with mainstreaming. Interviews suggest that mainstreaming the breast cancer pathway, and the associated jurisdictional reconfigurations, had advocates as well as detractors. Medical oncologists championed the plans, viewing this adaptation in care provision and their professional role as a logical next step. Breast surgeons, however, regarded mainstreaming as an unfeasible expansion of their workload and questioned the relevance of TFGT to their clinical practice. The genetics team, who introduced the pilot, appeared cautiously optimistic about the potential changes. Drawing on sociological understandings of the negotiation of professional jurisdictions our work contributes a timely, micro-level examination of the responses among clinicians as they worked to renegotiate professional boundaries in response to the innovative application of treatment-focused BRCA testing in cancer care – a local and dynamic process which we refer to as an ‘oncogenetic taskscape in the making’

Demonstration of a Posterior Atrial Input to the Atrioventricular Node During Sustained Anterograde Slow Pathway Conduction

AbstractObjectives. This study sought to demonstrate electrophysiologic evidence for the existence of different anatomic atrial input sites of fast and slow conduction pathways in patients with dual atrioventricular (AV) node physiology.Background. Although a separate posterior exit site exists for a retrograde slow AV node pathway, it remains unresolved whether a separate atrial input site into the AV node actually exists in patients with dual anterograde AV node pathway physiology.Methods. In 10 patients with dual AV node pathway physiology, atrial pacing at three chosen drive cycle lengths (DCL1, DCL2 and DCL3) was performed at an anterior site (A) just above the His bundle recording site and at a posterior atrial site (P) just below the coronary sinus ostium. DCL3 was chosen as the one cycle length that resulted in a long AH interval consistent with slow pathway conduction. The stimulus to His bundle conduction times (SH) at both sites (SHPand SHA, respectively) and their differences (ΔSH = SHP− SHA) at each of the three drive cycle lengths were analyzed.Results. The mean ± SD ΔSH values for DCL1 and DCL2 measured 9 ± 16 and 8 ± 18 ms, respectively, and the mean ΔSH value at DCL3 measured −34 ± 24 ms, which was significantly different from the mean ΔSH values at DCL1 and DCL2 (both p < 0.05).Conclusions. The significant change in the ΔSH (SHP− SHA) value during slow pathway conduction could be accounted for by a corresponding shift of anterograde input from an anterior to a posterior entry site to the AV node. These findings support the notion that a separate anterograde entry site of the slow pathway does exist in patients with dual AV node pathway physiology