Soil Sensor Network

Water management during crop irrigation is a problem for the agricultural industry. To help farmers better maintain water usage, a wireless soil sensor network comprised of a sensor pod and wireless communication has been designed and implemented. It was proven that the sensor pod can be installed 6-8 inches below the ground and communicate up to at least a 6km distance back to the gateway. The senor pod shells have a 2 mm thick shell to prevent the pod from shattering when coming into contact with the ground after being released from the planter, as calculated through the force of impact equations. The sensor pod contains a capacitive soil moisture sensor with an accuracy of 90% and a temperature sensor with an accuracy of ±0.2ºC. Lithium-ion batteries with a 2800 mA-H rating were chosen to ensure the sensor pods would be power-efficient in order to last an entire growing season. The sensor data is transmitted wirelessly through LoRaWAN communication using a RN2903 transceiver and a quarter wavelength, 3” monopole antenna. A Sentrius Laird gateway was used to collect and forward sensor pod data to the Senet dashboard. The Senet dashboard then forwarded the data to a web-based application that farmers can reference to check the status of their fields

Intensive care unit sinks are persistently colonized with multidrug resistant bacteria and mobilizable, resistance-conferring plasmids

Contamination of hospital sinks with microbial pathogens presents a serious potential threat to patients, but our understanding of sink colonization dynamics is largely based on infection outbreaks. Here, we investigate the colonization patterns of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) in intensive care unit sinks and water from two hospitals in the USA and Pakistan collected over 27 months of prospective sampling. Using culture-based methods, we recovered 822 bacterial isolates representing 104 unique species and genomospecies. Genomic analyses revealed long-term colonization b

Simulating the Climate Response to Atmospheric Oxygen Variability in the Phanerozoic

Abstract. The amount of dioxygen (O2) in the atmosphere may have varied from as little as 10 % to as high as 35 % during the Phanerozoic eon (541 Ma–Present). These changes in the amount of O2 are large enough to have lead to changes in atmospheric mass, which may alter the radiative budget of the atmosphere, leading to this mechanism being invoked to explain discrepancies between climate model simulations and proxy reconstructions of past climates. Here we present the first fully 3D numerical model simulations to investigate the climate impacts of changes in O2 during different climate states using the HadGEM3-AO and HadCM3-BL models. We show that simulations with an increase in O2 content result in increased global mean surface air temperature under conditions of a pre-industrial Holocene climate state, in agreement with idealised 1D and 2D modelling studies. We demonstrate the mechanism behind the warming is complex and involves trade-off between a number of factors. Increasing atmospheric O2 leads to a reduction in incident shortwave radiation at Earth's surface due to Rayleigh scattering, a cooling effect. However, there is a competing warming effect due to an increase in the pressure broadening of greenhouse gas absorption lines and dynamical feedbacks, which alter the meridional heat transport of the ocean, warming polar regions and cooling tropical regions. Case studies from past climates are investigated using HadCM3-BL which show that in the warmest climate states, increasing oxygen may lead to a temperature decrease, as the equilibrium climate sensitivity is lower. For the Maastrichtian (72.1–66.0 Ma), increasing oxygen content leads to a better agreement with proxy reconstructions of surface temperature at that time irrespective of the carbon dioxide content. For the Asselian (298.9–295.0 Ma), increasing oxygen content leads to a warmer global mean surface temperature and reduced carbon storage on land, suggesting that high oxygen content may have been a contributing factor in preventing a Snowball Earth during this period of the early Permian. These climate model simulations reconcile the surface temperature response to oxygen content changes across the hierarchy of model complexity and highlight the broad range of Earth system feedbacks that need to be accounted for when considering the climate response to changes in atmospheric oxygen content. </jats:p

Differentiated, Integrated, and Overlooked

Take a quick look at the competitive makeup of health care organizations in any single market in the United States, and you are likely to find at least one, if not several, hospital-based health care systems that serve as the primary and dominant health care providers within their local communities. Indeed, the existence of these entities, most of which are clusters of two or more acute care hospitals and other associated health care businesses, and the prominent role they play in the US health care system may seem obvious to the casual observer. Ironically, despite their importance as delivery modalities and their potential effects on competition and policy, these distinctive organizational forms—the clusters—are strikingly understudied. The gaps in knowledge appear even at the most basic levels of analysis, including their measurement and conceptualization. What are these systems? How did they come to exist? And how does their emergence and development speak to our understanding of organizations, organizational forms, and organization theory

Recharging the Treasure Valley Aquifer

The topic is how to best recharge the aquifer in the Treasure Valley and make it a sustainable resource for the valley in the coming decades. After much research and discussion it was settled upon that an Aquifer Storage and Recovery System or ASR would be the best solution to our problem. The Treasure Valley Aquifer covers almost all of the Boise river basin from the area of Lucky Peak Reservoir to the Idaho Oregon state border and from the area around Emmett, ID to the area around CJ Strike Dam south of Kuna, ID. It will take an investment in equipment and possibly drilling new wells and installing storage tanks but it is easily done and would allow for the valley to get through droughts in a better way. ASR allows for simple storage and recovery of ground water that is well secured from tampering and contamination from chemicals and would allow for less urban draw upon the Boise River during the summer months. With the growth and projected growth the Valley will need some way to store water for upcoming times of drought so we do not destroy the resources that allow for the city to thrive

Short-Term Space-Use Patterns of Translocated Mojave Desert Tortoise in Southern California.

Increasingly, renewable energy comprises a larger share of global energy production. Across the western United States, public lands are being developed to support renewable energy production. Where there are conflicts with threatened or endangered species, translocation can be used in an attempt to mitigate negative effects. For the threatened Mojave desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), we sought to compare habitat- and space-use patterns between short-distance translocated, resident, and control groups. We tested for differences in home range size based on utilization distributions and used linear mixed-effects models to compare space-use intensity, while controlling for demographic and environmental variables. In addition, we examined mean movement distances as well as home range overlap between years and for male and female tortoises in each study group. During the first active season post-translocation, home range size was greater and space-use intensity was lower for translocated tortoises than resident and control groups. These patterns were not present in the second season. In both years, there was no difference in home range size or space-use intensity between control and resident groups. Translocation typically resulted in one active season of questing followed by a second active season characterized by space-use patterns that were indistinguishable from control tortoises. Across both years, the number of times a tortoise was found in a burrow was positively related to greater space-use intensity. Minimizing the time required for translocated tortoises to exhibit patterns similar to non-translocated individuals may have strong implications for conservation by reducing exposure to adverse environmental conditions and predation. With ongoing development, our results can be used to guide future efforts aimed at understanding how translocation strategies influence patterns of animal space use

Estimates of mean percentage overlap of 95% utilization distributions between resident and translocated male and female tortoises monitored during the 2012 and 2013 active seasons combined (approximately April through October).

<p>TT = overlap between tortoises in the translocated study group, RR = overlap between tortoises in the resident study group, and TR = overlap between tortoises in the translocated study group with those in the resident group. Grey bars represent overlap of males with other males and white bars show the percentage of overlap between females. Note that males in all comparisons had greater overlap than did females and those tortoises in the translocated study group had greater overlap for both sexes than in the other comparisons.</p