Century Services Year I Evaluation Report on the Social Business Enterprise Model

The Mid-America Institute on Poverty is conducting a three year (12/30/1999 - 12/30/2002) evaluation of Century Services employment activities and social business enterprise model. The goals of the evaluation are to provide: a clear understanding of the social business enterprise partnership model, real time information on the enterprise's impact on employees so that management may make adjustments in implementation as necessary, and outcomes-based understanding of the Century Services model as an intervention designed to improve the attitude of employees toward work, help employees develop work skills, and increase the labor force attachment of hard to employ persons

Phytoplankton and Zooplankton Composition, Abundance and Distribution and Trophic Interactions: Offshore Region of Lakes Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, 1985

During the spring, summer and autumn of 1985, the structure of the phytoplankton and zooplankton communities in the offshore waters of Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Erie was monitored. In Lake Michigan, the presence of an oligotrophic rotifer association and the oligotrophic crustacean indicator species Diaptomus sicilis and Limnaealanus macrurus, the predominance of mesotrophic diatom species, and the abundance and biomass of plankton between that of Lake Huron and Lake Erie suggest that the offshore waters are currently in the oligotrophic-mesotrophic range. In Lake Huron, the presence of an oligotrophic rotifer assemblage, the domination of the calanoid copepods, the abundance of the oligotrophic Diaptomus sicilis, and relatively low zooplankton abundance suggest that the offshore waters continue to be oligotrophic. In Lake Erie, phytoplankton and zooplankton species composition and biomass suggest a more productive status than Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Data support the classification of the Western Basin as meso-eutrophic, the Central Basin as mesotrophic and the Eastern Basin as oligo-mesotrophic. Significant changes in the composition of the zooplankton community with the appearance of the large cladoceran Daphnia pulicaria in Lake Erie are attributed to a change in planktivory. The planktivorous emerald and spottail shiners have dramatically declined in abundance, possibly due to a resurgence of the walleye and the salmonine stocking programs

Epilimnetic Phytoplankton and Zooplankton Biomass and Species Composition In Lake Ontario, 1986 to 1992.

Results of the Food Web Workshop II (Hartig et al. 1991) indicated that Lake Ontario may be the next Great Lake after Lake Michigan to demonstrate the effects of changing nutrient levels and food web controls. Total phosphorus loads into the lake declined by 80% since 1972 and have approached the target loading set by the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreements between the United States and Canada. Spring total phosphorus levels declined from 25 to 14 IlglL between 1971 and the late 1980s and are currently below 10 Ilg/L. Although declines in chlorophyll-a were relatively low and transparency has not changed appreciably, there is some evidence that algal biomass has declined. Besides changes in nutrient concentrations, changes in fish abundance has occurred as alewife, slimy sculpin and smelt biomass have decreased, while stocking of coho and chinook salmon increased from 40,000 to 5.4 million from 1968 to 1984 (Hartig et al.. 1991). In 1993, the rate of salmonine stocking was reduced (Luckey 1994). These changes in nutrient status and in the food web of the lake, and the potential for further appreciable change in the biota of Lake Ontario, have directed attention to the long-term data sets of phytoplankton and zooplankton collected by the Great Lakes National Program Office of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency as indicators of quantitative and compositional changes in plankton community structure. Phytoplankton, which have short carbon turnover rates, are sensitive to water quality conditions and to grazing by zooplankton and thus respond rapidly to perturbations of the lake ecosystem. The determination of phytoplankton abundance and species composition is one method to trace long-term changes in lakes (Munawar and Munawar 1982, Makarewicz 1993, Makarewicz and Bertram 1991). Similarly, whether aquatic ecosystems are perturbed by changes in the top predator fish that 2 cascade down the food web or by nutrients or by other stressors that are expressed from the first trophic level upward, the zooplankton are sensitive integrators of such changes (McNaught and Buzzard 1973). They have also proved useful for complementing phytoplankton data to assess the effects of water quality (Gannon and Sternberger 1978) and fish populations on biota (e.g. Brooks and Dodson 1965). The phytoplankton and zooplankton data sets collected by EPA\u27s Great Lakes National Program Office provide such information and support the International J oint Commission\u27s call for more and better information through monitoring and research on components of the Lake Ontario food web (Hartig et al. 1991). In this study, data about the 1986-92 spring and summer phytoplankton and zooplankton assemblages make it possible to examine the historical, geographic, and seasonal relationships prevailing in Lake Ontario and to compare them, where possible, to previous studies

THE OAK ORCHARD SOIL WATER ASSESSMENT TOOL A decision support system for watershed management Part 1: Calibration and Validation

A hydrologic model (SWAT) was developed and calibrated for the Oak Orchard watershed to evaluate sources and sinks of sediment and nutrients. The model included the most important anthropogenic features that impacted water flow and nonpoint source pollution in the watershed. These features included reservoirs at the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge, Waterport and Medina; point sources such as the Erie Canal, US Gypsum, Allen Canning, wastewater treatment plants at Medina, Oakfield and Elba, and tiledrains at the mucklands, an intensely farmed area that was drained to combat malaria in the 19th century. The model included point sources for every subbasin so that the effects of future point sources can be evaluated. The model was calibrated for waterflow and sediment using observed loading data collected by Makarewicz and Lewis (2000, 2009). To achieve the proper water balance observed at the watershed, seasonal inputs of water had to be added from the Erie Canal and the Onondaga escarpment. This water came from outside of the watershed. The resulting calibration had a Nash-Sutcliffe (NS) prediction efficiency of 0.81 for the calibration period (1997-1999). The total cumulative sediment loading was within 2%, of observed and the monthly sediment loads fell within the uncertainty of the observed data (NS=0.31). Cumulative total phosphorous loads were within 2% of observed and the NS prediction efficiency was 0.91. The model validated very poorly in the 2008 time period primarily because of inaccurate precipitation data and incorrect groundwater fluxes from the escarpment. Further research needs to evaluate the timing and amount of groundwater flow from the escarpment because it has a significant impact on monthly flows in this watershed. It is likely that other watersheds that are nestled against the Onondaga escarpment are impacted by spring flows from this geologic feature

Development of an automated DNA purification module using a micro-fabricated pillar chip

We present a fully automated DNA purification module comprised of a micro-fabricated chip and sequential injection analysis system that is designed for use within autonomous instruments that continuously monitor the environment for the presence of biological threat agents. The chip has an elliptical flow channel containing a bed (3.5 &times; 3.5 mm) of silica-coated pillars with height, width and center-to-center spacing of 200, 15, and 30 &micro;m, respectively, which provides a relatively large surface area (ca. 3 cm2) for DNA capture in the presence of chaotropic agents. We have characterized the effect of various fluidic parameters on extraction performance, including sample input volume, capture flow rate, and elution volume. The flow-through design made the pillar chip completely reusable; carryover was eliminated by flushing lines with sodium hypochlorite and deionized water between assays. A mass balance was conducted to determine the fate of input DNA not recovered in the eluent. The device was capable of purifying and recovering Bacillus anthracis genomic DNA (input masses from 0.32 to 320 pg) from spiked environmental aerosol samples, for subsequent analysis using polymerase chain reaction-based assays.<br /

Aerogen Bonds Formed Between AeOF2 (Ae = Kr, Xe) and Diaziness: Comparisons Between σ-Hole and π-Hole Complexes

The interaction between KrOF2 or XeOF2 and the 1,2, 1,3, and 1,4 diazines is characterized chiefly by a Kr/Xe···N aerogen bond, as deduced from ab initio calculations. The most stable dimers take advantage of the σ-hole on the aerogen atom, wherein the two molecules lie in the same plane. The interaction is quite strong, as much as 18 kcal mol-1. A second class of dimer geometry utilizes the π-hole above the aerogen atom in an approximate perpendicular arrangement of the two monomers; these structures are not as strongly bound: 6-8 kcal mol-1. Both sorts of dimers contain auxiliary CH···F H-bonds which contribute to their stability, but even with their removal, the aerogen bond energy remains as high as 14 kcal mol-1. The nature and strength of each specific interaction is confirmed and quantified by AIM, NCI, NBO, and electron density shift patterns. There is not a great deal of sensitivity to the identity of either the aerogen atom or the position of the two N atoms in the diazine

Cathepsins B, L and cystatin C in cyst fluid of ovarian tumors

Contains fulltext : 88032.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)INTRODUCTION: In cancer, an extracellular and membrane bound localization of cathepsins contribute to the invasion of tumor cells at the basement membrane. METHODS: This is the first study that explored levels of cathepsins B (CatB), L (CatL) and their inhibitor cystatin C (CysC) in the cystic fluid (CF) of ovarian tumors (n = 110). RESULTS: CF contained considerable amounts of CatB, CatL and CysC. Remarkable differences in CatB and CatL and CysC CF levels were found between different histopathological tumor subtypes. Levels of CatB and CysC were significantly higher in CF of malignant serous tumors compared to those found in benign serous tumors (p = 0.010 and p = 0.001 respectively), whereas levels of CatL were significantly higher in CF of malignant mucinous tumors compared to those found in benign mucinous tumors (p = 0.035). CatB and CysC showed a strong correlation in the group of patients with malignant serous tumors (p < 0.001; R = 0.921) suggesting that the increase in CatB might be balanced by a corresponding increase in CysC. CONCLUSION: Further studies are warranted to investigate cathepsins as possible prognostic biomarkers for the aggressiveness of ovarian cancer.1 mei 201