Foraminiferal biostratigraphy and palaeoenvironmental analysis of the mid-Cretaceous limestones in the southern Tibetan plateau

This study of mid-Cretaceous foraminifera from the Linzhou, the Coqen and the Xigaze Basins in the southern Tibetan Plateau has provided the first high resolution biostratigraphic description of these limestones and interpretation of their paleoenvironmental settings. The fossil assemblages are dominated primarily by orbitolinid larger benthic foraminifera. We reassessed the identification of many taxa, dividing the South Tibetan sedimentary successions of Aptian to Early Cenomanian age into eight new foraminiferal biozones (TLK1 a–h): (i) (TLK1a) a shallow reefal environment corresponding to planktonic foraminifera zone (PZ) Aptian 1–2, dominated by Palorbitolina and Praeorbitolina spp.; (ii) (TLK1b) a transgressive, reefal to forereefal environment corresponding to PZ Aptian 3, characterized by the first appearance of Mesorbitolina parva; (iii) (TLK1c) a shallow reefal to backreef environment of Late Aptian (PZ Aptian 4) age, characterized by the first appearance of Mesorbitolina texana; (iv) (TLK1d) a transgressive phase of forereef to an inner neritic environment of Albian (PZ Albian 1) age, characterized by the first appearance of Cuneolina pavonia; (v) (TLKe) an open-marine reefal environment of Albian (PZ Albian 2) age, with assemblages dominated by flat to slightly conical orbitolinids, characterized by the first appearance of Palorbitolinoides hedini; (vi) (TLK1f) a shallow, open-marine reefal to forereef environment of Middle Albian (PZ Albian 3) age, dominated by flat and convex orbitolinids, and characterized by the first appearance of Mesorbitolina aperta; (vii) (TLK1g) a reefal to forereef environment of end Albian (PZ Albian 4) age, characterized by the appearance of Conicorbitolina cf. cuvillieri and Pseudochoffatella cuvillieri, and in which Early Aptian species of Praeorbitolina cf. wienandsi have been recorded for the first time from the Late Albian; (viii) (TLK1h) a shallow reefal environment of Early Cenomanian age characterized by the first appearance of Conicorbitolina sp. A and Nezzazata conica. The eight new biozones provided biostratigraphic correlation of the Langshan, Sangzugang and Takena Formations in the Lhasa terrane, while the observed evolution of the environmentally controlled microfacies corresponds closely with the current, inferred global sea-level variation of the period. The almost continuous sedimentary sequences studied allowed previously defined orbitolinid phylogenetic linages to be confirmed

Characterizing changes in soybean spectral response curves with breeding advancements

Citation: Christenson, Brent S., William T. Schapaugh, Nan An, Kevin P. Price, and Allan K. Fritz. “Characterizing Changes in Soybean Spectral Response Curves with Breeding Advancements.” Crop Science 54, no. 4 (2014): 1585–97. https://doi.org/10.2135/cropsci2013.08.0575.Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) crop yield has steadily increased in the past 60 yr due in part to breeding advances. Relations between canopy spectral reflectance to specific plant functions may help characterize the impact of breeding on soybean cultivar development. The objectives of this study were to: 1) find specific regions of the soybean canopy spectral reflectance response curves that show genotypic differences; and 2) determine the effect of the breeding process on spectral reflectance response curves of soybean cultivars. Canopy spectral reflectance measurements were taken on 20 maturity group III (MGIII) and 20 maturity group IV (MGIV) soybean cultivars ranging in release year from 1923 to 2010 (arranged in a randomized complete block design) in 2011 and 2012 in Manhattan, KS. Large genotypic differences were found among cultivars, especially in the green (500 nm–600 nm), red (600 nm–700 nm), and red-edge (700nm–730 nm) portions of the spectra. Reflectance in the visible (VIS) (400–700 nm), red-edge (700–730 nm), and near-infrared (NIR) (730–1305) portions of the spectra varied with year of release (YOR) among cultivars. The more recently released cultivars tended to have lower reflectance values in the VIS and red-edge spectra portions and higher values in the NIR portion of the spectra than earlier-released cultivars. Results also indicate that spectral reflectance in the NIR portion of the spectra are highly confounded with maturity and other agronomic traits. These results indicate that breeding advancement has had an impact on canopy spectral reflectance curves and the VIS and red-edge portions of the spectra may be a source of variation for further cultivar development and advancement

Efficient Generalized Spherical CNNs

Many problems across computer vision and the natural sciences require the analysis of spherical data, for which representations may be learned efficiently by encoding equivariance to rotational symmetries. We present a generalized spherical CNN framework that encompasses various existing approaches and allows them to be leveraged alongside each other. The only existing non-linear spherical CNN layer that is strictly equivariant has complexity OpC2L5q, where C is a measure of representational capacity and L the spherical harmonic bandlimit. Such a high computational cost often prohibits the use of strictly equivariant spherical CNNs. We develop two new strictly equivariant layers with reduced complexity OpCL4q and OpCL3 log Lq, making larger, more expressive models computationally feasible. Moreover, we adopt efficient sampling theory to achieve further computational savings. We show that these developments allow the construction of more expressive hybrid models that achieve state-of-the-art accuracy and parameter efficiency on spherical benchmark problems

T1 Mapping Detects Pharmacological Retardation of Diffuse Cardiac Fibrosis in Mouse Pressure-Overload Hypertrophy

Background: Diffuse interstitial fibrosis is present in diverse cardiomyopathies and associated with poor prognosis. We investigated whether magnetic resonance imaging-based T1 mapping could quantify the induction and pharmacological suppression of diffuse cardiac fibrosis in murine pressure-overload hypertrophy. / Methods and Results: Mice were subjected to transverse aortic constriction or sham surgery. The angiotensin receptor blocker losartan was given to half the animals. Cine-magnetic resonance imaging performed at 7 and 28 days showed hypertrophy and remodeling and systolic and diastolic dysfunction in transverse aortic constriction groups as expected. Late gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging revealed focal signal enhancement at the inferior right ventricular insertion point of transverse aortic constriction mice concordant with the foci of fibrosis in histology. The extracellular volume fraction, calculated from pre- and postcontrast T1 measurements, was elevated by transverse aortic constriction and showed direct linear correlation with picrosirius red collagen volume fraction, thus confirming the suitability of extracellular volume fraction as an in vivo measure of diffuse fibrosis. Treatment with losartan reduced left ventricular dysfunction and prevented increased extracellular volume fraction, indicating that T1 mapping is sensitive to pharmacological prevention of fibrosis. / Conclusions: Magnetic resonance imaging can detect diffuse and focal cardiac fibrosis in a clinically relevant animal model of pressure overload and is sensitive to pharmacological reduction of fibrosis by angiotensin receptor blockade. Thus, T1 mapping can be used to assess antifibrotic therapeutic strategies

Primed Infusion with Delayed Equilibrium of Gd.DTPA for Enhanced Imaging of Small Pulmonary Metastases.

To use primed infusions of the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent Gd.DTPA (Magnevist), to achieve an equilibrium between blood and tissue (eqMRI). This may increase tumor Gd concentrations as a novel cancer imaging methodology for the enhancement of small tumor nodules within the low signal-to-noise background of the lung

Oral Vitamin C supplements to prevent and treat acute upper respiratory tract infections

This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows: To assess the effectiveness of oral vitamin C supplements to prevent and treat acute upper respiratory tract infections in adults and children

Radiation effects in glasses used for immobilization of high-level waste and plutonium disposition

This paper is a comprehensive review of the state-of-knowledge in the field of radiation effects in glasses that are to be used for the immobilization of high-level nuclear waste and plutonium disposition. The current status and issues in the area of radiation damage processes, defect generation, microstructure development, theoretical methods and experimental methods ase reviewed. Questions of fundamental and technological interest that offer opportunities for research are identified

How important are aerosol–fog interactions for the successful modelling of nocturnal radiation fog?

Forecasting and modelling fog formation, development, and dissipation is a significant challenge. Fog dynamics involve subtle interactions between small‐scale turbulence, radiative transfer and microphysics. Recent studies have highlighted the role of aerosol and related cloud microphysical properties in the evolution of fog. In this article, we investigate this role using very high‐resolution large eddy simulations coupled with a newly developed multi‐moment cloud microphysics scheme (CASIM), which has been designed to model aerosol–cloud interactions. The simulation results demonstrate the sensitivity of the fog structure to the properties of the aerosol population (e.g. number concentration). This study also demonstrates the importance of the treatment of aerosol activation in fog formation and discusses future work required to improve the representation of aerosol–fog interactions for simulations of fog

Katian (Upper Ordovician) conodonts from Wales

Middle and upper Katian conodonts were previously known in the British Isles from relatively small collections obtained from a few localities. The present study is mainly based on 17 samples containing more than 17 000 conodont elements from an approximately 14-m-thick succession of the Sholeshook Limestone Formation in a road cut near Whitland, South Wales, that yielded a diverse fauna of more than 40 taxa. It is dominated by representatives of Amorphognathus, Aphelognathus/Plectodina and Eocarniodus along with several coniform taxa. Representatives of Decoriconus, Istorinus and Sagittodontina are reported from the Ordovician of UK for the first time. The fauna is a typical representative of the British Province of the Atlantic Realm and includes a mixture of taxa of North American, Baltoscandic and Mediterranean affinities along with pandemic species. Based on the presence of many elements of Amorphognathus ordovicicus and some morphologically advanced specimens of Amorphognathus superbus, the Sholeshook Limestone Formation is referred to the lower A. ordovicicus Zone. Most of the unit is also coeval with Zone 2 of the Cautleyan Stage in the British regional stage classification, and stage slice Ka3 of the middle Katian Stage in the global stratigraphical classification, an age assignment consistent with data from trilobites, graptolites and chitinozoans. The unusually large collection of M elements of Amorphognathus provides insight into the complex morphological variation in this element of some Katian species of this genus. The Sholeshook conodont fauna is similar to those of the Crug and Birdshill limestones, but differs in several respects from the slightly older ones from the Caradocian type area in the Welsh Borderland. Although having some species in common, the Sholeshook conodont fauna clearly differs from coeval Baltoscandic faunas and is even more different in composition compared with equivalent North American Midcontinent faunas