Field Testing of the Overflow Erosion of Rhone River Levees

It is important to quantify the soil resistance against erosion caused by the overflow of dikes and levees. Small-scale tests are not recommended, as they do not provide a correct representation of the actual soil in place and do not take into account the geometry of the structure. For this reason, the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) developed an on-site overflow device in 2015. The procedure followed is based on ASTM-D6460 standard. Two tests were performed in May 2022 on a Compagnie Nationale du Rhône (CNR) dike near Avignon (France). The dike is 6.2 m high; the core is mainly made of sandy silts. The toe is covered by a gravel shoulder which forms a berm. The first test was carried out on the intact soil: the core covered by a natural grass on the upper part, and the gravel fill without grass in the lower part of the slope. The test consisted of carrying out a flow in a channel of 1 m wide and 25 m long, in 12 steps of 30 min (6 hours of flow in total). The second test was carried out on the soil stripped of the vegetation cover in order to study the soil of the upper part of the embankment, made up of compacted sandy silt and sandy gravel. The test consisted of carrying out a flow in a 60 cm wide and 20 m long channel, in 9 steps of 30 min (4.5 hours of flow in total). The test campaigns were carried out with flows ranging from 12 to 140 l/s per linear meter, corresponding to a crest water depth ranging from 4 to 18 cm. On test 1, no significant erosion of the natural grass cover was observed. A small erosion pit 20 cm deep was observed on the compacted gravel berm surface. A scour hole of approximately 1.10 m in depth for a volume of 4.2 m3 was observed in the downstream gravel fill that cover the lower part of the embankment. On test 2, the compacted sandy silt layer was eroded a few centimeters by the surface flow. The sandy gravel layer was eroded from the first flow (5.7 cm of water height at the crest), which led to the beginning of a breach (deepening) over 10 m long, of 1.30 m maximum depth, 1.80 m maximum width and 9 m3 of eroded soil. The first result of these in situ overflow tests is that not all of these observations were predictable from the erosion tests previously performed in the laboratory and in situ (Jet and Het erosion tests). The second result is the remarkable resistance of the natural grass cover

Relative Contributions of Intrinsic Structural–Functional Constraints and Translation Rate to the Evolution of Protein-Coding Genes

A long-standing assumption in evolutionary biology is that the evolution rate of protein-coding genes depends, largely, on specific constraints that affect the function of the given protein. However, recent research in evolutionary systems biology revealed unexpected, significant correlations between evolution rate and characteristics of genes or proteins that are not directly related to specific protein functions, such as expression level and protein–protein interactions. The strongest connections were consistently detected between protein sequence evolution rate and the expression level of the respective gene. A recent genome-wide proteomic study revealed an extremely strong correlation between the abundances of orthologous proteins in distantly related animals, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. We used the extensive protein abundance data from this study along with short-term evolutionary rates (ERs) of orthologous genes in nematodes and flies to estimate the relative contributions of structural–functional constraints and the translation rate to the evolution rate of protein-coding genes. Together the intrinsic constraints and translation rate account for approximately 50% of the variance of the ERs. The contribution of constraints is estimated to be 3- to 5-fold greater than the contribution of translation rate

A probabilistic model for gene content evolution with duplication, loss, and horizontal transfer

We introduce a Markov model for the evolution of a gene family along a phylogeny. The model includes parameters for the rates of horizontal gene transfer, gene duplication, and gene loss, in addition to branch lengths in the phylogeny. The likelihood for the changes in the size of a gene family across different organisms can be calculated in O(N+hM^2) time and O(N+M^2) space, where N is the number of organisms, $h$ is the height of the phylogeny, and M is the sum of family sizes. We apply the model to the evolution of gene content in Preoteobacteria using the gene families in the COG (Clusters of Orthologous Groups) database

Field testing of the overflow erosion of Rhone river levees

International audienceIt is important to quantify the soil resistance against erosion caused by the overflow of dikes and levees. Small-scale tests are not recommended, as they do not provide a correct representation of the actual soil in place and do not take into account the geometry of the structure. For this reason, the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) developed an on-site overflow device in 2015. The procedure followed is based on ASTM-D6460 standard. Two tests were performed in May 2022 on a Compagnie Nationale du Rhône (CNR) dike near Avignon (France). The dike is 6.2 m high; the core ismainly made of sandy silts. The toe is covered by a gravel shoulder which forms a berm. The first test was carried out on the intact soil: the core covered by a natural grass on the upper part, and the gravel fill without grass in the lower part of the slope. The test consisted of carrying out a flow in a channel of 1 m wide and 25 m long, in 12 steps of 30 min (6 hours of flow in total).The second test was carried out on the soil stripped of the vegetation cover in order to study the soil of the upper part of the embankment, made up of compacted sandy silt and sandy gravel. The test consisted of carrying out a flow in a 60 cm wide and 20 m long channel, in 9 steps of 30 min (4.5 hours of flow in total). The test campaigns were carried out with flows ranging from 12 to 140 l/s per linear meter, corresponding to a crest water depth ranging from 4 to 18 cm. On test 1, no significant erosion of the natural grass cover was observed. A small erosion pit 20 cm deep was observed on the compacted gravel berm surface. A scour hole of approximately 1.10 m in depth for a volume of 4.2 m 3 was observed in the downstream gravel fill that cover the lower part of the embankment. On test 2, the compacted sandy silt layer waseroded a few centimeters by the surface flow. The sandy gravel layer was eroded from the first flow (5.7 cm of water height at the crest), which led to the beginning of a breach (deepening) over 10 m long, of 1.30 m maximum depth, 1.80 m maximum width and 9 m 3 of eroded soil. The first result of these in situ overflow tests is that not all of these observations were predictable from the erosion tests previously performed in the laboratory and in situ (Jet and Het erosion tests). The second result is the remarkable resistance of the natural grass cover

Process evaluation of a community outpatient program treating substance use disorders

Addiction treatment can improve its impact by providing evidence-based care for the variety of problems that accompany substance use disorders. We conducted a retrospective evaluation of a new treatment program in California that aimed at providing multifaceted services through affiliated licensed and certified outpatient providers. The process evaluation used a logic model, focusing on program inputs, activities, and outputs, to understand the services received by the initial 18 clients who entered treatment. Outcomes for these patients were not assessed. Results indicated that clients received a variety of services: On average clients contracted for 118 treatment sessions and received 143 sessions. Among the many types of services provided, the most frequently received were integrative healthcare (averaging 42 sessions), group therapy (32 sessions), and individual therapy (32 sessions). This logic-model process evaluation indicated that a range of services were provided. The comprehensive approach may have promise for extending addiction treatment beyond its usual boundaries