Establishing and managing perennial grasses for bioenergy

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) is native to every U.S. state east of the Rocky Mountains, is the most advanced herbaceous perennial bioenergy feedstock, and best management practices (BMPs) have been developed for bioenergy production in most agro-ecoregions. Additionally, big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans), and sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula) are native perennial warm-season grasses and are promising bioenergy feedstocks, especially when planted in low-diversity mixtures. BMPs have been developed for big bluestem, indiangrass, and sideoats grama specifically for the Great Plains and Midwest. Perennial grasses likely will be grown on cropland that is marginally productive for row crops, similar to land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)

HIV-Negative Partnered Men's Willingness to Use Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis and Associated Factors Among an Internet Sample of U.S. HIV-Negative and HIV-Discordant Male Couples

Purpose: Research on male couples' willingness to use pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is critically lacking. Methods: A cross-sectional 2011 Internet survey collected dyadic data from 275 HIV-negative and 58 HIV-discordant male couples to describe 631 HIV-negative partnered mens' willingness to use PrEP and associated couple-level demographic and behavioral factors with multivariate multilevel modeling. Results: Fifty-three percent were very to extremely likely to use PrEP. Willingness was positively associated with being in a mixed race and behaviorally non-monogamous relationship, and with amyl nitrate use with sex outside the relationship. Willingness was negatively associated with having a college education. Conclusion: Prevention efforts should educate male couples about the potential benefits of PrEP.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140159/1/lgbt.2014.0092.pd

Perspectives on the working hours of Australian junior doctors

The working hours of junior doctors have been a focus of discussion in Australia since the mid-1990s. Several national organizations, including the Australian Medical Association (AMA), have been prominent in advancing this agenda and have collected data (most of which is self-reported) on the working hours of junior doctors over the last 15 years. Overall, the available data indicate that working hours have fallen in a step-wise fashion, and AMA data suggest that the proportion of doctors at high risk of fatigue may be declining. It is likely that these changes reflect significant growth in the number of medical graduates, more detailed specifications regarding working hours in industrial agreements, and a greater focus on achieving a healthy work-life balance. It is notable that reductions in junior doctors' working hours have occurred despite the absence of a national regulatory framework for working hours. Informed by a growing international literature on working hours and their relation to patient and practitioner safety, accreditation bodies such as the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) and the Australian Medical Council (AMC) are adjusting their standards to encourage improved work and training practices

Performance assessment of urban precinct design: a scoping study

Executive Summary: Significant advances have been made over the past decade in the development of scientifically and industry accepted tools for the performance assessment of buildings in terms of energy, carbon, water, indoor environment quality etc. For resilient, sustainable low carbon urban development to be realised in the 21st century, however, will require several radical transitions in design performance beyond the scale of individual buildings. One of these involves the creation and application of leading edge tools (not widely available to built environment professions and practitioners) capable of being applied to an assessment of performance across all stages of development at a precinct scale (neighbourhood, community and district) in either greenfield, brownfield or greyfield settings. A core aspect here is the development of a new way of modelling precincts, referred to as Precinct Information Modelling (PIM) that provides for transparent sharing and linking of precinct object information across the development life cycle together with consistent, accurate and reliable access to reference data, including that associated with the urban context of the precinct. Neighbourhoods are the ‘building blocks’ of our cities and represent the scale at which urban design needs to make its contribution to city performance: as productive, liveable, environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive places (COAG 2009). Neighbourhood design constitutes a major area for innovation as part of an urban design protocol established by the federal government (Department of Infrastructure and Transport 2011, see Figure 1). The ability to efficiently and effectively assess urban design performance at a neighbourhood level is in its infancy. This study was undertaken by Swinburne University of Technology, University of New South Wales, CSIRO and buildingSMART Australasia on behalf of the CRC for Low Carbon Living

Heterosis in Switchgrass: Biomass Yield in Swards

Improving the biomass yield of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) will improve its utility as a dedicated energy crop by increasing both its net and total energy yield per hectare. In a previous space-transplanted study, midparent heterosis for biomass yield was reported for population and specific F1 hybrids of the lowland-tetraploid cultivar Kanlow and the upland-tetraploid cultivar Summer. These two cultivars were proposed to be two different heterotic groups. The objective of this study was to determine the extent of heterosis for biomass yield in reciprocal Kanlow (K) and Summer (S) F1 population hybrids grown in simulated swards and to determine the effect of advance in generation on biomass yield. Parent populations and their F1, F2, and F3 population hybrids were grown in transplanted sward plots located near Mead, NE, for a three-year period. Plant density in the simulated swards was equivalent to acceptable stands in seeded plots. Plots were not harvested the establishment year to enable them to become fully established. Biomass yields were determined for the following two years. There was significant high-parent heterosis of 30 to 38% (P ≤ 0.01) for biomass yield for both the K × S F1 and S × K F1 hybrid populations. Heterosis for biomass yield declined with advance in generation. Heterosis for biomass yield in switchgrass may need the competitive conditions of swards to be fully expressed. Additional trials of specific hybrids established from seed are needed to further verify these conclusions. These results do provide ample justification for additional research to develop switchgrass population and specific hybrids

Scoring methods for evaluating and selecting early stage technology and innovation projects

In the early stages of technology or innovation projects it is often necessary to make decisions about which projects to pursue and which to shelve when only scant information is available. This practiceoriented working paper provides guidance on how to make the best use of the information that exists by assessing projects against a number of appropriate factors and allotting scores to each. We show how to design an appropriate scoring tool for any particular case, including: the importance of treating measures of Opportunity and Feasibility separately; how to choose the factors; how to ensure that the scoring is as logical and objective as possible; how to include the inevitable uncertainty; and how to manage the process, including the treatment of portfolio-level considerations such as ‘balance’. It is important to manage the scoring process carefully to avoid cognitive biases. The results can be plotted in different ways to help the decision process

Movement politics and the 2014 party membership surge in Scotland

Thousands joined the SNP and Scottish Greens following the 2014 referendum, which they lost. Were these new members driven by an identification with the Yes movement? Lynn Bennie, James Mitchell, and Rob Johns explain how movement politics may have sparked a new type of party member

Tuning transcriptional regulation through signaling: A predictive theory of allosteric induction

Allosteric regulation is found across all domains of life, yet we still lack simple, predictive theories that directly link the experimentally tunable parameters of a system to its input-output response. To that end, we present a general theory of allosteric transcriptional regulation using the Monod-Wyman-Changeux model. We rigorously test this model using the ubiquitous simple repression motif in bacteria by first predicting the behavior of strains that span a large range of repressor copy numbers and DNA binding strengths and then constructing and measuring their response. Our model not only accurately captures the induction profiles of these strains but also enables us to derive analytic expressions for key properties such as the dynamic range and $[EC_{50}]$. Finally, we derive an expression for the free energy of allosteric repressors which enables us to collapse our experimental data onto a single master curve that captures the diverse phenomenology of the induction profiles.Comment: Substantial revisions for resubmission (3 new figures, significantly elaborated discussion); added Professor Mitchell Lewis as another author for his continuing contributions to the projec