Letter from A. N. Towne to Mr. Scott, 1876 Jul 5.

P.O. LOCK BOX 2328. Central Pacific Railroad Company GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT’S OFFICE San Francisco, Cal. July 5 1876.California Pacific R.R. ……………… 463 Steamer Lines ……………………….. 570 Stockton &C. and S.&V. Railroads …. 49 Southern Extension S.P.R.R. ………… 96 Central Pacific R.R. …………………. 1,219 ——— Miles ……………….. 2,097 5.16.76Mr. Scott, Supt. North Fork Mining Co [ Dutch Hill?]Dear Sir: I take much pleasure in intro- ducing the bearer, Mr. John Muir, a celebrated Geologist, of whom, no doubt, you have heard much. Mr. Muir is on his way to spend the summer in the high Sierras, and will probably call upon you to examine the gold deposits of your neighborhood. Any attention shown the Gentleman will be much appreciated by him and by Yours Truly A. N. [ Tome?] 0609

Letter from A. N. Towne to A. W. Kaddie, 1876 Jul 5.

P.O. LOCK BOX 2328. Central Pacific Railroad Company GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT’S OFFICE San Francisco, Cal. July 5 1876.California Pacific R.R. …………………. 163 Steamer Lines …………………………... 570 Stockton &C. and S.&V. Railroads …….. 49 Southern Extension S.P.R.R…………….. 96 Central Pacific R.R. …………………….. 1,219 ——— Miles …………… 2,097 5.16.76.A. W. Kaddie, Esq Supt. Cariboo Mining Co. Cariboo, Plumas Co Cal.Dear Sir: I take much pleasure in intro- ducing the bearer, John Muir, Esq., of whom no doubt you have heard much. Mr. Muir has devoted many years of hard stdy to the gold means of Cal. He is about to make a trip up north, and may reach Plumas C: to inquire into matters relative to the dead-river gravel deposits. Any attention shown the Gentleman will be much appreciated by him, and by Yours truly A. N. [illegible] 0609

Temporal variability in large grazer space use in an experimental landscape

Citation: Raynor, E. J., Joern, A., Skibbe, A., Sowers, M., Briggs, J. M., Laws, A. N., & Goodin, D. (2017). Temporal variability in large grazer space use in an experimental landscape. Ecosphere, 8(1), 18. doi:10.1002/ecs2.1674Land use, climate change, and their interaction each have great potential to affect grazing systems. With anticipated more frequent and extensive future drought, a more complete understanding of the mechanisms that determine large grazer landscape-level distribution under varying climatic conditions is integral to ecosystem management. Using an experimental setting with contrasting fire treatments, we describe the inter-annual variability of the effect of landscape topography and disturbance from prescribed spring fire on large grazer space use in years of variable resource availability. Using GPS telemetry, we investigated space use of plains bison (Bison bison bison) as they moved among watersheds managed with variable experimental burn treatments (1-, 2-, 4-, and 20-year burn intervals) during a seven-year period spanning years of average-to-above average forage production and severe drought. At the landscape scale, bison more strongly favored high-elevation and recently burned watersheds with watersheds burned for the first time in 2 or 4 yr consistently showing higher use relative to annually burned watersheds. In particular, watersheds burned for the first time in 4 yr were avoided to lesser extent than other more frequently burned watersheds during the dormant season. This management type also maintained coupling between bison space use and post-fire regrowth across post-drought growing season months, whereas watersheds with more frequent fire-return intervals attracted bison in only the first month post-fire. Hence, fire frequency played a role in maintaining the coupling of grazer and post-fire regrowth, the fire-grazer interaction, in response to drought-induced reduction in fuel loads. Moreover, bison avoided upland habitat in poor forage production years, when forage regrowth is less likely to occur in upland than in lowland habitats. Such quantified responses of bison to landscape features can aid future conservation management efforts and planning to sustain fire-grazer interactions and resulting spatial heterogeneity in grassland ecosystems

Chronic disease self-management education courses: utilization by low-income, middle-aged participants

BACKGROUND: Individuals living in lower-income areas face an increased prevalence of chronic disease and, oftentimes, greater barriers to optimal self-management. Disparities in disease management are seen across the lifespan, but are particularly notable among middle-aged adults. Although evidence-based Chronic Disease Self-management Education courses are available to enhance self-management among members of this at-risk population, little information is available to determine the extent to which these courses are reaching those at greatest risk. The purpose of this study is to compare the extent to which middle-aged adults from lower- and higher-income areas have engaged in CDSME courses, and to identify the sociodemographic characteristics of lower-income, middle aged participants. METHODS: The results of this study were produced through analysis of secondary data collected during the Communities Putting Prevention to Work: Chronic Disease Self-Management Program initiative. During this initiative, data was collected from 100,000 CDSME participants across 45 states within the United States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. RESULTS: Of the entire sample included in this analysis (19,365 participants), 55 people lived in the most impoverished counties. While these 55 participants represented just 0.3% of the total study sample, researchers found this group completed courses more frequently than participants from less impoverished counties once enrolled. CONCLUSION: These results signal a need to enhance participation of middle-aged adults from lower-income areas in CDSME courses. The results also provide evidence that can be used to inform future program delivery choices, including decisions regarding recruitment materials, program leaders, and program delivery sites, to better engage this population

Molecular Population Structure for Feral Swine in the United States

Feral swine (Sus scrofa) have invaded most of the United States and continue to expand throughout North America. Given the ecological and economic threats posed by increasing feral swine abundance, it is imperative to develop an understanding of their patterns of natural range expansion and human-mediated introductions. Towards this goal, we used molecular markers to elucidate the genetic structure of feral swine populations throughout the United States and evaluated the association between historical introductions and contemporary patterns of genetic organization. We used STRUCTURE and discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) to delineate genetic clusters for 959 individuals genotyped at 88 single nucleotide polymorphism loci. We identified 10 and 12 genetic clusters for the 2 clustering approaches, respectively. We observed strong agreement in clusters across approaches, with both describing clusters having strong geographic association at regional levels reflecting past introduction and range expansion patterns. In addition, we evaluated patterns of isolation by distance to test for and estimate spatial scaling of population structure within western, central, and eastern regions of North America. We found contrasting spatial patterns of genetic relatedness among regions, suggesting differences in the invasion process, likely as a result of regional variation in landscape heterogeneity and the influence of human mediated introductions. Our results indicate that molecular analyses of population genetic structure can provide reliable insights into the invasion processes of feral swine, thus providing a useful basis for management focused on minimizing continued range expansion by this problematic species

Collective Effects in the NSLS-II Storage Ring.

A new high-brightness synchrotron light source (NSLS-II) is under design at BNL. The 3-GeV NSLS-II storage ring has a double-bend achromatic lattice with damping wigglers installed in zero-dispersion straights to reduce the emittance below 1nm. In this paper, we present an overview of the impact of collective effects upon the performance of the storage ring. Subjects discussed include instability thresholds, Touschek lifetime and intra-beam scattering

An international effort towards developing standards for best practices in analysis, interpretation and reporting of clinical genome sequencing results in the CLARITY challenge

Background: There is tremendous potential for genome sequencing to improve clinical diagnosis and care once it becomes routinely accessible, but this will require formalizing research methods into clinical best practices in the areas of sequence data generation, analysis, interpretation and reporting. The CLARITY Challenge was designed to spur convergence in methods for diagnosing genetic disease starting from clinical case history and genome sequencing data. DNA samples were obtained from three families with heritable genetic disorders and genomic sequence data were donated by sequencing platform vendors. The challenge was to analyze and interpret these data with the goals of identifying disease-causing variants and reporting the findings in a clinically useful format. Participating contestant groups were solicited broadly, and an independent panel of judges evaluated their performance. Results: A total of 30 international groups were engaged. The entries reveal a general convergence of practices on most elements of the analysis and interpretation process. However, even given this commonality of approach, only two groups identified the consensus candidate variants in all disease cases, demonstrating a need for consistent fine-tuning of the generally accepted methods. There was greater diversity of the final clinical report content and in the patient consenting process, demonstrating that these areas require additional exploration and standardization. Conclusions: The CLARITY Challenge provides a comprehensive assessment of current practices for using genome sequencing to diagnose and report genetic diseases. There is remarkable convergence in bioinformatic techniques, but medical interpretation and reporting are areas that require further development by many groups

Genome-wide Linkage Scan to Identify Loci for Age at First Cigarette in Dutch Sibling Pairs

Most smokers begin smoking during adolescence and early age of smoking initiation is related to more frequent current smoking, daily smoking and more dependent smoking (Everret et al., 1999; Lando et al.

Validity of a new automated software program for visceral adipose tissue estimation

Introduction: Given the considerable time and research cost of analyzing biomedical images to quantify adipose tissue volumes, automated image analysis methods are highly desirable. Hippo Fatt is a new software program designed to automatically quantify adipose tissue areas from magnetic resonance images without user inputs. Hippo Fatt has yet to be independently validated against commonly used image analysis software programs. Objective: Our aim was to compare estimates of VAT (visceral adipose tissue) and SAT (subcutaneous adipose tissue) using the new Hippo Fatt software against those from a widely used, validated, computer-assisted manual method (slice-O-matic version 4.2, Tomovision, Montreal, CA, USA) to assess its potential utility for large-scale studies. Methods: A Siemens Magnetom Vision 1.5-T whole-body scanner and a T1-weighted fast-spin echo pulse sequence were used to collect multiple, contiguous axial images of the abdomen from a sample of 40 healthy adults (20 men) aged 18-77 years of age, with mean body mass index of 29 kg/m 2 (range ¼ 19-43 kg/m 2 ). Results: Hippo Fatt provided estimates of VAT and SAT that were highly correlated with estimates using slice-O-matic (R 2 40.9). Average VAT was 9.4% lower and average SAT was 3.7% higher using Hippo Fatt compared to slice-O-matic; the overestimation of SAT tended to be greater among individuals with greater adiposity. Individual-level differences for VAT were also substantial; Hippo Fatt gave estimates of VAT ranging from 1184 cm 3 less to 566 cm 3 more than estimates for the same person using slice-O-matic. Conclusion: Hippo Fatt provides a rapid method of quantifying total VAT, although the method does not provide estimates that are interchangeable with slice-O-matic at either the group (mean) or individual level