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Assessments of conservation effects are being conducted to determine the effectiveness of agricultural conservation practices. The practice of nutrient supplement placement to improve livestock distribution has not been designated a “best management practice” by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Three studies in California visually and statistically document the effectiveness of nutrient supplement placement for changing livestock distribution. The initial study conducted in the Sierra Nevada foothills demonstrated that use of riparian patches could be reduced with strategic placement of dehydrated molasses supplement. A study on an adjacent ranch found that during the dry season, supplement placement effectively redistributed livestock by attracting them into a zone that extended out to about 600 m (1,980 ft) from the supplement. In a study on a coastal ranch in San Luis Obispo County, nutrient supplements were used to attract cows into an ungrazed forest adjacent to grazed grassland. The results of the studies reported here support the effectiveness of supplement placement for changing livestock distribution. Integration of supplement placement practices into best management practices and into NRCS's prescribed grazing standard is supported by this research.

A screen-printable porous paste is described. Its use in the development of a solid-state Ag/AgCl electrochemical reference electrode is reported as an example of a typical application. Potassium chloride salt crystals are homogenously dispersed in a commercial thick-film glass paste and printed through a stainless steel stencil. Printed features are fired at 600 °C; a lower temperature than the melting point of the salt crystals, which remain intact. After firing, embedded salt crystals are dissolved away in warm water. The resultant features have a sponge-like appearance, with pore density and size distribution governed by the volume and grain sizes of the salt. In the application described, the porous paste is used as an electrolyte containment structure and membrane support scaffold; key components for miniaturisation of the Ag/AgCl reference electrode. Experiments show the best performing reference electrode maintained a potential with <5 % change over more than five decades of chloride concentration.

Under the Optonanogen project (EU contract IST-2001-37239), a novel biosensor has been developed, which incorporates a disposable acrylic polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) fluidic header. This header is designed to deliver a sample to a series of chemically primed cantilevers where hybridization of target DNA sequences and resulting deflection of the cantilevers is detected optically. Two different microfluidic headers are described, which are designed to incorporate the cantilever chip and which demonstrate a novel approach to microfluidic header assembly, integration with macroscale fluidics, fluidic handling, and priming strategies. The first header facilitates the delivery of a single fluid sample to all cantilevers, whereas the second permits discrete delivery of samples to isolated cantilevers, despite all cantilevers being contained on a single chip. This second, multi-path header therefore allows simultaneous analysis of multiple samples, or multiple parallel tests on a single sample. This paper describes these headers and for the multi-path device details the design changes incorporated to ensure effective isolation of the sample including a novel valve to improve priming of the microfluidic circuit.

A two-dimensional model for the evolution of the fire line – the interface between burned and unburned regions of a wildfire – is formulated. The fire line normal velocity has three contributions: (i) a constant rate of spread representing convection and radiation effects; (ii) a curvature term that smooths the fire line; and (iii) a Stefan-like term in the direction of the oxygen gradient. While the first two effects are geometrical, (iii) is dynamical and requires the solution of the steady advection–diffusion equation for oxygen, with advection owing to a self-induced ‘fire wind’, modelled by the gradient of a harmonic potential field. The conformal invariance of this coupled pair of partial differential equations, which has the Péclet number $\\textit {Pe}$ as its only parameter, is exploited to compute numerically the evolution of both radial and infinitely long periodic fire lines. A linear stability analysis shows that fire line instability is possible, dependent on the ratio of curvature to oxygen effects. Unstable fire lines develop finger-like protrusions into the unburned region; the geometry of these fingers is varied and depends on the relative magnitudes of (i)–(iii). It is argued that for radial fires, the fire wind strength scales with the fire's effective radius, meaning that $\\textit {Pe}$ increases in time, so all fire lines eventually become unstable. For periodic fire lines, $\\textit {Pe}$ remains constant, so fire line stability is possible. The results of this study provide a possible explanation for the formation of fire fingers observed in wildfires.

Background/Objectives: Several studies have linked dietary patterns to insulin sensitivity and systemic inflammation, which affect risk of multiple chronic diseases. The purpose of this study was to investigate the dietary patterns of a cohort of older adults, and to examine relationships of dietary patterns with markers of insulin sensitivity and systemic inflammation. Subjects/Methods: The Health, Aging and Body Composition (Health ABC) Study is a prospective cohort study of 3075 older adults. In Health ABC, multiple indicators of glucose metabolism and systemic inflammation were assessed. Food intake was estimated with a modified Block food frequency questionnaire. In this study, dietary patterns of 1751 participants with complete data were derived by cluster analysis. Results: Six clusters were identified, including a ‘healthy foods’ cluster, characterized by higher intake of low-fat dairy products, fruit, whole grains, poultry, fish and vegetables. In the main analysis, the ‘healthy foods’ cluster had significantly lower fasting insulin and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance values than the ‘breakfast cereal’ and ‘high-fat dairy products’ clusters, and lower fasting glucose than the ‘high-fat dairy products’ cluster ( P⩽ 0.05). No differences were found in 2-h glucose. With respect to inflammation, the ‘healthy foods’ cluster had lower interleukin-6 than the ‘sweets and desserts’ and ‘high-fat dairy products’ clusters, and no differences were seen in C-reactive protein or tumor necrosis factor-α. Conclusions: A dietary pattern high in low-fat dairy products, fruit, whole grains, poultry, fish and vegetables may be associated with greater insulin sensitivity and lower systemic inflammation in older adults.

Streptomyces coelicolor is a representative of the group of soil-dwelling, filamentous bacteria responsible for producing most natural antibiotics used in human and veterinary medicine. Here we report the 8,667,507 base pair linear chromosome of this organism, containing the largest number of genes so far discovered in a bacterium. The 7,825 predicted genes include more than 20 clusters coding for known or predicted secondary metabolites. The genome contains an unprecedented proportion of regulatory genes, predominantly those likely to be involved in responses to external stimuli and stresses, and many duplicated gene sets that may represent 'tissue-specific' isoforms operating in different phases of colonial development, a unique situation for a bacterium. An ancient synteny was revealed between the central 'core' of the chromosome and the whole chromosome of pathogens Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Corynebacterium diphtheriae. The genome sequence will greatly increase our understanding of microbial life in the soil as well as aiding the generation of new drug candidates by genetic engineering.

Cereals are an important component of the Indian diet, providing 47% of the daily dietary energy intake. Dwindling groundwater reserves in India especially in major cereal-growing regions are an increasing challenge to national food supply. An improved understanding of interstate cereal trade can help to identify potential risks to national food security. Here, we quantify the trade between Indian states of five major cereals and the associated trade in virtual (or embedded) water. To do this, we modelled interstate trade of cereals using Indian government data on supply and demand; calculated virtual water use of domestic cereal production using state- and product-specific water footprints and state-level data on irrigation source; and incorporated virtual water used in the production of internationally-imported cereals using country-specific water footprints. We estimate that 40% (94 million tonnes) of total cereal food supply was traded between Indian states in 2011-12, corresponding to a trade of 54.0 km3 of embedded blue water, and 99.4 km3 of embedded green water. Of the cereals traded within India, 41% were produced in states with over-exploited groundwater reserves (defined according to the Central Ground Water Board) and a further 21% in states with critically depleting groundwater reserves. Our analysis indicates a high dependency of Indian cereal consumption on production in states with stressed groundwater reserves. Substantial changes in agricultural practices and land use may be required to secure future production, trade and availability of cereals in India. Diversifying production systems could increase the resilience of India's food system.