The effects of resistance training to near volitional failure on motor unit recruitment during neuromuscular fatigue.

Background: It is unclear whether chronically training close to volitional failure influences motor unit recruitment strategies during fatigue.

Purpose: We compared resistance training to near volitional failure . non-failure on individual motor unit action potential amplitude (MUAP) and surface electromyographic excitation (sEMG) during fatiguing contractions.

REAL-TIME MECHANISTIC BAYESIAN FORECASTS OF COVID-19 MORTALITY.

The COVID-19 pandemic emerged in late December 2019. In the first six months of the global outbreak, the U.S.

Challenges of COVID-19 Case Forecasting in the US, 2020-2021.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, forecasting COVID-19 trends to support planning and response was a priority for scientists and decision makers alike. In the United States, COVID-19 forecasting was coordinated by a large group of universities, companies, and government entities led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub (https://covid19forecasthub.org).

Defluorination of HFCs by a magnesium reagent.

Reaction of a series of HFCs with a main group reagent containing a Mg-Mg bond results in defluorination to form the corresponding magnesium fluoride complex. In the case of 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane (HFC-134a) generation of the fluoride occurs alongside selective formation of 1,1-difluoroethene. DFT calculations have been carried out to better understand the selectivity and compare the barriers for sp C-F bond activation with sp C-H bond activation in this system.

Doubling the life of Cu/ZnO methanol synthesis catalysts via use of Si as a structural promoter to inhibit sintering.

Cu/ZnO/AlO catalysts used to synthesize methanol undergo extensive deactivation during use, mainly due to sintering. Here, we report on formulations wherein deactivation has been substantially reduced by the targeted use of a small quantity of a Si-based promoter, resulting in accrued activity benefits that can exceed a factor of 1.8 versus unpromoted catalysts.

Artificial light at night is a top predictor of bird migration stopover density.

As billions of nocturnal avian migrants traverse North America, twice a year they must contend with landscape changes driven by natural and anthropogenic forces, including the rapid growth of the artificial glow of the night sky. While airspaces facilitate migrant passage, terrestrial landscapes serve as essential areas to restore energy reserves and often act as refugia-making it critical to holistically identify stopover locations and understand drivers of use. Here, we leverage over 10 million remote sensing observations to develop seasonal contiguous United States layers of bird migrant stopover density.

Room Temperature Defluorination of Poly(tetrafluoroethylene) by a Magnesium Reagent.

Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are pervasive in the environment. The largest single use material within the PFAS compound class is poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE), a robust and chemically resistant polymer. Despite their widespread use and serious concerns about their role as pollutants, methods for repurposing PFAS are rare.

The effects of resistance training to near failure on strength, hypertrophy, and motor unit adaptations in previously trained adults.

Limited research exists examining how resistance training to failure affects applied outcomes and single motor unit characteristics in previously trained individuals. Herein, resistance-trained adults (24 ± 3 years old, self-reported resistance training experience was 6 ± 4 years, 11 men and 8 women) were randomly assigned to either a low-repetitions-in-reserve (RIR; i.e.

Predictive performance of multi-model ensemble forecasts of COVID-19 across European nations.

Background: Short-term forecasts of infectious disease burden can contribute to situational awareness and aid capacity planning. Based on best practice in other fields and recent insights in infectious disease epidemiology, one can maximise the predictive performance of such forecasts if multiple models are combined into an ensemble. Here, we report on the performance of ensembles in predicting COVID-19 cases and deaths across Europe between 08 March 2021 and 07 March 2022.

Quantifying long-term phenological patterns of aerial insectivores roosting in the Great Lakes region using weather surveillance radar.

Organisms have been shifting their timing of life history events (phenology) in response to changes in the emergence of resources induced by climate change. Yet understanding these patterns at large scales and across long time series is often challenging. Here we used the US weather surveillance radar network to collect data on the timing of communal swallow and martin roosts and evaluate the scale of phenological shifts and its potential association with temperature.

Repurposing of F-gases: challenges and opportunities in fluorine chemistry.

Fluorinated gases (F-gases) are routinely employed as refrigerants, blowing agents, and electrical insulators. These volatile compounds are potent greenhouse gases and consequently their release to the environment creates a significant contribution to global warming. This review article seeks to summarise: (i) the current applications of F-gases, (ii) the environmental issues caused by F-gases, (iii) current methods of destruction of F-gases and (iv) recent work in the field towards the chemical repurposing of F-gases.

Evaluation of individual and ensemble probabilistic forecasts of COVID-19 mortality in the United States.

Short-term probabilistic forecasts of the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States have served as a visible and important communication channel between the scientific modeling community and both the general public and decision-makers. Forecasting models provide specific, quantitative, and evaluable predictions that inform short-term decisions such as healthcare staffing needs, school closures, and allocation of medical supplies. Starting in April 2020, the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub (https://covid19forecasthub.

Complete deconstruction of SF by an aluminium(I) compound.

The room-temperature activation of SF6, a potent greenhouse gas, is reported using a monovalent aluminium(i) reagent to form well-defined aluminium(iii) fluoride and aluminium(iii) sulfide products. New reactions have been developed to utilise the aluminium(iii) fluoride and aluminium(iii) sulfide as a nucleophilic source of F- and S2- for a range of electrophiles. The overall reaction sequence results in the net transfer of fluorine or sulfur atoms from an environmentally detrimental gas to useful organic products.

Drivers of fatal bird collisions in an urban center.

Millions of nocturnally migrating birds die each year from collisions with built structures, especially brightly illuminated buildings and communication towers. Reducing this source of mortality requires knowledge of important behavioral, meteorological, and anthropogenic factors, yet we lack an understanding of the interacting roles of migration, artificial lighting, and weather conditions in causing fatal bird collisions. Using two decades of collision surveys and concurrent weather and migration measures, we model numbers of collisions occurring at a large urban building in Chicago.

A weather surveillance radar view of Alaskan avian migration.

Monitoring avian migration within subarctic regions of the globe poses logistical challenges. Populations in these regions often encounter the most rapid effects of changing climates, and these seasonally productive areas are especially important in supporting bird populations-emphasizing the need for monitoring tools and strategies. To this end, we leverage the untapped potential of weather surveillance radar data to quantify active migration through the airspaces of Alaska.

Near-term ecological forecasting for dynamic aeroconservation of migratory birds.

Near-term ecological forecasting has the potential to mitigate negative impacts of human modifications on wildlife by directing efficient action through relevant and timely predictions. We used the U.S.

REAL-TIME MECHANISTIC BAYESIAN FORECASTS OF COVID-19 MORTALITY.

The COVID-19 pandemic emerged in late December 2019. In the first six months of the global outbreak, the US reported more cases and deaths than any other country in the world. Effective modeling of the course of the pandemic can help assist with public health resource planning, intervention efforts, and vaccine clinical trials.

A place to land: spatiotemporal drivers of stopover habitat use by migrating birds.

Migrating birds require en route habitats to rest and refuel. Yet, habitat use has never been integrated with passage to understand the factors that determine where and when birds stopover during spring and autumn migration. Here, we introduce the stopover-to-passage ratio (SPR), the percentage of passage migrants that stop in an area, and use 8 years of data from 12 weather surveillance radars to estimate over 50% SPR during spring and autumn through the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of the south-eastern US, the most prominent corridor for North America's migratory birds.

Defluorosilylation of trifluoromethane: upgrading an environmentally damaging fluorocarbon.

The rapid, room-temperature defluorosilylation of trifluoromethane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, has been achieved using a simple silyl lithium reagent. An extensive computational mechanistic analysis provides a viable reaction pathway and demonstrates the unexpected electrophilic nature of LiCF. The reaction generates a bench stable fluorinated building block that shows promise as an easy-to-use difluoromethylating agent.

Migratory flight on the Pacific Flyway: strategies and tendencies of wind drift compensation.

Applications of remote sensing data to monitor bird migration usher a new understanding of magnitude and extent of movements across entire flyways. Millions of birds move through the western USA, yet this region is understudied as a migratory corridor. Characterizing movements in the Pacific Flyway offers a unique opportunity to study complementary patterns to those recently highlighted in the Atlantic and Central Flyways.

Navigating north: how body mass and winds shape avian flight behaviours across a North American migratory flyway.

The migratory patterns of birds have been the focus of ecologists for millennia. What behavioural traits underlie these remarkably consistent movements? Addressing this question is central to advancing our understanding of migratory flight strategies and requires the integration of information across levels of biological organisation, e.g.

Innovative Visualizations Shed Light on Avian Nocturnal Migration.

Globally, billions of flying animals undergo seasonal migrations, many of which occur at night. The temporal and spatial scales at which migrations occur and our inability to directly observe these nocturnal movements makes monitoring and characterizing this critical period in migratory animals' life cycles difficult. Remote sensing, therefore, has played an important role in our understanding of large-scale nocturnal bird migrations.

A characterization of autumn nocturnal migration detected by weather surveillance radars in the northeastern USA.

Billions of birds migrate at night over North America each year. However, few studies have described the phenology of these movements, such as magnitudes, directions, and speeds, for more than one migration season and at regional scales. In this study, we characterize density, direction, and speed of nocturnally migrating birds using data from 13 weather surveillance radars in the autumns of 2010 and 2011 in the northeastern USA.

Seasonal changes in the altitudinal distribution of nocturnally migrating birds during autumn migration.

Wind plays a significant role in the flight altitudes selected by nocturnally migrating birds. At mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, atmospheric conditions are dictated by the polar-front jet stream, whose amplitude increases in the autumn. One consequence for migratory birds is that the region's prevailing westerly winds become progressively stronger at higher migration altitudes.

A hidden Markov model for reconstructing animal paths from solar geolocation loggers using templates for light intensity.

Background: Solar archival tags (henceforth called geolocators) are tracking devices deployed on animals to reconstruct their long-distance movements on the basis of locations inferred post hoc with reference to the geographical and seasonal variations in the timing and speeds of sunrise and sunset. The increased use of geolocators has created a need for analytical tools to produce accurate and objective estimates of migration routes that are explicit in their uncertainty about the position estimates.

Results: We developed a hidden Markov chain model for the analysis of geolocator data.