Effects of experimental drought and plant diversity on multifunctionality of a model system for crop rotation.

In low-diversity productive grasslands, modest changes to plant diversity (richness, composition and relative abundance) may affect multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality), including yield. Despite the economic importance of productive grasslands, effects of plant diversity and environmental disturbance on multifunctionality are very rarely quantified. We systematically varied species richness, composition, and relative abundance of grassland ley communities and manipulated water supply (rainfed and drought) to quantify effects of diversity and environmental disturbance on multifunctionality.

Magnetic resonance imaging is safe in patients with left bundle branch pacing.

Background: The use of left bundle branch pacing (LBBP) has dramatically increased since it was first described in 2016, but to date there are no published data on the safety of performing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in these patients.

Methods: Patients with LBBP who underwent MRI between January 2016 and October 2022 were retrospectively studied in our clinical center, which has a special program for imaging patients with cardiac devices. All patients underwent close cardiac monitoring throughout the MRI scans.

Cardiac Outpouchings: Practical Approach to Normal Variants and Pathologic Conditions at CT and MRI.

Numerous entities, both structural and pathologic, can manifest as a contrast material- or blood-filled cardiac outpouching at imaging. These outpouchings often resemble one another and are frequently unfamiliar to imagers and clinicians, creating uncertainty when detected. Furthermore, the diagnostic criteria for conditions such as hernia, aneurysm, pseudoaneurysm, and diverticulum have not been consistently applied in studies and reports cited in the literature describing these outpouchings, adding to the confusion among general and cardiothoracic imagers.

Preliminary Classification of Selected Farmland Habitats in Ireland Using Deep Neural Networks.

Ireland has a wide variety of farmlands that includes arable fields, grassland, hedgerows, streams, lakes, rivers, and native woodlands. Traditional methods of habitat identification rely on field surveys, which are resource intensive, therefore there is a strong need for digital methods to improve the speed and efficiency of identification and differentiation of farmland habitats. This is challenging because of the large number of subcategories having nearly indistinguishable features within the habitat classes.

Beneficial effects of multi-species mixtures on NO emissions from intensively managed grassland swards.

In a field experiment, annual nitrous oxide (NO) emissions and grassland yield were measured across different plant communities, comprising systematically varying combinations of monocultures and mixtures of three functional groups (FG): grasses (Lolium perenne, Phleum pratense), legumes (Trifolium pratense, Trifolium repens) and herbs (Cichorium intybus, Plantago lanceolata). Plots received 150 kg ha year nitrogen (N) (150 N), except L. perenne monocultures which received two N levels: 150 N and 300 N.

Habitat covariates do not artificially cause a negative correlation between native and non-native species richness.

When analyzing biotic resistance/diversity-invasibility, including predictors of species richness may result in a false negative correlation between native and non-native richness. However, reanalysis of vegetation surveys shows that the negative effect of native richness is statistically significant whether or not predictors of species richness are included.

Biotic resistance to invasion is ubiquitous across ecosystems of the United States.

The biotic resistance hypothesis predicts that diverse native communities are more resistant to invasion. However, past studies vary in their support for this hypothesis due to an apparent contradiction between experimental studies, which support biotic resistance, and observational studies, which find that native and non-native species richness are positively related at broad scales (small-scale studies are more variable). Here, we present a novel analysis of the biotic resistance hypothesis using 24 456 observations of plant richness spanning four community types and seven ecoregions of the United States.

Invasive grasses increase fire occurrence and frequency across US ecoregions.

Fire-prone invasive grasses create novel ecosystem threats by increasing fine-fuel loads and continuity, which can alter fire regimes. While the existence of an invasive grass-fire cycle is well known, evidence of altered fire regimes is typically based on local-scale studies or expert knowledge. Here, we quantify the effects of 12 nonnative, invasive grasses on fire occurrence, size, and frequency across 29 US ecoregions encompassing more than one third of the conterminous United States.

Warming seas increase cold-stunning events for Kemp's ridley sea turtles in the northwest Atlantic.

Since the 1970s, the magnitude of turtle cold-stun strandings have increased dramatically within the northwestern Atlantic. Here, we examine oceanic, atmospheric, and biological factors that may affect the increasing trend of cold-stunned Kemp's ridleys in Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts, United States of America. Using machine learning and Bayesian inference modeling techniques, we demonstrate higher cold-stunning years occur when the Gulf of Maine has warmer sea surface temperatures in late October through early November.

Higher species richness enhances yield stability in intensively managed grasslands with experimental disturbance.

Climate models predict increased frequency and severity of drought events. At an Irish and Swiss site, experimental summer droughts were applied over two successive years to grassland plots sown with one, two or four grassland species with contrasting functional traits. Mean yield and plot-to-plot variance of yield were measured across harvests during drought and after a subsequent post-drought recovery period.

Potential development of Irish agricultural sustainability indicators for current and future policy evaluation needs.

There is a significant and detailed range of sustainability indicators for Irish agri-food production, but there remain areas where further indicator development or new indicators could prove valuable. This review provides an outline of potential developments in Irish assessment of agricultural sustainability following the latest research and in order to meet policy demands. Recent research findings have suggested means of improved quantitative modelling of greenhouse gas emissions, but additional dietary and soil data may be important for this, especially for the potential inclusion of any soil sequestration.

Improved 4D cardiac functional assessment for pediatric patients using motion-weighted image reconstruction.

Objective: Our aim was to develop and evaluate a motion-weighted reconstruction technique for improved cardiac function assessment in 4D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Materials And Methods: A flat-topped, two-sided Gaussian kernel was used to weigh k-space data in each target cardiac phase and adjacent two temporal phases during the proposed phase-by-phase reconstruction algorithm. The proposed method (Strategy 3) was used to reconstruct 18 cardiac phases based on data acquired using a previously proposed technique [4D multiphase steady-state imaging with contrast enhancement (MUSIC) technique and its self-gated extension using rotating Cartesian k-space (ROCK-MUSIC) from 12 pediatric patients.

Weed suppression greatly increased by plant diversity in intensively managed grasslands: A continental-scale experiment.

Grassland diversity can support sustainable intensification of grassland production through increased yields, reduced inputs and limited weed invasion. We report the effects of diversity on weed suppression from 3 years of a 31-site continental-scale field experiment.At each site, 15 grassland communities comprising four monocultures and 11 four-species mixtures based on a wide range of species' proportions were sown at two densities and managed by cutting.

Enhancing the diversity of breeding invertebrates within field margins of intensively managed grassland: Effects of alternative management practices.

Severe declines in biodiversity have been well documented for many taxonomic groups due to intensification of agricultural practices. Establishment and appropriate management of arable field margins can improve the diversity and abundance of invertebrate groups; however, there is much less research on field margins within grassland systems. Three grassland field margin treatments (fencing off the existing vegetation "fenced"; fencing with rotavation and natural regeneration "rotavated" and; fencing with rotavation and seeding "seeded") were compared to a grazed control in the adjacent intensively managed pasture.

Biodiversity and ecosystem function: making sense of numerous species interactions in multi-species communities.

Understanding the biodiversity and ecosystem function relationship can be challenging in species-rich ecosystems. Traditionally, species richness has been relied on heavily to explain changes in ecosystem function across diversity gradients. Diversity-Interactions models can test how ecosystem function is affected by species identity, species interactions, and evenness, in addition to richness.

Current and potential imaging applications of ferumoxytol for magnetic resonance imaging.

Contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging is a commonly used diagnostic tool. Compared with standard gadolinium-based contrast agents, ferumoxytol (Feraheme, AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Waltham, MA), used as an alternative contrast medium, is feasible in patients with impaired renal function. Other attractive imaging features of i.

Quantifying the human influence on fire ignition across the western USA.

Humans have a profound effect on fire regimes by increasing the frequency of ignitions. Although ignition is an integral component of understanding and predicting fire, to date fire models have not been able to isolate the ignition location, leading to inconsistent use of anthropogenic ignition proxies. Here, we identified fire ignitions from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) Burned Area Product (2000-2012) to create the first remotely sensed, consistently derived, and regionally comprehensive fire ignition data set for the western United States.

Factors affecting branch failures in open-grown trees during a snowstorm in Massachusetts, USA.

In October 2011, a snowstorm in the northeastern USA caused many branch failures of many tree species commonly planted in urbanized settings. Immediately following the storm, we assessed 1,764 trees for possible snow-induced damage and factors affecting it on the campus of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA, USA. Nearly all failures were of branches, most of which were not defective.

Nitrogen yield advantage from grass-legume mixtures is robust over a wide range of legume proportions and environmental conditions.

Current challenges to global food security require sustainable intensification of agriculture through initiatives that include more efficient use of nitrogen (N), increased protein self-sufficiency through homegrown crops, and reduced N losses to the environment. Such challenges were addressed in a continental-scale field experiment conducted over 3 years, in which the amount of total nitrogen yield (Ntot ) and the gain of N yield in mixtures as compared to grass monocultures (Ngainmix ) was quantified from four-species grass-legume stands with greatly varying legume proportions. Stands consisted of monocultures and mixtures of two N2 -fixing legumes and two nonfixing grasses.

Left ventricular shape variation in asymptomatic populations: the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

Background: Although left ventricular cardiac geometric indices such as size and sphericity characterize adverse remodeling and have prognostic value in symptomatic patients, little is known of shape distributions in subclinical populations. We sought to quantify shape variation across a large number of asymptomatic volunteers, and examine differences among sub-cohorts.

Methods: An atlas was constructed comprising 1,991 cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) cases contributed from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis baseline examination.

Structure-based design of new dihydrofolate reductase antibacterial agents: 7-(benzimidazol-1-yl)-2,4-diaminoquinazolines.

A new series of dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) inhibitors, the 7-(benzimidazol-1-yl)-2,4-diaminoquinazolines, were designed and optimized for antibacterial potency and enzyme selectivity. The most potent inhibitors in this series contained a five-membered heterocycle at the 2-position of the benzimidazole, leading to highly potent and selective compounds that exploit the differences in the size of a binding pocket adjacent to the NADPH cofactor between the bacterial and human DHFR enzymes. Typical of these compounds is 7-((2-thiazol-2-yl)benzimidazol-1-yl)-2,4 diaminoquinazoline, which is a potent inhibitor of S.

Tricyclic GyrB/ParE (TriBE) inhibitors: a new class of broad-spectrum dual-targeting antibacterial agents.

Increasing resistance to every major class of antibiotics and a dearth of novel classes of antibacterial agents in development pipelines has created a dwindling reservoir of treatment options for serious bacterial infections. The bacterial type IIA topoisomerases, DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV, are validated antibacterial drug targets with multiple prospective drug binding sites, including the catalytic site targeted by the fluoroquinolone antibiotics. However, growing resistance to fluoroquinolones, frequently mediated by mutations in the drug-binding site, is increasingly limiting the utility of this antibiotic class, prompting the search for other inhibitor classes that target different sites on the topoisomerase complexes.