Providing a framework for seagrass mapping in United States coastal ecosystems using high spatial resolution satellite imagery.

Seagrasses have been widely recognized for their ecosystem services, but traditional seagrass monitoring approaches emphasizing ground and aerial observations are costly, time-consuming, and lack standardization across datasets. This study leveraged satellite imagery from Maxar's WorldView-2 and WorldView-3 high spatial resolution, commercial satellite platforms to provide a consistent classification approach for monitoring seagrass at eleven study areas across the continental United States, representing geographically, ecologically, and climatically diverse regions. A single satellite image was selected at each of the eleven study areas to correspond temporally to reference data representing seagrass coverage and was classified into four general classes: land, seagrass, no seagrass, and no data.

Tropical cyclone impacts on seagrass-associated fishes in a temperate-subtropical estuary.

Major storms can alter coastal ecosystems in several direct and indirect ways including habitat destruction, stormwater-related water quality degradation, and organism mortality. From 2010-2020, ten tropical cyclones impacted coastal North Carolina, providing an opportunity to explore ecosystem responses across multiple storms. Using monthly trawl and contemporaneous seagrass surveys conducted in Back Sound, NC, we evaluated how cyclones may affect the nursery role of shallow-water biogenic habitats by examining seagrass-associated fish responses within a temperate-subtropical estuary.

Application of an automatic segmentation method for evaluating cardiac structure doses received by breast radiotherapy patients.

Background And Purpose: Quantifying radiation dose to cardiac substructures is important for research on the etiology and prevention of complications following radiotherapy; however, segmentation of substructures is challenging. In this study we demonstrate the application of our atlas-based automatic segmentation method to breast cancer radiotherapy plans for generating radiation doses in support of late effects research.

Material And Methods: We applied our segmentation method to contour heart substructures on the computed tomography (CT) images of 70 breast cancer patients who received external photon radiotherapy.

Consortial brown tide - picocyanobacteria blooms in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

A brown tide bloom of Aureoumbra lagunensis developed in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba during a period of drought in 2013 that followed heavy winds and rainfall from Hurricane Sandy in late October 2012. Based on satellite images and water turbidity measurements, the bloom appeared to initiate in January 2013. The causative species (A.

The patient with left ventricular systolic dysfunction now and in the future.

This review provides a concise overview of the current understanding of chronic heart failure, focusing on the landmark clinical trials that form the basis of clinical management of patients with left ventricular systolic dysfunction.

Use of Platelet Preparations in Facial Rejuvenation and Wound Healing Remains Unproven.

Unlabelled: There is growing interest in the use of platelet derivatives in facial aesthetic surgery and wound healing. Sclafani et al. have concluded from their review of the literature that the vast majority of studies show a significant and measurable effect on facial aesthetic outcomes with the use of these platelet preparations.

Dependence of eelgrass (Zostera marina) light requirements on sediment organic matter in Massachusetts coastal bays: implications for remediation and restoration.

Using a calibrated bio-optical model we determined that the optical water quality conditions in several nitrogen-impaired embayments and in one unimpaired system were within the range of values known to support eelgrass growth. We also used the model to identify a range of light requirements for eelgrass (Zostera marina). Higher eelgrass light requirements, expressed as a percentage of surface-incident irradiance, corresponded with higher sediment organic matter content.

Tropical species at the northern limit of their range: composition and distribution in Bermuda's benthic habitats in relation to depth and light availability.

Surveys were undertaken on the shallow Bermuda marine platform between 2006 and 2008 to provide a baseline of the distribution, condition and environmental characteristics of benthic communities. Bermuda is located in temperate latitudes but coral reefs, tropical seagrasses and calcareous green algae are common in the shallow waters of the platform. The dominant organisms of these communities are all living at or near their northern latitudinal range limits in the Atlantic Ocean.

Isoflavone composition and antioxidant capacity of modified-lipoxygenase soybeans grown in Maryland.

Maryland-grown soybean lines modified for low lipoxygenase-1 (LOX-1) content and a traditional nonmodified cultivar were analyzed for fatty acid composition, total phenolic content (TPC), isoflavone composition, relative DPPH• scavenging capacity (RDSC), and hydroxyl radical scavenging capacity (HOSC). Soybean lines included black, brown, and yellow soybeans. TPC of all soybean lines ranged from 2.

Understanding uncertainty in seagrass injury recovery: an information-theoretic approach.

Vessel groundings cause severe, persistent gaps in seagrass beds. Varying degrees of natural recovery have been observed for grounding injuries, limiting recovery prediction capabilities, and therefore, management's ability to focus restoration efforts where natural recovery is unlikely. To improve our capacity for predicting seagrass injury recovery, we used an information-theoretic approach to evaluate the relative contribution of specific injury attributes to the natural recovery of 30 seagrass groundings in Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Florida, USA.

High-throughput assay for detection of soybean lipoxygenase-1.

A high-throughput assay was developed to detect soybean lipoxygenase 1 (LOX-1) using a multilabel plate reader. The assay was also adapted to a single cell fluorometer. Fluorescein is degraded by linoleic hydroperoxide produced from soybean lipoxygenase and linoleic acid.

Antioxidant properties, phytochemical composition, and antiproliferative activity of Maryland-grown soybeans with colored seed coats.

This study characterized and compared 18 colored seed coat soybeans for the isoflavone, total phenolic, and cyanidin-3-glucoside (Cy-3-glc) contents of their flour extracts and the fatty acid composition and carotenoid and alpha-tocopherol contents of their oils. Antioxidant assays also assessed activity of the flour extracts against peroxyl, hydroxyl, and ABTS(+) radicals. Black seed coat soybeans had the highest TPC, ORAC, HOSC, and ABTS(+) radical scavenging values, in addition to the highest isoflavone content, and were the only color to contain Cy-3-glc.

Effect of genotype, environment, and their interaction on chemical composition and antioxidant properties of low-linolenic soybeans grown in Maryland.

Eight soybean genotypes grown in three environments in Maryland were analyzed for total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant capacity, isoflavone composition, lutein, tocopherols, fatty acid composition, and oil content. Fatty acid composition, isoflavones, lutein, tocopherols, and specific antioxidant assays had significant variation by genotype (G) (P < 0.05).

Accelerating loss of seagrasses across the globe threatens coastal ecosystems.

Coastal ecosystems and the services they provide are adversely affected by a wide variety of human activities. In particular, seagrass meadows are negatively affected by impacts accruing from the billion or more people who live within 50 km of them. Seagrass meadows provide important ecosystem services, including an estimated $1.

Evaluation of aboveground and belowground biomass recovery in physically disturbed seagrass beds.

Several studies addressed aboveground biomass recovery in tropical and subtropical seagrass systems following physical disturbance. However, there are few studies documenting belowground biomass recovery despite the important functional and ecological role of roots and rhizomes for seagrass ecosystems. In this study, we compared the recovery of biomass (g dry weight m(-2)) as well as the biomass recovery rates in ten severely disturbed multi-species seagrass meadows, after the sediments were excavated and the seagrasses removed.

Gene expression profiling of Japanese psoriatic skin reveals an increased activity in molecular stress and immune response signals.

Gene expression profiling was performed on biopsies of affected and unaffected psoriatic skin and normal skin from seven Japanese patients to obtain insights into the pathways that control this disease. HUG95A Affymetrix DNA chips that contained oligonucleotide arrays of approximately 12,000 well-characterized human genes were used in the study. The statistical analysis of the Affymetrix data, based on the ranking of the Student t-test statistic, revealed a complex regulation of molecular stress and immune gene responses.

FBSA: feature-based sequence alignment technique for very large sequences.

The ability to align pairs of very large molecular sequences is essential for a range of comparative genomic studies. However, given the complexity of genomic sequences, it has been difficult to devise a systematic method that can align - even within the same species - pairs of large sequences. Most existing approaches typically attempt to align nucleotide sequences while ignoring valuable features contained within them, eg they filter out low-complexity regions and retroelements before aligning the sequences.

Microarray analysis using bioinformatics analysis audit trails (BAATs).

Bioinformatics analysis plays an integrative role in genomics and functional genomics. The ability to conduct quality managed, hypothesis-driven bioinformatics analysis with the plethora of data available is mandatory. Biological interpretation of this data is dependent on versions of databases, programs and the parameters used.

Application of the recommendation architecture to telecommunications network management.

The recommendation architecture has been proposed as a system architecture which can enable a system to learn to perform a complex combination of interrelated functions. The capability of a system with the recommendation architecture to learn to manage complex telecommunication backbone networks has been investigated. A network model with a number of nodes and links and carrying realistic but randomly generated traffic was used as the target for the management system.

Soil Moisture Control and Direct Seeding for Bioassay of Heterodera glycines on Soybean.

Soil moisture control during evaluations of Heterodera glycines-Glycine max interactions has not been reported routinely as a standardized procedure. A novel soil moisture replacement system was examined in controlled environmental chambers for use in bioassays for female development. The system is compact, lightweight, and has a contained reservoir for moisture supply to multiple test units.

Application of amplified restriction fragment length polymorphism for genetic characterization of colletotrichum pathogens of alfalfa.

ABSTRACT Amplified restriction fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) was used to assess the levels of genomic variations among species and isolates of the genus Colletotrichum. Our objective was to characterize at the molecular level two alfalfa pathogens, isolates Arl-NW and 57RR, which are unusually aggressive to anthracnose-resistant alfalfa cultivars and whose taxa has been uncertain based on morphological criteria. The fingerprint patterns obtained were complex but did enable us to place these two isolates within the species C.

Evidence for the influence of seagrasses on the benthic nitrogen cycle in a coastal plain estuary near Beaufort, North Carolina (USA).

A study was undertaken to evaluate the interrelationship between the presence of seagrasses, Zostera marina and Halodule wrightii, and the physical and chemical properties of sediments in a coastal plain estuary near Beaufort, North Carolina. In sediments underlying a cover of seagrass, silt-clay, organic matter, exchangeable ammonium, ammonium dissolved in pore waters and total nitrogen were larger than in unvegetated profiles. The magnitude of the physical and chemical properties of sediments varied according to the location of the station in relation to the vegetation, as well as the continuity in the distribution of the seagrass.