The impact of deicer and anti-icer use on plant communities in stormwater detention basins: Characterizing salt stress and phytoremediation potential.

We present the results of a 1-year study that quantified salt levels in stormwater, soils, and plant tissues from 14 stormwater detention basins across Northern VA in an above-average snow year. We characterize (1) the level of salt stress plants experience, (2) the extent to which current plant communities feature salt tolerant species, and (3) the capacity of these species to phytoremediate soils and reduce the impacts of deicer and anti-icer use. Our results suggest that detention basin vegetation experience a range of salt stress levels that depend on drainage area type (roads: moderate to high > parking lots: low to moderate > pervious areas: none).

Minimally-invasive tracheostomy (MIT): A care bundle for safety improvement in high-risk critically ill patients.

Background: Detailed reports are scarce on minimally-invasive tracheostomy (MIT) techniques for critically ill patients with challenging anatomy or complex coagulopathies. In such high-risk patients, conventional percutaneous dilatational tracheostomy (PDT) may lead to severe complications.

Methods: Aiming to broaden the scope of MIT for patients previously excluded due to high risks, we developed a new care bundle (MIT technique), specifically designed for intensive care specialists.

GGAssembler: Precise and economical design and synthesis of combinatorial mutation libraries.

Golden Gate assembly (GGA) can seamlessly generate full-length genes from DNA fragments. In principle, GGA could be used to design combinatorial mutation libraries for protein engineering, but creating accurate, complex, and cost-effective libraries has been challenging. We present GGAssembler, a graph-theoretical method for economical design of DNA fragments that assemble a combinatorial library that encodes any desired diversity.