Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Water Resources, Agriculture And Pasture: Implications Of Growing Demand And Increasing Scarcity, M. W. Rosegrant, R. A. Valmonte-Santos, S. A. Cline, C. Ringler, W. Li

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. Water availability for irrigation is threatened in many regions by rapidly increasing demand for nonagricultural water uses in industry, households, and the environment. The scarcity of irrigation water will not only impact crop production, but also meat production, as much of the pasture used to feed livestock is irrigated.
2. Grassland is caught between two countervailing forces: a requirement for increasing meat demand that boosts the need for additional pasture to support livestock production, and rapidly increasing water scarcity that makes pasture irrigation uneconomical.
3. The most effective means of dealing with water scarcity is likely to be conserving water in existing …

Soil Quality Assessment And Management, M. G. Kibblewhite

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. Soil quality is related to the capacity of soil to deliver ecosystem services on a sustainable basis.
2. Effective management of soil within grasslands can deliver many benefits to mankind but poor management may cause loss of soil quality from erosion, loss of organic matter, physical deterioration etc.
3. Services are delivered from soil by biological processes. Soil quality depends on the form and condition of the soil habitat. Fixed factors (e.g. texture) are useful for assigning soil to types. Variable factors (e.g. organic carbon) can then be used to assess quality within soil types, by reference to percentiles of the distribution …

Soil Microbial Community: Understanding The Belowground Network For Sustainable Grassland Management, Y. G. Zhu, W. D. Kong, B. D. Chen, Z. B. Nan, P. Christie

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. In addition to the use of conventional methodologies in soil microbial research, molecular techniques are now being applied to gain insights into the soil microbial community;
2. Plant diversity can exert impacts on soil microbial diversity (through root activities and plant litter etc.), but may in itself be significantly altered by soil properties;
3. Soil microbial diversity largely determines the stability of soil ecosystems under biotic and abiotic perturbations.
4. Management of soil microbial diversity can only be achieved through better understanding their structures and functions.

Grasslands1 For Production And The Environment, David R. Kemp, David L. Michalk

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. To manage grasslands for production and enhanced environmental values requires a redefinition of the frameworks within which management decisions are made, and a tailoring of practices to suit the ways that farmers operate.
2. Improving the perenniality and permanence of grasslands usually leads to better environmental and production outcomes.
3. There is a case for a more conservative approach to utilising grasslands in order to sustain the functioning of local ecosystems and to improve water quality, nutrient and energy cycling and biodiversity.
4. A landscape rather than paddock focus is more appropriate for meeting current grassland management objectives. Grasslands can be triaged to …

The Potential Of Grassland And Associated Forages To Produce Fibre, Biomass, Energy Or Other Feedstocks For Non-Food And Other Sectors: New Uses For A Global Resource, M. F. Askew

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. In developed countries increased areas of land will become available for non-food production. Recent reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy will further intensify this trend in Europe.
2. There is potential for grassland and associated species to contribute to large tonnage markets of energy and bulk fibres, to the supply of fermentation products and to speciality markets, but processes and approaches to the market are not as yet developed.
3. There is potential for the establishment of Graminaceous species - specifically for non- food use. For European conditions particular attention is being given to Miscanthus sinensis (Miscanthus), Arundo donax (Giant Reed), Phalaris …

Grasses As Biofactories: Scoping Out The Opportunities, Nick Roberts, K. Richardson, G. Bryan, Christine R. Voisey, W. Mcnabb, T. Conner, M. Christey, R. Johnson

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. Plant biopharming is set to dominate commercial recombinant protein expression for specific proteins.
2. The choice of plant species depends on a multitude of factors and is determined on a case- by-case basis.
3. As a leaf based expression system grasses would have to compete predominantly with tobacco and alfalfa.
4. The grass-endophyte symbiosis offers a number of unique possibilities for biopharming.

Adoption Of Tropical Legume Technology Around The World: Analysis Of Success, H. M. Shelton, Steven Franzel, M. Peters

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. Examples of successful adoption of forage legumes are reported from all continents, where they delivered profitability and often provided multipurpose benefits to farmers.
2. Factors vital to successful adoption were: meeting the needs of farmers; building relevant partnerships; understanding the socio-economic context and skills of farmers; participatory involvement with rural communities; and long-term involvement of champions.
3. Organisation of seed supply, achieving scale-up and forming partnerships to implement adoption are key features.
4. Legumes remain an important but under-exploited resource for tropical farming systems. The alternative to legumes will be greater and more costly use of N-fertilisers and purchased protein concentrates.
5. The R&D …

Evolution Of Integrated Crop-Livestock Production Systems, Martin H. Entz, William D. Bellotti, J. M. Powell, S. V. Angadi, W. Chen, K. H. Ominski, B. Boelt

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. Many factors contribute to changes in the crop-livestock systems, but no logical end-point in the evolution process exists.
2. While benefits of integrated crop-livestock systems over specialised crop and livestock systems are well documented, there has been a move to specialised crop and livestock production.
3. Sustainability issues (manure nutrient concentration, soil quality maintenance, salinity, herbicide resistance, economic instability) have created a renewed interest in integrated crop-livestock systems.
4. Farmer adaptability is as an important link in the evolution between ‘states of integration’.

Overcoming Seasonality Of Production: Opportunities Offered By Forage Conservation Technologies, P. O'Kiely, A. G. Kaiser

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. Seasonality of forage supply is a key contributor to the seasonality of meat and milk production.
2. Conserving forages as silage or hay can help reduce the seasonality of feed supply.
3. Forage conservation technologies make this contribution mainly through increases in the yield or quality of suitable crops, through an improved efficiency of the conservation process or by allowing a reduction in costs.
4. Future research needs differ considerably among regions of the world.

Strategies To Mitigate Seasonality Of Production In Grassland-Based Systems, Claudio Porqueddu, S. Maltoni, J. G. Mcivor

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. Fertilisation use and manipulation can cost-effectively alter species composition, increase seasonal herbage production and improve herbage quality.
2. Choice of suitable grassland species, varieties and mixtures offers opportunity to mitigate limitations of seasonal grassland production.
3. Special purpose fodder crops, cereals, shrubs and trees offer alternative or supplementary feed sources.
4. Manipulation of stocking rates, grazing systems, transhumance and pasture management at various times of the season are significant advantageous options.
5. Integration of different strategies is essential to mitigate seasonality in systems of animal production that must be inherently more sustainable over a longer time frame.

Interactions Between Foraging Behaviour Of Herbivores And Grassland Resources In The Eastern Eurasian Steppes, Deli Wang, Guodong Han, Yuguang Bai

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. In rangeland areas such as the eastern Eurasian steppes (Mongolia and China), foraging behaviour is influenced by plant or vegetation properties with high heterogeneity.
2. Until recently foraging theory has not accounted for the foraging process or ingestive behaviour. Existing theories on foraging behaviour need to evolve and begin to coalesce, and combine with observations or manipulative experiments.
3. Plant and patch properties such as diversity and height influence animal foraging behaviour (related to foraging process or diet selection) in heterogeneous steppes.
4. Stocking rate is the most important management factor for grazing or vegetation management, and determining the optimal stocking rate in …

Foraging Behaviour And Herbage Intake In The Favourable Tropics/Sub-Tropics, S. C. Da Silva, Paulo C. De F. Carvalho

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

1. Herbage intake by animals grazing tropical/sub-tropical pastures is directly related to bite mass, as it is for those grazing temperate pastures.
2. Where these swards have low proportions of stem and dead material (controlled swards), herbage intake follows a similar pattern to that of temperate pasture species, but leaf characteristics, such as lamina length play an important role and influence the short-term rate of intake.
3. Sward structural characteristics and behavioural factors are relatively more important than nutritional factors in terms of herbage intake regulation. The feeding value of the herbage produced is potentially adequate to sustain high levels of beef cattle …

Atomistic Details Of Peptide Reversed-Phase Liquid Chromatography From Molecular Dynamics Simulations, Pablo M Scrosati, Lars Konermann

Chemistry Publications

Peptide separations by reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) are an integral part of bottom-up proteomics. These separations typically employ C18 columns with water/acetonitrile gradient elution in the presence of formic acid. Despite the widespread use of such workflows, the exact nature of peptide interactions with the stationary and mobile phases are poorly understood. Here we employ microsecond molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to uncover details of peptide RPLC. We examined two tryptic peptides, a hydrophobic and a hydrophilic species, in a slit pore lined with C18 chains that were grafted onto SiO₂ support. Our simulations explored peptide trapping, followed by desorption …

Assessing Ecosystem Health Through Contaminants In The Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, Nancy Torres

Theses

Although the Tijuana River Estuary (TRE) remains the largest, most-intact coastal wetland in Southern California, it has a history of major changes, much of this related to its location immediately north of the US / Mexico Border. One of the primary challenges is cross-border flows from the rapidly growing city of Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, and the delivery of wastewater, debris, and sediment to sensitive coastal wetland ecosystems. There is a need to more fully investigate these environmental changes to assess the ecosystem health of the Tijuana River Estuary over time, especially related to pollution impacts. This can inform an …

Columbia River Rhyolites: Age-Distribution Patterns And Their Implications For Arrival, Location, And Dispersion Of Continental Flood Basalt Magmas In The Crust, Martin J. Streck, Vanessa M. Swenton, William C. Mcintosh, Matt Heizler

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Columbia River province magmatism is now known to include abundant and widespread rhyolite centers even though the view that the earliest rhyolites erupted from the McDermitt Caldera and other nearby volcanic fields along the Oregon–Nevada state border has persisted. Our study covers little-studied or unknown rhyolite occurrences in eastern Oregon that show a much wider distribution of older centers. With our new data on distribution of rhyolite centers and ages along with literature data, we consider rhyolites spanning from 17.5 to 14.5 Ma of eastern Oregon, northern Nevada, and western Idaho to be a direct response to flood basalts of …

What Drives Larval Condition For Northern Anchovy (Engraulis Mordax)? Implications For Coastal Pelagic Species Recruitment Fluctuations And Fishery Management Practices, Michelle Robidas

Theses

Discerning the causes of population boom and bust cycles for coastal pelagic species (CPS) has been a major focus of fisheries management research for over a century. Year-class strength is contingent on larval survival and condition, which can be influenced by larval size at age and growth rate. These two factors, in turn, can be affected by maternal investment and environmental variables such as water temperature, salinity, oxygen, and chlorophyll a. We evaluated each of these factors from 127 two to eight week-old Northern Anchovy (Engraulis mordax) larvae off the coast of San Diego to San Francisco, …

A Novel Approach For Optimal Sizing Of Stand-Alone Solar Pv Systems With Power Quality Considerations, Aakash Hassan, Octavian Bass, Yasir M. Al-Abdeli, Martin Masek, Mohammad A. S. Masoum

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Designing reliable and cost-effective solar PV systems with compliance to national and international power quality standards is critical for their economical, efficient, and safe operation. The conventional approaches currently being used to optimally size the solar PV systems generally ignore power quality criteria during the initial design phase. This paper fills this gap by presenting a novel Genetic Algorithm (GA) based strategy to design a stand-alone solar PV system featuring optimal system size with conformance to power quality standards. MATLAB/Simulink environment was used to develop a detailed model of solar PV system, including a robust control mechanism for maximum power …

Waste-Derived Hybrid Nanocomposite For The Simultaneous Removal Of Antibiotics And Dyes From Water Bodies, Abdelkader Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations

A novel eco-friendly approach was used to synthesize a hydroxyapatite-carbon nanocomposite (HAP-C) by utilizing the industrial waste of cement kiln dust (CKD) as a source of calcium for the synthesis. Citric acid was first used to chelate the calcium from CKD, then the chelate was converted into a mixture of calcium carbonate and carbon by calcination at 450°C for 1 h. The mixture was used as a precursor for the synthesis of HAP-C by reacting it with ortho-phosphoric acid via a precipitation method. HAP-C was then calcined at different temperatures of 400, 500, and 700°C under inert atmosphere, with a …

Ultra-Fast Bioorthogonal Spin-Labeling And Distance Measurements In Mammalian Cells Using Small, Genetically Encoded Tetrazine Amino Acids, Subhashis Jana, Eric G. B. Evans, Hyo Sang Jang, Shuyang Zhang, Hui Zhang, Andrzej Rajca, Sharona E. Gordon, William N. Zagotta, Stefan Stoll, Ryan A. Mehl

Department of Chemistry: Faculty Publications

Studying protein structures and dynamics directly in the cellular environments in which they function is essential to fully understand the molecular mechanisms underlying cellular processes. Site-directed spin-labeling (SDSL)—in combination with double electron–electron resonance (DEER) spectroscopy—has emerged as a powerful technique for determining both the structural states and the conformational equilibria of biomacromolecules. In-cell DEER spectroscopy on proteins in mammalian cells has thus far not been possible due to the notable challenges of spin-labeling in live cells. In-cell SDSL requires exquisite biorthogonality, high labeling reaction rates and low background signal from unreacted residual spin label. While the bioorthogonal reaction must be …

Final-2023 Update, Butte Mine Flooding Operable Unit, Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit And Mt Pole, Babcgwa Quality Assurance Project Plan, Ver 1, And Crosswalk, Montana Bureau Of Mines And Geology

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Domain‑Wall Magnetoelectric Coupling In Multiferroic Hexagonal Ybfeo3 Films, Xin Li, Yu Yun, Arashdeep Singh Thind, Yuewei Yin, Qiang Li, Wenbin Wang, Alpha T. N’Diaye, Corbyn Mellinger, Xuanyuan Jiang, Rohan Mishra, Xiaoshan S. Xu

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

Electrical modulation of magnetic states in single-phase multiferroic materials, using domain-wall magnetoelectric (ME) coupling, can be enhanced substantially by controlling the population density of the ferroelectric (FE) domain walls during polarization switching. In this work, we investigate the domain-wall ME coupling in multiferroic h-YbFeO₃ thin films, in which the FE domain walls induce clamped antiferromagnetic (AFM) domain walls with reduced magnetization magnitude. Simulation according to the phenomenological theory indicates that the domain-wall ME effect is dramatically enhanced when the separation between the FE domain walls shrinks below the characteristic width of the clamped AFM domain walls during the ferroelectric …

Small Molecule Egfr Inhibitors As Anti-Cancer Agents: Discovery, Mechanisms Of Action, And Opportunities, Tanzida Zubair, Debasish Bandyopadhyay

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Chemistry)

Epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFRs) are a class of receptor tyrosine kinase that are also called ErbB1 and HER1. EGFR tyrosine kinase activity inhibition is considered a promising therapeutic strategy for the treatment of cancer. Many small-molecule inhibitors of EGFR tyrosine kinase (EGFR-TK), from medicinally privileged molecules to commercial drugs, have been overviewed. Particular attention has been paid to the structure of the molecule and its mechanism of action if reported. Subsequent classification of the molecules under discussion has been carried out. Both natural and synthetic and reversible and irreversible EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitors have been discussed. Various types of cancers …

Carbon Dioxide Capture Potential Of Chitosan-Nanocrystalline Cellulose Aerogel Composite Materials: Synthesis, Functionalization, And Characterization, Victor Oghenekohwo

Theses and Dissertations

The carbon dioxide capture technology has been established as an invaluable player in the current global efforts to allay the warming of the planet and climate change. In this connection, the study centers on the valorization of waste organic materials for the application described herein. The sorbents, sourced from a combination of by-products of food processing and agricultural residue waste products, viz. seafood waste and sugarcane bagasse, showed prospects for selective carbon dioxide capture, adsorbing up to 5.78 mg/g of the gas at 273 K and 2.82 mg/g at 298 K, as observed on the Micromeritic ASAP 2020 surface area …

Adsorption Of Antibiotics In Wastewater By Stevia Rebaudiana Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles, Hania Guirguis

Theses and Dissertations

Green zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs), synthesized using Stevia rebaudiana extract, are investigated as novel adsorbents for the removal of the antibiotics ciprofloxacin (CIP) and tetracycline (TET) from water. The green ZnO NPs were synthesized using a novel, rapid and ecofriendly technique that utilized a natural source with high sugar content as a reducing agent and a less energy intensive approach that did not require annealing or calcination at high temperatures. The particles are mesoporous, with a hexagonal wurtzite structure, a BET surface area of 15.28 m2/g and a size range of 37.36-71.33 nm. At pH 5, the green ZnO …

Azimuthal Anisotropy Of Different Quark-Flavored Particles In High Energy "Simulated" Proton-Proton Collisions, Mahmoud Rateb

Theses and Dissertations

Anisotropic flow in high energy heavy-ion collisions is taken as a key evidence for the formation of QGP for brief seconds right after the collisions. Hydrodynamic models including QGP formation are accurate at predicting the azimuthal anisotropy of the produced particles at low transverse momenta. At high momenta however, hydrodynamic models predict no azimuthal anisotropy for particles of different masses and quark-flavors; the logic being that because of their high momenta, the particles pass through the media without having any time to have any reactivity. This is contrary to results from experiments where measurements of particles of different quark flavors …

Skeleton-Based Hand Gesture Recognition Using Data-Level Fusion, Oluwaleke Yusuf

Theses and Dissertations

Hand Gesture Recognition (HGR) is a form of perceptual computing that allows artificial systems to capture and interpret human gestures. HGR has applications in human-machine interaction, virtual reality, augmented reality, and human behavior analysis. The human hand can assume a near-infinite number of poses and orientations to form myriad gestures, thus increasing the difficulty of the HGR task.

The hand skeleton of connected joints effectively describes the hand’s geometric shape and thus contains richer semantic gesture information while eliminating noise from individual differences in physical hand characteristics. The efficacy and computational efficiency of skeleton-based HGR frameworks can be significantly enhanced …

Polyethersulfone Thin-Film Nanocomposite Membrane Embedded With Amine-Functionalized Graphene Oxide For Desalination Applications, Ahmed Bahaeldin

Theses and Dissertations

Thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) desalination membranes were prepared based on a polyethersulfone (PES) support, where the polyamide (PA) layer was embedded with amine-functionalized graphene oxide (GO). The effect of adding various concentrations of functionalized and un-functionalized GO on the desalination performance, hydrophilicity, and morphology of the membranes was additionally assessed throughout this work. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) measurements were used to assess the morphology of the membranes in combination with Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. Contact angle measurements were used to gauge the hydrophilicity of the synthesized membranes. The membrane with the best desalination performance contained 1x10^-3 wt/vol% of functionalized GO in …

Exploring Innovative Engineering Solutions To Environmental Challenges, Yang Deng

Sustainability Seminar Series

Our environment faces different challenges. Environmental engineers find solutions at the interface between humans and the environment. Technology innovation and inventive engineering design provide an approach to surmount the challenges. My research program focuses on environmental systems and processes. Particularly, we use physical and chemical principles to tackle water quality-related issues. Because water actively interacts with other environmental elements (e.g., air, soil, sediments, and solid waste), our efforts will ultimately benefit the whole environmental system. This presentation will introduce two intertwined research threads that my group has nurtured over the past years. The first theme is technology innovations for mitigation …

Geothermal Energy And Its Impacts On The Environment, Aditi Gorthy, Nathan Tran, Laureen Pierre-Louis

Mako: NSU Undergraduate Student Journal

From the multitude of energy sources that we have developed throughout the eons, renewable energy or “clean energy” has been on the rise to combat global warming and climate change which burning nonrenewable sources of energy have contributed to. Before geothermal energy is used as part of the mainstream energy sources some aspects must be analyzed and resolved. Unfortunately, geothermal power plants still release pollutants, such as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, into the environment and cause general environmental disruptions due to drilling and changes in land formations. Recent and future studies have been and should be conducted to find …

Electromagnetic Theory And Applications, Nicholas Madamopoulos, George Kliros

Open Educational Resources

This book intends to provide both the fundamentals of Electromagnetics but also some practical applications of the concepts covered. Having taught electromagnetics for several years, the authors feel that many times the field of electromagnetics comes as “old” and often times students do not appreciate the concepts and their importance in everyday applications. The authors intend to accompany the EM concepts with life applications. Hence, students may see the direct impact of the knowledge they acquire through the study of the field of electromagnetics and better appreciate the field.