Soil response to clearcutting and site preparation in East Texas

On an east Texas forest site, clearcutting and site preparation did not change the soil pH. Chopping and KG blading significantly reduced organic matter in the surface soil, while burning slightly increased it. Organic matter showed a positive and significant relationship to potassium, calcium and magnesium. All site treatments increased phosphorus and potassium, with the greatest increase on the burned plots. Calcium and magnesium contents also increased with burning but decreased with KG blading. Burning appeared better than the other treatments for maintaining or improving the soil nutrient regime. However, planted loblolly pine seedlings survived and grew best with mechanical treatments that controlled competing vegetation

A realtime observatory for laboratory simulation of planetary flows

Motivated by the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, we develop a system that uses observations from a laboratory analog to constrain, in real time, a numerical simulation of the laboratory flow. This system provides a tool to rapidly prototype new methods for state and parameter estimation, and facilitates the study of prediction, predictability, and transport of geophysical fluids where observations or numerical simulations would not independently suffice. A computer vision system is used to extract measurements of the physical simulation. Observations are used to constrain the model-state of the MIT General Circulation Model in a probabilistic, ensemble based assimilation approach. Using a combination of parallelism, domain decomposition and an efficient scheme to select ensembles of model-states, we show that estimates that effectively track the fluid state can be produced. To the best of our knowledge this is the first such observatory for laboratory analogs of planetary circulation that functions in real time.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CNS-0540259)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant CNS-0540248

Nuclear Factor I/B is an Oncogene in Small Cell Lung Cancer

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive cancer often diagnosed after it has metastasized. Despite the need to better understand this disease, SCLC remains poorly characterized at the molecular and genomic levels. Using a genetically engineered mouse model of SCLC driven by conditional deletion of Trp53 and Rb1 in the lung, we identified several frequent, high-magnitude focal DNA copy number alterations in SCLC. We uncovered amplification of a novel, oncogenic transcription factor, Nuclear factor I/B (Nfib), in the mouse SCLC model and in human SCLC. Functional studies indicate that NFIB regulates cell viability and proliferation during transformation.National Cancer Institute (U.S.) (grant P30-CA14051)David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT (Ludwig Center for Molecular Oncology)Howard Hughes Medical InstituteAlfred P. Sloan Foundation (Research Fellowship)International Association for the Study of Lung Cance

Forestry Bulletin No. 8: Soil Moisture and Soil Temperature Under a Post Oak-Shortleaf Pine Stand

This paper reports moisture and temperature observations in the surface 18 inches of soil under an east Texas post oak (Quercus stellata Wangenh.) - shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) stand throughout a 4 year period.https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/forestrybulletins/1006/thumbnail.jp