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Adaptive optics, in combination with multi-photon techniques, is a powerful approach to image deep into a specimen. Remarkably, virtually all adaptive optics schemes today rely on wavefront modulators that are reflective, diffractive or both. This, however, can pose a severe limitation for applications. Here, we present a fast and robust sensorless adaptive optics scheme adapted for transmissive wavefront modulators. We study our scheme in numerical simulations and in experiments with a novel, optofluidic wavefront shaping device that is transmissive, refractive, polarisation-independent, and broadband. We demonstrate scatter correction of two-photon-excited fluorescence images of microbeads as well as brain cells and benchmark our device against a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator. Our method and technology could open new routes for adaptive optics in scenarios where previously, the restriction to reflective and diffractive devices may have staggered innovation and progress.

Philadelphia chromosome-positive Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a de novo acute leukemia in which patients show no evidence of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) before or after their treatment. This kind of leukemia has an aggressive clinical course, with poor response to traditional chemotherapy or monotherapy with Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors (TKI), and a high risk of early relapse after induction therapy. We report a rare case of de novo ALM with t(9;22). A 26-year-old male patient was referred to our hospital for an examination of anemia, thrombocytopenia (hemoglobin 5.7 g/dL and platelets 110 000/L) and elevated White Blood Cell (WBC) count (11 600 μ/L, 24% segmented, 63% lymphocytes, 11% monocytes). Bone marrow smear was compatible with AML. Cytogenetic study revealed t(9;22)(q34;q11). Our patient was treated with chemotherapy for AML and a second-generation TKI and remains in complete remission pending a bone marrow transplant.

Hydrologic fluxes in the Great Lakes region have been altered relative to pre-settlement conditions in response to major land use changes during the past 150 yr. Land surface characteristics and processes including leaf area index, roughness, albedo, soil moisture, and rates of momentum, energy and water vapor exchange are strongly influenced by land use. Changes in land use including urbanization and de(/re)forestation continue to affect the nature and magnitude of groundwater – surface water interactions and water availability influencing ecosystems and their services. One of the goals of the present work is to develop a baseline scenario relative to which the impacts of land use changes on hydrological and environmental processes can be evaluated. In addition, the study can help in quantifying the potential impacts of future projected changes in land use in order to mitigate the negative impacts of these changes on goods and services of value to society. The present study explores the relationship between land use changes and hydrologic indicators within the agricultural regions of Michigan and Wisconsin. Two sets of land use data, the circa 1800 County Base and the 2001 National Land Cover Dataset, were used to setup the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. First, sensitivity analyses were performed both based on pre-settlement and current land use scenarios and the most sensitive parameters were identified. Then, the model was calibrated against measured daily stream flow data obtained from eight United States Geological Survey gauging stations. The impacts of land use changes were studied at three scales: subbasin-level, watershed-level, and basin-level. At the subbasin level, most of the hydrologic behavior can be described by percent change in land cover. At the watershed scale, significant differences were observed based on the long-term average hydrologic fluxes under the current and pre-settlement scenarios. In addition, an overall increase in the amount of evapotranspiration and overland flow and overall decrease in the amount of baseflow and water yield were observed. However, at the basin-level, the majority of the area experienced increased overland flow, decreased baseflow, lateral flow, and recharge to aquifers, and minor changes in evapotranspiration and water yield.

The use of cover crops generates a number of agro-ecological benefits for sustainable row-crop agriculture. However, their performance across agricultural fields is often highly spatially variable and there is insufficient information on factors affecting this variability and on tools to manage it. Topography is one of the main factors affecting spatial patterns of plant growth in the American Midwest. Digital elevation models are readily available for deriving topographic attributes; also sensor digital data can be used to indirectly assess cover crop biomass. However, processing procedures for identifying the proper scale of topographic and biomass representations are not well defined. The objectives of this study are to examine how relationships between cover crop biomass, assessed using the normalized difference vegetation index ( NDVI ), and topography depend on the neighborhood size used for deriving topographic attributes and creating NDVI maps; and identify the optimal neighborhood size for correlation and regression analyses. Slope, relative elevation and the potential solar radiation index were the variables that contributed the most to explaining variability in NDVI for raw data. However, other topographic attributes became significant predictors of NDVI at larger neighborhood sizes. We demonstrated that neighborhood size greatly affects some topographic attributes, i.e. curvature, flow accumulation, flow length and the wetness index; and changing the neighborhood size in both topography and NDVI considerably changes the strength of the prediction performance in multiple regression models. We studied six neighborhood sizes from 1 to 40 m and the original raw data. On average, across all studied fields the best performance of multiple regression, as determined by the adjusted- R 2 , was obtained at neighborhood sizes 20 and 40 m. Parameters of semivariogram models for terrain slope, such as the spatial autocorrelation range and the nugget/sill ratio, were found to be good indicators of prediction performance and optimum neighborhood size for filtering the raw data. The results demonstrate that topographic effects on growth and biomass production of cover crops are most pronounced at certain spatial scales, and topographic model predictions will be most accurate when used at the optimal scales.

Winter climate is expected to change under future climate scenarios, yet the majority of winter ecology research is focused in cold-climate ecosystems. In many temperate systems, it is unclear how winter climate relates to biotic responses during the growing season. The objective of this study was to examine how winter weather relates to plant and animal communities in a variety of terrestrial ecosystems ranging from warm deserts to alpine tundra. Specifically, we examined the association between winter weather and plant phenology, plant species richness, consumer abundance, and consumer richness in 11 terrestrial ecosystems associated with the U.S. Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network. To varying degrees, winter precipitation and temperature were correlated with all biotic response variables. Bud break was tightly aligned with end of winter temperatures. For half the sites, winter weather was a better predictor of plant species richness than growing season weather. Warmer winters were correlated with lower consumer abundances in both temperate and alpine systems. Our findings suggest winter weather may have a strong influence on biotic activity during the growing season and should be considered in future studies investigating the effects of climate change on both alpine and temperate systems.

The success of nuclear reprogramming following somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is thought to depend on factors present in the egg. Little is known about the role - if any - played by the somatic cell type on the outcome of the procedure. We tested whether cells of different lineages might have different capacities for reprogramming following SCNT, comparing cells isolated from five different tissues of transgenic zebrafish for their developmental potential when used as SCNT donor cells. We used transgenic zebrafish lines expressing green fluorescence protein under an endogenous tissue-specific promoter: HGn62A-skin, HGn28A-skin, HGn8E-heart, HG21C-fin and notochord and HGn30A-hatch gland. We analyzed the efficiency of cloning, as measured by reconstructed embryos that developed up to the hatched-fry stage. Specifically, donor cells of fin and notochord origin yielded the best rate of cloned fish production. All of the other cell types used were capable of producing cloned fish, albeit with significantly lower efficiency. These results indicate that the type of zebrafish cells used for SCNT can influence the outcome of the procedure. Future epigenetic analysis of these cells will help determine specific chromatin profiles in somatic cells that have an impact on nuclear reprogramming procedures.

Fournier's gangrene is a rare but life-threatening disease characterized by necrotizing fasciitis of the perineal area. It mostly affects adult patients with an immunosuppressant factor and there are only a few cases reported in children. Use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs has been associated with necrotizing fasciitis probably because of suppressing host immunity during infection. We describe a case of a six month old infant without immunosuppressant factors, with Founier's gangrene probably associated with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory intake.