Storage Banking Research Articles

California's food-energy-water system: An open source simulation model of adaptive surface and groundwater management in the Central Valley

This study introduces the California Food-Energy-Water System (CALFEWS) simulation model to describe the integrated, multi-sector dynamics that emerge from the coordinated management of surface and groundwater supplies throughout California's Central Valley. The CALFEWS simulation framework links the operation of state-wide, interbasin transfer projects (i.e., State Water Project, Central Valley Project) with coordinated water management strategies abstracted to the scale of irrigation/water districts. This study contributes a historic baseline (October 1996–September 2016) evaluation of the model's performance against observations, including reservoir storage, inter-basin transfers, environmental endpoints, and groundwater banking accounts. State-aware, rules-based representations of critical component systems enable CALFEWS to simulate adaptive management responses to alternative climate, infrastructure, and regulatory scenarios. Moreover, CALFEWS has been designed to maintain interoperability with electric power dispatch and agricultural production models. As such, CALFEWS provides a platform to evaluate internally consistent scenarios for the integrated management of water supply, energy generation, and food production.

Reptile assisted reproductive technologies: can ART help conserve 300 million years of evolution by preserving extant reptile biodiversity?

Biodiversity loss is the greatest environmental problem threatening ecosystem, animal, and human health. Anthropogenic induced changes to climate, habitat, disease, species distributions, poaching, and unsustainable trade have accelerated extinction rates in all vertebrates, including reptiles. Preventing reptile extinctions will require humans to acknowledge these losses and develop ex situ and in situ plans to preserve them. Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are management tools used to protect numerous vertebrate taxa; however, progress in developing ART for reptiles has lagged. Creating functional and sustainable reptile ART will strengthen our conservation capacity by capturing genetic material from select individuals to overcome natural or manmade boundaries. Utilising short-term gamete storage and genome resource banking, in conjunction with timed artificial insemination (AI) or ex ovo incubation, could lead to profound advances in reptile conservation, mitigating the loss of reptile biodiversity. In this article, we review ART reptile research completed since the 1970s. Topics include AI, hormonal control of reproduction, gamete collection, gamete storage, and genome resource banking. Additionally, we review the potential application of advanced reproductive methodologies, including in vitro /ex ovo fertilisation, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer), and genetic editing.

A Comparative Study and Survey on Existing DNA Compression Techniques

Data storage and DNA banking are receiving tremendous attention recently, due to the explosion of genetic research, biomedical research and forensic sciences.DNA databases when compared to other databases occupy more storage due to the enormous size of each DNA sequence. They are growing exponentially as newer samples are being collected and stored. This poses a major task for storage, transfer, searching and retrieval of data. Hence,Compression of DNA Databases have become relevant.DNA sequences contain repetitions of A, C, T, G,so compression of the sequence involves searching and encoding these repetitions,then decoding them while decompression.This paper explores a few existing DNA sequence compression algorithmswhich were developed based on certainprevailing generalcompression algorithms. First a few, existing compression techniques are explained and then, fiveavailable DNA sequence compression algorithms are evaluated for their suitability in compressing large collections of DNA sequences. Keywords: DNA, DNA databases, Genetics, DNA compression, Biocompress, Cfact, DNAcompress, Gencompress, CTW+LZ.

Standardization of Long Term DNA Storage and DNA Banking Methods for Conservation of Saudi Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) Genetic Diversity

Standardization of Long Term DNA Storage and DNA Banking Methods for Conservation of Saudi Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) Genetic Diversity

Human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells: a new era for stem cell therapy.

The human umbilical cord is a promising source of mesenchymal stem cells (HUCMSCs). Unlike bone marrow stem cells, HUCMSCs have a painless collection procedure and faster self-renewal properties. Different derivation protocols may provide different amounts and populations of stem cells. Stem cell populations have also been reported in other compartments of the umbilical cord, such as the cord lining, perivascular tissue, and Wharton's jelly. HUCMSCs are noncontroversial sources compared to embryonic stem cells. They can differentiate into the three germ layers that promote tissue repair and modulate immune responses and anticancer properties. Thus, they are attractive autologous or allogenic agents for the treatment of malignant and nonmalignant solid and soft cancers. HUCMCs also can be the feeder layer for embryonic stem cells or other pluripotent stem cells. Regarding their therapeutic value, storage banking system and protocols should be established immediately. This review critically evaluates their therapeutic value, challenges, and future directions for their clinical applications.

Who is my stranger? Origins of the gift in wartimeLondon, 1939‐45

The subject of this paper is the association of gift rhetoric with blood donation inLondon during the early 1940s. Querying the view that the original concept of ‘the gift relationship’ was the product ofRichardTitmuss's influential study of blood transfusion of 1970,Ilocate the origins of the gift in propaganda materials of the Second World War, and describe their relation to images of transfusion recipients and the ideal of one‐to‐one giving. In order to offer an alternative to accounts that describe the gift as anachronistic and incompatible with modern methods of procurement and transfusion, here I demonstrate the profound connections between gift rhetoric and the anonymity wrought by techniques of cold storage and blood banking.

Changing Profile of the Service Industries: A Hope for Industrial Development in North Eastern States of India

This paper analyses the sectoral composition of Net State Domestic Products of the North-Eastern states of India for the period 1980-1996. It is revealed that there has been a growing trend of ‘tertiarisation’ of the structures of production. The emergence of service sector in a dominating fashion drew the attention to examine further, the possibility of its ‘catalytic’ role in the economic development of the region. For this purpose the structure of service sector and changes with in the sub-sectors of the service industries for the same period is further investigated. The recent development trends show that major contribution towards the growth of service industries is due to increase in public administration expenditure. Though, construction and trade, hotel and restaurants sector are also developing in some of the NE states. But other important service sectors like transport, storage and communication and banking and insurance are yet to develop to their full potential in this region. The issue related to sustainability of growth of service sector and thus generating employment and income opportunities in the absence of significantly developed industrial sector is also discussed. It is emphasized that in the short run growth of service sector may provide impetus to generate additional employment and income opportunities, however in the long run the simultaneous growth of agricultural, industrial and service sector is desirable in order to maximize the inter sectoral linkage advantages. Inter-state comparative analysis suggests that the states which are adopting more focused approach towards economic growth by implementing state level economic reforms policies will move ahead in future to give better employment and income generating opportunities and thus better standard of living to their people. For marching towards the balanced and sustainable economic development, North-Eastern states have to adopt and implement a more focused growth oriented policy measure.

Double freezing of bovine semen

Fertility of bull spermatozoa cryopreserved in large volume by directional freezing technique, thawed, repackaged in straws and refrozen over liquid nitrogen vapor (double freezing, DF) was compared to conventional single freezing in straws (CF). Semen was collected from 6 bulls, 4 of which were selected for the field trial. Each semen collection was split into two parts, one frozen by CF and the other by DF. In vitro semen evaluations included motility (fresh, upon thawing and after 3 h incubation at 37 °C), viability and acrosome integrity. A total of 3610 cows and heifers were randomly inseminated by either CF or DF at about equal numbers. In vitro sperm analysis indicated no difference between CF and directional freezing in large volume and both were superior to DF ( P < 0.001). Between-bull variations in fresh semen and in their reaction to CF or DF were apparent. Logistic regression analysis revealed that freezing method, bull, parity and inseminating technician, all had significant effect on pregnancy outcome ( P ≤ 0.001 for all). Conception rate (CR) was 32.98% for CF and 28.05% for DF. Only in one bull conception rate by CF was significantly superior to DF ( P < 0.05). When divided into heifers, primi- and pluriparous cows, only the difference in CR between the pluriparous cows was significant ( P = 0.005). In conclusion, acceptable CR can be achieved by DF technique. These can be improved by selecting suitable bulls. The DF technique can be utilized in storage, sperm sexing and genome resource banking.

Consent and anonymization in research involving biobanks: differing terms and norms present serious barriers to an international framework.

Biological samples—such as tissues, blood and cells—are an increasingly important tool for research into human diseases and their genetic and physiological causes. To ease their storage and access, many of these samples are now stored in biobanks. The number of human biological samples in such collections amounted to several hundred million in 1999 in the USA alone—about one sample per US citizen (Eiseman, 2000; Azarow et al , 2003)—and is increasing rapidly. Three‐quarters of the clinical trials that drug companies submit to the US Food and Drug Administration (Rockville, MD, USA) for approval now include a provision for sampling and storing human tissue for future genetic analysis (Abbott, 2003). At the same time, there is a boom of population biobanks, as more and more countries establish new sample collections (Kaiser, 2002). Among the best known are: the Icelandic Health Sector Database; the Estonian Genome Project; the UK Biobank; the CARTaGENE Project in Quebec, Canada; the Banco Nacional de ADN in Spain; the International HapMap Project; and several US biobanks, such as the National Children's Study, the Marshfield Clinic's Personalized Medicine Research Project and the National Health and Nutrition Examinations Surveys. ![][1] This boom of biobanks has spawned a ‘boomlet’ of regulations and guidelines, which has created controversies, particularly about the importance and definition of informed consent. The consent of participants is usually required before biobank samples can be used in research, but the nature of this consent, and how it is obtained, vary widely. Many European guidelines take the view that general consent is acceptable to use samples for future, as yet unspecified, research projects; US and Canadian policy follows a more rigorous standard of consent. Until 2004, both Europe and the USA considered coded and linked anonymized samples—in which a code links the sample to its donor—as identifiable and therefore … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif

Data storage and DNA banking for biomedical research: informed consent, confidentiality, quality issues, ownership, return of benefits. A professional perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate a professional and scientific view on the social, ethical, and legal issues that impact on data storage and DNA banking practices for biomedical research in Europe. Many aspects have been considered, such as the requirements for data storage and DNA banking in the public and private sectors in Europe and the issues relating to DNA banking, that is to say the consent requirements for the banking and further uses of DNA samples, their control and ownership, and the return of benefit derived from DNA exploitation to the community. The methods comprise primarily the review of the existing professional guidelines, legal frameworks and other documents related to the data storage and DNA banking practices in public and private sectors in Europe. Then, the issues related to DNA banking were examined during an international workshop organized by the European Society of Human Genetics Public and Professional Policy Committee in Paris, France, 07-08, April, 2000. A total of 50 experts from 12 European countries attended this workshop. It came out that DNA banking for medical and research purposes is indispensable. It facilitates the constitution of large collections, sharing of samples, multiple testing on the same samples, and repeating testing over the years. However, banking organization is complex, requires multiple actors, and concerns are expressed in various countries. International standardization of ethical requirements and policies with regard to DNA banking has been recommended. Such standardization would facilitate a greater protection of individuals as well as future international cooperation in biomedical research.

Data storage and DNA banking for biomedical research: technical, social and ethical issues.

Data storage and DNA banking for biomedical research: technical, social and ethical issues.

Data storage and DNA banking for biomedical research: technical, social and ethical issues.

Data storage and DNA banking for biomedical research: technical, social and ethical issues.

Predicting Infiltration and Ground-Water Mounds for Artificial Recharge

Planning systems for the artificial recharge of ground water via surface infiltration requires site investigations to predict infiltration rates and land requirements. Also, the ability of the vadose zone to transmit water to the underlying aquifer must be assessed, and aquifer conditions must be evaluated to predict the rise of ground-water mounds and to determine where ground water must eventually be pumped up again to prevent ground-water mounds below recharge areas from rising too high. A simple technique is presented to convert data from short-duration single-cylinder infiltrometer tests to final infiltration rates for large areas. Also, simple equations are developed to estimate heights of perched ground-water mounds above restricting layers in the vadose zone, to estimate how far from the recharge area ground water must be pumped, and to what depth to create a steady-state system with constant height of the ground-water mound in the recharge area. The procedures are useful for feasibility studies and the preliminary design of recharge projects, including long-term underground storage or water banking.

Storage, surgery, outcome, complications, and new developments in corneal and conjunctival grafts.

This review covers last year's literature on corneal, limbal, and conjunctival transplantation including tissue storage and eye banking. In this area, the main themes were related to a better evaluation of tissue viability and the exclusion of disease transmission. An analysis of the changing indications for penetrating keratoplasty shows the differences between American and European series. Most efforts in relation to surgical techniques are oriented toward obtaining better refractive results, whereas the study of large series sheds new light on the risk factors for graft failure and other complications. Limbal transplants have acquired the status of a new field in the surgical treatment of ocular surface disease, particularly in relation to corneal stem cell deficiencies.