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The emission of greenhouse gases continues to amplify the impacts of global climate change. This has led to the increased focus on using renewable energy sources, such as biofuels, due to their lower impact on the environment. However, the production of biofuels can still have negative impacts on water resources. This study introduces a new strategy to optimize bioenergy landscapes while improving stream health for the region. To accomplish this, several hydrological models including the Soil and Water Assessment Tool, Hydrologic Integrity Tool, and Adaptive Neruro Fuzzy Inference System, were linked to develop stream health predictor models. These models are capable of estimating stream health scores based on the Index of Biological Integrity. The coupling of the aforementioned models was used to guide a genetic algorithm to design watershed-scale bioenergy landscapes. Thirteen bioenergy managements were considered based on the high probability of adaptation by farmers in the study area. Results from two thousand runs identified an optimum bioenergy crops placement that maximized the stream health for the Flint River Watershed in Michigan. The final overall stream health score was 50.93, which was improved from the current stream health score of 48.19. This was shown to be a significant improvement at the 1% significant level. For this final bioenergy landscape the most often used management was miscanthus (27.07%), followed by corn-soybean-rye (19.00%), corn stover-soybean (18.09%), and corn-soybean (16.43%). The technique introduced in this study can be successfully modified for use in different regions and can be used by stakeholders and decision makers to develop bioenergy landscapes that maximize stream health in the area of interest., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The seismic gap theory identifies regions of elevated hazard based on a lack of recent seismicity in comparison with other portions of a fault. It has successfully explained past earthquakes (see, for example, ref. 2) and is useful for qualitatively describing where large earthquakes might occur. A large earthquake had been expected in the subduction zone adjacent to northern Chile, which had not ruptured in a megathrust earthquake since a M ∼8.8 event in 1877. On 1 April 2014 a M 8.2 earthquake occurred within this seismic gap. Here we present an assessment of the seismotectonics of the March-April 2014 Iquique sequence, including analyses of earthquake relocations, moment tensors, finite fault models, moment deficit calculations and cumulative Coulomb stress transfer. This ensemble of information allows us to place the sequence within the context of regional seismicity and to identify areas of remaining and/or elevated hazard. Our results constrain the size and spatial extent of rupture, and indicate that this was not the earthquake that had been anticipated. Significant sections of the northern Chile subduction zone have not ruptured in almost 150 years, so it is likely that future megathrust earthquakes will occur to the south and potentially to the north of the 2014 Iquique sequence.

Autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis (ARCI) is a heterogeneous group of rare cornification diseases. Germline mutations in TGM1 are the most common cause of ARCI in the United States. TGM1 encodes for the TGase-1 enzyme that functions in the formation of the cornified cell envelope. Structurally defective or attenuated cornified cell envelop have been shown in epidermal scales and appendages of ARCI patients with TGM1 mutations. We review the clinical manifestations as well as the molecular genetics of ARCI. In addition, we characterized 115 TGM1 mutations reported in 234 patients from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds (Caucasion Americans, Norwegians, Swedish, Finnish, German, Swiss, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Hispanics, Iranian, Tunisian, Moroccan, Egyptian, Afghani, Hungarian, African Americans, Korean, Japanese and South African). We report 23 novel mutations: 71 (62%) missense; 20 (17%) nonsense; 9 (8%) deletion; 8 (7%) splice-site, and 7 (6%) insertion. The c.877-2A>G was the most commonly reported TGM1 mutation accounting for 34% (147 of 435) of all TGM1 mutant alleles reported to date. It had been shown that this mutation is common among North American and Norwegian patients due to a founder effect. Thirty-one percent (36 of 115) of all mutations and 41% (29 of 71) of missense mutations occurred in arginine residues in TGase-1. Forty-nine percent (35 of 71) of missense mutations were within CpG dinucleotides, and 74% (26/35) of these mutations were C>T or G>A transitions. We constructed a model of human TGase-1 and showed that all mutated arginines that reside in the two beta-barrel domains and two (R142 and R143) in the beta-sandwich are located at domain interfaces. In conclusion, this study expands the TGM1 mutation spectrum and summarizes the current knowledge of TGM1 mutations. The high frequency of mutated arginine codons in TGM1 may be due to the deamination of 5' methylated CpG dinucleotides., ((c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)