Introduction to Urban and Community Forestry in the United States of America: History, Accomplishments, Issues and Trends

The urban and community forestry movement in the United States has matured over the last 20 years from managing street trees, to understanding the benefits of trees in urban ecosystems, and now to managing urban green infrastructure. This paper introduced the history, development, and major accomplishments of the urban and community forestry movement, highlighted the economic, ecological, environmental, and social values of forests and trees to communities, and discussed issues and trends of the urban and community forestry program in the United States.

Impacts of High Fiber Diet on Digestion and Absorption of Minerals in Growing Pigs

The study was conducted to investigate the effects of feeding high-fiber diet （HFD） on apparent total tract digestibility （ATTD） and absorption of minerals in growing pigs. Sixteen barrows averaging 16.39 kg were randomly assigned to one of four diets after metabolic crate assignment with individual pig serving as experimental unit. Diets include： a corn-soybean meal based low-fiber diet （LFD）, as the control （CON） and 3 HFD （D1, D2 and D3）, each containing 5% sugar beet pulps and a 1：2, 1：1 and 2：1 oats to barley ratios, respectively, replacing 47% of the corn in the diet. Diets were formulated to meet nutrient requirements, however, the fiber content of the LFD was substantially lower than the average of the HFD （8.38% vs. 22.40%）. Feed allowance was limited to 10% of average body weight and fed twice/d. The study period was divided into 10 d of adjustment and 5 d of feces collection. Data collected were analyzed using SAS, GLIMMIX procedure where animals were considered random effects, and minerals were fixed. Results of the study show that digestibility of Ca in pigs fed HFD was lower （P 〈 0.05） than in pigs fed LFD. On the other hand, the apparent digestibility of P, K, Na, S and Zn in pigs fed D2 and D3 were higher （P 〈 0.05） than in pigs fed CON diet. It was also observed that digestibility of Ca, P, K, Na, S and Zn in pigs fed D1 were lower （P 〈 0.05） than in CON, D2 or D3 fed pigs. Therefore, it was concluded that while feeding HFD reduced availability of Ca, the availability of P, K, Na and S to pigs improved as the oat to barley ratio in the diet increased.

Gut Fermentation and Growth Performance of Pigs Fed High Fiber Diet

Ninety six pigs average weight 9.15 kg were used to study the effects of feeding diets containing multiple sources of dietary fiber （DF） on weight gain and concentration of fermentation products in the digestive tract. The experiment employed four diets and four pens diet1. Diets included a low fiber diet （LFD）, as control and three antibiotic free high-fiber diets （HFD） containing a 1：2, 1：1 or 2：1 oats：barley ratios. At the end of the 70 d feeding trial three pigs of comparable weight diefI were slaughtered. Digesta taken from the stomach, cecum and colon were used for the determination of volatile fatty acids （VFA）. Results indicated that inclusion of HFD increased （P 〈 0.05） feed intake but not weight gain. As revealed by the higher feed intake the nutritional value of HFD was approximately 88% of LFD. Also, as the amount of oats in the diet was increased, VFA concentration was also increased while isobutyrate decreased （P 〈 0.05）. Lower concentration of isobutyrate may indicate parallel reduction in other putatively toxic products of protein fermentation in the digestive tract. Thus, inclusion of multiple sources of fiber in the diet impacted feed intake and the products of gut fermentation in growing pigs.

Microdoses Levels of Butadiene Diepoxide (BDO₂) Induced Toxicity in Prostate Cancer Cells

Low-level exposure to environmental pollutants such as BDO2 contributes directly and indirectly to an increase in PCa. The aim of this study was to define the cellular changes associated with micro-doses of Butadiene Diepoxide (BDO2) in prostate cancer cells. We observed that micro-doses of BDO2 resulted in dose- and time-dependent increases in cytotoxicity and increased expression of prostate tumor markers in LNCaP(AR+) and DU145(AR-) cells. There was an increased sensitivity of DU145(AR-) cells to BDO2 toxicity which was reversed by transient transfection of AR into theses cell. Exposure of prostate cells to BDO2 increases cytotoxicity, and apoptosis, which correlates with increases in caspases and Bcl2 protein and mRNA levels. In cell DU145(AR-) cell transient transfected with a functional AR, the levels of cytotoxicity and caspase activity were decreased in the presence of BDO2, but BDO2-induced apoptotic protein expression was unaltered. This study provides evidence that micro-doses of BDO2 modulate prostate cell toxicity by promoting apoptosis and tumor gene expression.

Environmental Impacts of Feeding High-fiber Diet to Pigs

The concentration of volatile fatty acids （VFA） determined from a previous study was used to determine the concentration of carbon dioxide （CO2） and methane （CH4） in pig digesta using the model developed for ruminant animals. Digesta from the stomach, cecum and colon of pigs （n = 3 dietl） were used for the determination of VFA. The pigs were fed either a low fiber diet （LFD; 8.3% aNDF） as control, or one of the high-fiber diets （HFD, 22.4% aNDF; D1, D2 and D3） containing 1：2, 1：1 and 2：1, oats to barley ratios, respectively. Results indicated that the concentrations of CO2 and CH4 in pigs fed HFD were, on the average, 25.8 and 24.2%, respectively lower （P 〈 0.05） than pigs fed LFD. Pigs fed the highest oat to barley ratio also showed higher （P 〈 0.05） levels of CO2, （8.3%） and CH4 （5.1%）, compared to the average of the two lower ratios （CO2, 5.3% and CH4, 3.3%）. Molar proportions of VFA, CO2 and CH4 in the gut were in the order of VFA 〉 CO2 〉 CH4, at 53.0%, 28.6% and 18.4%, respectively, and CO2 and CH4 combined represented 47% of total gas.

Acetone Extract of <i>Dioscorea alata</i>Inhibits Cell Proliferation in Cancer Cells

Dioscorea spp., White Yam has been shown to exhibit a wide range of nutritional and medicinal properties. However, the compounds associated with its medicinal functions have not been fully examined. The purpose of this study was to generate a chemoinformatic profile of the bioactive compounds present in Dioscorea. alata (D. alata) and to characterize their putative anti-cancer properties using prostate (DU145) and lung (A549) cancer cells. Chemoinformatic profiling of D. alata resulted in five bioactive extracts: hexane (DaJa-1), ether (DaJa-2), acetone (DaJa-3), ethanol (DaJa-4) and water (DaJa-5) were generated. The analytes present in the five bioactive extracts were dissolved in 0.1% DMSO and their anti-cancer activity were determined. We observed that the acetone extract (DaJa3) was the only extract capable of inducing greater than 90% cell death of DU 145 cell at 100 μg/mL. The order of growth inhibition of the extracts in DU-145 cell is DaJa-3 (IC50, 31.45 μg/mL) > DaJa-4 (IC50 60 μg/mL) > DaJa-1 (IC50 > 100 μg/mL) ≥ DaJa-2 (IC50 > 100 μg/mL) ≥ DaJa-5 (IC50 > 100 μg/mL). MTT cell viability, dye exclusion, caspase activity and microscopic assessment of apoptotic cells demonstrated that DaJa-3 displayed cytotoxicity to both lung and prostate cancer cells. The A549 cells were more sensitive toward DaJa-3 with an IC50 value of 22.28 μg/mL (CI 28.42 to 36.63 μg/mL), compared to that of DU145 cells with an IC50 value of 31.45 μg/mL (CI 27.58 to 35.86 μg/mL). It was also observed that DaJa-3 induces differential anti-proliferative activity in the cancer cells. The apoptotic response induced by DaJa-3 paralleled the level of cell cytotoxicity observed in both cell lines. DaJa-3 induces G2 phase cell cycle arrest in DU145 cells but G1 arrest in A549 cells. The level of key apoptotic regulator proteins was upregulated, suggested that DaJa-3 may be mediating its anti-cancer effect through activation of the intrinsic apoptotic pathway. Altogether, our data indicates that DaJa-3 derived from a staple food source (white Yam) contains unique active compounds that have specific biological properties that may prevent certain types of cancer or specific types of cancer.

A NEW STATISTICAL APPROACH FOR THE ANALYSIS OF UNCERTAIN SYSTEMS

This paper addresses the issues of conservativeness and computational complexity of probabilistie robustness analysis. The authors solve both issues by defining a new sampling strategy and robustness measure. The new measure is shown to be much less conservative than the existing one. The new sampling strategy enables the definition of efficient hierarchical sample reuse algorithms that reduce significantly the computational complexity and make it independent of the dimension of the uncertainty space. Moreover, the authors show that there exists a one to one correspondence between the new and the existing robustness measures and provide a computationally simple algorithm to derive one from the other.

Even-odd harmonics generated from above-threshold ionization

We are reporting a theoretical prediction： The photoelectrons forming above-threshold-ionization （ATI） peaks emit both even and odd harmonics. These harmonics exhibit plateau and cut-off features similar to those odd-only harmonics observed in ATI experiments.