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. Question: What are the major vegetation units in the Arctic, what is their composition, and how are they distributed among major bioclimate subzones and countries? Location: The Arctic tundra region, north of the tree line. Methods: A photo‐interpretive approach was used to delineate the vegetation onto an Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) base image. Mapping experts within nine Arctic regions prepared draft maps using geographic information technology (ArcInfo) of their portion of the Arctic, and these were later synthesized to make the final map. Area analysis of the map was done according to bioclimate subzones, and country. The integrated mapping procedures resulted in other maps of vegetation, topography, soils, landscapes, lake cover, substrate pH, and above‐ground biomass. Results: The final map was published at 1:7 500 000 scale map. Within the Arctic (total area = 7.11 × 106 km2), about 5.05 × 106 km2 is vegetated. The remainder is ice covered. The map legend generally portrays the zonal vegetation within each map polygon. About 26% of the vegetated area is erect shrublands, 18% peaty graminoid tundras, 13% mountain complexes, 12% barrens, 11% mineral graminoid tundras, 11% prostrate‐shrub tundras, and 7% wetlands. Canada has by far the most terrain in the High Arctic mostly associated with abundant barren types and prostrate dwarf‐shrub tundra, whereas Russia has the largest area in the Low Arctic, predominantly low‐shrub tundra. Conclusions: The CAVM is the first vegetation map of an entire global biome at a comparable resolution. The consistent treatment of the vegetation across the circumpolar Arctic, abundant ancillary material, and digital database should promote the application to numerous land‐use, and climate‐change applications and will make updating the map relatively easy.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFL) and its sequelae are growing health problems. We performed a genome-wide association study of NAFL, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, and integrated the findings with expression and proteomic data. For NAFL, we utilized 9,491 clinical cases and proton density fat fraction extracted from 36,116 liver magnetic resonance images. We identified 18 sequence variants associated with NAFL and 4 with cirrhosis, and found rare, protective, predicted loss-of-function variants in MTARC1 and GPAM, underscoring them as potential drug targets. We leveraged messenger RNA expression, splicing and predicted coding effects to identify 16 putative causal genes, of which many are implicated in lipid metabolism. We analyzed levels of 4,907 plasma proteins in 35,559 Icelanders and 1,459 proteins in 47,151 UK Biobank participants, identifying multiple proteins involved in disease pathogenesis. We show that proteomics can discriminate between NAFL and cirrhosis. The present study provides insights into the development of noninvasive evaluation of NAFL and new therapeutic options.

The heritability of yield predictions obtained from video image analysis (VIAscan®) of lamb carcasses (n=18,680) and EUROP classes obtained by abattoir assessors (n=26,795) was estimated, as well as the genetic and phenotypic correlations between VIAscan® traits and in vivo lamb traits (n = 9,930), including ultrasonic measurements, visual conformation score and length of the cannon bone. The main objective of the study was to test the equivalence of EUROP classes obtained by VIAscan® and visual scoring as selection criteria in the breeding work. Genetic correlations between EUROP scores from VIAscan® and from abattoir assessors were 0.94 for conformation and 0.82 for fat score. The heritability of conformation score was 0.32 and 0.35 based on VIAscan® and visual scoring, and 0.29 and 0.31 for the fat score, respectively. Yield predictions as proportions of lean meat of carcass weight from VIAscan® were highly heritable, h 2 ranging from 0.39 to 0.63. Lean meat yield (LMY) estimated as lean weight in major cuts had a direct heritability ranging from 0.17 to 0.21, maternal heritability ranging from 0.09 to 0.11 and a common environmental (c 2 ) effect of 0.22-0.23. Lean meat yield of the whole carcass (LMY_%) had the highest genetic correlation to visual leg score (0.44) while correlations between lean yield of three carcass parts (LegY_%, LoinY_% and ShoulderY_%) and in vivo measurements were low to moderately high and favourable except for loin yield. The EUROP scores obtained by both methods had similar genetic and phenotypic correlations to in vivo traits where conformation scores were highly correlated to visual scores for legs and shoulders and ultrasonic muscle measurements and fat scores were positively correlated to ultrasonic fat measurements and shoulder scores. It is concluded that VIAscan® can be used as a grading tool for the Icelandic sheep industry and measurements of carcass traits obtained from the system would be useful in the national sheep breeding program.Keywords: Genetic parameters, Video image analysis, lamb carcasses, EUROP classification, lean meat yield, ultrasound measurements. YFIRLIT Erfðastuðlar fyrir skrokkeiginleika lamba maeldum með rafraenum aðferðum, EUROP flokkun og mati á lifandi lömbum.Arfgengi vöðvahlutfalls lambaskrokka og EUROP flokka sem metnir voru baeði rafraent (VIAscan®) (n=18.680) og af matsmönnum í sláturhúsi (n=26.795) var metið ásamt erfða-og svipfarsfylgni þessara eiginleika við maelingar og dóma á lifandi lömbum (n = 9.930), (ómmaelingar, stig fyrir frampart og laeri ásamt legglengd). Erfðafylgni milli EUROP flokkunar matsmanna og VIAscan® flokkunar var 0,94 fyrir holdfyllingu og 0,82 Icel. Agric. Sci. 28 (2015), 3-14 www.ias.is http://dx.doi.org/10.16886/IAS.2015.01 4 ICELANDIC AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES fyrir fitu. Arfgengi holdfyllingarmats var 0,32 fyrir VIAscan® og 0,35 fyrir sláturhúsmat og arfgengi stiga fyrir fitu var 0,29 og 0,31. Arfgengi nýtingar (LMY) metin með VIAscan® sem kg nýtanlegt kjöt í hverjum skrokkhluta (frampartur, hryggur, laeri) var...

Recorder charts of water level for the ice‐free season are examined for six stations on Lake Winnipeg for the years 1961–1964. Transverse and longitudinal seiches are identified for the north and south basins. An interference pattern is noted for seiches over two different fetches at Victoria Beach. Typical weather situations producing transverse and longitudinal seiches are identified. Moderate to large set‐up is examined for 37 cases and geostrophic winds sealed off from weather charts covering an 18‐hr period preceding the peak set‐up. Using corrections for curvature, motion of the pressure system, deviation from the main axis of the lake, and air stability, an assumed over‐water component is computed for each case. The correlation between set‐up and over‐water wind square is found to be 0.81. Standard deviation of actual set‐up from that predicted by the regression equation is 0.076 m.