Assessment of meadow restoration benefits from understanding the connection between geomorphology, hydrology and vegetation, and multispectral imagery captured from unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAV) may provide the method most suitable in terms of cost, spatial resolution, support for vegetation indices, and frequency of acquisition. Our field studies of northern Sierra Nevada montane meadows (with <40 km2 watersheds) in various stages of restoration includes GPS + laser-leveling channel survey, laser-leveled cross section, aerial LiDAR, vegetation sampling, soil measurements, and UAV imaging using a sensor capturing calibrated blue (465-485 nm), green (550-570 nm), red (663-673 nm), near infrared (820-860 nm), and red edge (712-722 nm) bands at 5.5 cm resolution, providing multispectral false-color images and vegetation indices such as normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and red-edge Chlorophyll index (Clre). This fine-scale imagery extends our morphometric assessment of post-restoration channel scouring exhibiting bedform patterns and sinuosity related to Carex-influenced soil properties and Salix copses, but also provided a view of groundwater-related drainage effects including sinuous Carex-vegetated zones evident from spring snowmelt images as well as NDVI and Clre in growing to senescent phenological stages. Carex in particular was significantly associated with low bulk density and high soil moisture, NDVI, and Clre at lower elevations.

The survival rate of extracorporeal life support (ECLS) remains overall at 60 %. Research and development is slow, partly due to the lack of sophisticated experimental models. This publication introduces a dedicated rodent oxygenator (“RatOx”) and shows preliminary in vitro classification tests. The RatOx has an adaptable fiber module size for various rodent models. Gas transfer performance over the fiber module for different blood flows and fiber module sizes were tested according to DIN EN ISO 7199.At the maximum possible amount of effective fiber surface and a blood flow of 100 ml/min, the oxygenator performance has been tested to a maximum of 6.27 ml O2/min and 8.2 ml CO2/min, respectively. The priming volume for this the largest fiber module is 5.4 ml, while the smallest possible configuration with a single fiber mat layer has 1.1 ml of priming volume. The novel RatOx ECLS system has been evaluated in-vitro to comply to a high degree with all predefined functionality criteria for rodent sized animal models. We intend for the RatOx to become a standard testing platform for scientific studies on ECLS therapy and technology.