Chemical composition and energy yield of elephant-grass biomass as function of five different production ages.

Abstract Elephant grass has high biomass production, with qualities suitable for conversion into bioenergy, but has long been used exclusively for animal feed and only in recent years has it become an energetic alternative. Therefore, it is necessary to select genotypes with potential for energy production. This study evaluated the effect of five harvest times (8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 weeks) on the yield and chemical composition related to biomass quality through combined polynomial regression analyses of the following elephant grass genotypes: Cubano Pinda, Mercker 86-México, Pusa Napier n°1, Mole de Volta Grande, P-241-Piracicaba, and King Grass. A completely randomized design with three replicates, in a split-plot arrangement, was adopted, including two factors (plots = genotypes, subplots = harvest times). The evaluated variables were whole-plant dry matter yield, in t ha-1 (DMY), percentage of neutral detergent fiber (%NDF), and percentage of acid detergent fiber (%ADF). The elephant-grass genotypes Cubano de Pinda, Mercker 86-México, and P-241-Piracicaba showed a linear first-degree effect as a function of the harvest intervals, indicating that they did not reach their maximum production potential. Genotypes Pusa Napier n°1, Mole de Volta Grande, and King Grass, in turn, had a linear second-degree effect. For the NDF variable, all genotypes showed a significant linear second-degree effect as a function of the harvest intervals, except P-241-Piracicaba, for which no regression was observed. For this genotype, there was a significant linear first-degree effect on the %ADF variable

INFOGEST static in vitro simulation of gastrointestinal food digestion

peer-reviewedSupplementary information is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41596-018-0119-1 or https://www.nature.com/articles/s41596-018-0119-1#Sec45.Developing a mechanistic understanding of the impact of food structure and composition on human health has increasingly involved simulating digestion in the upper gastrointestinal tract. These simulations have used a wide range of different conditions that often have very little physiological relevance, and this impedes the meaningful comparison of results. The standardized protocol presented here is based on an international consensus developed by the COST INFOGEST network. The method is designed to be used with standard laboratory equipment and requires limited experience to encourage a wide range of researchers to adopt it. It is a static digestion method that uses constant ratios of meal to digestive fluids and a constant pH for each step of digestion. This makes the method simple to use but not suitable for simulating digestion kinetics. Using this method, food samples are subjected to sequential oral, gastric and intestinal digestion while parameters such as electrolytes, enzymes, bile, dilution, pH and time of digestion are based on available physiological data. This amended and improved digestion method (INFOGEST 2.0) avoids challenges associated with the original method, such as the inclusion of the oral phase and the use of gastric lipase. The method can be used to assess the endpoints resulting from digestion of foods by analyzing the digestion products (e.g., peptides/amino acids, fatty acids, simple sugars) and evaluating the release of micronutrients from the food matrix. The whole protocol can be completed in ~7 d, including ~5 d required for the determination of enzyme activities.COST action FA1005 INFOGEST (http://www.cost-infogest.eu/ ) is acknowledged for providing funding for travel, meetings and conferences (2011-2015). The French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA, www.inra.fr) is acknowledged for their continuous support of the INFOGEST network by organising and co-funding the International Conference on Food Digestion and workgroup meeting

Telomere length and bipolar disorder

Variation in telomere length is heritable and is currently considered a promising biomarker of susceptibility for neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly because of its association with memory function and hippocampal morphology. Here, we investigate telomere length in connection to familial risk and disease expression in bipolar disorder (BD). We used quantitative polymerase chain reactions and a telomere-sequence to single-copy-gene-sequence ratio method to determine telomere length in genomic DNA extracted from buccal smears from 63 patients with BD, 74 first-degree relatives (49 relatives had no lifetime psychopathology and 25 had a non-BD mood disorder) and 80 unrelated healthy individuals. Participants also underwent magnetic resonance imaging to determine hippocampal volumes and cognitive assessment to evaluate episodic memory using the verbal paired associates test. Telomere length was shorter in psychiatrically-well relatives (p=0.007) compared to unrelated healthy participants. Telomere length was also shorter in relatives (regardless of psychiatric status; p<0.01) and patients with BD not on lithium (p=0.02) compared to lithium-treated patients with BD. In the entire sample, telomere length was positively associated with left and right hippocampal volume and with delayed recall. This study provides evidence that shortened telomere length is associated with familial risk for BD. Lithium may have neuroprotective properties that require further investigation using prospective designs

Correlação entre parâmetros de estabilidade e adaptabilidade em híbridos de sorgo granífero.

Considerando a importância da cultura do sorgo granífero, esse trabalho teve objetivo de estudar os coeficientes de correlação de Sperman entre parâmetros de estabilidade e adaptabilidade obtidos por diferentes métodos. Esses parâmetros foram obtidos a partir dos resultados de rendimento de grãos de 25 híbridos de sorgo granífero, analisados em sete ambientes, por meio da realização das análises propostas por Eberhart e Russell (1966), Cruz et al. (1989) e algumas variações da metodologia de Lin e Bins (1988) proposta por Carneiro (1998). Pela correlação de Sperman é esperado obter indivíduos com parâmetros favoráveis de adaptabilidade em ambientes favoráveis, desfavoráveis e ambientes em geral; a utilização de dois ideótipos para a metodologia proposta por Carneiro (1998) se mostrou redundante e; as metodologias que se baseiam em regressão foram concordantes em discriminar híbridos estáveis e híbridos adaptados a ambientes desfavoráveis. Os métodos que se baseiam em regressão foram concordantes com os métodos de Carneiro (1998) apenas para obtenção de indivíduos que respondem a melhoria ambiental no caso do método de Eberhart e Russell (1966) considerando todos ambientes, enquanto que pelo método de Cruz et al. (1989) apenas ambientes desfavoráveis

Observation of Feshbach resonances between alkali and closed-shell atoms

Magnetic Feshbach resonances allow control of the interactions between ultracold atoms1. They are an invaluable tool in studies of few-body and many-body physics2,3, and can be used to convert pairs of atoms into molecules4,5 by ramping an applied magnetic field across a resonance. Molecules formed from pairs of alkali atoms have been transferred to low-lying states, producing dipolar quantum gases6. There is great interest in making molecules formed from an alkali atom and a closed-shell atom such as ground-state Sr or Yb. Such molecules have both a strong electric dipole and an electron spin; they will open up new possibilities for designing quantum many-body systems7,8, and for tests of fundamental symmetries9. The crucial first step is to observe Feshbach resonances in the corresponding atomic mixtures. Very narrow resonances have been predicted theoretically10,11,12, but until now have eluded observation. Here we present the observation of magnetic Feshbach resonances of this type, for an alkali atom, Rb, interacting with ground-state Sr

The European Union and lethal autonomous weapons systems: united in diversity?

This chapter focuses on norm contestation in the emerging stage by exploring the possible prohibition of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), which is advocated by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. At the UN Convention on Conventional Weapons, there is a shared agreement regarding a new organizing principle on human control. But different normative views on how human control should be regulated are leading the debate to a deadlock situation. On the one hand, the group advocating for inaction and on the other hand, the group of countries willing to ban LAWS. To avoid this, Germany and France together with the EU delegation worked on a soft law instrument. At the intra-EU level, an interinstitutional agreement between the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the EU has agreed to do not fund LAWS within the European Defence Fund. All in all, in both international organizations deliberation as a mode of contestation was dominant and resulted in a soft contestation of the emerging norm. As a result, the EU at the international level-triggered norm followership, where its fundamental norms and values of EU foreign policy proved to be resilient, while at the intra-EU level it enhanced internal cohesiveness.Esther Barbé wishes to acknowledge the Observatory of European Foreign Policy-SGR, funded by the Agency for Management of University Research Grants (AGAUR) of the Catalan Government (Grant agreement: 2017-SGR-693). Diego Badell thanks the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness for funding (FPI, Grant number: BES-2017-079692)