Dutch Focus Groups results. TR 3.54 Interactions with citizens and consumers at local scale

As part of the Endure project, funded by the EU Sixth Framework Programme, two focus group sessions were carried out in January 2010 in the Netherlands. Aim of these focus group sessions was to understand the believes, associations and attitudes people have concerning the use of pesticides and integrated pest management (IPM) in regard to apples and pears. In total 15 people participated in the focus group session and participants were heterogeneous in gender, age and background. They all bought apples and most of them visited farms are farmers markets

Mapping loci for chlorosis associated with chlorophyII b deficiency in potato

About 30% of the potato plants from a (Solanum tuberosum × S. berthaultii) × S. tuberosum backcross population had chlorotic, malformed leaves; but a gradation in symptom severity suggested regulation by more than one gene. The study was undertaken to determine whether this was the case, whether any genes previously reported to control chlorosis in potato were involved, and to see how symptoms were related to effects on chlorophyll content. Testing for quantitative trait loci indicated major control by a single recessive gene on chromosome 1, close to one or more loci that have been reported to produce chlorosis in tomato, but distinct from similar genes previously identified in potato. The proposed symbol for the potato gene that confers phenotype with chlorotic and malformed leaves is cml (chlorotic and malformed leaves). The effects of this gene appeared to be accentuated by a second gene, located on chromosome 12. Chlorotic plants showed a 50% decrease in chlorophyll b level in the affected parts of leaves. It is concluded that cml is different from previously reported genes for chlorosis in potato, that at least one other gene modifies the intensity of symptom expression, and that the observed chlorosis is produced through effects on chlorophyll b level

Periodic-Orbit Bifurcation and Shell Structure in Reflection-Asymmetric Deformed Cavity

Shell structure of the single-particle spectrum for reflection-asymmetric deformed cavity is investigated. Remarkable shell structure emerges for certain combinations of quadrupole and octupole deformations. Semiclassical periodic-orbit analysis indicates that bifurcation of equatorial orbits plays an important role in the formation of this new shell structure.Comment: 5 pages, latex including 5 postscript figures, submitted to Physics Letters

On the energy momentum dispersion in the lattice regularization

For a free scalar boson field and for U(1) gauge theory finite volume (infrared) and other corrections to the energy-momentum dispersion in the lattice regularization are investigated calculating energy eigenstates from the fall off behavior of two-point correlation functions. For small lattices the squared dispersion energy defined by $E_{\rm dis}^2=E_{\vec{k}}^2-E_0^2-4\sum_{i=1}^{d-1}\sin(k_i/2)^2$ is in both cases negative ($d$ is the Euclidean space-time dimension and $E_{\vec{k}}$ the energy of momentum $\vec{k}$ eigenstates). Observation of $E_{\rm dis}^2=0$ has been an accepted method to demonstrate the existence of a massless photon ($E_0=0$) in 4D lattice gauge theory, which we supplement here by a study of its finite size corrections. A surprise from the lattice regularization of the free field is that infrared corrections do {\it not} eliminate a difference between the groundstate energy $E_0$ and the mass parameter $M$ of the free scalar lattice action. Instead, the relation $E_0=\cosh^{-1} (1+M^2/2)$ is derived independently of the spatial lattice size.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. Parts of the paper have been rewritten and expanded to clarify the result

Characterizing CDMA downlink feasibility via effective interference

This paper models and analyses downlink power assignment feasibility in Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) mobile networks. By discretizing the area into small segments, the power requirements are characterized via a matrix representation that separates user and system characteristics. We obtain a closed-form analytical expression of the so-called Perron-Frobenius eigenvalue of that matrix, which provides a quick assessment of the feasibility of the power assignment for each distribution of calls over the segments. Although the obtained relation is non-linear, it basically provides an effective interference characterisation of downlink feasibility. Our results allow for a fast evaluation of outage and blocking probabilities, and enable a quick evaluation of feasibility that may be used for Call Acceptance Control. \u

Changes in the secretory profile of NSCLC-associated fibroblasts after ablative radiotherapy: potential impact on angiogenesis and tumor growth

In the context of radiotherapy, collateral effects of ablative ionizing radiation (AIR) on stromal components of tumors remains understudied. In this work, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) isolated from freshly resected human lung tumors were exposed to AIR (1x18Gy) and analyzed for their release of paracrine factors. Inflammatory mediators and regulators of angiogenesis and tumor growth were analyzed by multiplex protein assays in conditioned medium (CM) from irradiated and non-irradiated CAFs. Additionally, the profile of secreted proteins was examined by proteomics. In functional assays, effects of CAF-CM on proliferative and migratory capacity of lung tumor cells (H-520/H-522) and endothelial cells (HUVECs), and on the tube-forming capacity of endothelial cells was assessed. Our data show that exposure of CAFs to ablative doses of ionizing radiation results in a) down-regulated release of angiogenic factors SDF-1, angiopoietin and thrombospondin-2; b) up-regulated release of growth factor bFGF from most donors, and c) unaffected expression-levels of HGF and inflammatory mediators IL-6, IL-8, IL-1ƒÒ and TNF-£. Conditioned medium from irradiated and control CAFs did not affect differently the proliferative or migratory capacity of tumor cells (H-520/H-522), whereas migratory capacity of endothelial HUVEC cells was partially reduced in the presence of irradiated CAF conditioned medium. Overall we conclude that AIR mediates a transformation on the secretory profile of CAFs that could influence the behavior of other cells in the tumor tissue and hence guide to some extent therapeutic outcomes. The downstream consequences of the changes observed in this study merits further investigations