Stickstoffverfügbarkeit von Komposten im Ökolandbau

Das Projekt zielt darauf ab, die Stickstofffreisetzungsdynamik der im ökologischen Landbau gebräuchlichsten Komposte besser abzuschätzen durch Ermittlung von Beziehungen zwischen Kompostierungsverfahren und agronomischem Potential (insbesondere Stickstoffver-fügbarkeit). Es wird versucht, den landbaulichen Wert von Komposten anhand von einfachen Kriterien zu kennzeichnen. Vorgeschlagen wird ein 3-stufiges Analysenverfahren: 1. Sich vergewissern, dass der Kompost nicht mehr aktiv ist (Stabilität). 2. Den Reifegrad des Komposts messen (Schätzung der produzierten Menge an Humusverbindungen). 3.Bewertung der Qualität der produzierten Humusverbindungen (Kationenaustauschkapazität) Desweiteren werden Beiträge geliefert zu technischen (Einfluss von Bodentyp, Klima, Aus-bringungstermin und -verfahren sowie Abstimmung mit dem Nährstoffbedarf der Pflanzen), wirtschaftlichen (Kosten der Düngung bzw. Bodenverbesserung) und organisatorischen (zeit-liche und räumliche Organisation, Zweckmäßigkeit der Kompostierung im Vergleich zu Frischmist, ...) Aspekten

THz Magneto-electric atomic rotations in the chiral compound Ba3_3NbFe3_3Si2_2O14_{14}

We have determined the terahertz spectrum of the chiral langasite Ba$_3$NbFe$_3$Si$_2$O$_{14}$ by means of synchrotron-radiation measurements. Two excitations are revealed that are shown to have a different nature. The first one, purely magnetic, is observed at low temperature in the magnetically ordered phase and is assigned to a magnon. The second one persits far into the paramagnetic phase and exhibits both an electric and a magnetic activity at slightly different energies. This magnetoelectric excitation is interpreted in terms of atomic rotations and requires a helical electric polarization

Intelligent suggestions for actions during voice calls

Participants in a voice call often exchange small yet important pieces of information, e.g., phone numbers, meeting locations, action items, etc. To capture such information, users often interrupt call flow to take down notes, which is an inconvenience. This disclosure describes machine-learning techniques that automatically detect and capture (with permission from the participants to the call) noteworthy pieces of information that are detected in the audio flow between the participants

Spontaneous Intracerebral Hemorrhage: Patient’s Activities before the Onset of Stroke and Localization of Intracerebral Hemorrhage in Black Africans

Background: Some published studies on the patient’s activity before the stroke occurrence indicate that thereis an increased risk of the onset of acute stroke during these activities. In our community, these data are not yet assessed. The purpose of this pilot study was to examine whether intracerebral hemorrhage may be linked to patient’s physical activity before the onset and to carry out any relationship with location of the hemorrhage.Methods: The patient’s activity before the onset of stroke and location of hemorrhage in 58 patients (40 men and 18 women, aged 39 to 81years) admitted with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage seen by CT in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, from 2012 to 2015, were recorded and analyzed using logistic regression models. Results: In 31% of the case, the onset developed after emotional factors, in 24% in the lavatory, in 15% during housework and in 12% during sexual activity (X-squared = 8.319, p-value = 0.081). There was no significant difference between those activities and the site of intracerebral hemorrhage (p?0.05).Conclusion: Most patients in this series seemed to be stricken by the hemorrhagic stroke during some physical activity. It is less certain that location of intracerebral hemorrhage was linked with these activities

MOMAC: a SAXS/WAXS laboratory instrument dedicated to nanomaterials

International audienceThis article presents the technical characteristics of a newly built small-and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS) apparatus dedicated to structural characterization of a wide range of nanomaterials in the powder or dispersion form. The instrument is based on a high-flux rotating anode generator with a molybdenum target, enabling the assessment of highly absorbing samples containing heavy elements. The SAXS part is composed of a collimation system including a multilayer optic and scatterless slits, a motorized sample holder, a vacuum chamber, and a two-dimensional image-plate detector. All the control command is done through a TANGO interface. Normalization and data correction yield scattering patterns at the absolute scale automatically with a q range from 0.03 to 3.2 A ˚ À1. The WAXS part features a multilayer collimating optic and a two-dimensional image-plate detector with variable sample-to-detector distances. The accessible q range is 0.4–9 A ˚ À1 , ensuring a large overlap in q range between the two instruments. A few examples of applications are also presented, namely coupled SAXS/WAXS structure and symmetry determination of gold nanocrystals in solution and characterization of imogolite nanotubes and iron-filled carbon nanotube samples

Plasmodium vivax-like genome sequences shed new insights into Plasmodium vivax biology and evolution

Although Plasmodium vivax is responsible for the majority of malaria infections outside Africa, little is known about its evolution and pathway to humans. Its closest genetic relative, P. vivax-like, was discovered in African great apes and is hypothesized to have given rise to P. vivax in humans. To unravel the evolutionary history and adaptation of P. vivax to different host environments, we generated using long- and short-read sequence technologies 2 new P. vivax-like reference genomes and 9 additional P. vivax-like genotypes. Analyses show that the genomes of P. vivax and P. vivax-like are highly similar and colinear within the core regions. Phylogenetic analyses clearly show that P. vivax-like parasites form a genetically distinct clade from P. vivax. Concerning the relative divergence dating, we show that the evolution of P. vivax in humans did not occur at the same time as the other agents of human malaria, thus suggesting that the transfer of Plasmodium parasites to humans happened several times independently over the history of the Homo genus. We further identify several key genes that exhibit signatures of positive selection exclusively in the human P. vivax parasites. Two of these genes have been identified to also be under positive selection in the other main human malaria agent, P. falciparum, thus suggesting their key role in the evolution of the ability of these parasites to infect humans or their anthropophilic vectors. Finally, we demonstrate that some gene families important for red blood cell (RBC) invasion (a key step of the life cycle of these parasites) have undergone lineage-specific evolution in the human parasite (e.g., reticulocyte-binding proteins [RBPs])

Engaging Engineering Teams Through Moral Imagination: A Bottom-Up Approach for Responsible Innovation and Ethical Culture Change in Technology Companies

We propose a "Moral Imagination" methodology to facilitate a culture of responsible innovation for engineering and product teams in technology companies. Our approach has been operationalized over the past two years at Google, where we have conducted over 50 workshops with teams across the organization. We argue that our approach is a crucial complement to existing formal and informal initiatives for fostering a culture of ethical awareness, deliberation, and decision-making in technology design such as company principles, ethics and privacy review procedures, and compliance controls. We characterize some of the distinctive benefits of our methodology for the technology sector in particular.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figur

Vibronic collapse of ordered quadrupolar ice in the pyrochore magnet Tb2+x_{2+x}Ti2−x_{2-x}O7+y_{7+y}

While the spin liquid state in the frustrated pyrochlore Tb$_{2+x}$Ti$_{2-x}$O$_{7+y}$ has been studied both experimentally and theoretically for more than two decades, no definite description of this unconventional state has been achieved. Using synchrotron based THz spectroscopy in combination with quantum numerical simulations, we highlight a significant link between two previously unrelated features: the existence of a quadrupolar order following an ice rule and the presence of strong magneto-elastic coupling in the form of hybridized Tb$^{3+}$ crystal-field and phonon modes. The magnitude of this so-called vibronic process, which involves quadrupolar degrees of freedom, is significantly dependent on small off-stoichiometry $x$ and favors all-in all-out like correlations between quadrupoles. This mechanism competes with the long range ordered quadrupolar ice, and for slightly different stoichiometry, is able to destabilize it.Comment: Main text: 7 pages, 3 figures ; Supplemental Material: 6 pages, 2 figure