Nematodes Affecting Soybean and Sustainable Practices for Their Management

Plant‐parasitic nematodes are one of the limiting factors for soybean production worldwide. Overall, plant‐parasitic nematodes alone cause an estimated annual crop loss of $78 billion worldwide and an average crop yield loss of 10–15%. This imposes a challenge to sustainable production of food worldwide, since there has been increasing demand for food supply and food security. Unsustainable cropping production systems with monocultures, intensive use of soils and expansion of crops to newly opened areas have intensified problems associated with new pests and diseases. Thus, finding and applying sustainable methods to control diseases associated with soybean are in current need. Over hundred nematode species, comprising fifty genera, have been reported in association with soybean. Of these, the root‐knot nematode Meloidogyne spp., cyst nematode Heterodera glycines, lesion nematode Pratylenchus brachyurus and the reniform nematode Rotylenchulus reniformis are major nematode species limiting soybean production. Here, we report an up‐to‐date literature review on the biology, symptoms, damage and control methods used for these nematodes species. Additionally, unusual and emergent nematode species affecting soybean are discussed

Twisted Backgrounds, PP-Waves and Nonlocal Field Theories

We study partially supersymmetric plane-wave like deformations of string theories and M-theory on brane backgrounds. These deformations are dual to nonlocal field theories. We calculate various expectation values of configurations of closed as well as open Wilson loops and Wilson surfaces in those theories. We also discuss the manifestation of the nonlocality structure in the supergravity backgrounds. A plane-wave like deformation of little string theory has also been studied.Comment: 46 pages, changed to JHEP forma

A lattice model for the kinetics of rupture of fluid bilayer membranes

We have constructed a model for the kinetics of rupture of membranes under tension, applying physical principles relevant to lipid bilayers held together by hydrophobic interactions. The membrane is characterized by the bulk compressibility (for expansion), the thickness of the hydrophobic part of the bilayer, the hydrophobicity and a parameter characterizing the tail rigidity of the lipids. The model is a lattice model which incorporates strain relaxation, and considers the nucleation of pores at constant area, constant temperature, and constant particle number. The particle number is conserved by allowing multiple occupancy of the sites. An equilibrium ``phase diagram'' is constructed as a function of temperature and strain with the total pore surface and distribution as the order parameters. A first order rupture line is found with increasing tension, and a continuous increase in proto-pore concentration with rising temperature till instability. The model explains current results on saturated and unsaturated PC lipid bilayers and thicker artificial bilayers made of diblock copolymers. Pore size distributions are presented for various values of area expansion and temperature, and the fractal dimension of the pore edge is evaluated.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV

A search for a Higgs boson decaying into two photons is described. The analysis is performed using a dataset recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 inverse femtobarns. Limits are set on the cross section of the standard model Higgs boson decaying to two photons. The expected exclusion limit at 95% confidence level is between 1.4 and 2.4 times the standard model cross section in the mass range between 110 and 150 GeV. The analysis of the data excludes, at 95% confidence level, the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in the mass range 128 to 132 GeV. The largest excess of events above the expected standard model background is observed for a Higgs boson mass hypothesis of 124 GeV with a local significance of 3.1 sigma. The global significance of observing an excess with a local significance greater than 3.1 sigma anywhere in the search range 110-150 GeV is estimated to be 1.8 sigma. More data are required to ascertain the origin of this excess.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters