Nematodes Affecting Potato and Sustainable Practices for Their Management

Plant-parasitic nematodes are a significant factor limiting potato production and tuber quality in several regions where potato is produced. Overall, parasitic nematodes alone cause an estimated annual crop loss of $ 78 billion worldwide and an average crop yield loss of 10–15%. As a result, sustainable food production and food security are directly impacted by pests and diseases. Degrading land use with monocultures and unsustainable cropping practices have intensified problems associated with plant pathogens. Proper identification of nematode species and isolates is crucial to choose effective and sustainable management strategies for nematode infection. Several nematode species have been reported associated with potato. Among those, the potato cyst nematodes Globodera rostochiensis and G. pallida, the root-knot nematode Meloidogyne spp., the root lesion nematode Pratylenchus spp., the potato rot nematode Ditylenchus destructor and the false root-knot nematode Nacobbus aberrans are major species limiting potato yield and leading to poor tuber quality. Here, we report a literature review on the biology, symptoms, damage and control methods used for these nematode species

Levantamento fitossociológico de plantas daninhas em cafezal orgânico.

A adequação de um cafezal para o sistema orgânico causa grande mudança no sistema de manejo de plantas daninhas, mas as informações sobre o comportamento da comunidade infestante em áreas de cultivo de café orgânico são escassas no Brasil. Objetivou-se com este trabalho realizar um levantamento fitossociológico da comunidade infestante em três cafezais (variedades Mundo Novo, Bourbon Vermelho e Obatã) desenvolvidos em sistema orgânico, no município de Garça (SP). Nas três áreas estudadas foram arremessados ao acaso cem quadrados metálicos com área vazada de 0,25 m2, nas entrelinhas da cultura. As espécies contidas no interior dos quadros foram identificadas segundo a espécie botânica, nome popular e família. A partir dos resultados, determinaram-se os parâmetros fitossociológicos: frequência, densidade, abundância, frequência relativa, densidade relativa, abundância relativa, índice de valor de importância e similaridade florísticas pelos métodos de Simple Matching de Sneath & Sokal e similaridade de Sorensen. As famílias que mais se destacaram, com maior número de espécies nas três áreas foram Poaceae e Asteraceae. Houve alta similaridade em todos os contrastes testados, já que pelo menos metade das espécies identificadas foi comum às duas áreas contrastadas

An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics

For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio