Germination in Spring Grains Treated with Organic Seed Amendments and Aerated Steam

Small grains are often planted early in the spring when the soil is cool and wet creating ideal conditions for soilborne pathogens. Seed-borne pathogens that cause root rot and damping-off during germination and early seed growth, can often be prevented by treating seeds with conventional fungicides. Organic production does not allow conventional fungicide seed treatments and organic approved seed treatments may help farmers establish better stands of crops. The goal of this project was to compare the impact of various seed protectants and treatments on germination rates of spring wheat and barley

The Efficacy of Spraying Organic Fungicides to Control Fusarium Head Blight Infection in Spring Wheat

Locally grown grains, such as wheat and barley, are in high demand in the Northeast for both livestock feed and human consumption. Hard red spring wheat is most commonly used for bread flour. One major challenge that grain growers encounter is infection by disease-causing fungi, such as the fungus Fusarium graminearum, whose spores can infect plants from flowering until grain fill. Fusarium head blight (FHB) can shrivel grain, decrease seed germination, decrease yields, and contaminate grains with mycotoxins. The primary mycotoxin of FHB is deoxynivalenol (DON), a vomitoxin. If DON concentrations are above 1 ppm, they may pose health risks to humans and livestock. While humans should not eat grains with DON concentrations above 1 ppm, some livestock can consume grain with up to 10 ppm DON, depending on the animals species and proportion of their diet which includes DON contaminated grain. Fungicide applications have proven to be relatively effective at controlling FHB in spring wheat in other growing regions. Limited work has been done in this region on the optimum timing for fungicide application on spring wheat to minimize DON. There are also a lack of studies evaluating biofungicides, biochemicals, or biostimulants for the management of FHB that are approved for use in organic systems. In 2018, the UVM Extension Northwest Crops and Soils (NWCS) Program conducted a spring wheat fungicide trial to determine the efficacy and timing of fungicide application to reduce FHB infection and subsequent mycotoxin production on hard red spring wheat cultivars with varying degrees of disease susceptibility

The Effects of Seed Steam Treatment on Dry Bean Yield and Presence of Pests & Disease

Dry beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) are a high-protein pulse crop that have been grown in the Northeast since the 1800’s. As local foods such as heirloom dry beans are increasingly in demand, there is also an increasing need for agronomic information specific to the production of dry beans in New England. Crops such as dry beans, especially in organic systems, are susceptible to seedborne pathogens that thrive in moist conditions. Foliar diseases like anthracnose have the potential to wipe out an entire crop, and can ruin future crops after the seed is infected. After plant residue or seed is infected, the disease becomes difficult to control. Seedborne diseases are often prevented via conventional fungicides. However, in organic systems, conventional seed treatment is prohibited. Alternative seed treatments that may reduce seedborne disease and are also available for use in organic systems, is a priority. The goal of this project was to evaluate the efficacy of aerated steam treatment to improve dry bean seed quality

Impact of Cover Crops on No-Till Spring Grain Production

Soil health is fundamentally important to crop productivity. Cover cropping is one method of improving soil health, by preventing soil erosion and nutrient runoff, improving soil aggregation and nutrients, as well as providing other benefits to soils and crop productivity. Cover crops have also been noted for their ability to suppress weeds. Some cover crops have been noted for their allelopathic characteristics, which can decrease the germination of weeds. Farmers are striving to reduce inputs and welcome the multiple benefits that cover crops afford. No-till and reduced tillage practices can also increase water infiltration and reduce soil degradation while keeping carbon in the soil. Different types of cover crops, such as grasses, legumes, and brassicas, have different benefits for soil health and nutrient retention. Cover crops are even being utilized as a forage on dairy farms. There is a need for more research on cover crops to define the best species, varieties, and mixes for a Northeastern climate and for achieving higher cash crop yields. To examine the efficacy of winter terminated cover crops on yield of no-till spring wheat, the University of Vermont Extension’s Northwest Crop and Soils (NWCS) Program conducted a field trial with cover crops planted in fall 2017 and a crop of spring wheat grown in the 2018 field season. The suitability of the cover crops to serve as a forage were also examined

An analog approach for weather estimation using climate projections and reanalysis data

General circulation models (GCMs) are essential for projecting future climate; however, despite the rapid advances in their ability to simulate the climate system at increasing spatial resolution, GCMs cannot capture the local and regional weather dynamics necessary for climate impacts assessments. Temperature and precipitation, for which dense observational records are available, can be bias corrected and downscaled, but many climate impacts models require a larger set of variables such as relative humidity, cloud cover, wind speed and direction, and solar radiation. To address this need, we develop and demonstrate an analog-based approach, which we call a ‘‘weather estimator.’’ The weather estimator employs a highly generalizable structure, utilizing temperature and precipitation from previously downscaled GCMs to select analogs from a reanalysis product, resulting in a complete daily gridded dataset. The resulting dataset, constructed from the selected analogs, contains weather variables needed for impacts modeling that are physically, spatially, and temporally consistent. This approach relies on the weather variables’ correlation with temperature and precipitation, and our correlation analysis indicates that the weather estimator should best estimate evaporation, relative humidity, and cloud cover and do less well in estimating pressure and wind speed and direction. In addition, while the weather estimator has several user-defined parameters, a sensitivity analysis shows that the method is robust to small variations in important model parameters. The weather estimator recreates the historical distributions of relative humidity, pressure, evaporation, shortwave radiation, cloud cover, and wind speed well and outperforms a multiple linear regression estimator across all predictands

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

Increasing frailty is associated with higher prevalence and reduced recognition of delirium in older hospitalised inpatients: results of a multi-centre study

Purpose: Delirium is a neuropsychiatric disorder delineated by an acute change in cognition, attention, and consciousness. It is common, particularly in older adults, but poorly recognised. Frailty is the accumulation of deficits conferring an increased risk of adverse outcomes. We set out to determine how severity of frailty, as measured using the CFS, affected delirium rates, and recognition in hospitalised older people in the United Kingdom. Methods: Adults over 65 years were included in an observational multi-centre audit across UK hospitals, two prospective rounds, and one retrospective note review. Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), delirium status, and 30-day outcomes were recorded. Results: The overall prevalence of delirium was 16.3% (483). Patients with delirium were more frail than patients without delirium (median CFS 6 vs 4). The risk of delirium was greater with increasing frailty [OR 2.9 (1.8–4.6) in CFS 4 vs 1–3; OR 12.4 (6.2–24.5) in CFS 8 vs 1–3]. Higher CFS was associated with reduced recognition of delirium (OR of 0.7 (0.3–1.9) in CFS 4 compared to 0.2 (0.1–0.7) in CFS 8). These risks were both independent of age and dementia. Conclusion: We have demonstrated an incremental increase in risk of delirium with increasing frailty. This has important clinical implications, suggesting that frailty may provide a more nuanced measure of vulnerability to delirium and poor outcomes. However, the most frail patients are least likely to have their delirium diagnosed and there is a significant lack of research into the underlying pathophysiology of both of these common geriatric syndromes

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Synovial fluid lubricin increases in spontaneous canine cruciate ligament rupture.

Lubricin is an important boundary lubricant and chondroprotective glycoprotein in synovial fluid. Both increased and decreased synovial fluid lubricin concentrations have been reported in experimental post-traumatic osteoarthritis&nbsp;(PTOA) animal models and in naturally occurring joint injuries in humans and animals, with no consensus about how lubricin is altered in different species or injury types. Increased synovial fluid lubricin has been observed following intra-articular fracture in humans and horses and in human late-stage osteoarthritis; however, it is unknown how synovial lubricin is affected by knee-destabilizing injuries in large animals. Spontaneous rupture of cranial cruciate ligament (RCCL), the anterior cruciate ligament equivalent in quadrupeds, is a common injury in dogs often accompanied by OA. Here, clinical records, radiographs, and synovial fluid samples from 30 dogs that sustained RCCL and 9 clinically healthy dogs were analyzed. Synovial fluid lubricin concentrations were nearly 16-fold greater in RCCL joints as compared to control joints, while IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-α concentrations did not differ between groups. Synovial fluid lubricin concentrations were correlated with the presence of radiographic OA and were elevated in three animals sustaining RCCL injury prior to the radiographic manifestation of OA, indicating that lubricin may be a potential biomarker for early joint injury

9e biennale nationale de céramique : Voyage à travers le temps... l'espace... la vie...

This catalogue for the 9th ceramics biennial of Trois-Rivières reflects the diversity of works by 31 participating ceramists (as well as 60 participants from previous biennials), and documents the three exhibition components of the event. Revolving around the theme of travel – through time, space and life – texts by jury members emphasize changing paradigms, the archeological value of ceramics, and the transformative nature of travel. Brief statements by several artists. All texts (except for biographical notes) in French and English. Brief biographical notes on the artists