Visual and Electronic Evaluations of Detached Strawberry Leaves Inoculated with \u3ci\u3eColletotrichum\u3c/i\u3e Species

Inoculation of detached strawberry leaves with Colletotrichum species may provide an accurate, rapid, non-destructive method of identifying anthracnose resistant germplasm. Two assessments of anthracnose disease severity were compared on detached strawberry leaves inoculated with Colletotrichum fragariae and C. gloeosporioides: a quantitative assessment made via computer-based image analysis and a visual assessment made by two independent raters. The image analysis provided a precise measurement of percent lesion area of infected leaves. There was a strong positive correlation between percent lesion area and the visual disease scores of the raters

Stem Cutting Propagation in Whole Pine Tree Substrates

Wood-based substrates have been extensively evaluated for greenhouse and nursery crop production, yet these substrates have not been evaluated for propagation. The objective of this study was to evaluate processed whole loblolly pine trees (WPT) (Pinus taeda) as a rooting substrate for stem cutting propagation of a range of ornamental crops. Substrates included processed WPT, pine (Pinus sp.) bark (PB), and each mixed with equal parts (by volume) peatmoss (PM) (WPT:PM and PB:PM, respectively). Substrate physical (air space, container capacity, total porosity, bulk density, and particle size distribution) and chemical [pH and electrical conductivity (EC)] properties were determined for all substrates. Rooting percentage, total root length, total root volume, and total shoot length were evaluated for four species in 2008 and five species in 2009. Substrate air space was similar between PB and WPT in the 2008 experiment, and likewise between PB:PM and WPT:PM. In the 2009 experiment, PB and WPT had similar substrate air space. The addition of PM to PB and WPT resulted in reduced air space and increased container capacity in both experiments. The proportion of fine particles doubled for PB:PM and WPT:PM compared with PB and WPT, respectively. Substrate pH for all substrates ranged from 6.0 to 6.9 at 7 days after sticking (DAS) cuttings and 6.9 to 7.1 at 79 DAS. Substrate EC was below the acceptable range for all substrates except at 7 DAS. Rooting percentage was similar among substrates within each species in both experiments. The addition of PM resulted in significantly greater total root length for PB:PM and WPT:PM compared with PB and WPT, respectively, for five of the eight species. Shoot growth was most vigorous for PB:PM compared with the other substrates for all species. The study demonstrated a range of plant species can be propagated from stem cuttings in whole pine tree substrates alone or combined with PM

Geographical information retrieval with ontologies of place

Geographical context is required of many information retrieval tasks in which the target of the search may be documents, images or records which are referenced to geographical space only by means of place names. Often there may be an imprecise match between the query name and the names associated with candidate sources of information. There is a need therefore for geographical information retrieval facilities that can rank the relevance of candidate information with respect to geographical closeness of place as well as semantic closeness with respect to the information of interest. Here we present an ontology of place that combines limited coordinate data with semantic and qualitative spatial relationships between places. This parsimonious model of geographical place supports maintenance of knowledge of place names that relate to extensive regions of the Earth at multiple levels of granularity. The ontology has been implemented with a semantic modelling system linking non-spatial conceptual hierarchies with the place ontology. An hierarchical spatial distance measure is combined with Euclidean distance between place centroids to create a hybrid spatial distance measure. This is integrated with thematic distance, based on classification semantics, to create an integrated semantic closeness measure that can be used for a relevance ranking of retrieved objects

Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation changes on orbital to suborbital timescales during the mid-Pleistocene

Mid-Pleistocene benthic ∂18O and ∂13C time series from the North Atlantic site 983 and Ceara Rise site 928 are compared to an array of existing isotopic records spanning the Atlantic basin and the geographic extremes of the North Atlantic Deep Water/Southern Ocean Water interface during both glacial and interglacial periods. This comparison allows the persistent millennial-scale intermediate depth North Atlantic ventilation changes recorded at site 983 to be placed within the context of the longer period water mass reorganizations taking place throughout the mid-Pleistocene. Our benthic ∂13C results suggest that the intermediate depth North Atlantic experienced millennial-scale changes in ventilation throughout the mid-Pleistocene climate shift. The times of poorest ventilation (low benthic ∂13C) persisted for only a few millennia and were associated with rapid decreases in benthic ∂18O, suggesting that ice sheet decay and melt water induced salinity changes were effective at throttling deep water production in the North Atlantic throughout the mid-Pleistocene. Similar but less pronounced decreases in the ∂13C of the middepth waters also punctuated interglacials, suggesting that large ice sheet fluctuations do not explain all of the observed thermohaline circulation mode shifts in the North Atlantic. Meanwhile, on orbital timescales, glacial deep to intermediate water ∂13C gradients evolved after ~0.95 Ma. Taken together, these observations provide a number of new constraints for understanding the timing and evolution of deep water circulation changes across the mid-Pleistocene

Consequences of sexual harassment in sport for female athletes

Sexual harassment research was first undertaken in the workplace and educational settings. Research on sexual harassment in sport is scarce but has grown steadily since the mid-1980s. Even so, very little is known about the causes and/or characteristics and/or consequences of sexual harassment in sport settings. This article reports on the findings from interviews with 25 elite female athletes in Norway who indicated in a prior survey (N =572) that they had experienced sexual harassment from someone in sport. The consequences of the incidents of sexual harassment that were reported were mostly negative, but some also reported that their experiences of sexual harassment had had no consequences for them. “Thinking about the incidents”, a “destroyed relationship to the coach”, and “more negative view of men in general” were the most often negative consequences mentioned. In addition, a surprising number had chosen to move to a different sport or to drop out of elite sport altogether because of the harassment

Three-dimensional MHD Simulations of Jets from Accretion Disks

We report the results of 3-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of a jet formation by the interaction between an accretion disk and a large scale magnetic field. The disk is not treated as a boundary condition but is solved self-consistently. To investigate the stability of MHD jet, the accretion disk is perturbed with a non-axisymmetric sinusoidal or random fluctuation of the rotational velocity. The dependences of the jet velocity $(v_z)$, mass outflow rate $(\dot{M}_w)$, and mass accretion rate $(\dot{M}_a)$ on the initial magnetic field strength in both non-axisymmetric cases are similar to those in the axisymmetric case. That is, $v_z \propto B_0^{1/3}$, $\dot{M}_w \propto B_0$ and $\dot{M}_a \propto B_0^{1.4}$ where $B_0$ is the initial magnetic field strength. The former two relations are consistent with the Michel's steady solution, $v_z \propto (B_0^2/\dot{M}_w)^{1/3}$, although the jet and accretion do not reach the steady state. In both perturbation cases, a non-axisymmetric structure with $m=2$ appears in the jet, where $m$ means the azimuthal wave number. This structure can not be explained by Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and seems to originate in the accretion disk. Non-axisymmetric modes in the jet reach almost constant levels after about 1.5 orbital periods of the accretion disk, while all modes in the accretion disk grow with oscillation. As for the angular momentum transport by Maxwell stress, the vertical component, $$, is comparable to the radial component,$$, in the wide range of initial magnetic field strength.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. The pdf file with high resolution figures can be downloaded at http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~hiromitu/3j050806.pd

Sexual harassment and abuse in sport: The research context

This special issue of the Journal of Sexual Aggression draws on the contributions to a Symposium on ‘Sexual Harassment in Sport – Challenges for Sport Psychology in the New Millennium’, held at the Xth Congress of the International Society for Sport Psychology, Skiathos, Greece from May 28th to June 2nd 2001. The symposium, which was organised by the authors of this editorial, was intended to move forward the international research agenda on sexual harassment and abuse in sport and to examine professional practice issues for sport psychologists. It was clear from the attendance of over 60 delegates at that symposium that international interest in this subject is growing. Further evidence of this came from the attendance of 26 members states – from Azerbaijan to Sweden - at a Council of Europe seminar on The Protection of Children, Young People and Women in Sport, held in Helsinki in September 2001

Anti-N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Encephalitis: a diagnosis obscured by concomitant recreational drug use

Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis (aNMDAre) is a relatively newly discovered autoimmune and inflammatory disorder affecting the limbic system. It has a clinical course that includes Prodromal, Psychiatric, Unresponsive and Hyperkinetic stages. These stages are often confused with mental health issues in the medical literature, but they also share symptoms of various drug intoxication and withdrawal states. Implicit bias in physicians regarding substance use disorder and patient demographics can impair delivery of care and outcomes in patients with aNMDAre, especially in an environment of recreational drug use. When clinical presentation aligns, this diagnosis should be investigated as soon as possible, even in the case of atypical presentations or those with past or current substance use disorder. Early identification and treatment are essential to good outcomes and minimal sequalae at two years. Therefore, it is essential to consider aNMDAre with the symptom profile regardless of patient age, sex, race, or clinical disorder. Below is detailed the difficulty in diagnosing aNMDAre in a 32-year-old white male with a history of methamphetamine, opioid, benzodiazepine, and marijuana use

Fundoplication to preserve allograft function after lung transplant: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: ARS has been adopted in select patients with lung transplant for the past 2 decades inmany centers. Outcomes have been reported sporadically. No pooled analysis of retrospective series has been performed. Objective: This review and pooled analysis sought to demonstrate objective evidence of improved graft function in lung transplant patients undergoing antireflux surgery (ARS). Methods: In accordance with Meta-analyses of Observational Studies in Epidemiology guidelines, a search of PubMed Central, Medline, Google Scholar, and Cochrane Library databases was performed. Articles documenting spirometry data pre- and post-ARS were reviewed and a random-effects model meta-analysis was performed on forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) values and the rate of change of FEV1. Results: Six articles were included in the meta-analysis. Regarding FEV1 before and after ARS, we observed a small increase in FEV1 values in studies reporting raw values (2.02 ± 0.89 L/1 sec vs 2.14 ± 0.77 L/1 sec; n = 154) and % of predicted (77.1% ± 22.1% vs 81.2% ± 26.95%; n = 45), with a small pooled Cohen d effect size of 0.159 (P = .114). When considering the rate of change of FEV1 we observed a significant difference in pre-ARS compared with post-ARS (–2.12 ± 2.76 mL/day vs +0.05 ± 1.19 mL/day; n = 103). There was a pooled effect size of 1.702 (P = .013), a large effect of ARS on the rate of change of FEV1 values. Conclusions: This meta-analysis of retrospective observational studies demonstrates that ARS might benefit patients with declining FEV1, by examining the rate of change of FEV1 during the pre- and postoperative periods