Isolation of cationic and neutral (allenylidene)(carbene) and bis(allenylidene)gold complexes.

The one-electron reduction of a cationic (allenylidene)[cyclic(alkyl) (amino)carbene]gold(i) complex leads to the corresponding neutral, paramagnetic, formally gold(0) complex. DFT calculations reveal that the spin density of this highly robust coinage metal complex is mainly located on the allenylidene fragment, with only 1.8 and 3.1% on the gold center and the CAAC ligand, respectively. In addition, the first homoleptic bis(allenylidene)gold(i) complex has been prepared and fully characterized

Academic integrity toolkit (Beta version)

Academic integrity is integral to preserving the reputation of Australia’s higher education sector and protecting student interests.In recent years, increasing threats to academic integrity within the sector have emerged due to the wide-spread growth of commercial essay services and attempts by criminal actors to entice students into deceptive or fraudulent activity.To combat this threat, TEQSA commissioned this\ua0group of scholars to share research, develop and deliver a suite of\ua0 national workshops and create a toolkit to assist integrity practitioners with promoting academic integrity and addressing contract cheating within their institutions.\ua0The workshop materials and toolkit can be accessed on the TEQSA website at\ua0https://www.teqsa.gov.au/academic-integrity-toolki

AllSight: A Low-Cost and High-Resolution Round Tactile Sensor with Zero-Shot Learning Capability

Tactile sensing is a necessary capability for a robotic hand to perform fine manipulations and interact with the environment. Optical sensors are a promising solution for high-resolution contact estimation. Nevertheless, they are usually not easy to fabricate and require individual calibration in order to acquire sufficient accuracy. In this letter, we propose AllSight, an optical tactile sensor with a round 3D structure potentially designed for robotic in-hand manipulation tasks. AllSight is mostly 3D printed making it low-cost, modular, durable and in the size of a human thumb while with a large contact surface. We show the ability of AllSight to learn and estimate a full contact state, i.e., contact position, forces and torsion. With that, an experimental benchmark between various configurations of illumination and contact elastomers are provided. Furthermore, the robust design of AllSight provides it with a unique zero-shot capability such that a practitioner can fabricate the open-source design and have a ready-to-use state estimation model. A set of experiments demonstrates the accurate state estimation performance of AllSight

Characterization of \gamma-factors: the Asai case

Let $E$ be a separable quadratic extension of a locally compact field $F$ of positive characteristic. Asai \gamma-factors are defined for smooth irreducible representations \pi of ${\rm GL}_n(E)$. If \sigma is the Weil-Deligne representation of $\mathcal{W}_E$ corresponding to \pi under the local Langlands correspondence, we show that the Asai \gamma-factor is the same as the Deligne-Langlands \gamma-factor of the Weil-Deligne representation of $\mathcal{W}_F$ obtained from \sigma under tensor induction. This is achieved by proving that Asai \gamma-factors are characterized by their local properties together with their role in global functional equations for $L$-functions. As an immediate application, we establish the stability property of \gamma-factors under twists by highly ramified characters

A Systematic Review of Durum Wheat: Enhancing Production Systems by Exploring Genotype, Environment, and Management (G × E × M) Synergies

According to the UN-FAO, agricultural production must increase by 50% by 2050 to meet global demand for food. This goal can be accomplished, in part, by the development of improved cultivars coupled with modern best management practices. Overall, wheat production on farms will have to increase significantly to meet future demand, and in the face of a changing climate that poses risk to even current rates of production. Durum wheat [Triticum turgidum L. ssp. durum (Desf.)] is used largely for pasta, couscous and bulgur production. Durum producers face a range of factors spanning abiotic (frost damage, drought, and sprouting) and biotic (weed, disease, and insect pests) stresses that impact yields and quality specifications desired by export market end-users. Serious biotic threats include Fusarium head blight (FHB) and weed pest pressures, which have increased as a result of herbicide resistance. While genetic progress for yield and quality is on pace with common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), development of resistant durum cultivars to FHB is still lagging. Thus, successful biotic and abiotic threat mitigation are ideal case studies in Genotype (G) × Environment (E) × Management (M) interactions where superior cultivars (G) are grown in at-risk regions (E) and require unique approaches to management (M) for sustainable durum production. Transformational approaches to research are needed in order for agronomists, breeders and durum producers to overcome production constraints. Designing robust agronomic systems for durum demands scientific creativity and foresight based on a deep understanding of constitutive components and their innumerable interactions with each other and the environment. This encompasses development of durum production systems that suit specific agro- ecozones and close the yield gap between genetic potential and on-farm achieved yield. Advances in individual technologies (e.g., genetic improvements, new pesticides, seeding technologies) are of little benefit until they are melded into resilient G × E × M systems that will flourish in the field under unpredictable conditions of prairie farmlands. We explore how recent genetic progress and selected management innovations can lead to a resilient and transformative durum production system

First Steps towards Underdominant Genetic Transformation of Insect Populations

The idea of introducing genetic modifications into wild populations of insects to stop them from spreading diseases is more than 40 years old. Synthetic disease refractory genes have been successfully generated for mosquito vectors of dengue fever and human malaria. Equally important is the development of population transformation systems to drive and maintain disease refractory genes at high frequency in populations. We demonstrate an underdominant population transformation system in Drosophila melanogaster that has the property of being both spatially self-limiting and reversible to the original genetic state. Both population transformation and its reversal can be largely achieved within as few as 5 generations. The described genetic construct {Ud} is composed of two genes; (1) a UAS-RpL14.dsRNA targeting RNAi to a haploinsufficient gene RpL14 and (2) an RNAi insensitive RpL14 rescue. In this proof-of-principle system the UAS-RpL14.dsRNA knock-down gene is placed under the control of an Actin5c-GAL4 driver located on a different chromosome to the {Ud} insert. This configuration would not be effective in wild populations without incorporating the Actin5c-GAL4 driver as part of the {Ud} construct (or replacing the UAS promoter with an appropriate direct promoter). It is however anticipated that the approach that underlies this underdominant system could potentially be applied to a number of species. Figure