Development of a genetic transformation method for seabuckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.)

Seabuckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) is a dioecious plant with berries containing highamounts of several bioactive compounds with nutritional and medicinal traits. It is also planted tocontrol soil erosion. A genetic transformation procedure will facilitate studies of the control ofplant development and interactions with symbionts and pathogens, and will provide a tool forplant breeding. Here, we present a particle bombardment method for transforming seabuckthorn.The early stages of induced adventitious shoots from roots were chosen as a novel target tissue forthe transformation procedure. The root system was bombarded with gold particles coated withplasmid pRT99gus containing genes for plant kanamycin resistance and for β-glucuronidase expression,and shoots were regenerated under kanamycin selection. PCR analysis of the regeneratedtransformed lines confirmed the presence of a 603 bp gus (uidA) gene fragment and a 1.5 kbfragment from the 35S promoter in three shoots from independent transformation events

Behavior and movement of southern right whales: effects of boats and swimmers

Guidelines for sustainable swim-with tourism for large whales are not welldeveloped, as researchers have focused on delphinids. Nations that signed the Convention on Biological Diversity at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 are obligated to consider sustainable use principles when allowing new ecotourism activities, yet the fast-growing worldwide swim-with-whales industry is lacking the research needed to create successful management guidelines that can be implemented by local communities. From September to November of 2005 and July to October of 2006, I collected movement and behavioral state data for southern right whales in proximity of swimmers at Península Valdés, Argentina. Whales were observed before, during, and after a series of directed interactions with swimmers. I quantified the behavioral and movement effects relative to group composition of whales (mother/calf pairs, juveniles or adult/mixed groups) and activity level of swimmers. Group composition had a significant effect on the response of whales to swimmers. Swimmer activity level did not substantially affect the reaction of whales. Resting and socializing activities significantly decreased and traveling activities significantly increased when boats approached and when swimmers entered the water. Resting and socializing bout length in the presence of swimmers decreased to less than a third of the length of bouts when swimmers were not present. Whales swam faster, reoriented more often, and followed a less linear path during interactions. Effects were greater for mother/calf pairs than juveniles, while mixed adult/juvenile groups showed no significant changes in behavior or movement. The initial reaction of whales to the approach of the boat and the entry of swimmers into the water was a good predictor of the magnitude of effects on the behavior and movement patterns of the whale. Increased levels of activity are a concern for the whales that are resting and not feeding in this area. To provide quality resource management guidelines for this activity, additional research is needed to determine long-term effects of boat and swimmer activities on the behavior of whales. It is also important to obtain energetic data for right whales to determine the magnitude of impacts

A Study of Bicycle Design as it Affects Safety of Operation

This paper presents the results of studies concerned with bicycle design and safety of operation. One study concerned the relationship between handlebar design, i.e., racing, regular and hi-rise, to bicycle control. It was found that the popular racing style handlebars used on the popular ten-speed bicycle produces problems in sensing visual and auditory information and responding to this information as compared to the regular handlebar design.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Modeling X-ray Loops and EUV "Moss" in an Active Region Core

The Soft X-ray intensity of loops in active region cores and corresponding footpoint, or moss, intensity observed in the EUV remain steady for several hours of observation. The steadiness of the emission has prompted many to suggest that the heating in these loops must also be steady, though no direct comparison between the observed X-ray and EUV intensities and the steady heating solutions of the hydrodynamic equations has yet been made. In this paper, we perform these simulations and simultaneously model the X-Ray and EUV moss intensities in one active regioncore with steady uniform heating. To perform this task, we introduce a new technique to constrain the model parameters using the measured EUV footpoint intensity to infer a heating rate. We find that a filling factor of 8% and loops that expand with height provides the best agreement with the intensity in two X-ray filters, though the simulated SXT Al12 intensity is 147% the observed intensity and the SXT AlMg intensity is 80% the observed intensity. From this solution, we determine the required heating rate scales as ${\bar{B}}^{0.29} L^{-0.95}$. Finally we discuss the future potential of this type of modeling, such as the ability to use density measurements to fully constrain filling factor, and its shortcomings, such as the requirement to use potential field extrapolations to approximate the coronal field.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figurs, accepted to Ap

Workshop on Climate Effects of Wind Turbines

A workshop was held at Harvard University in June 2015 for the purposes of assessing the state of research on possible climate effects of wind turbines and identifying important outstanding issues and possible means by which they might be addressed

The sensitivity of the fitch wind farm parameterization to a three-dimensional planetary boundary layer scheme

Wind plant wake impacts can be estimated with a number of simulation methodologies, each with its own fidelity and sensitivity to model inputs. In turbine-free mesoscale simulations, hub-height wind speeds often significantly vary with the choice of a planetary boundary layer (PBL) scheme. However, the sensitivity of wind plant wakes to a PBL scheme has not been explored because, as of the Weather Research and Forecasting model v4.3.3, wake parameterizations were only compatible with one PBL scheme. We couple the Fitch wind farm parameterization with the new NCAR 3DPBL scheme and compare the resulting wakes to those simulated with a widely used PBL scheme. We simulate a wind plant in pseudo-steady states under idealized stable, neutral, and unstable conditions with matching hub-height wind speeds using two PBL schemes: MYNN and the NCAR 3DPBL. For these idealized scenarios, average hub-height wind speed losses within the plant differ between PBL schemes by between −0.20 and 0.22 m s−1, and correspondingly, capacity factors range between 39.5 %–53.8 %. These simulations suggest that PBL schemes represent a meaningful source of modeled wind resource uncertainty; therefore, we recommend incorporating PBL variability into future wind plant planning sensitivity studies as well as wind forecasting studies.</p

Constraints on the Heating of High Temperature Active Region Loops: Observations from Hinode and SDO

We present observations of high temperature emission in the core of a solar active region using instruments on Hinode and SDO. These multi-instrument observations allow us to determine the distribution of plasma temperatures and follow the evolution of emission at different temperatures. We find that at the apex of the high temperature loops the emission measure distribution is strongly peaked near 4 MK and falls off sharply at both higher and lower temperatures. Perhaps most significantly, the emission measure at 0.5 MK is reduced by more than two orders of magnitude from the peak at 4 MK. We also find that the temporal evolution in broad-band soft X-ray images is relatively constant over about 6 hours of observing. Observations in the cooler SDO/AIA bandpasses generally do not show cooling loops in the core of the active region, consistent with the steady emission observed at high temperatures. These observations suggest that the high temperature loops observed in the core of an active region are close to equilibrium. We find that it is possible to reproduce the relative intensities of high temperature emission lines with a simple, high-frequency heating scenario where heating events occur on time scales much less than a cooling time. In contrast, low-frequency heating scenarios, which are commonly invoked to describe nanoflare models of coronal heating, do not reproduce the relative intensities of high temperature emission lines and predict low-temperature emission that is approximately an order of magnitude too large. We also present an initial look at images from the SDO/AIA 94 A channel, which is sensitive to Fe XVIII.Comment: Movies are available at http://tcrb.nrl.navy.mil/~hwarren/temp/papers/active_region_core/ Paper has been refereed and revise

The Gravitational Wave Treasure Map: A Tool to Coordinate, Visualize, and Assess the Electromagnetic Follow-Up of Gravitational Wave Events

We present the Gravitational Wave Treasure Map, a tool to coordinate, visualize, and assess the electromagnetic follow-up of gravitational wave (GW) events. With typical GW localization regions of hundreds to thousands of square degrees and dozens of active follow-up groups, the pursuit of electromagnetic (EM) counterparts is a challenging endeavor, but the scientific payoff for early discovery of any counterpart is clear. With this tool, we provide a website and API interface that allows users to easily see where other groups have searched and better inform their own follow-up search efforts. A strong community of Treasure Map users will increase the overall efficiency of EM counterpart searches and will play a fundamental role in the future of multi-messenger astronomy.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, Accepted to Ap

About the role of 2D screening in High Temperature Superconductivity

The 2D screening is investigated in a simple single band square tight-binding model which qualitatively resembles the known electronic structure in high temperature superconductors. The Coulomb kernel for the two particle Bethe-Salpeter equation in the single loop (RPA) approximation for the polarization can be evaluated in a strong tight binding limit. The results indicate an intense screening of the Coulomb repulsion between the particles, which becomes stronger and anisotropic when the Fermi level approach half filling (or equivalently, when the Fermi surface approach the Van Hove singularities) and rapidly decreases away it. The effect is also more pronounced for quasi-momenta regions near the corners of the Brillouin cell, which correspond to dual spatial distances of the order few unit cells. Therefore, a possible mechanism is identified which could explain the existence of extremely small Cooper pairs in these materials, as bounded anisotropic composites joined by residual super-exchange or phonon interactions.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, presented in the " Conference on Strongly Interacting Systems at the Nanoscale", ICTP, Trieste, Italy (8-12 August 2005