Research notes: A cytologically identifiable short chromosome

Seeds set on partially male-sterile plants (see article 2 for a description of the sterility system) were grown in the greenhouse in the spring of 1977. One of the plants, designated D56, had an unusual growth habit --the plant was somewhat spindly, climbing, and had a thin main stem. It had been noted at the time of transplanting that the root system of the D56 seedling consisted of a very long tap root and unusually thin lateral roots

Analysis of Consumer Perceptions on Payday Loan Services, Asset Ownership, and Financial Management Education

Payday loan services, asset ownership, and financial management have been issues of interest to many consumers and scholars. Using a cross-sectional survey, we analyzed perceptions on payday loan services, asset ownership, and financial management education. The results showed that, only a small number of respondents used payday loan services. A majority had savings and checking accounts, and owned a vehicle; however, a majority did not own an IDA or a home. Furthermore, many were willing to participate in a financial management workshop. We also found that selected socioeconomic factors had statistically significant effects on selected indicators. For instance, gender had a statistically significant effect on using payday loan services. Age and household income had statistically significant effects on owning a home. The number of children under 18 years, gender, age, and household income had statistically significant effects on the willingness to participate in a financial management workshop. The findings show that socioeconomic factors may be important, and should be considered in policies regarding payday loan services, asset ownership, and financial management. Keywords: Payday Loan Services, Asset Ownership, Financial Education, Financial Management, Socioeconomic Factor

An Examination of Selected Small Livestock Producers’ Implementation of Identified Best Practices in Alabama

Getting small farmers to adopt “best practices” has been a key challenge in general, but particularly, in the Southeastern U.S. This study focused on selected small livestock producers’ implementation identified best practices in Alabama. Data were obtained through interviews from twelve producers in, primarily, selected South Central Alabama counties emphasizing best practices as well as other production indicators. The subjects were mainly beef cattle and meat goat producers. The identified best practices were: rotational grazing, soil testing, quarantining, deworming, veterinary services, and record keeping. The data were analyzed using descriptive narrative and simple statistics. The demographics showed more male than female producers, and more meat goat producers than beef cattle producers. Also, the results revealed that the commonest best practice was deworming; followed by quarantining, soil testing and record keeping, and rotational grazing. Using veterinary services was the least practiced best practice; most producers chose to provide their own animal health services. The results provide an opportunity for assistance providers to educate producers on the importance of adopting the best practices. Keywords: Small Producers, Livestock Producers, Best Practices, Case Study

Luciferin Amides Enable in Vivo Bioluminescence Detection of Endogenous Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase Activity

Firefly luciferase is homologous to fatty acyl-CoA synthetases. We hypothesized that the firefly luciferase substrate d-luciferin and its analogs are fatty acid mimics that are ideally suited to probe the chemistry of enzymes that release fatty acid products. Here, we synthesized luciferin amides and found that these molecules are hydrolyzed to substrates for firefly luciferase by the enzyme fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH). In the presence of luciferase, these molecules enable highly sensitive and selective bioluminescent detection of FAAH activity in vitro, in live cells, and in vivo. The potency and tissue distribution of FAAH inhibitors can be imaged in live mice, and luciferin amides serve as exemplary reagents for greatly improved bioluminescence imaging in FAAH-expressing tissues such as the brain

What Google Maps can do for biomedical data dissemination: examples and a design study

BACKGROUND: Biologists often need to assess whether unfamiliar datasets warrant the time investment required for more detailed exploration. Basing such assessments on brief descriptions provided by data publishers is unwieldy for large datasets that contain insights dependent on specific scientific questions. Alternatively, using complex software systems for a preliminary analysis may be deemed as too time consuming in itself, especially for unfamiliar data types and formats. This may lead to wasted analysis time and discarding of potentially useful data. RESULTS: We present an exploration of design opportunities that the Google Maps interface offers to biomedical data visualization. In particular, we focus on synergies between visualization techniques and Google Maps that facilitate the development of biological visualizations which have both low-overhead and sufficient expressivity to support the exploration of data at multiple scales. The methods we explore rely on displaying pre-rendered visualizations of biological data in browsers, with sparse yet powerful interactions, by using the Google Maps API. We structure our discussion around five visualizations: a gene co-regulation visualization, a heatmap viewer, a genome browser, a protein interaction network, and a planar visualization of white matter in the brain. Feedback from collaborative work with domain experts suggests that our Google Maps visualizations offer multiple, scale-dependent perspectives and can be particularly helpful for unfamiliar datasets due to their accessibility. We also find that users, particularly those less experienced with computer use, are attracted by the familiarity of the Google Maps API. Our five implementations introduce design elements that can benefit visualization developers. CONCLUSIONS: We describe a low-overhead approach that lets biologists access readily analyzed views of unfamiliar scientific datasets. We rely on pre-computed visualizations prepared by data experts, accompanied by sparse and intuitive interactions, and distributed via the familiar Google Maps framework. Our contributions are an evaluation demonstrating the validity and opportunities of this approach, a set of design guidelines benefiting those wanting to create such visualizations, and five concrete example visualizations

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV

Search for direct stau production in events with two hadronic tau-leptons in root s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of the supersymmetric partners ofτ-leptons (staus) in final stateswith two hadronically decayingτ-leptons is presented. The analysis uses a dataset of pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of139fb−1, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LargeHadron Collider at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant deviation from the expected StandardModel background is observed. Limits are derived in scenarios of direct production of stau pairs with eachstau decaying into the stable lightest neutralino and oneτ-lepton in simplified models where the two staumass eigenstates are degenerate. Stau masses from 120 GeV to 390 GeV are excluded at 95% confidencelevel for a massless lightest neutralino