Relation between growth characteristics and yield of barley in different environments

The increasing interest in organic farming has increased the interest in examining the importance of the different growing characteristics, such as attack of diseases, grain weight, lodging and heading date. One of the important questions raised was whether the relationship between the growing characteristics and yield would be the same for conventionally and organically grown crop or would some growing characteristics be more important for organically than for conventionally grown crops. This work will focus on that question. The analyses are performed using two datasets with comparable trials in both conventional and organic grown systems for barley (Hordeum vulgare). The two datasets were from Sweden and Denmark. From Sweden 22 conventional and 22 organic grown trials were available. The trials were laid out at 4 locations in Northern Sweden during the years from 1994-2003. The number of varieties per trial varied between 7 and 15 and 50 varieties were represented. Most of the trials were laid out as split-plot designs with 2 nitrogen levels in the conventional grown trial and 2 seed rates in the organic grown trials. From Denmark 4 conventional and 4 organic grown trials were available. The trials were laid out as a-designs at 2 locations in 2 years (2003 and 2004). The number of varieties per trial varied between 108 and 113 and 146 varieties were represented. The data from each country were analysed in a linear mixed model. The effects of location, year, variety, their interaction and interaction with system were included as random effect. The effect of growing system and growing characteristics were included as fixed effects to see how much of the variation caused by varieties and interaction with varieties that could be explained by the growing characteristic and to se if the effect of the growing characteristics depended on the growing system. The analyses showed that the growing characteristics could explain a considerable part of the variance components for variety or interaction with variety. The effect of some growing characteristics depended significantly on the growing system, but the results varied to some extent between the two countries. In Sweden the effect of volume weight were more important in the conventional grown trials than in the organic grown trials whereas in Denmark grain weight was more important in the organic grown trials than in the conventional grown trials. In Denmark powdery mildew decreased the yield significantly more in conventional grown trials than in organic grown trials. In most cases the other diseases decreased the yield more in the organic grown trials than in the conventional grown trials. In some models the yield in organic grown trials increased as the level of scald attach increased. The results indicated that the effect of a given disease level decreased the yield more in the conventional grown trials than in the organic grown trials – or in some cases increased the yield in the organic grown trial while the yield in conventionally grown trials were increased less or decreased

Antiracism and Culturally Responsive Teaching: Elevating Student Voice to Lead Critical Dialogue on Race

Schools in America today operate to assimilate and oppress students of color, continuing to uphold systems of white supremacy that specifically harm Black and Indigenous students (Paris & Alim, 2014, 2017). Given this climate of systematic violence pervasive in schools, it is of paramount importance that all educators commit to unfaltering antiracism. This Capstone Project sets out to answer the research question: How can the implementation of culturally and linguistically responsive discussion protocols elevate students to lead critical conversations about race and identity in an English classroom? Through this inquiry, this study designs curriculum for a high school, English elective course entitled, “Me Against the World: Hip Hop, Identity, and Revolution”. This curriculum outlines six units of study that all focus on centering student-led, culturally and linguistically responsive discussion protocols to hold dialogic space critically examining the intersections between identity, race, and community-directed change. The discussion protocols highlighted in this course are modified from the work of Dr. Sharroky Hollie and Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy (Hollie, 2018). This Capstone Project hopes to provide practical application for all educators seeking to implement culturally sustaining theory into their classrooms. This work aspires to lend itself to the argument that through culturally responsive discussion protocols, our learners can raise their voices to actualize a more equitable world

The Right Evaluation Method - an Enabler for Process Improvement

This paper aims at describing the procedure where an alternative evaluation process was developed to support the improvement of both welding and weld quality evaluation. Welded structures are important when striving for reduced fuel consumption due to vehicle weight. Hence good control of the fabrication process is critical to keep welding performance on target, avoiding waste in terms of added weight and overproduction. The resulting distribution of weld weight has shown to be an important control parameter in the sense of keeping cost down. To identify the causes for deviations between actual and theoretical weld weight, information about the weld was needed. The currently used evaluation method showed not to be capable of giving the information needed. It was necessary to know the throat size as well as weld geometry. The current evaluation method introduced more variation due to the measurement than the actual fabrication process itself, leading to drift of process target and overproduction. To fulfil the need of information, that different functions within the company had, a PULL-approach was used. The information need, information presentation and sequence were outlined for each information receiver individually. An alternative measurement method was developed and named WIA – Weld Impression Analysis. The method consists of two parts; creating the replica and analysing the shape in an image analysis program. The method was tested to see if it was capable of delivering accurate and precise measurements, satisfying repeatability and reproducibility requirements for this particular situation. A thorough measurement system analysis was carried out. The measurement system assigned 98.98% of the total variation to part-to-part variation corresponding to long-term process variation. The variation that stems from taking the impressions and preparing them was as well investigated, also showing satisfying results. Finally it was investigated if the impressions reflect the true shape of the welds accurately. The results showed a tendency of slightly higher cross sectional areas in the range of 0-3 %. This however indicated that the accuracy of the measurement system was sufficient for its purpose. The PULL-approach generated a sufficient method which enabled the possibility to perform process improvement and gain large production cost savings

Disease influences host population growth rates in a natural wild plant-pathogen association over a 30-year period

1. The epidemiological and demographic dynamics of plant-pathogen interactions in natural environments are strongly affected by spatial and temporal influences. Here we assess the interaction between Filipendula ulmaria and its rust pathogen Triphragmium ulmariae by analysing a 30-year long dataset that has followed pathogen and plant population dynamics in a metapopulation of similar to 230 host patches growing on islands of the Skeppsvik archipelago in northern Sweden.2. Over this period, the host metapopulation initially expanded in both number and size of individual patches before plateauing. In contrast, the pathogen metapopulation showed greater change. Disease incidence showed a convex pattern rising for the first decade before showing a marked decline in the last decade. At the same time, the prevalence of disease in infected populations showed a constant 30-year long decline.3. At the individual host population level, each population was annually classified into one of four inter-year states: healthy, recolonization, extinction and diseased. Host populations that were healthy from 1 year to the next were significantly smaller than all other host population categories, while host populations in which disease was constantly present were significantly larger.4. Host populations in which the pathogen underwent either an extinction or a recolonization event were of similar size and represented a measure of the host threshold size for long-term pathogen survival.5. Host population growth rates declined as disease levels increased. The growth rate of host populations in which disease was continuously present was 75% lower than in populations that were free disease.6. The sensitivity of the association to climate change as demonstrated through a decline in disease incidence and prevalence and an increase in drought damage to plant populations as temperatures rise has only become apparent through analysis of an extensive long-term dataset.7. Synthesis. To date wild plant-pathogen studies have focused on the epidemiology of the pathogen and its effect on individual plant fitness. Here we have established a link to the impact of the pathogen on the long-term dynamics of host populations. This has the potential to trigger a cascade of changes in the species composition and diversity of communities

Will growth characteristics describe yield differently in different environments?

The growing interest in organic farming has increased the interest in examining if different growing characteristics among varieties would explain differences in yield differently in conventional compared to organic systems. This work will focus on that question. The analyses are performed using data from trials with spring barley in Denmark and Sweden. Growing characteristics on diseases, volume weight, grain weight, and lodging will be included in the work. The growing characteristics are included as covariates to see how much of the variation caused by varieties and interaction with varieties that can be explained by the growing characteristic. The model is setup in order to estimate simultaneously the effect of the growing characteristics and the possible interactions between those that can be expected to interact. The analyses showed that the relation between yield and the growth characteristics volume weight or grain weight depended on the growing system but in different ways in the two countries. The relation between yield and the disease powdery mildew were stronger in the conventional grown trials than in the organic grown trials. There was a tendency for the same difference to apply for the diseases leaf rust, net blotch and scald in Danish trials and net blotch in Northern Sweden, but not for scald in Northern Sweden. None of the tendencies were significant at the 5% level

End-User Driven Technology Benchmarks Based on Market-Risk Workloads

Abstract-Market risk management is a critical, resourceintensive task for financial trading firms. The industry relies heavily on innovation in technical infrastructure to increase the quality and quantity of risk management information and to reduce the cost of its production. However, until recently, the industry has lacked an independent standard for gauging the potential of new technologies to help. This changed when the STAC Benchmark ™ Council developed STAC-A2 ™ , a vendorindependent benchmark suite based on real-world market risk analysis workloads. It was specified by trading firms and made actionable by leading HPC vendors. Unlike vendor-developed benchmarks known to the authors, STAC-A2 satisfies all of the requirements important to end-user firms: relevance, neutrality, scalability, and completeness. Intel has demonstrated the utility of STAC-A2 for comparing successive generations of Intel ® Xeon ® processors