Effects of seed lots and seed production time on growth, flowering and cut flower quality in Bupleurum rotundifolium L.

Effects of three planting patterns; two-row-planting high density (25 plants·m(-2)), two-row-planting low density (12.5 plants·m(-2)), and four-row-planting (25 plants·m(-2)) on the cut flower number and quality of spray carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus L.) cv. ‘Barbara’ and ‘Cherry Tessino’ grown by fertigation cultivation were investigated. In ‘Barbara’, there was no difference in total cut flower number between two-row-planting high density and four-row-planting. Total cut flower number of two-row-planting low density decreased to 60% of two-row-planting high density or four-row-planting. In ‘Cherry Tessino’, the total cut flower number of two-row-planting high density was 15% more than that of four-row-planting. The total cut flower number of two-row-planting low density decreased to 60~70% of two-row-planting high density or four-row-planting. There was no difference in cut flower quality between two-row-planting high density and four-row-planting in both cultivars. Cut flower weight and stem diameter of two-row-planting low density increased compared to those of two-row-planting high density or four-row-planting. Thus, the result indicates that two-row-planting high density may be suitable for fertigation cultivation in carnation

Rapid-Test Based Identification of Influenza as an Etiology of Acute Febrile Illness in Cambodia

Influenza can be manifested as an acute febrile illness, with symptoms similar to many pathogens endemic to Cambodia. The objective of this study was to evaluate the Quickvue influenza A+B rapid test to identify the etiology of acute febrile illness in Cambodia. During December 2006–May 2008, patients enrolled in a study to identify the etiology of acute febrile illnesses were tested for influenza by real-time reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) and Quickvue influenza A+B rapid test. The prevalence of influenza was 19.7% by RT-PCR. Compared with RT-PCR, the sensitivity and specificity of the rapid test were 52.1% and 92.5%, respectively. The influenza rapid test identified the etiology in 10.2% of enrollees and ≥ 35% during peak times of influenza activity. This study suggests that rapid influenza tests may be useful during peak times of influenza activity in an area where several different etiologies can present as an acute febrile illness

Towards a multimedia knowledge-based agent with social competence and human interaction capabilities

We present work in progress on an intelligent embodied conversation agent in the basic care and healthcare domain. In contrast to most of the existing agents, the presented agent is aimed to have linguistic cultural, social and emotional competence needed to interact with elderly and migrants. It is composed of an ontology-based and reasoning-driven dialogue manager, multimodal communication analysis and generation modules and a search engine for the retrieval of multimedia background content from the web needed for conducting a conversation on a given topic.The presented work is funded by the European Commission under the contract number H2020-645012-RIA