The influence of long-term inputs of catch crops and cereal straw on yield, protein composition and technological quality of a spring and a winter wheat

Under conditions of restricted nitrogen (N) input such as in organic farming systems, crop N uptake must rely on N mineralised from applied animal manure, crop residues and native soil organic matter. Scarcity of N may impede the production of quality grain for bread production, and input and retention of N in soil are therefore important parameters for soil fertility. Toretain N in the crop-soilsystem, catch crops may be grown in breaks between main crops where they provide a significant sink for N mineralised in late summer and autumn (Thomsen, 2005). In corporation of straw may likewise retain mineralised N by microbial immobilisation (Christensen, 1986) and will also directly add to the N mineralisation potential when the N supplied in the straw accumulates (Thomsen & Christensen, 2004). Under northern European conditions, winter wheat may generally be of lower quality than spring wheat, but winter wheat has a higher yield potential. When the N uptake is mainly based on N mineralised from either applied or indigenous soil organic matter, however, this may even out the quality difference between winter and spring wheat as the longer growing season of winter wheat may boost its N utilisation. Growing conditions are highly important for protein quantity whereas main lygenetic factors influence protein composition (Amesetal., 1999; Luoetal., 2000). Wheat grain proteins have been classified as albumins, globulins, gliadins and glutenins on the basis of their solubility (Osborne, 1907). Reverse-phase (RP) high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) allows the quantitative determination of these different flour protein groups together with single proteins (α5-, α1,2-, α-, γc-type gliadins, x- and γ-type high (HMW) and low (LMW) molecular weights subunits of glutenin) (Wieser & Seilmeier, 1998). The proteins can also be divided into polymers (glutenins) or monomers (gliadins, albumins, globulins) based on their aggregating properties. The polymeric proteins are critical for governing wheat flour processing properties, and their quantity and size distribution reliably measured by size-exclusion (SE) HPLC techniques have been shown to be important indicators of baking quality (Dachkevitch & Autran, 1989; Bateyetal., 1991). The aim of this study was to examine whether wheat yield and baking quality determined by chromatographic techniques together with rheological and chemical quality measurements could be improved by combining agronomic strategies consisting of wheat cultivars and long-term organic matter inputs. The variables tested were (A) a winter wheat and a spring wheat cultivar, (B) three catch crop strategies and (C) four straw incorporation rates

The Value of Value Sets

A common definition of value set will be provided and fully characterized relative to its proposed uses. We will describe, compare, and contrast several approaches to specifying and referencing value sets in a stable manner over time. The term “value set”, although ubiquitous within biomedical informatics has no common definition and has yet to be fully described in a formal manner. It is essential for the design and launch of new ontologies, biomedical informatics applications and data sharing environments that a common and well-­‐ understood definition of “value set” is provided. It is also essential that options and trade-­‐offs be understood for what type of technology is appropriate for the implementation and usage of particular types of value set for particular use cases

Exploring Factors Influencing Substance Abuse among Young Individuals Receiving Treatment for Substance use Disorder in Ogbomoso, Nigeria

Nigeria is currently witnessing an alarming increase in the rate of substance use and abuse among the youths and emerging adults. The disturbing phenomenon, undoubtedly constitute great threat to the entire society. Understanding the predisposing and perpetuating factors to substance abuse is crucial in stemming the tides of this menace. The present study is hospital-based aimed to explore factors influencing substance abuse among young individuals receiving treatment for substance use disorder in a tertiary hospital in Ogbomoso, Nigeria. Exploratory study was conducted among young individuals receiving treatment for substance use disorder in Ogbomoso, Nigeria. Twenty (20) purposively selected young adults (12 males, 8 females) receiving treatment for substance use disorder at Bowen University Teaching Hospital Ogbomoso, participated in three focus group discussions (male, female, and a mixed-gender groups), while two individuals were involved in separate in-depth interviews. Seven key themes (curiosity, peer pressure, enhance performance, boost self-esteem, cope with unpleasant emotions, frustration, and get high) emerged from the focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. It was concluded that the factors identified in this study should guide substance use disorder treatment development and implementation for improved outcome in Nigeria

Calendar Implementation Task Force

This report discusses the issues involved with converting from a trimester academic calendar to a semester calendar and provides recommendations for consideration

Efficacy of compassion-focused therapy in a sample of youth with substance use disorder in Ogbomoso, Nigeria

The problem of substance use disorder among the young population in recent times remains a significant threat to the psychosocial  and economic fabrics of the entire society, despite several efforts channelled towards its amelioration. The present study investigated the efficacy of compassion-focused therapy on substance use disorder among youth in Ogbomoso, Nigeria. This pre-test post-test control group experimental study compared a compassion-focused therapy (CFT) plus treatment-as-usual (TAU) to TAU-alone in 20 young individuals with substance use disorder. Participants were purposively selected and randomly assigned to treatment (CFT+TAU) and comparison (TAU-alone) groups. Participants’ mean age was 21.08±1.86 years. Assessments occurred at intake, 10-weeks, and 1-month follow-up with a standardized questionnaire. Independent-sample t-test, 2x2 analysis of covariance and one-way repeated  measure of ANOVA were used for analyses at 0.05 significant level. Individuals in the CFT+TAU group reported significantly lower substance use disorder symptoms compared to those in the TAU-alone group. There was an overall significant difference between the SUD means of participants that received CFT+TAU at pre-test, post-test, and 1-month follow-up. CFT provide effective treatment of substance use disorder among Nigerian population; its utilization is therefore recommended. Keywords: Compassion-focused therapy, substance use disorder, youth, Nigeri

Biologically meaningful coverage indicators for eliminating malaria transmission.

Mosquitoes, which evade contact with long-lasting insecticidal nets and indoor residual sprays, by feeding outdoors or upon animals, are primary malaria vectors in many tropical countries. They can also dominate residual transmission where high coverage of these front-line vector control measures is achieved. Complementary strategies, which extend insecticide coverage beyond houses and humans, are required to eliminate malaria transmission in most settings. The overwhelming diversity of the world's malaria transmission systems and optimal strategies for controlling them can be simply conceptualized and mapped across two-dimensional scenario space defined by the proportion of blood meals that vectors obtain from humans and the proportion of human exposure to them which occurs indoors

Humor with backgrounded incongruity: Does more required suspension of disbelief affect humor perception?

Humorous stimuli, like jokes and cartoons, are assumed to contain a central incongruity in a specific constellation of opposition and overlap that is essential to their humorousness. Many stimuli also contain additional incongruities that the audience usually overlooks, but that may be needed to create the setup for the main incongruity, e.g., animals that talk, space aliens, an Italian, an American, and a Russian sharing a language. Two of the studies described in the present paper investigated the effect of such backgrounded incongruities by removing them from a set of jokes and cartoons and testing how this affects humor processing and appreciation. A third study investigated whether the elimination of a backgrounded incongruity influences the position of a humorous stimulus on the incongruity-resolution and nonsense humor continuum. Methods included computer-based stimulus rating and self-explanations by the participants. The results suggested that backgrounded incongruities influence humor appreciation because their elimination leads to lower funniness and higher aversion. Furthermore, the backgrounded incongruities contribute strongly to the perceived absurdity of a joke. When they are removed, the jokes are perceived less to be nonsense humor but more as incongruity-resolution humo

Performance assessment of pulse blanking mitigation in presence of multiple Distance Measuring Equipment/Tactical Air Navigation interference on Global Navigation Satellite Systems signals

It is known that the Aeronautical Radio Navigation Systems sharing the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) frequency band represent a threat to the satellite-based navigation services. Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) and Tactical Air Navigation (TACAN) systems broadcast strong pulsed ranging signals within the Global Positioning System L5 and Galileo E5a frequency bands where the aviation positioning aids services are allocated. This study provides an experimental assessment of the DME/TACAN interference effect on the GNSS receivers performance in scenarios where the presence of several transmitters in view generates radio-frequency interference hard to mitigate by means of the classical solutions. In detail, analysis in terms of the receiver performance will be presented by showing the effect of the non-ideal pulse blanking on the GNSS signal quality. The optimal set-up of the mitigation process, investigated by means of a software simulation, is provided

Unsupervised Segmentation of Action Segments in Egocentric Videos using Gaze

Unsupervised segmentation of action segments in egocentric videos is a desirable feature in tasks such as activity recognition and content-based video retrieval. Reducing the search space into a finite set of action segments facilitates a faster and less noisy matching. However, there exist a substantial gap in machine understanding of natural temporal cuts during a continuous human activity. This work reports on a novel gaze-based approach for segmenting action segments in videos captured using an egocentric camera. Gaze is used to locate the region-of-interest inside a frame. By tracking two simple motion-based parameters inside successive regions-of-interest, we discover a finite set of temporal cuts. We present several results using combinations (of the two parameters) on a dataset, i.e., BRISGAZE-ACTIONS. The dataset contains egocentric videos depicting several daily-living activities. The quality of the temporal cuts is further improved by implementing two entropy measures.Comment: To appear in 2017 IEEE International Conference On Signal and Image Processing Application

Effect of Elliptically Polarized Light on the Angular Distribution of Photoelectrons

The angular distribution of photoelectrons predicted for elliptically polarized light is shown to be the same as that predicted for partially polarized light having incoherent perpendicular electric field components equal to the electric field components along the major and minor axes of the ellipse. Includes Corrigendum from J. Phys. B: Atom. Molec. Phys. 12:23 (1979), p. 3993