The deregulation of New Zealand agriculture : market intervention (1964-84) and free market readjustment (1984-90)

The impacts of deregulation on New Zealand's agricultural sector are examined. Economic liberalization of all sectors of economic activity is the hallmark of current economic policy designs in New Zealand. This is in sharp contrast to previous policies reliant on massive government assistance to and intervention in agriculture. The study provides insights into the cumulative and distortionary extent of previous assistance policies, discusses the rationale in removing public financial assistance, and reviews the readjustment process. As a case study, New Zealand's experience reveals difficulties which may confront farmers in other economies where policy makers seek a return to free market conditions

Screening and identification of cellulase producing yeast-like microorganisms from Brazilian biomes

The main goals of the present study included the screening and identification of cellulase producing wild yeasts, isolated from samples collected from different Brazilian biomes. They were selected according to their capabilities of degrading carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and micro-crystalline cellulose (SERVACEL®), as single carbon sources in solid medium. After the step of solid medium selection, yeast cells were grown in liquid medium containing cellulose (SERVACEL®); in shake flasks at temperature of 30°C and 150 rpm agitation for 288 h. Three specific activities were evaluated: endoglucanase (CMCase), total activity (filter paper activity), and cellobiase. From a total of 390 strains of wild yeasts previously isolated, 16 strains performed cellulose hydrolysis, verified by the colorless halo in the solid medium. Among these 16 strains, 5 stood out as presenting higher levels of enzyme activity. The following step, screening in liquid medium, indicated only one strain as a potential producer of cellulases, named as AAJ6, for which the highest hydrolytic activity on carboxymethyl cellulose (0.33 U/ml) and filter paper (0.039 U/ml) was recorded. Afterwards, this wild yeast strain (AAJ6) was molecularly identified by sequencing the ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 and D1/D2 domains of the subunit (26 S) ribosomal DNA. Sequencing resulted in the identification of this strain as yeast-like fungus Acremonium strictum.Keywords: Acremonium strictum, screening, identification, yeast-like, cellulase

SmileAtMe: rating and recommending funny images via smile detection

In this paper, we propose an Android-based assistance system called SmileAtMe which uses smile detection as a means of direct interaction in order to rate meme images. A smartphone's front camera captures the user's face while they are interacting with the application on the device. A system evaluation uncovered that users fully understand how the application uses smile detection to rate images. The users attested that the automatic reaction classification works well. However, several of them were uncomfortable with the idea of being observed by their smartphone

Entwicklung einer effizienten Entwurfsraumanalyse zur Optimierung der Leistungsaufnahme von Networks-on-Chip

In der Arbeit werden Networks-on-Chip untersucht. Ein Teil beschäftigt sich mit dem Aufbau und den Eigenschaften von Links bzw. allgemein parallelen on-Chip-Leitungen. Speziell wird auf Crosstalk und eine digitale Methode, diesen Effekt zu messen, eingegangen. Im zweiten Teil der Arbeit wird ein NoC-Router untersucht und dessen Implementierung beschrieben. Aus diesen Erkenntnissen wird eine Methode entwickelt, den Entwurfsraum für ein NoC-basiertes System zu analysieren und so die optimale Kommunikationsarchitektur für eine bestimmte Anwendung zu bestimmen

Identification Of Candidate Genes For Drought Tolerance In Coffee By High-throughput Sequencing In The Shoot Apex Of Different Coffea Arabica Cultivars

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Drought is a widespread limiting factor in coffee plants. It affects plant development, fruit production, bean development and consequently beverage quality. Genetic diversity for drought tolerance exists within the coffee genus. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the adaptation of coffee plants to drought are largely unknown. In this study, we compared the molecular responses to drought in two commercial cultivars (IAPAR59, drought-tolerant and Rubi, drought-susceptible) of Coffea arabica grown in the field under control (irrigation) and drought conditions using the pyrosequencing of RNA extracted from shoot apices and analysing the expression of 38 candidate genes. Results: Pyrosequencing from shoot apices generated a total of 34.7 Mbp and 535,544 reads enabling the identification of 43,087 clusters (41,512 contigs and 1,575 singletons). These data included 17,719 clusters (16,238 contigs and 1,575 singletons) exclusively from 454 sequencing reads, along with 25,368 hybrid clusters assembled with 454 sequences. The comparison of DNA libraries identified new candidate genes (n = 20) presenting differential expression between IAPAR59 and Rubi and/or drought conditions. Their expression was monitored in plagiotropic buds, together with those of other (n = 18) candidates genes. Under drought conditions, up-regulated expression was observed in IAPAR59 but not in Rubi for CaSTK1 (protein kinase), CaSAMT1 (SAM-dependent methyltransferase), CaSLP1 (plant development) and CaMAS1 (ABA biosynthesis). Interestingly, the expression of lipid-transfer protein (nsLTP) genes was also highly up-regulated under drought conditions in IAPAR59. This may have been related to the thicker cuticle observed on the abaxial leaf surface in IAPAR59 compared to Rubi. Conclusions: The full transcriptome assembly of C. arabica, followed by functional annotation, enabled us to identify differentially expressed genes related to drought conditions. Using these data, candidate genes were selected and their differential expression profiles were confirmed by qPCR experiments in plagiotropic buds of IAPAR59 and Rubi under drought conditions. As regards the genes up-regulated under drought conditions, specifically in the drought-tolerant IAPAR59, several corresponded to orphan genes but also to genes coding proteins involved in signal transduction pathways, as well as ABA and lipid metabolism, for example. The identification of these genes should help advance our understanding of the genetic determinism of drought tolerance in coffee.16CIRAD (Centre de Cooperation Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Developpement, Montpellier, France)CIRAD ATP project "Analysis of phenotypic plasticity in response to water constraints in perennial plants growing under different field conditions"Brazilian Coffee RD ConsortiumFINEPINCT-cafe (CNPq/FAPEMIG)Center for Computational Engineering and Sciences-FAPESP/Cepid [2013/08293-7]Brazilian agencies CAPESBrazilian Consortium of Coffee ResearchCAPES-COFECUB Project [Sv738-12]Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES

Microscopic Description of Super Heavy Nuclei

The results of extensive microscopic Relativistic Mean Field (RMF) calculations for the nuclei appearing in the alpha - decay chains of recently discovered superheavy elements with Z = 109 to 118 are presented and discussed. The calculated ground state properties like total binding energies, Q values, deformations, radii and densities closely agree with the corresponding experimental data, where available. The double folding (t-rho-rho) approximation is used to calculate the interaction potential between the daughter and the alpha, using RMF densities along with the density dependent nucleon - nucleon interaction (M3Y). This in turn, is employed within the WKB approximation to estimate the half lives without any additional parameter for alpha - decay. The half lives are highly sensitive to the Q values used and qualitatively agree with the corresponding experimental values. The use of experimental Q values in the WKB approximation improves the agreement with the experiment, indicating that the resulting interaction potential is reliable and can be used with confidence as the real part of the optical potential in other scattering and reaction processes.Comment: Accepted for publication in Annals of Physics (NY

Recombinations to the Rydberg States of Hydrogen and Their Effect During the Cosmological Recombination Epoch

In this paper we discuss the effect of recombinations to highly excited states (n > 100) in hydrogen during the cosmological recombination epoch. For this purpose, we developed a new ODE solver for the recombination problem, based on an implicit Gear's method. This solver allows us to include up to 350 l-resolved shells or ~61 000 separate levels in the hydrogen model and to solve the recombination problem for one cosmology in ~27 hours. This is a huge improvement in performance over our previous recombination code, for which a 100-shell computation (5050 separate states) already required ~150 hours on a single processor. We show that for 350 shells down to redshift z ~200 the results for the free electron fraction have practically converged. The final modification in the free electron fraction at z ~200 decreases from about \DeltaNe/Ne ~2.8% for 100 shells to \DeltaNe/Ne ~1.6% for 350 shells. However, the associated changes in the CMB power spectra at large multipoles l are rather small, so that for accurate computations in connection with the analysis of Planck data already ~100 shells are expected to be sufficient. Nevertheless, the total value of \tau could still be affected at a significant level. We also briefly investigate the effect of collisions on the recombination dynamics. With our current estimates for the collisional rates we find a correction of \DeltaNe/Ne ~ -0.088% at z ~ 700, which is mainly caused by l-changing collisions with protons. Furthermore, we present results on the cosmological recombination spectrum, showing that at low frequencies collisional processes are important. However, the current accuracy of collisional rates is insufficient for precise computations of templates for the recombination spectrum at \nu<~1 GHz, and also the effect of collisions on the recombination dynamics suffers from the uncertainty in these rates.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, 1 table; Sect. 4.1.2 added; accepted versio

Alles im weißen Bereich?: Institutioneller Rassismus in Sachsen: Erweiterter Tagungsband

Die Tagung «Alles im weißen Bereich. Institutioneller Rassismus in Sachsen», die im Februar 2014 stattfand, war die fünfte Tagung in unserer Reihe zu Fragen der Demokratie. Der Gegenstand von Tagung und Sammelband steht für uns einerseits in logischer Reihenfolge bisheriger Fragen und Diskussionen zu den Zuständen Sächsischer Demokratie. Insbesondere war unsere Entscheidung in der Vorbereitung aber auch von der Arbeit der Untersuchungs-ausschüsse zum «NSU» angeregt worden. Ohne den Rassismus, der als grundlegender gesellschaftlicher Wissensbestand existiert, ist die Geschichte und das Versagen des staatlichen Sicherheitsapparates im Zusammenhang mit dem NSU schwer vorstellbar oder nicht möglich. Rassismus ist damit nicht nur das Motiv für die Ermordung von Menschen, sondern auch ein entscheidender Grund dafür, dass diese Morde nicht wirksam verhindert und teilweise nicht oder erst sehr spät aufgeklärt werden können. Diese Feststellung scheint offensichtlich, sie hat sich aber trotz einer breit geführten öffentlichen Debatte und der Arbeit verschiedener Untersuchungsausschüsse als nicht mehrheitsfähig erwiesen. Ebenso wenig konnte Institutioneller Rassismus als Perspektive und Analyseinstrument politisch etabliert werden. Redaktionsschluss: November 201