229 research outputs found
Nutrient-Dense Orange-Fleshed Sweetpotato: Advances in Drought-Tolerance Breeding and Understanding of Management Practices for Sustainable Next-Generation Cropping Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa
Almost half of children < 5 years old living in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) suffer from vitamin A deficiency and 60% suffer from iron deficiency. Thus, there has been a strong
commitment to breeding for, promoting awareness of, and delivering adapted pro-vitamin A rich orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) in SSA during the past two decades and
for enhanced iron content since 2014. This review article focuses on major breeding efforts in SSA to enhance the drought tolerance of OFSP and reviews integrated crop
management practices for improved and sustained sweetpotato production in SSA farming systems. Under climate change, the frequency and severity of droughts is expected to increase. Technical issues are presented in the context of addressing challenges along the entire value chain to ensure adoption. First, the use of an accelerated breeding scheme reduced the breeding cycle from 8–10 to 4–5 years.
Since 2010, 19 drought-tolerant OFSP cultivars have been released in Mozambique, 7 in Malawi, and 2 in South Africa. Moreover, research in four breeding populations
using the heterosis exploiting breeding scheme (HEBS) demonstrated that within one breeding cycle of 5 years, clones with significantly higher root yield, abiotic tolerance, host plant resistance to pests and diseases, and early maturity can be produced. In the future, HEBS will be combined with greater use of modern genomic tools,
new phenotyping tools, and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing. Second, beyond genetic enhancements, evidence is presented that using improved crop management
systems, existing sweet potato yields can be increased 2–4 times. Current knowledge is reviewed concerning sweetpotato’s role in diverse farming systems, but integrated crop management is clearly under researched. Third, the outlook for drought tolerance breeding indicates that two distinct classes of nutrient-rich cultivars are emerging: (1) Early maturing cultivars (< 4 month growing period) that escape drought but also serve humid environments with small landholding size per capita; and (2) Medium maturing (4–6 month growing period) cultivars that avoid drought, are drought tolerant and exhibit
continuous root formation. Increasing commercialization of the crop and climate change will drive demand, and the willingness of farmers to invest in improved sweetpotato
crop management
Exact thermodynamic Casimir forces for an interacting three-dimensional model system in film geometry with free surfaces
The limit n to infinity of the classical O(n) phi^4 model on a 3d film with
free surfaces is studied. Its exact solution involves a self-consistent 1d
Schr\"odinger equation, which is solved numerically for a partially discretized
as well as for a fully discrete lattice model. Numerically exact results are
obtained for the scaled Casimir force at all temperatures. Obtained via a
single framework, they exhibit all relevant qualitative features of the
thermodynamic Casimir force known from wetting experiments on Helium-4 and
Monte Carlo simulations, including a pronounced minimum below the bulk critical
point.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
Limit on Lorentz and CPT violation of the bound Neutron Using a Free Precession 3He/129Xe co-magnetometer
We report on the search for Lorentz violating sidereal variations of the
frequency difference of co-located spin-species while the Earth and hence the
laboratory reference frame rotates with respect to a relic background field.
The co-magnetometer used is based on the detection of freely precessing nuclear
spins from polarized 3He and 129Xe gas samples using SQUIDs as low-noise
magnetic flux detectors. As result we can determine the limit for the
equatorial component of the background field interacting with the spin of the
bound neutron to be bn < 3.7 x 10^{-32} GeV (95 C.L.).Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Thermodynamic Casimir effects involving interacting field theories with zero modes
Systems with an O(n) symmetrical Hamiltonian are considered in a
-dimensional slab geometry of macroscopic lateral extension and finite
thickness that undergo a continuous bulk phase transition in the limit
. The effective forces induced by thermal fluctuations at and above
the bulk critical temperature (thermodynamic Casimir effect) are
investigated below the upper critical dimension by means of
field-theoretic renormalization group methods for the case of periodic and
special-special boundary conditions, where the latter correspond to the
critical enhancement of the surface interactions on both boundary planes. As
shown previously [\textit{Europhys. Lett.} \textbf{75}, 241 (2006)], the zero
modes that are present in Landau theory at make conventional
RG-improved perturbation theory in dimensions ill-defined. The
revised expansion introduced there is utilized to compute the scaling functions
of the excess free energy and the Casimir force for temperatures
T\geqT_{c,\infty} as functions of , where
is the bulk correlation length. Scaling functions of the
-dependent residual free energy per area are obtained whose
limits are in conformity with previous results for the Casimir amplitudes
to and display a more reasonable
small- behavior inasmuch as they approach the critical value
monotonically as .Comment: 23 pages, 10 figure
Excess free energy and Casimir forces in systems with long-range interactions of van-der-Waals type: General considerations and exact spherical-model results
We consider systems confined to a -dimensional slab of macroscopic lateral
extension and finite thickness that undergo a continuous bulk phase
transition in the limit and are describable by an O(n) symmetrical
Hamiltonian. Periodic boundary conditions are applied across the slab. We study
the effects of long-range pair interactions whose potential decays as as , with and , on
the Casimir effect at and near the bulk critical temperature ,
for . For the scaled reduced Casimir force per unit cross-sectional
area, we obtain the form L^{d} {\mathcal F}_C/k_BT \approx \Xi_0(L/\xi_\infty)
+ g_\omega L^{-\omega}\Xi\omega(L/\xi_\infty) + g_\sigma L^{-\omega_\sigm a}
\Xi_\sigma(L \xi_\infty). The contribution decays for
algebraically in rather than exponentially, and hence
becomes dominant in an appropriate regime of temperatures and . We derive
exact results for spherical and Gaussian models which confirm these findings.
In the case , which includes that of nonretarded van-der-Waals
interactions in dimensions, the power laws of the corrections to scaling
of the spherical model are found to get modified by logarithms.
Using general RG ideas, we show that these logarithmic singularities originate
from the degeneracy that occurs for the spherical
model when , in conjunction with the dependence of .Comment: 28 RevTeX pages, 12 eps figures, submitted to PR
Critical Casimir forces and adsorption profiles in the presence of a chemically structured substrate
Motivated by recent experiments with confined binary liquid mixtures near
demixing, we study the universal critical properties of a system, which belongs
to the Ising universality class, in the film geometry. We employ periodic
boundary conditions in the two lateral directions and fixed boundary conditions
on the two confining surfaces, such that one of them has a spatially
homogeneous adsorption preference while the other one exhibits a laterally
alternating adsorption preference, resembling locally a single chemical step.
By means of Monte Carlo simulations of an improved Hamiltonian, so that the
leading scaling corrections are suppressed, numerical integration, and
finite-size scaling analysis we determine the critical Casimir force and its
universal scaling function for various values of the aspect ratio of the film.
In the limit of a vanishing aspect ratio the critical Casimir force of this
system reduces to the mean value of the critical Casimir force for laterally
homogeneous ++ and +- boundary conditions, corresponding to the surface spins
on the two surfaces being fixed to equal and opposite values, respectively. We
show that the universal scaling function of the critical Casimir force for
small but finite aspect ratios displays a linear dependence on the aspect ratio
which is solely due to the presence of the lateral inhomogeneity. We also
analyze the order-parameter profiles at criticality and their universal scaling
function which allows us to probe theoretical predictions and to compare with
experimental data.Comment: revised version, section 5.2 expanded; 53 pages, 12 figures, iopart
clas
The translation, validity and reliability of the German version of the Fremantle Back Awareness Questionnaire
Background: The Fremantle Back Awareness Questionnaire (FreBAQ) claims to assess disrupted self-perception of the back. The aim of this study was to develop a German version of the Fre-BAQ (FreBAQ-G) and assess its test-retest reliability, its known-groups validity and its convergent validity with another purported measure of back perception.
Methods: The FreBaQ-G was translated following international guidelines for the transcultural adaptation of questionnaires. Thirty-five patients with non-specific CLBP and 48 healthy participants were recruited. Assessor one administered the FreBAQ-G to each patient with CLBP on two separate days to quantify intra-observer reliability. Assessor two administered the FreBaQ-G to each patient on day 1. The scores were compared to those obtained by assessor one on day 1 to assess inter-observer reliability. Known-groups validity was quantified by comparing the FreBAQ-G score between patients and healthy controls. To assess convergent validity, patient\u27s FreBAQ-G scores were correlated to their two-point discrimination (TPD) scores.
Results: Intra- and Inter-observer reliability were both moderate with ICC3.1 = 0.88 (95%CI: 0.77 to 0.94) and 0.89 (95%CI: 0.79 to 0.94), respectively. Intra- and inter-observer limits of agreement (LoA) were 6.2 (95%CI: 5.0±8.1) and 6.0 (4.8±7.8), respectively. The adjusted mean difference between patients and controls was 5.4 (95%CI: 3.0 to 7.8, p\u3c0.01). Patient\u27s FreBAQ-G scores were not associated with TPD thresholds (Pearson\u27s r = -0.05, p = 0.79).
Conclusions: The FreBAQ-G demonstrated a degree of reliability and known-groups validity. Interpretation of patient level data should be performed with caution because the LoA were substantial. It did not demonstrate convergent validity against TPD. Floor effects of some items of the FreBAQ-G may have influenced the validity and reliability results. The clinimetric properties of the FreBAQ-G require further investigation as a simple measure of disrupted self-perception of the back before firm recommendations on its use can be made
ICF components of corresponding outcome measures in flexor tendon rehabilitation – a systematic review
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) delivers a holistic approach to health conditions. The objective of the present study is to provide an overview of flexor tendon rehabilitation outcome measures with respect to ICF components. Furthermore, it aims to investigate to which extent current assessments measure aspects of health according to these components primarily focussing on <it>activity </it>and <it>participation</it>.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A systematic literature review was conducted to identify all studies meeting the inclusion criteria. Studies were only included if they assessed more than <it>body function and body structure </it>and referred to the ICF components <it>activity </it>and <it>participation</it>. The outcome measures were analysed and their linkage to the ICF components were investigated to examine to which degree aspects of health outcome as defined by the ICF were considered.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>As anticipated, the application of outcome measures after flexor tendon repair is non conform. In many studies the emphasis still lies on physical impairment neglecting activity limitations and participation restrictions.</p> <p>Aspects of health after flexor tendon repair could be assessed more adequately and cover patients' needs more sufficiently by choosing outcome measures which refer to all aspects of functioning.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The ICF can help to identify aspects of health which are not being considered. The ICF can help promote further development of adequate outcome measures including activity limitation and participation restrictions by targeting patient centred goals and respecting patients' needs.</p
Identification of simple sequence repeat markers for sweetpotato weevil resistance
The development of sweetpotato [Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam] germplasm with resistance to sweetpotato weevil (SPW) requires an understanding of the biochemical and genetic mechanisms of resistance to optimize crop resistance. The African sweetpotato landrace, ‘New Kawogo’, was reported to be moderately resistant to two species of SPW, Cylas puncticollis and Cylas brunneus. Resistance has been associated with the presence of hydroxycinnamic acids esters (HCAs), but the underlying genetic basis remains unknown. To determine the genetic basis of this resistance, a bi-parental sweetpotato population from a cross between the moderately resistant, white-fleshed ‘New Kawogo’ and the highly susceptible, orange-fleshed North American variety ‘Beauregard’ was evaluated for SPW resistance and genotyped with simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers to identify weevil resistance loci. SPW resistance was measured on the basis of field storage root SPW damage severity and total HCA ester concentrations. Moderate broad sense heritability (H2 = 0.49) was observed for weevil resistance in the population. Mean genotype SPW severity scores ranged from 1.0 to 9.0 and 25 progeny exhibited transgressive segregation for SPW resistance. Mean genotype total HCA ester concentrations were significantly different (P < 0.0001). A weak but significant correlation (r = 0.103, P = 0.015) was observed between total HCA ester concentration and SPW severity. A total of five and seven SSR markers were associated with field SPW severity and total HCA ester concentration, respectively. Markers IBS11, IbE5 and IbJ544b showed significant association with both field and HCA-based resistance, representing potential markers for the development of SPW resistant sweetpotato cultivars
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