Sensitivity of the Quarantine Pest Rough Sweetpotato Weevil, Blosyrus asellus to Postharvest Irradiation Treatment

Rough sweetpotato weevil, Blosyrus asellus (Olivier), is a new quar- antine pest of Hawaii sweetpotatoes. Currently, sweetpotatoes can be exported from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland using a postharvest irradiation treatment of 150 Gy to control three other regulated insect pests. Studies were conducted to deter- mine whether this current radiation dose will also control any rough sweetpotato weevils in export shipments. Adult weevils were treated at various levels between 25 to 125 Gy and egg laying and egg hatch were measured. Rough sweetpotato weevil was found to be highly susceptible to irradiation, with no egg hatch at any radiation dose, even 25 Gy, the lowest dose tested. Results suggest that the 150 Gy irradiation treatment should be sufficient for control of rough sweetpotato weevil in Hawaii sweetpotatoes

Nitrogen management for enhanced protein content in wheat in the Black Soil Zone

Non-Peer Reviewe

Status of the Resource Room Model in Local Education Agencies: A Descriptive Study

Although resource room programs are widely used, only limited information is available on implementation of this model. The purpose of the present investigation was to survey a nationwide sample of local education agencies (LEAs) to determine the status of this model at the local level and to identify the characteristics of resource programs as they are currently implemented. A questionnaire was sent to a 5% stratified random sample of LEAs with a 53.4% response rate. Results indicated that most local education agencies use resource room programs, and have done so for at least three years. Most programs are multicategorical. The majority of respondents indicated that they believed the programs were effective, and that they would continue to be used. A major conclusion from this study relates to the need for descriptions of model resource room programs and practices.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

The Propagation of Coherent Waves Across Multiple Solar Magnetic Pores

Solar pores are efficient magnetic conduits for propagating magnetohydrodynamic wave energy into the outer regions of the solar atmosphere. Pore observations often contain isolated and/or unconnected structures, preventing the statistical examination of wave activity as a function of the atmospheric height. Here, using high-resolution observations acquired by the Dunn Solar Telescope, we examine photospheric and chromospheric wave signatures from a unique collection of magnetic pores originating from the same decaying sunspot. Wavelet analysis of high-cadence photospheric imaging reveals the ubiquitous presence of slow sausage-mode oscillations, coherent across all photospheric pores through comparisons of intensity and area fluctuations, producing statistically significant in-phase relationships. The universal nature of these waves allowed an investigation of whether the wave activity remained coherent as they propagate. Utilizing bisector Doppler velocity analysis of the Ca ii 8542 Å line, alongside comparisons of the modeled spectral response function, we find fine-scale 5 mHz power amplification as the waves propagate into the chromosphere. Phase angles approaching zero degrees between co-spatial line depths spanning different line depths indicate standing sausage modes following reflection against the transition region boundary. Fourier analysis of chromospheric velocities between neighboring pores reveals the annihilation of the wave coherency observed in the photosphere, with examination of the intensity and velocity signals from individual pores indicating they behave as fractured waveguides, rather than monolithic structures. Importantly, this work highlights that wave morphology with atmospheric height is highly complex, with vast differences observed at chromospheric layers, despite equivalent wave modes being introduced into similar pores in the photosphere

Collisions of particles in locally AdS spacetimes I. Local description and global examples

We investigate 3-dimensional globally hyperbolic AdS manifolds containing "particles", i.e., cone singularities along a graph $\Gamma$. We impose physically relevant conditions on the cone singularities, e.g. positivity of mass (angle less than $2\pi$ on time-like singular segments). We construct examples of such manifolds, describe the cone singularities that can arise and the way they can interact (the local geometry near the vertices of $\Gamma$). We then adapt to this setting some notions like global hyperbolicity which are natural for Lorentz manifolds, and construct some examples of globally hyperbolic AdS manifolds with interacting particles.Comment: This is a rewritten version of the first part of arxiv:0905.1823. That preprint was too long and contained two types of results, so we sliced it in two. This is the first part. Some sections have been completely rewritten so as to be more readable, at the cost of slightly less general statements. Others parts have been notably improved to increase readabilit

Active Amplification of the Terrestrial Albedo to Mitigate Climate Change: An Exploratory Study

This study explores the potential to enhance the reflectance of solar insolation by the human settlement and grassland components of the Earth's terrestrial surface as a climate change mitigation measure. Preliminary estimates derived using a static radiative transfer model indicate that such efforts could amplify the planetary albedo enough to offset the current global annual average level of radiative forcing caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases by as much as 30 percent or 0.76 W/m2. Terrestrial albedo amplification may thus extend, by about 25 years, the time available to advance the development and use of low-emission energy conversion technologies which ultimately remain essential to mitigate long-term climate change. However, additional study is needed to confirm the estimates reported here and to assess the economic and environmental impacts of active land-surface albedo amplification as a climate change mitigation measure.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures. In press with Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, N

Diverse Durham collection phages demonstrate complex BREX defence responses

Bacteriophages (phages) outnumber bacteria ten-to-one and cause infections at a rate of 1025 per second. The ability of phages to reduce bacterial populations makes them attractive alternative antibacterials for use in combating the rise in antimicrobial resistance. This effort may be hindered due to bacterial defenses such as Bacteriophage Exclusion (BREX) that have arisen from the constant evolutionary battle between bacteria and phages. For phages to be widely accepted as therapeutics in Western medicine, more must be understood about bacteria–phage interactions and the outcomes of bacterial phage defense. Here, we present the annotated genomes of 12 novel bacteriophage species isolated from water sources in Durham, UK, during undergraduate practical classes. The collection includes diverse species from across known phylogenetic groups. Comparative analyses of two novel phages from the collection suggest they may be founding members of a new genus. Using this Durham phage collection, we determined that particular BREX defense systems were likely to confer a varied degree of resistance against an invading phage. We concluded that the number of BREX target motifs encoded in the phage genome was not proportional to the degree of susceptibility

Functional genomics analysis identifies T and NK cell activation as a driver of epigenetic clock progression

Background Epigenetic clocks use DNA methylation (DNAm) levels of specific sets of CpG dinucleotides to accurately predict individual chronological age. A popular application of these clocks is to explore whether the deviation of predicted age from chronological age is associated with disease phenotypes, where this deviation is interpreted as a potential biomarker of biological age. This wide application, however, contrasts with the limited insight in the processes that may drive the running of epigenetic clocks. Results We perform a functional genomics analysis on four epigenetic clocks, including Hannum's blood predictor and Horvath's multi-tissue predictor, using blood DNA methylome and transcriptome data from 3132 individuals. The four clocks result in similar predictions of individual chronological age, and their constituting CpGs are correlated in DNAm level and are enriched for similar histone modifications and chromatin states. Interestingly, DNAm levels of CpGs from the clocks are commonly associated with gene expression in trans. The gene sets involved are highly overlapping and enriched for T cell processes. Further analysis of the transcriptome and methylome of sorted blood cell types identifies differences in DNAm between naive and activated T and NK cells as a probable contributor to the clocks. Indeed, within the same donor, the four epigenetic clocks predict naive cells to be up to 40 years younger than activated cells. Conclusions The ability of epigenetic clocks to predict chronological age involves their ability to detect changes in proportions of naive and activated immune blood cells, an established feature of immuno-senescence. This finding may contribute to the interpretation of associations between clock-derived measures and age-related health outcomes.Molecular Epidemiolog

Experimental Tests of Factorization in Charmless Non-Leptonic Two-Body B Decays

Using a theoretical framework based on the next-to-leading order QCD-improved effective Hamiltonian and a factorization Ansatz for the hadronic matrix elements of the four-quark operators, we reassess branching fractions in two-body non-leptonic decays $B \to PP, PV, VV$, involving the lowest lying light pseudoscalar $(P)$ and vector $(V)$ mesons in the standard model. Using the sensitivity of the decay rates on the effective number of colors, $N_c$, as a criterion of theoretical predictivity, we classify all the current-current (tree) and penguin transitions in five different classes. The recently measured charmless two-body $B \to PP$ decays $(B^+ \to K^+ \eta^\prime, B^0 \to K^0 \eta^\prime, B^0 \to K^+\pi^-, B^+ \to \pi^+ K^0$ and charge conjugates) are dominated by the $N_c$-stable QCD penguins (class-IV transitions) and their estimates are consistent with data. The measured charmless $B \to PV$ $(B^+ \to \omega K^+, ~B^+ \to \omega h^+)$ and $B\to VV$ transition $(B \to \phi K^*)$, on the other hand, belong to the penguin (class-V) and tree (class-III) transitions. The class-V penguin transitions are in general more difficult to predict. We propose a number of tests of the factorization framework in terms of the ratios of branching ratios for some selected $B \to h_1 h_2$ decays involving light hadrons $h_1$ and $h_2$, which depend only moderately on the form factors. We also propose a set of measurements to determine the effective coefficients of the current-current and QCD penguin operators. The potential impact of $B \to h_1 h_2$ decays on the CKM phenomenology is emphasized by analyzing a number of decay rates in the factorization framework.Comment: 64 pages (LaTex) including 13 figures, requires epsfig.sty; submitted to Phys. Rev.

B^0-\bar{B}^0 mixing and B \to X_s \gamma decay in the third type 2HDM: effects of NLO QCD contributions

In this paper, we calculated the next-to-leading order (NLO) new physics contributions to the mass splitting \dmd and the branching ratio \brbxsga induced by the charged Higgs loop diagrams in the third type of two-Higgs-doublet models (model III) and draw the constraints on the free parameters of model III. For the model III under consideration, we found that (a) an upper limit |\ltt|\leq 1.7 is obtained from the precision data of \dmd=0.502 \pm 0.007 ps^{-1}, while |\ltt| \approx 0.5 is favored phenomenologicaly; (b) for $B \to X_s \gamma$ decay, the NLO QCD contributions tend to cancel the LO new physics contributions; (c) a light charged Higgs boson with a mass around or even less than 200 GeV is still allowed at NLO level by the measured branching ratio \brbxsga: numerically, 188 \leq \mh \leq 215 GeV for (|\ltt|,|\lbb|)=(0.5,18); (d) the NLO QCD contributions tend to cancel the LO contributions effectively, the lower limit on \mh is consequently decreased by about 200 GeV; (e) the allowed region of \mh will be shifted toward heavy mass end for a non-zero relative phase $\theta$ between the Yukawa couplings \ltt and \lbb. The numerical results for the conventional model II are also presented for the sake of a comparison.Comment: 42 pages, 18 eps figures, Revtex, new references adde