New breeding strategies for mixed cropping in a barley (H. vulgare L.) pea (P. sativum L.) model system

Crop mixtures consisting of cereals and legumes have proven as a well-adapted arrangement due to their complementarity towards important resources, especially nitrogen. Crop mixtures combine high yield performance and yield stability. They can contribute to a diversified cropping landscape and adaptation to climate change. The search for alternatives to protein imports from overseas and investments in post-harvest separation technologies are currently fostering their adoption by farmers in Western-Europe, especially under organic and lowinput farming conditions. However, screening and breeding for mixed cropping has hardly been explored for arable crops. Thus, the objective was to develop novel breeding strategies and tools specifically for mixed cropping systems. We tested mixtures and pure stands of a morphologically diverse panel of 32 spring pea (Pisum sativum L.) and eight spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) cultivars in replicated field trials at two locations in Switzerland over two years with pea as the focal species. In an incomplete factorial design (Fig. 1) we determined general and specific mixing ability (GMA and SMA, respectively) of pea and barley in analogy to GCA and SCA (general and specific combining ability) in hybrid breeding. Key traits, such as early vigour, canopy height and leaf morphology parameters were measured, due to their potential use as covariates or indirect selection criteria for mixing ability. Our results show that total yield of mixtures can only partly be explained by pea pure stand yields (R² = 0.35), making the latter a weak predictor for mixture yield. Pea GMA variance was predominant over SMA variance which underlines the potential for breeding for mixing ability using a tester. Key traits, such as pea stipule area were correlated (R² = 0.56) with total mixture yield and merit further investigation as indirect selection criteria. The separated yield fractions of pea and barley in mixtures allow to decompose GMA of pea into the producer effect of pea cultivar on pea fraction yield and the associate effect of pea on barley fraction yield. This novel concept allows to elucidate key trait effects on fraction yields of pea and barley which might otherwise be masked when solely using a GMA approach

EDGES AND RUSHES OF MINNESOTA: THE COMPLETEGUIDETOSPECIESIDENTIFICATION. Welby R. Smith; photography by Richard Haug.

Even the most seasoned individual with a plant identification background can relate to the difficulty of identifying sedges and rushes to the species level. Historically, one has had to rely on dichotomous keys to identify a sedge or rush species in the field. After hours of frustration, a person ends up collecting the plant and, if lucky, bringing the collection back to a herbarium where it can be compared to known specimens. I have been collecting and identifying sedge and rush species for over 25 years, and author Welby Smith along with photographer Richard Haug have published what I believe will be considered one of the most usable field guides for sedge and rush identification in the upper Midwest. I believe I should mention early in this review what makes this book such an amazing resource for field identification of sedges and rushes—the photography. The photography is of the highest quality I have ever seen! The array of photographs included with each species focuses on the characteristics that clearly differentiate one species from another. Each species usually has a photograph of the whole plant and sometimes the plant within its habitat. There are always photographs of the inflorescence and fruit, including perigynia or capsules and achenes or seeds. For example, the genus Carex includes photographs of the scale (sometimes the scale with the perigynium), the perigynium (usually dorsal and ventral views), and the achene, and in certain cases there are multiple photographs of each showing the changes in color during the season. Most of the photographs are of living plants and their parts, which is exactly what one would see in the field. Having pointed out this fact, it is mind-boggling how much time and effort that the people involved in the production of this book must have dedicated to putting this resource together. It had to be a passion or, at least, an obsession toward perfection

Improved chlorate candle provides concentrated oxygen source

Improved chlorate candle is used as a solid, portable source of oxygen in emergency situations. It contains sodium chlorate, iron, barium peroxide, and glass mixed in powdered form. The oxygen evolves from the decomposition of the sodium chlorate when an ignition pellet is electrically initiated

Electron-hole correlation effects in the emission of light from quantum wires

We present a self-consistent treatment of the electron-hole correlations in optically excited quantum wires within the ladder approximation, and using a contact potential interaction. The limitations of the ladder approximation to the excitonic low-density region are largely overcome by the introduction of higher order correlations through self consistency. We show relevance of these correlations in the low-temperature emission, even for high density relevant in lasing, when large gain replaces excitonic absorption.Comment: 4 paes 3 figure

The German Debate on the Monetary Theory of Value: Considerations on Jan Hoff's Kritik der Klassischen Politischen Ökonomie

Review of German debates in value theory/political economy, in this case espacially the still-unsettled issue of the relation between money and value, based on the work by Jan Hoff.Marx; Engels; value theory; Jan Hoff; Germany; German debate; MEGA; critique of political economy

Constructing an online test framework, using the example of a sign language receptive skills test

This paper presents the features of an online test framework for a receptive skills test that has been adapted, based on a British template, into different sign languages. The online test includes features that meet the needs of the different sign language versions. Features such as usability of the test, automatic saving of scores, and score reporting have been implemented. The background information of the children and the test results are saved in a secure databank. When consent has been granted, these data can be used for cross-linguistic research in the future. This will not only help us to broaden our understanding of deaf children’s sign language development, but will also help us to further improve sign language testing. Furthermore, implications for research and practice will be discussed

A New Distribution-Random Limit Normal Distribution

This paper introduces a new distribution to improve tail risk modeling. Based on the classical normal distribution, we define a new distribution by a series of heat equations. Then, we use market data to verify our model

THE ANALISIS OF THE BET-FI INDEX’S STATIC PROPERTIES

The financial sector of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, reflected in the BET-FI index, has gone through important changes during the last few years, becoming very attractive for the individual and institutional investors. This paper’s aim is to offer an analysis of the static proprieties of the BET-FI index and of the way the financial sector positioned in respect to the other sectors, as well as to the whole financial Romanian market. This will be done by a co-integration between the BET-FI index and the others indexes of the market (namely BET and BET-C).BET-FI index, distribution, informational efficiency

Bosonic stimulation of cold 1s excitons into a harmonic potential minimum in Cu2_2O

Density distribution of cold exciton clouds generated into a strain-induced potential well by two-photon excitation in Cu$_2$O is studied at 2 K. We find that an anomalous spike, which can be interpreted as accumulation of the excitons into the ground state, emerges at the potential minimum. The accumulation can be due to stimulated scattering of cold excitons, mediated by acoustic phonon emission. Possibility of the formation of the thermodynamic Bose-Einstein condensate of paraexcitons has been discussed.Comment: Submitted to Solid State Communications on 17 December, 200