Analysis of selective chopper radiometer data

Data from SCR-B on Nimbus 5 have been processed to yield global, orbital temperatures at 10, 5, 2, 1, and 0.4 mb for the period January 1977 through April 1978 under the current task. In addition gridded values at 10 deg latitude by 20 deg longitude were prepared by space-time interpolation for the period January 1975 through April 1978. Temperature retrieval was based on regression of radiances against Meteorological Rocket Network data, with regressions recomputed at approximately six-month intervals. This data now completes a consistent time series from April 1970 to April 1978 for all available radiance data from SCR A and SCR B on Nimbus 4 and 5. The processing details for the current period are discussed, but is also applicable to the previous data periods. The accuracy of the temperature retrievals for each 6-month period for the entire eight years is given in the Appendices

Kaolin as a possible treatment against lepidopteran larvae and mites in organic fruit production

Few control methods are available in Norwegian organic fruit production that can prevent damage by early and late larvae. Also phytophagous mites are difficult to control without harming the beneficial mites. Proc-essed kaolin function by coating trees and thus creating a physical barrier to infestation, impeding move-ment, feeding and egg-laying. Kaolin may reduce feeding and movement of over-wintering tortricide larvae and other larvae that hatch early in spring and have a repellent effect against egg-laying tortricide females in summer. Kaolin may also have a control effect against mites as it clings to the body and reduce feeding. Tri-als with kaolin were conducted in 2003, 2004 and 2005 in plum and apple orchards. Results show that kaolin reduces the population of rust mite, however it also affected the number of beneficial mites. The effect against early and late larvae was more variable. Treatments with kaolin resulted in a small reduction in early larvae and damage in some fields and years, however no clear effect against late larvae was found. The ef-fect of kaolin will be discussed in relation to population size and number of treatments

Control methods against bugs (Hemiptera; Heteroptera) in organic apple and pear production

True bugs (Hemiptera; Heteroptera) are important pests in fruit production in Norway. In organic fruit pro-duction they may damage up to 40% of the crop. Several of the Heteropteran species attacking apple and pear are polyphagous, with many other hostplants than pome fruit. In organic production few control meth-ods are available against bugs. In this study we have tried a cultural control method (mowing of ground-cover) as well as spray applications of various biological insecticides against bugs. Spray application of azadirachtin (NeemAzal), rape oil and garlic extract (Ecoguard) were tested. Results indicate that the effect of mowing groundcover inside the orchard is variable and small. Applying NeemAzal reduced the number of bugs and damage. Oil and Ecoguard showed little effect in this study, however further testing is needed. Results from the first two years of the study will be discussed in relation to both cultural and direct control methods against bugs

Designing and implementing a communications strategy: lessons learnt from HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health Research Programme Consortia.

In recent years there has been increasing recognition of the importance of strategic research communication. Health research organisations need to be able to communicate their research effectively to increase the probability that the findings influence policy and practice, and benefit those in greatest need. Many research funders are making communications a requirement of research funding. This paper reflects on the experience in developing and implementing communications strategies of several Research Programme Consortia funded by the Department for International Development.Different research topics will require different communications approaches in order to be effective. This is reflected in the diversity of strategies employed by different research programmes. Strategic research communications designed to influence policy and practice require different skills and expertise from those required for carrying out research and writing it up for publication in academic journals. Therefore researchers involved in communicating research should be supported in this work. One of the ways in which research programme consortia have sought to do this is through convening workshops to develop the communications skills of researchers from partner organisations. These have proven invaluable. Another way of providing ongoing support to those involved in communicating research is through a Communications Community of Practice. Where this has been used it has proven a good way to support researchers both with ideas and resources, but also a strong sense of belonging to a community that shares a common concern with communication. Developing strong partnerships with research users, other research organisations, knowledge intermediaries and other stakeholders is vital for effective communication.Embracing the challenges and opportunities presented by communicating research to influence policy practice is vital if research is to have maximum possible impact, and demonstrate its worth at a time when funding for health and development activities is at risk. Sharing lessons learnt in this process between research programmes is important to support this work

On adopting Ontology Alignment techniques within the Phenotype Acquisition Process

The work presented in this paper is framed within the context of the BigMed project, aproject funded by the Norwegian Research Council. One of the objectives of BigMed isto enhance the phenotype acquisition process in newborns with a monogenetic disorder,one of the four patient groups studied in the project. The use of the Human PhenotypeOntology (HPO) [1] to tag phenotypes and systems like PhenoTips have substantiallycontributed to the overall phenotype acquisition workflow. PhenoTips [2] is a systemfor the acquisition of phenotypic information in patients with a genetic disease. Phe-noTips also suggests, given a selected set of HPO terms, candidate diagnoses usingOMIM (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man) codes, and related genes for a subse-quent genetic test. Although PhenoTips represents a fantastic effort, we believe it couldbe extended with suitable Semantic Web solutions. In this paper, we present the firststeps to adopt ontology alignment techniques to contribute to the diagnostic process

Model Checking Race-freedom When "Sequential Consistency for Data-race-free Programs" is Guaranteed

Many parallel programming models guarantee that if all sequentially consistent (SC) executions of a program are free of data races, then all executions of the program will appear to be sequentially consistent. This greatly simplifies reasoning about the program, but leaves open the question of how to verify that all SC executions are race-free. In this paper, we show that with a few simple modifications, model checking can be an effective tool for verifying race-freedom. We explore this technique on a suite of C programs parallelized with OpenMP

Establishing Vegetative Cover to Protect Roadside Soils in South Dakota

A vegetative cover has been the most practical protection against erosion of roadside soils. Since vegetation also has enhanced roads in safety and appearance, the establishment of a roadside cover has been a part of highway construction. Topsoil has greater organic matter content, tilth development, fertility level, and seed content. As a result, it has been used more successfully than subsoil to produce a vegetative cover and stabilize roadsides from erosion. Costs of salvaging and spreading topsoil make it desirable to seek ways of satisfactorily establishing a vegetative cover on subsoil materials along roadsides. Studies were conducted in 1962, ] 963 and 1964 for the South Dakota Department of Highways by South Dakota State University. Included were laboratory, greenhouse, and field examinations of several representative South Dakota soils in respect to management requirements for establishing satisfactory plant cover on disturbed areas

Twenty Years of Soil Management Studies at Central Substation, Highmore, South Dakota

Current soil studies at the Central Substation, Highmore, concern improved methods of management for Williams soils. This soil is a major series on the Missouri Coteau. The Missouri Coteau is an uneven upland in the north central part of the state between the Missouri River and the James River lowland

QContext: Context-Aware Decomposition for Quantum Gates

In this paper we propose QContext, a new compiler structure that incorporates context-aware and topology-aware decompositions. Because of circuit equivalence rules and resynthesis, variants of a gate-decomposition template may exist. QContext exploits the circuit information and the hardware topology to select the gate variant that increases circuit optimization opportunities. We study the basis-gate-level context-aware decomposition for Toffoli gates and the native-gate-level context-aware decomposition for CNOT gates. Our experiments show that QContext reduces the number of gates as compared with the state-of-the-art approach, Orchestrated Trios.Comment: 10 page