Green Strategies of Powdery Mildew Control in Hop: From Organic Products to Nanoscale Carriers

[EN] Humulus lupulus L. is a long-lived, perennial, herbaceous, and dioecious climbing plant. The foremost producers in the European Union are Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, and Spain. The Spanish cultivated area is concentrated in the province of León. Powdery mildew, caused by Podosphaera macularis, menaces hop production and quality in all hop growing regions located in the Northern hemisphere, colonizing leaves, petioles, inflorescences, and finally cones. In this work, powdery mildew control was monitored, comparing nine fungicide strategies: five organics, two integrated disease management (IDM)-based, with and without Nutragreen® nanoscale carrier, and two conventional treatments (CON) with and without Nutragreen® nanoscale carrier. The organic treatments were able to diminish P. macularis on leaves, but no effect was observed in cones. CON treatments reduced the infection on leaves and cones and increased the cone quantity and quality. Likewise, IDM-based treatments provided satisfactory results as they diminished powdery mildew on leaves and cones. Finally, dose reduction using a Nutragreen® nanoscale carrier showed beneficial effects in the control of powdery mildew compared to the commercial dose. Hence, the use of nanoscale carries permits a 30% reduction in pesticide dose, which optimizes yield and hop quality, reduces risks linked to pesticides, and aids in compliance with public and international policy demands.SIThe authors thank the hop field agricultural engineer, hop growers, field workers in charge of the hop farms, and laboratory technicians for their help and collaboration in the necessary tasks

Photoionized OVI absorbers toward the bright QSO HE 0515-4414

We report on detailed Monte Carlo inversion analysis of five OVI systems from the spectrum of the bright quasar HE 0515-4414 (z_e = 1.71). The associated system at z_a = 1.697 with the neutral hydrogen column density N(HI)= 4.4 10^{13} cm^{-2} shows pronounced absorption from highly ionized transitions of CIII, CIV, NV, OVI, SiIV, and probably SVI. We found that only a power law type ionizing spectrum (J_nu propto nu^{-1.5}) is consistent with the observed sample of the line profiles, i.e. the system is definitely intrinsic. The relative metal abundances give almost the solar pattern and the metallicity of about 5 times solar. The system originates in a thin shell of the line-of-sight thickness L <= 16 pc. Two OVI systems at z_a = 1.674 ([C/H] = -1.6) and 1.602 ([O/H] = -1.1), arising in intervening halos, have linear sizes of L = 3-14 kpc and 17 kpc, respectively. Absorption systems at z_a = 1.385 ([C/H] = -0.3, L = 1.7-2.5 kpc) and z_a = 1.667 ([C/H] = -0.5, L = 1 kpc) exhibit characteristics very similar to that observed in metal-enriched high velocity clouds in the Milky Way.These systems are probably embedded in extremely metal-poor halos with [C/H] < -2.4 (z_a = 1.667) and [C/H] < -3.7 (z_a = 1.385). We also found two additional extremely metal-poor Ly-alpha systems at z_a = 1.500 and 1.681 with, respectively, N(HI) = 1.7 10^{15} and 1.8 10^{15} cm^{-2} and [C/H] < -4.0 and <-3.0, - an indication that the distribution of metals in the metagalactic medium is utterly patchy. Our results show that the ionization states in the analyzed OVI absorbers, ranging from z = 1.4 to 1.7, can be maintained by photoionization only and that the fraction of the shock-heated hot gas with temperature T > 10^5 K is negligible in these systems.Comment: 16 pages, including 11 PostScript figures. Accepted for publication in A&

Four-Body Bound State Calculations in Three-Dimensional Approach

The four-body bound state with two-body interactions is formulated in Three-Dimensional approach, a recently developed momentum space representation which greatly simplifies the numerical calculations of few-body systems without performing the partial wave decomposition. The obtained three-dimensional Faddeev-Yakubovsky integral equations are solved with two-body potentials. Results for four-body binding energies are in good agreement with achievements of the other methods.Comment: 29 pages, 2 eps figures, 8 tables, REVTeX

State Dependent Effective Interaction for the Hyperspherical Formalism

The method of effective interaction, traditionally used in the framework of an harmonic oscillator basis, is applied to the hyperspherical formalism of few-body nuclei (A=3-6). The separation of the hyperradial part leads to a state dependent effective potential. Undesirable features of the harmonic oscillator approach associated with the introduction of a spurious confining potential are avoided. It is shown that with the present method one obtains an enormous improvement of the convergence of the hyperspherical harmonics series in calculating ground state properties, excitation energies and transitions to continuum states.Comment: LaTeX, 16 pages, 8 ps figure

Estimulantes espermáticos en la inseminación artificial porcina = Sperm stimulants in swine artificial insemination

P. 22-33Los estimulantes espermáticos, conocidos también como potenciadores o aditivos seminales, son un grupo de sustancias, clasificadas en cuatro categorías ( estimulantes de la motilidad espermática, hormonas, enzimas y otras diversas), que añadidas al semen en el momento previo a la inseminación de las hembras mejoran la fertilidad y/o la prolificidad. En el presente artículo expondremos nuestras últimas investigaciones sobre un estimulante espermático porcino (EEP), de tipo "combinado", aplicable a la optimación de los resultados de la inseminación artificial porcina (IAP).S

Benchmark Test Calculation of a Four-Nucleon Bound State

In the past, several efficient methods have been developed to solve the Schroedinger equation for four-nucleon bound states accurately. These are the Faddeev-Yakubovsky, the coupled-rearrangement-channel Gaussian-basis variational, the stochastic variational, the hyperspherical variational, the Green's function Monte Carlo, the no-core shell model and the effective interaction hyperspherical harmonic methods. In this article we compare the energy eigenvalue results and some wave function properties using the realistic AV8' NN interaction. The results of all schemes agree very well showing the high accuracy of our present ability to calculate the four-nucleon bound state.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure