Integrating Grazing with 2,4-D and Florpyrauxifen to Control Broadleaf Weeds and Maintain Red Clover Productivity in Grass-Legume Pastures

In grass-legume pastures, 2,4-D-amine + florpyrauxifen-benzyl controls broadleaf weeds but red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) is eliminated. Grazing within a week prior to herbicide application is likely to reduce leaf surface area and may reduce red clover injury and maintain productivity. Experiments were conducted in 2020 and in 2021 to determine if red clover could be productive when 560 g ae ha-1 2,4-D-amine + 6.3 g ae ha-1 of florpyrauxifen-benzyl with 1% v/v methylated seed oil applied in the spring was grazed before or after herbicide application. Grazing timings occurred 6, 4, or 2 days prior to herbicide application, the day of application, or 6 days after application. Grazing timing did not affect productivity or cover of red clover, white clover, forage grasses, broadleaf weeds, or annual grasses. In contrast, aboveground biomass of broadleaf weeds, red clover, and white clover was \u3e 55, 56, and 44% less, respectively, in 2,4-D-amine + florpyrauxifenbenzyl treated pasture than nontreated pasture. Less clover and broadleaf weed biomass in herbicide treated pasture was associated with 16% more perennial grass biomass and no changes in total forage productivity. Results suggest that all grazing timings applied with 2,4-D-amine + florpyrauxifen-benzyl provided effective weed control that persisted more than 1 year with only partial injury to red clover populations. Grazing in concert with herbicide applications improves herbicide selectivity of preferentially grazed species, while improved from conventional standards practicality to producers is still unknown

Integrating Grazing with 2,4-D and Florpyrauxifen to Control Broadleaf Weeds and Maintain Red Clover Productivity in Grass-Legume Pastures

In grass-legume pastures, 2,4-D-amine + florpyrauxifen-benzyl controls broadleaf weeds but red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) is eliminated. Grazing within a week prior to herbicide application is likely to reduce leaf surface area and may reduce red clover injury and maintain productivity. Experiments were conducted in 2020 and in 2021 to determine if red clover could be productive when 560 g ae ha-1 2,4-D-amine + 6.3 g ae ha-1 of florpyrauxifen-benzyl with 1% v/v methylated seed oil applied in the spring was grazed before or after herbicide application. Grazing timings occurred 6, 4, or 2 days prior to herbicide application, the day of application, or 6 days after application. Grazing timing did not affect productivity or cover of red clover, white clover, forage grasses, broadleaf weeds, or annual grasses. In contrast, aboveground biomass of broadleaf weeds, red clover, and white clover was \u3e55, 56, and 44% less, respectively, in 2,4-D-amine + florpyrauxifenbenzyl treated pasture than nontreated pasture. Less clover and broadleaf weed biomass in herbicide treated pasture was associated with 16% more perennial grass biomass and no changes in total forage productivity. Results suggest that all grazing timings applied with 2,4-D-amine + florpyrauxifen-benzyl provided effective weed control that persisted more than 1 year with only partial injury to red clover populations. Grazing in concert with herbicide applications improves herbicide selectivity of preferentially grazed species, while improved from conventional standards practicality to producers is still unknown

Analysis of High Dimensional Data from Intensive Care Medicine

As high dimensional data occur as a rule rather than an exception in critical care today, it is of utmost importance to improve acquisition, storage, modelling, and analysis of medical data, which appears feasable only with the help of bedside computers. The use of clinical information systems offers new perspectives of data recording and also causes a new challenge for statistical methodology. A graphical approach for analysing patterns in statistical time series from online monitoring systems in intensive care is proposed here as an example of a simple univariate method, which contains the possibility of a multivariate extension and which can be combined with procedures for dimension reduction

Delineation of Soil Boundaries Using Image Enhancement and Spectral Signature Classification of Landsat Data

The concept of using satellite data for soils inventories began with the advent of the first ERTS launch in 1972. Landsat data can be useful in a field survey, if it satisfies one or both of two requirements: the products must improve the accuracy of the survey and/or it must expedite the survey. These goals can be achieved by creating products that enhance and delineate soil surface features that would not necessarily identify specific soil types but rather provide a spatial boundary that a field scientist could observe and evaluate. A 250,000 acre tract of semiarid rangeland in east central Utah was selected as the study area. A June 13, 1977 Landsat scene was chosen for analysis. The color composite combined with such ancillary data as geologic maps and topographic quadrangles aided in partitioning the study site in to areas of physiographic homogeneity. A principle components transformation was performed on the data and a uniform contrast stretch was applied to the unaltered spectral bands and the transformed axes. The contrast stretch increased the dynamic tonal range of the data, and created as many as 32 different tonal classes. Various color combinations and a number of density slices were evaluated for their interpretability. A spectral signature classification of the June scene was developed using both supervised and unsupervised classification algorithms. A canonical analysis was then performed on the thematic maps to improve class separability for image enhancement. The more promising image products were geometrically corrected, scaled to 1:24,000, and merged with data digitized from a partially completed soils map. The resulting map allowed comparisons between soil lines drawn by a field soil mapper and the classes defined by computer analysis. Both the enhanced images and the spectral classification maps aided in the delineation of soil boundaries. Enhanced images are inexpensive to generate and, as no subjective class groupings are made, have the added quality of objectivity. The spectral classification maps defined surface characteristics that could be used to help separate soil units. A cost analysis for the individual products and an indepth field evaluation is being completed

Second Eastern Regional Remote Sensing Applications Conference

Participants from state and local governments share experiences in remote sensing applications with one another and with users in the Federal government, universities, and the private sector during technical sessions and forums covering agriculture and forestry; land cover analysis and planning; surface mining and energy; data processing; water quality and the coastal zone; geographic information systems; and user development programs

Enhancement of optical absorption in multiferroic (1-x)PZT-xPFN thin films: Experiments and first-principles analysis

Multiferroic compounds have gained research attention in the field of ferroelectric photovoltaics due to the presence of transition-metal d states from magnetic ions, which tend to reduce the bandgap value. In this work, 0.5Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 - 0.5Pb(Fe0.5Nb0.5)O3 PZTFN0.5 thin films were synthesized using a sol-gel route to investigate the effect of iron doping on optical and multiferroic properties. For comparative analysis, the end-member compositions, Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 (PZT) and Pb(Fe0.5Nb0.5)O3 (PFN), were also synthesized under identical conditions. Our results revealed that the presence of Fe ions, besides inducing multiferroic behavior, effectively enhances the optical absorption of the material in the visible light region. Optical transitions at 3.0 eV (2.4 eV) and 2.7 eV (2.2 eV) for the direct (indirect) bandgap were determined for PZTFN0.5 and PFN, respectively, indicating that the absorption edges of the iron-containing films result more promising than PZT (Eg 3.6eV) for photovoltaic applications. Both PZTFN0.5 and PFN thin films exhibit multiferroic behavior at room temperature, with different electric and magnetic properties. While PZTFN0.5 presents saturated hysteresis loops with remanent polarization values around 10 uC/cm2 and magnetization of 1.6 emu/cm2, PFN displays significantly larger remanence (31 emu/cm2) but poorer ferroelectric properties due to the presence of leakage. Microscopic insights into the structural and electronic properties of the PZTFN0.5 solid solution were provided from first-principles calculations

Sol-gel synthesis and multiferroic properties of pyrochlore-free Pb(Fe0.5Nb0.5)O3 thin films

Lead iron niobate (PbFe0.5Nb0.5O3 - PFN) thin films were synthesized by a modified sol-gel route, which offers the advantage of a rapid, simple and non-toxic reaction method. Polycrystalline perovskite-structured PFN thin films without pyrochlore phases were obtained on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates after sintering by rapid thermal annealing at 650 {\deg}C. TEM and AFM images confirmed the excellent quality of the sintered film, while EDS spectroscopy revealed the presence of oxygen vacancies near the film/substrate interface. Electric measurements show good dielectric properties and ferroelectric behavior, characterized by typical C-V curves and well-defined P-E ferroelectric loops at 1 kHz, with remanent polarization values of ~12 uC/cm2. The polarization, however, increases with decreasing frequency, indicating the presence of leakage currents. I-V measurements show a significant increase in DC-conduction at relatively low fields (around 100 kV/cm). The films display ferromagnetic behavior at room temperature, with magnetic remanence around 30 emu/cm3 and a coercive field of 1 kOe. These values are significantly higher than those obtained for PFN powders fabricated by the same sol-gel route, as well as the magnetization values reported in the literature for epitaxial films.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figure

Ultraviolet and Multiwavelength Variability of the Blazar 3C 279: Evidence for Thermal Emission

The gamma-ray blazar 3C 279 was monitored on a nearly daily basis with IUE, ROSAT and EGRET for three weeks between December 1992 and January 1993. During this period, the blazar was at a historical minimum at all wavelengths. Here we present the UV data obtained during the above multiwavelength campaign. A maximum UV variation of ~50% is detected, while during the same period the X-ray flux varied by no more than 13%. At the lowest UV flux level the average spectrum in the 1230-2700 A interval is unusually flat for this object (~1). The flattening could represent the lowest energy tail of the inverse Compton component responsible for the X-ray emission, or could be due to the presence of a thermal component at ~20000 K possibly associated with an accretion disk. The presence of an accretion disk in this blazar object, likely observable only in very low states and otherwise hidden by the beamed, variable synchrotron component, would be consistent with the scenario in which the seed photons for the inverse Compton mechanism producing the gamma-rays are external to the relativistic jet. We further discuss the long term correlation of the UV flux with the X-ray and gamma-ray fluxes obtained at various epochs. All UV archival data are included in the analysis. Both the X- and gamma-ray fluxes are generally well correlated with the UV flux, approximately with square root and quadratic dependences, respectively.Comment: 22 pages, Latex, 7 PostScript figures, to appear in The Astrophysical Journa

Development of ultra-light pixelated ladders for an ILC vertex detector

The development of ultra-light pixelated ladders is motivated by the requirements of the ILD vertex detector at ILC. This paper summarizes three projects related to system integration. The PLUME project tackles the issue of assembling double-sided ladders. The SERWIETE project deals with a more innovative concept and consists in making single-sided unsupported ladders embedded in an extra thin plastic enveloppe. AIDA, the last project, aims at building a framework reproducing the experimental running conditions where sets of ladders could be tested