Quality and yield of Alicante Grenache and Semillon on various rootstocks in an arid climate

Alicante Grenache and Semillon wine grape varieties, were studied on their own roots and on seven rootstocks, for yield and quality criteria, in an arid climate. Grenache on its own roots was outstanding in yield, vigour, T.S.S. and acid content. Of the grafted rootstock combinations, 140 Ru yielded highest, followed by 110 R, 41 B MG, 1103 P. Acid content was lowest with 41 B MG. Bunch weight was lowest on ungrafted vines and highest on 140 Ru and 1103 P. Semillon had the highest yield and acid content on 41 B MG, followed by ownroot vines, 161-49 C (low vigour) and 1103 P. Highest bunch weights were observed with 140 Ru and 41 B MG, while high T.S.S. were observed with 161-49 C, own root-vines and 99 R.On 1103 P and 140 Ru, both varieties showed less decline in vigour with age, relative to other combinations.Qualitäts- und Ertragseigenschaften von Alicante Grenache und Semillon auf verschiedenen Unterlagen in einem ariden KlimaIn einem ariden Klima wurden Ertrags- und Qualitätskriterien der Keltertraubensorten Alicante Grenache und Semillon bei wurzelechtem Anbau und in Kombination mit sieben Unterlagen untersucht.Grenache zeigte bei wurzelechtem Anbau überdurchschnittliche Leistungen in Ertrag, Wüchsigkeit, löslicher Trockensubstanz und Säuregehalt. Bei den Pfropfkombinationen wirkte sich 140 Ru auf den Ertrag am vorteilhaftesten aus; es folgten 110 R, 41 B MG, 1103 P. Der Säuregehalt war in Verbindung mit 41 B MG am niedrigsten. Das Traubengewicht war bei den wurzelechten Reben am niedrigsten und auf 140 Ru und 1103 P am höchsten.Semillon hatte auf 41 B den höchsten Ertrag und Säuregehalt, gefolgt von der wurzelechten Rebe und den Kombinationen mit 161-49 C (schwache Wüchsigkeit) sowie mit 1103 P. Das höchste Traubengewicht wurde nach Pfropfung auf 140 Ru und 41 B MG gemessen, während auf 161-49 C, im wurzelechten Zustand und auf 99 R ein hoher Gehalt an löslicher Trockensubstanz beobachtet wurde.Auf 1103 P und 140 Ru ließ die Wüchsigkeit beider Sorten mit fortschreitendem Alter weniger nach als bei anderen Pfropfkombinationen

Performance of table grape cultivars on different rootstocks in an arid climate

The performance of the table grape varieties Queen of the Vineyards, Muscat of Hamburg and Dabouki on eight different rootstocks, was studied in the arid Negev, on a loess soil under irrigation.The highest yields (nine years of bearing) from Queen of the Vineyards were recorded on 161-49, followed by 1202 and 99 R; from Muscat of Hamburg on ownroot plants, 41 B and 110 R; from Dabouki on 41 B, 110 R and 161-49. Maximum vigor in Queen of the Vineyards was obtained on 1202, followed by own-root plants and 1103; in Muscat of Hamburg, on 140 R and 1202; in Dabouki, 0n 110 R and 1202.Highest relative fruitfulness (ratio of total crop per total weight of prunings) 1Jf Queen of the Vineyards was found on 161-49, followed by 41 B and 216-3; of Muscat of Hamburg, on 110 Rand 41 B; of Dabouki, on 41 B and 216-3.No correlation was noted between the ranking of stionic combinations as to vigor and their ranking as yielders. There was a marked tendency toward decreased vigor with age, except on 140 with all three varieties, on 1103 and 1202 with Muscat, on 216-3 with Dabouki, and on 1103 with Queen of the Vineyards. A comparatively large overgrowth in the Dabouki variety with some rootstocks n.id not impair performance.Great variation was noted in the performance of different varieties of V. vinifera on their own roots; high relative yields were obtained with Muscat of Hamburg, and low yield with Queen of the Vineyards. Only small differences were found in quality, cluster weight and berry weight on different rootstocks

Non-ionizing radiofrequency electromagnetic waves traversing the head can be used to detect cerebrovascular autoregulation responses

Monitoring changes in non-ionizing radiofrequency electromagnetic waves as they traverse the brain can detect the effects of stimuli employed in cerebrovascular autoregulation (CVA) tests on the brain, without contact and in real time. CVA is a physiological phenomenon of importance to health, used for diagnosis of a number of diseases of the brain with a vascular component. The technology described here is being developed for use in diagnosis of injuries and diseases of the brain in rural and economically underdeveloped parts of the world. A group of nine subjects participated in this pilot clinical evaluation of the technology. Substantial research remains to be done on correlating the measurements with physiology and anatomy

Fusion of Single View Soft k-NN Classifiers for Multicamera Human Action Recognition

Proceedings of: 5th International Conference on Hybrid Artificial Intelligence Systems (HAIS 2010). San Sebastián, Spain, June 23-25, 2010This paper presents two different classifier fusion algorithms applied in the domain of Human Action Recognition from video. A set of cameras observes a person performing an action from a predefined set. For each camera view a 2D descriptor is computed and a posterior on the performed activity is obtained using a soft classifier. These posteriors are combined using voting and a bayesian network to obtain a single belief measure to use for the final decision on the performed action. Experiments are conducted with different low level frame descriptors on the IXMAS dataset, achieving results comparable to state of the art 3D proposals, but only performing 2D processing.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485) and DPS2008-07029-C02-02Publicad

Effects of habitat and livestock on nest productivity of the Asian houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii in Bukhara Province, Uzbekistan

To inform population support measures for the unsustainably hunted Asian houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii (IUCN Vulnerable) we examined potential habitat and land-use effects on nest productivity in the Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan. We monitored 177 nests across different semi-arid shrub assemblages (clay-sand and salinity gradients) and a range of livestock densities (0–80 km-2). Nest success (mean 51.4%, 95% CI 42.4–60.4%) was similar across four years; predation caused 85% of those failures for which the cause was known, and only three nests were trampled by livestock. Nesting begins within a few weeks of arrival when food appears scarce, but later nests were more likely to fail owing to the emergence of a key predator, suggesting foraging conditions on wintering and passage sites may be important for nest productivity. Nest success was similar across three shrub assemblages and was unrelated to landscape rugosity, shrub frequency or livestock density, but was greater with taller mean shrub height (range 13–67 cm) within 50 m. Clutch size (mean = 3.2 eggs) and per-egg hatchability in successful nests (87.5%) did not differ with laying date, shrub assemblage or livestock density. We therefore found no evidence that livestock density reduced nest productivity across the range examined, while differing shrub assemblages appeared to offer similar habitat quality. Asian houbara appear well-adapted to a range of semi-desert habitats and tolerate moderate disturbance by pastoralism. No obvious in situ mitigation measures arise from these findings, leaving regulation and control as the key requirement to render hunting sustainable

Effects of habitat and land use on breeding season density of male Asian Houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii

Landscape-scale habitat and land-use influences on Asian Houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii (IUCN Vulnerable) remain unstudied, while estimating numbers of this cryptic, low-density, over-hunted species is challenging. In spring 2013, male houbara were recorded at 231 point counts, conducted twice, across a gradient of sheep density and shrub assemblages within 14,300 km² of the Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan. Four sets of models related male abundance to: (1) vegetation structure (shrub height and substrate); (2) shrub assemblage; (3) shrub species composition (multidimensional scaling); (4) remote-sensed derived land-cover (GLOBCOVER, 4 variables). Each set also incorporated measures of landscape rugosity and sheep density. For each set, multi-model inference was applied to generalised linear mixed models of visit-specific counts that included important detectability covariates and point ID as a random effect. Vegetation structure received strongest support, followed by shrub species composition and shrub assemblage, with weakest support for the GLOBCOVER model set. Male houbara numbers were greater with lower mean shrub height, more gravel and flatter surfaces, but were unaffected by sheep density. Male density (mean 0.14 km-2, 95% CI, 0.12‒0.15) estimated by distance analysis differed substantially among shrub assemblages, being highest in vegetation dominated by Salsola rigida (0.22 [CI, 0.20‒0.25]), high in areas of S. arbuscula and Astragalus (0.14 [CI, 0.13‒0.16] and 0.15 [CI, 0.14‒0.17] respectively), lower (0.09 [CI, 0.08‒0.10]) in Artemisia and lowest (0.04 [CI, 0.04‒0.05]) in Calligonum. The study area was estimated to hold 1,824 males (CI: 1,645‒2,030). The spatial distribution of relative male houbara abundance, predicted from vegetation structure models, had the strongest correspondence with observed numbers in both model-calibration and the subsequent year’s data. We found no effect of pastoralism on male distribution but potential effects on nesting females are unknown. Density differences among shrub communities suggest extrapolation to estimate country- or range-wide population size must take account of vegetation composition

Patients with treated indolent lymphomas immunized with BNT162b2 have reduced anti-spike neutralizing IgG to SARS-CoV-2 variants, but preserved antigen-specific T cell responses

Patients with indolent lymphoma undertaking recurrent or continuous B cell suppression are at risk of severe COVID-19. Patients and healthy controls (HC; N = 13) received two doses of BNT162b2: follicular lymphoma (FL; N = 35) who were treatment naïve (TN; N = 11) or received immunochemotherapy (ICT; N = 23) and Waldenström's macroglobulinemia (WM; N = 37) including TN (N = 9), ICT (N = 14), or treated with Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitors (BTKi; N = 12). Anti-spike immunoglobulin G (IgG) was determined by a high-sensitivity flow-cytometric assay, in addition to live-virus neutralization. Antigen-specific T cells were identified by coexpression of CD69/CD137 and CD25/CD134 on T cells. A subgroup (N = 29) were assessed for third mRNA vaccine response, including omicron neutralization. One month after second BNT162b2, median anti-spike IgG mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) in FL ICT patients (9977) was 25-fold lower than TN (245 898) and HC (228 255, p =.0002 for both). Anti-spike IgG correlated with lymphocyte count (r =.63; p =.002), and time from treatment (r =.56; p =.007), on univariate analysis, but only with lymphocyte count on multivariate analysis (p =.03). In the WM cohort, median anti-spike IgG MFI in BTKi patients (39 039) was reduced compared to TN (220 645, p =.0008) and HC (p <.0001). Anti-spike IgG correlated with neutralization of the delta variant (r =.62, p <.0001). Median neutralization titer for WM BTKi (0) was lower than HC (40, p <.0001) for early-clade and delta. All cohorts had functional T cell responses. Median anti-spike IgG decreased 4-fold from second to third dose (p =.004). Only 5 of 29 poor initial responders assessed after third vaccination demonstrated seroconversion and improvement in neutralization activity, including to the omicron variant

Decreased morbidity following long saphenous vein harvesting using a minimally invasive technique: a randomised controlled trial comparing two techniques for long saphenous vein harvest

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to compare the morbidity associated with long saphenous vein harvesting using the traditional open technique (A) against a minimally invasive technique using the Mayo vein stripper (B) that involves multiple short incisions. DESIGN: We conducted a prospective randomized controlled study in 80 patients undergoing first time coronary artery bypass grafting. Pain and healing was assessed on each postoperative day. Rings of long saphenous vein were subjected to organ-bath evaluation of endothelium-dependent and endothelium-independent relaxation. RESULTS: Three patients were excluded from the study, leaving 38 patients in Group A and 39 in Group B. With respect to operative procedure, Group A had a greater length of vein harvested than Group B. There was no statistical difference in pain scores and endothelium-dependent or endothelium-independent relaxation between the two groups. However there were significantly more infections in Group A compared with Group B. CONCLUSION: Harvesting vein through multiple incisions using the Mayo vein stripper is quicker, results in fewer infections and has no deleterious effect on endothelial function compared to open technique