Heterocyst division in two blue-green algae

The heterocysts of Camptylonema lahorense and Aulosira fertilissima have been observed to undergo division, as distinct from germination, either by the constriction of the heterocyst wall and protoplast or by the formation of a transverse furrow. A two-pored heterocyst divides in this way to form two one-pored heterocysts

Visualizing the Structure of Large Trees

This study introduces a new method of visualizing complex tree structured objects. The usefulness of this method is illustrated in the context of detecting unexpected features in a data set of very large trees. The major contribution is a novel two-dimensional graphical representation of each tree, with a covariate coded by color. The motivating data set contains three dimensional representations of brain artery systems of 105 subjects. Due to inaccuracies inherent in the medical imaging techniques, issues with the reconstruction algo- rithms and inconsistencies introduced by manual adjustment, various discrepancies are present in the data. The proposed representation enables quick visual detection of the most common discrepancies. For our driving example, this tool led to the modification of 10% of the artery trees and deletion of 6.7%. The benefits of our cleaning method are demonstrated through a statistical hypothesis test on the effects of aging on vessel structure. The data cleaning resulted in improved significance levels.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure

Advantages of robotic assistance over a manual approach in simulated subretinal injections and its relevance for gene therapy

Subretinal injection is a method for gene delivery to treat genetic diseases of the photoreceptors and retinal pigment epithelium. A reflux-free subretinal injection is important to allow effective, safe, and cost-effective gene therapy to the retina. We report on a comparison between manual and robotic assistance in simulated subretinal injections using an artificial retina model. Nine surgeons carried out the procedure with and without the Preceyes Surgical System, using an OPMI Lumera 700 Zeiss surgical microscope equipped with intra-operative optical coherence tomography. Success in creating a bleb without reflux, injection duration, drift, tremor, and increase in the diameter of the puncture hole were analyzed. Robotic assistance improved drift (median 16 vs 212 mu m), tremor (median 1 vs 18 mu m), enlargement of the retinal hole, and allowed for prolonged injection times (median 52 vs 29 sec). Robotic assistance allowed higher rate of bleb formation (8/9 vs 4/9 attempts) with a moderate reduction in reflux (7/9 vs 8/9 attempts) in this artificial model. Robotic assistance can significantly contribute to subretinal injections and provide quantifiable parameters in assessing surgical and clinical success of novel retinal gene therapies.Ophthalmic researc

Weeds and weed control in finger millet in India - A review

Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn is a nutritious and under exploited minor millet with several edible and industrial uses. Finger millet is cultivated on 1.176 million ha, with average yields of 1.64 t/ha, in India (DMD), 2014)..

Increasing input resources use efficiency through appropriate weed management in Indian agriculture

Indian agriculture plays a major role in the country’s economy with 60% of India’s population depending on agriculture sector. The central concern of Indian agriculture is low productivity, evident in modest average crop yields. India may need at least 20 million tons of additional food every year to meet the minimum food and nutritional demands of the growing population which is expected to be 1.7 billion by 2050. Thus the greatest challenge for Indian agriculture is to produce more with minimal input resources without causing imbalance to environment and in a sustainable manner. One of the approaches to face the challenge is production of crops with increased input resource use efficiency by managing impediments such as weeds, which are adaptable to all adverse environments and compete with the crops for utilization of land, labor, light, nutrients and water resources (Yaduraju and Rao 2013). In this presentation, an effort is made to give an overall picture of resources used in Indian agriculture, extent of competition by weeds for resources with crops and extent of losses caused by weeds and appropriate weed management strategies for enhancing input resources use efficiency of crops for attaining increased crop productivity and production to meet the present and future demands of Indian population

Weed management research in India - an analysis of past and outlook for future

Agriculture is a critical sector of the Indian economy. Though agriculture's contribution to the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country has fallen from about 30% in 1990-91 to <15 % in 2011-12, agriculture yet forms the backbone of development. Achieving an 8-9 % rate of growth in overall GDP would help in poverty reduction and in providing food and nutritional security to all Indians, only when agricultural growth accelerates...

Weeds and Weed Management of Rice in Karnataka State, India

Rice is one of the staple food crops of India, and Karnataka is one of the major rice-producing states. The primary method of rice establishment in Karnataka is transplanting, but farmers are opting to shift to direct-seeding of rice. Weed management is critical for realizing optimal yield of direct-seeded rice (DSR). The objective of this review was to synthesize the published literature on weeds and weed management in rice in Karnataka, identify improved weed-management technologies for delivery to farmers, and suggest research needs. Some 98 weed species are reported to be associated with rice in Karnataka. Weed control to date in Karnataka has mostly been based on herbicides. Hand-weeding was found to be effective in all methods of rice establishment. However, it is time-consuming, tedious, and costly because labor is becoming scarce and unavailable, and labor wages are higher. Several PRE and POST herbicides that were effective in other Asian countries were also found to be effective in managing weeds in rice established by different methods in Karnataka. Bensulfuron plus pretilachlor and pyrazosulfuron in aerobic rice and pendimethalin, thiobencarb, bispyribac-sodium, cyhalofop, fenoxaprop plus chlorimuron plus metsulfuron, and fenoxaprop plus ethoxysulfuron in dry-DSR were found effective in managing weeds. In wet-DSR, butachlor plus safener and pretilachlor plus safener were effective. Thiobencarb, pendimethalin, pretilachlor, azimsulfuron plus metsulfuron, bispyribac-sodium, butachlor, cinosulfuron, oxadiazon, and quinclorac were found promising for weed management in transplanted rice. Integration of herbicides with hand-weeding or intercultivation was found to be effective in rice established by different methods. Options that were found economical in managing weeds varied across the different rice-establishment methods. The need for developing location-specific, sustainable, integrated weed management and extension of available technologies for the farming community in Karnataka is emphasized

Strengthening Farmers’ Knowledge for Better Weed Management in Developing Countries

Of more than 3 billion people (nearly half of the world’s population) who live in rural areas, around 2.5 billion derive their livelihoods from agriculture [1], which remains crucial to developing countries and their economies for meeting the demands of affordable food, feed, energy, and the security of their populations. Approximately, three quarters of the world’s agricultural value is generated in developing countries and, in many of these, the agriculture sector contributes as much as 30 % to gross domestic product (GDP). It has been observed that GDP growth from agriculture benefits the incomes of poor people two to four times more than th