Electronic support tools for identification and management of rice weeds in Africa for better-informed agricultural change agents

International audienceWe developed an interactive electronic weed identification tool, AFROweeds, and an online network, Weedsbook, for agricultural change agents to aid communication and offer assistance to rice farmers with specific weed problems. We collected quantitative and qualitative data to assess effectiveness and usefulness of these products with potential users. With the online version of AFROweeds, used on an electronic tablet, average weed identification time in the field was 7 min 6 s with 44% successful identifications. Poor mobile network coverage and slow internet were the main reasons for the relative long identification time and low success rate. A second trial was done with the offline version, pre-installed on a tablet. The average identification time was 6 min 34 s, with a success rate of 75%. The online network Weedsbook, established alongside AFROweeds, was assessed by the test users as a useful additional aid, enabling agricultural change agents and agronomists to exchange information or request assistance on all aspects of weeds and weed management. The potential improvements of both products are discussed

Quantifying soil hydrology to explain the development of vegetation at an ex-arable wetland restoration site

Wetland restoration frequently sets well-defined vegetation targets, but where restoration occurs on highly degraded land such targets are not practical and setting looser targets may be more appropriate. Where this more ‘open-ended’ approach to restoration is adopted, surveillance methods that can track developing wetland habitats need to be established. Water regime and soil structure are known to influence the distribution and composition of developing wetland vegetation, and may be quantified using Sum Exceedence Values (SEV), calculated using the position of the water table and knowledge of soil stress thresholds. Use of SEV to explain patterns in naturally colonizing vegetation on restored, ex-arable land was tested at Wicken Fen (UK). Analysis of values from ten locations showed that soil structure was highly heterogeneous. Five locations had shallow aeration stress thresholds and so had the potential to support diverse wetland assemblages. Deep aeration stress thresholds at other locations precluded the establishment of a diverse wetland flora, but identified areas where species-poor wetland assemblages may develop. SEV was found to be a useful tool for the surveillance of sites where restoration targets are not specified in detail at the outset and may help predict likely habitat outcomes at sites using an open-ended restoration approach

IL-17 in the immunopathogenesis of spondyloarthritis

pondyloarthritis (SpA) is a term that refers to a group of inflammatory diseases that includes psoriatic arthritis, axial SpA and nonradiographic axial SpA, reactive arthritis, enteropathic arthritis and undifferentiated SpA. The disease subtypes share clinical and immunological features, including joint inflammation (peripheral and axial skeleton); skin, gut and eye manifestations; and the absence of diagnostic autoantibodies (seronegative). The diseases also share genetic factors. The aetiology of SpA is still the subject of research by many groups worldwide. Evidence from genetic, experimental and clinical studies has accumulated to indicate a clear role for the IL-17 pathway in the pathogenesis of SpA. The IL-17 family consists of IL-17A, IL-17B, IL-17C, IL-17D, IL-17E and IL-17F, of which IL-17A is the best studied. IL-17A is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that also has the capacity to promote angiogenesis and osteoclastogenesis. Of the six family members, IL-17A has the strongest homology with IL-17F. In this Review, we discuss how IL-17A and IL-17F and their cellular sources might contribute to the immunopathology of SpA

Humanity's Last Exam

Benchmarks are important tools for tracking the rapid advancements in large language model (LLM) capabilities. However, benchmarks are not keeping pace in difficulty: LLMs now achieve over 90\% accuracy on popular benchmarks like MMLU, limiting informed measurement of state-of-the-art LLM capabilities. In response, we introduce Humanity's Last Exam (HLE), a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, designed to be the final closed-ended academic benchmark of its kind with broad subject coverage. HLE consists of 3,000 questions across dozens of subjects, including mathematics, humanities, and the natural sciences. HLE is developed globally by subject-matter experts and consists of multiple-choice and short-answer questions suitable for automated grading. Each question has a known solution that is unambiguous and easily verifiable, but cannot be quickly answered via internet retrieval. State-of-the-art LLMs demonstrate low accuracy and calibration on HLE, highlighting a significant gap between current LLM capabilities and the expert human frontier on closed-ended academic questions. To inform research and policymaking upon a clear understanding of model capabilities, we publicly release HLE at https://lastexam.ai

Measurement of the Λb0→Λ(1520)μ+μ−\Lambda_{b}^{0}\to \Lambda(1520) \mu^{+}\mu^{-} differential branching fraction

The branching fraction of the rare decay $\Lambda_{b}^{0}\to \Lambda(1520) \mu^{+}\mu^{-}$ is measured for the first time, in the squared dimuon mass intervals, $q^2$, excluding the $J/\psi$ and $\psi(2S)$ regions. The data sample analyzed was collected by the LHCb experiment at center-of-mass energies of 7, 8, and 13 TeV, corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of $9\ \mathrm{fb}^{-1}$. The result in the highest$q^{2}$interval,$q^{2} >15.0\ \mathrm{GeV}^2/c^4$, where theoretical predictions have the smallest model dependence, agrees with the predictions.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-050.html (LHCb public pages

Search for the lepton flavour violating decay B + → K + μ − τ + using B s 2 ∗ 0 decays

Abstract: A search is presented for the lepton flavour violating decay B+ → K+μ−τ+ using a sample of proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 7, 8, and 13 TeV, collected with the LHCb detector and corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 9 fb−1. The τ leptons are selected inclusively, primarily via decays with a single charged particle. The four-momentum of the τ lepton is determined by using B+ mesons from Bs2∗0→B+K− decays. No significant excess is observed, and an upper limit is set on the branching fraction ℬ(B+ → K+μ−τ+) < 3.9 × 10−5 at 90 % confidence level. The obtained limit is comparable to the world-best limit

Precision Measurement of the Bc+ Meson Mass

A precision measurement of the Bc+ meson mass is performed using proton-proton collision data collected with the LHCb experiment at centre-of-mass energies of 7, 8 and 13 TeV, corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 9.0 fb^−1. The Bc+ mesons are reconstructed via the decays Bc+ → J/ψ π+, Bc+ → J/ψ π+ π− π+, Bc+ → J/ψ p anti-p π+, Bc+ → J/ψ Ds+, Bc+ → J/ψ D0 K+ and Bc+ → B0s π+. Combining the results of the individual decay channels, the Bc+ mass is measured to be 6274.47 ± 0.27(stat) ± 0.17(syst) MeV/c2. This is the most precise measurement of the Bc+ mass to date. The difference between the Bc+ and B0s meson masses is measured to be 907.75 ± 0.37(stat) ± 0.27(syst) MeV/c^2