Wheat diseases in Western Australia

DISEASES caused by pathogenic organisms can seriously affect the yield of wheat. Some diseases are comparatively rare whereas others occur over a large area of the wheatbelt year after year

An examination of global university rankings as a new mechanism influencing mission differentiation: the UK context

Since their emergence a decade ago, global university rankings have become a powerful force in higher education internationally. The majority of research studies on global rankings have examined the effects at institutional and national levels. This study offers a valuable perspective on the ways rankings (and other international benchmarks) are deployed at the intra-sector level, by UK higher education ‘mission groups’, to support different policy positions. The concept of object in activity theory is used to problematize the analysis. Critical discourse analysis is used as a methodological orientation to study the ways global rankings mediate the object in this context. The findings contribute to the current debate on whether rankings are promoting isomorphism in higher education sectors nationally, illustrating a differentiated engagement with rankings in the UK context. The relevance of the findings for policy-makers and institutional managers is discussed

Focused Schlieren flow visualization studies of multiple venturi fuel injectors in a high pressure combustor

Multiple venturi fuel injectors were used to obtain uniform fuel distributions, better atomization and vaporization in the premixing/prevaporizing section of a lean premixed/prevaporized flame tube combustor. A focused Schlieren system was used to investigate the fuel/air mixing effectiveness of various fuel injection configurations. The Schlieren system was focused to a plane within the flow field of a test section equipped with optical windows. The focused image plane was parallel to the axial direction of the flow and normal to the optical axis. Images from that focused plane, formed by refracted light due to density gradients within the flow field, were filmed with a high-speed movie camera at framing rates of 8,000 frames per second (fps). Three fuel injection concepts were investigated by taking high-speed movies of the mixture flows at various operating conditions. The inlet air temperature was varied from 600 F to 1000 F, and inlet pressures from 80 psia to 150 psia. Jet-A fuel was used typically at an equivalence ratio of 0.5. The intensity variations of the digitized Schlieren images were analytically correlated to spatial density gradients of the mixture flows. Qualitative measurements for degree of mixedness, intensity of mixing, and mixing completion time are shown. Various mixing performance patterns are presented with different configurations of fuel injection points and operating conditions

The Promise and Perils of Private Voluntary Regulation: Labor Standards and Work Organization in Two Mexican Garment Factories

This paper is part of a larger project on globalization and labor standards organized by Professor Richard Locke of M.I.T.. In addition to the results presented in this paper (some of which appear as well in Monica Romis, "Beneath Corporate Codes of Conduct: What Drives Compliance in Two Mexican Garment Factories," (Masters Thesis, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, M.I.T., 2005)), the project entailed field research in China, Turkey, Europe and the United States as well as systematic analysis of Nike’s factory audits of working conditions in over 800 factories in 51 countries.What role can private voluntary regulation play in improving labor standards and working conditions in global supply chain factories? How does this system relate to and interact with other systems of labor regulation and work organization? This paper seeks to address these questions through a structured comparison of two factories supplying Nike, the world’s largest athletic footwear and apparel company. These two factories have many similarities - both are in Mexico, both are in the apparel industry, both produce more or less the same products for Nike (and other brands) and both are subject to the same code of conduct. On the surface, both factories appear to have similar employment (i.e., recruitment, training, remuneration) practices and they receive comparable scores when audited by Nike’s compliance staff. However, underlying (and somewhat obscured by) these apparent similarities, significant differences in actual labor conditions exist between these two factories. What drives these differences in working conditions? What does this imply for traditional systems of monitoring and codes of conduct? Field research conducted at these two factories reveals that beneath the code of conduct and various monitoring efforts aimed at enforcing it, workplace conditions and labor standards are shaped by very different patterns of work organization and human resource management policies

ELF3 controls thermoresponsive growth in Arabidopsis

Plant development is highly responsive to ambient temperature, and this trait has been linked to the ability of plants to adapt to climate change [1]. The mechanisms by which natural populations modulate their thermoresponsiveness are not known [2]. To address this, we surveyed Arabidopsis accessions for variation in thermal responsiveness of elongation growth and mapped the corresponding loci. We find that the transcriptional regulator EARLY FLOWERING3 (ELF3) controls elongation growth in response to temperature. Through a combination of modeling and experiments, we show that high temperature relieves the gating of growth at night, highlighting the importance of temperature-dependent repressors of growth. ELF3 gating of transcriptional targets responds rapidly and reversibly to changes in temperature. We show that the binding of ELF3 to target promoters is temperature dependent, suggesting a mechanism where temperature directly controls ELF3 activity

Hydrostatic low-range pressure applications of the Paris–Edinburgh cell utilizing polymer gaskets for diffuse X-ray scattering measurements

The use of a polymeric (Torlon or polyamide–imide) gasket material in a Paris–Edinburgh pressure cell for in situ high-pressure X-ray scattering measurements is demonstrated. The quality of the data obtained in this way is suitable for Bragg and pair distribution function analysis

The acquisition of Sign Language: The impact of phonetic complexity on phonology

Research into the effect of phonetic complexity on phonological acquisition has a long history in spoken languages. This paper considers the effect of phonetics on phonological development in a signed language. We report on an experiment in which nonword-repetition methodology was adapted so as to examine in a systematic way how phonetic complexity in two phonological parameters of signed languages — handshape and movement — affects the perception and articulation of signs. Ninety-one Deaf children aged 3–11 acquiring British Sign Language (BSL) and 46 hearing nonsigners aged 6–11 repeated a set of 40 nonsense signs. For Deaf children, repetition accuracy improved with age, correlated with wider BSL abilities, and was lowest for signs that were phonetically complex. Repetition accuracy was correlated with fine motor skills for the youngest children. Despite their lower repetition accuracy, the hearing group were similarly affected by phonetic complexity, suggesting that common visual and motoric factors are at play when processing linguistic information in the visuo-gestural modality

FUTURE MACHINE: Making Myths & Designing Technology for a Responsible Future: Making Myths and Entanglement: Community engagement at the edge of participatory design and user experience

This paper explores the unique methods and strategies employed by a team of artists, in collaboration with engineers, programmers, a climate scientist, researchers and members of the public, who have come together to create the Future Machine, with the aim to continue this longitudinal project for 30 years. We explore the process of designing Future Machine – the provenance and sustainability of the materials, the participatory design process, how Future Machine's interactivity is evolving over time and how the technology might be sustained for 30 years. We investigate the role that Future Machine plays in engaging the human populations across these diverse places, exploring how the artists used strategies of entanglement and myth-making to support the interactions between the ecologies, technologies, non-human inhabitants, narratives and neighbourly relations that are emerging as the project evolves over time. In conclusion we propose that the artist strategies of entanglement and encouraging myth-making reveal new approaches to experiential design. We propose that these strategies provide opportunities to open up a set of disruptive/radical/novel design challenges for HCI, that encourage sustainable and positive forms of interactions for a world increasingly impacted by anthropogenic climate and environmental change

He II λ\lambda4686 emission from the massive binary system in η\eta Car: constraints to the orbital elements and the nature of the periodic minima

{\eta} Carinae is an extremely massive binary system in which rapid spectrum variations occur near periastron. Most notably, near periastron the He II $\lambda 4686$ line increases rapidly in strength, drops to a minimum value, then increases briefly before fading away. To understand this behavior, we conducted an intense spectroscopic monitoring of the He II $\lambda 4686$ emission line across the 2014.6 periastron passage using ground- and space-based telescopes. Comparison with previous data confirmed the overall repeatability of EW(He II $\lambda 4686$), the line radial velocities, and the timing of the minimum, though the strongest peak was systematically larger in 2014 than in 2009 by 26%. The EW(He II $\lambda 4686$) variations, combined with other measurements, yield an orbital period $2022.7\pm0.3$ d. The observed variability of the EW(He II $\lambda 4686$) was reproduced by a model in which the line flux primarily arises at the apex of the wind-wind collision and scales inversely with the square of the stellar separation, if we account for the excess emission as the companion star plunges into the hot inner layers of the primary's atmosphere, and including absorption from the disturbed primary wind between the source and the observer. This model constrains the orbital inclination to $135^\circ$-$153^\circ$, and the longitude of periastron to $234^\circ$-$252^\circ$. It also suggests that periastron passage occurred on $T_0 = 2456874.4\pm1.3$ d. Our model also reproduced EW(He II $\lambda 4686$) variations from a polar view of the primary star as determined from the observed He II $\lambda 4686$ emission scattered off the Homunculus nebula.Comment: The article contains 23 pages and 17 figures. It has been accepted for publication in Ap

Real-world outcomes in thoracic cancer patients with severe Acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (COVID-19): Single UK institution experience.

BACKGROUND: UK COVID-19 mortality rates are amongst the highest globally. Controversy exists on the vulnerability of thoracic cancer patients. We describe the characteristics and sequelae of patients with thoracic cancer treated at a UK cancer centre infected with COVID-19. METHODS: Patients undergoing care for thoracic cancer diagnosed with COVID-19 (RT-PCR/radiology/clinically) between March-June 2020 were included. Data were extracted from patient records. RESULTS: Thirty-two patients were included: 14 (43%) diagnosed by RT-PCR, 18 (57%) by radiology and/or convincing symptoms. 88% had advanced thoracic malignancies. Eleven of 14 (79%) patients diagnosed by RT-PCR and 12 of 18 (56%) patients diagnosed by radiology/clinically were hospitalised, of which four (29%) and 2 (11%) patients required high-dependency/intensive care respectively. Three (21%) patients diagnosed by RT-PCR and 2 (11%) patients diagnosed by radiology/clinically required non-invasive ventilation; none were intubated. Complications included pneumonia and sepsis (43% and 14% respectively in patients diagnosed by RT-PCR; 17% and 11% respectively in patients diagnosed by radiology/clinically). In patients receiving active cancer treatment, therapy was delayed/ceased in 10/12 (83%) and 7/11 (64%) patients diagnosed by RT-PCR and radiology/clinically respectively. Nine (28%) patients died; all were smokers. Median time from symptom onset to death was 7 days (range 3-37). CONCLUSIONS: The immediate morbidity from COVID-19 is high in thoracic cancer patients. Hospitalisation and treatment interruption rates were high. Improved risk-stratification models for UK cancer patients are urgently needed to guide safe cancer-care delivery without compromising efficacy