Characterising the fruiting dynamics of commercial cotton varieties

This paper reports the results of an experiment to quantify the fruiting characteristics of eight cotton varieties to enable crop simulation models to more accurately reflect yield and maturity of current varieties. Characteristics measured were time to first square, square period, and boll period, and their subsequent effects on crop maturity. Thennaltime to first square and bll period were correlated to the maturity ranking of the varieties. However, differences in the length of these periods compared with other reports indicates the need to pursue better methods to quantify these characteristic

Reporting of suspected dog-fighting to the police, RSPCA and equivalents by veterinary professionals in the UK

Dog fighting became unlawful in the UK in 1835, yet it continues today (as reported by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and Crown Prosecution Service), although with an unknown prevalence. We used an online questionnaire to (1) determine the occurrence of dogs suspected of use in fighting in UK veterinary practices; (2) explore relative reporting of incidents to police, RSPCA or equivalent charity by registered veterinary nurses (RVN) and veterinarians; and (3) determine factors influencing reporting. Emails (n=2493) containing the questionnaire were sent to UK veterinary practices: 423 questionnaires (159 by RVNs, 264 by veterinarians) were completed. One or more cases of dog fighting were suspected by 14.4 per cent of respondents in 2015; 182 cases suspected in total. Proportionately more RVNs suspected dog fighting than veterinarians (P=0.0009). Thirty-two respondents (7.6 per cent, n=422) claimed to have reported suspicions to the police, the RSPCA or equivalent charity previously; 59 respondents (14.2 per cent) had previously chosen not to. Reasons not to report included: uncertainty of illegal activity (81.4 per cent), fear of the client not returning to the practice (35.6 per cent) and concerns regarding client confidentiality (22.0 per cent). Further work is required to address under-reporting of dog fighting by veterinary professionals

Preliminary observation on response of waterlogged cotton to different doses of AVG application

The obvious symptoms of waterlogging response in cotton are leaf chlorosis (yellowing) and dropping squares & bolls. In addition, Huck (1970) showed that tap root growth stopped within 30 min of reducing the oxygen in the soils, and that the growing point of the root was completely dead within 3 hrs. In other plant species, these responses have been associated with the effect of ethylene, produced in response to lack of oxygen (Pratt, 1953; Jackson, 1984; 1985; Jackson & Drew, 1984; Raskin & Konde, 1984; Stead, 1985; Voesenek & Blom, 1989; Osborne, 1991;Reid & Wu, 1991; Brady & Speirs, 1991; Voesenek et al, 1992; Drew, 1997). Ethylene is known to accelerate premature senescence, defoliation and boll dehiscence in cotton (Hall et al, 1957; Kirzek, 1986), but the involvement of ethylene in cotton's response to waterlogging has not been demonstrated. AVG (aminoethoxyvinylglycine)is an inhibitor of ethylene production. It can be used to indicate the involvement of ethylene production in physiological processes. Improvements in commercial production of AVG provide an exciting opportunity to explore the importance of ethylene production in plant responses to waterlogging in the field. To achieve meaningful results, dose-response tests are necessary to establish the concentration of AVG that is high enough to inhibit ethylene formation while low enough to minimise nonspecific and possibly toxic effects to the plants from AVG itself(Jackson, 1991)

Why Compact Tori For Fusion?

A compact torus (CT) has a toroidal magnetic and plasma geometry, but is contained within a simply-connected vacuum vessel such as a cylinder. Spheromaks and field-reversed configurations fall into this category. Compact tori are translatable and have a high engineering beta. The primary benefit of CTs for fusion is the absence of toroidal field and Ohmic Heating coils and the many problems brought on by them. Studying fusion-relevant plasma in simply-connected geometries affords the world fusion program both physics and technology opportunities not found in other configurations. This paper outlines the technology and physics opportunities of compact tori, and presents a cost model based on geometry for comparison with less compact configurations

Waterlogging and its effect on cotton growth and yield

Watterlogging is an important cause of yield loss on the cracking grey clays. We conducted a field experiment to quantify its impact on growth and yield. In terms of management, the results demonstrates the importance of ensuring adequate bed height and allowing excess water to leave the field quickly, definitely not later than 48 hours after irrigation

Improving temperature‐based predictions of the timing of flowering in cotton

Key management recommendations for cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) management require estimates of the timing of crop phenology. Most commonly growing day degree (DD) (thermal time) approaches are used. Currently, across many cotton production regions, there is no consistent approach to predicting first square and flower timing. Day degree approaches vary considerably, with base thresholds different (12.0–15.6 °C) with no consistency using an optimum temperature threshold (i.e., temperature where development ceases to increase). As cotton is grown in variable and changing climates, and cultivars change, there is a need to ensure the accuracy of this approach for predicting timing of flowering for assisting cotton management. In this study new functions to predict first square and first flower were developed and validated using data collected in multiple seasons and regions (Australia and the United States). Earlier controlled environment studies that monitored crop development were used to assess in more detail how temperatures were affecting early cotton development. New DD functions developed predicted first square and first flower better than the existing Australian and U.S. approaches. The best performing functions had base temperatures like those of existing U.S. functions (15.6 °C) and an optimum threshold temperature of 32.0 °C. New universal DD targets for first square (343 DD [°C]) and first flower (584 DD) were developed. Controlled environment studies supported this base temperature outcome; however, it was less clear that 32.0 °C was the optimum threshold temperature from these data. Precise predictions of cotton development will facilitate accurate growth stage assessments and hence better cotton management decisions

Aboriginal life pathways through multiple human service domains; administrative data linkage for policy

Aboriginal children and families face the highest levels of disadvantage of any population group in Australia across health, education, child protection, justice and other human service domains, but longitudinal data to inform policy is scant. The Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey (WAACHS) is a population representative cross-sectional child development study of over 5,000 randomly selected children aged 0-17 years, plus their families and schools, conducted between 2000 and 2002. This project seeks to leverage the WAACHS by linking the survey data for all participants with State administrative human services data registers from the previous 30+ years, to develop a major program of work in Aboriginal Human Development that would be unique in the world. This presentation describes the project history, novel survey linkage methodology, and project aims in the policy domain

#Bieber + #Blast = #BieberBlast: Early Prediction of Popular Hashtag Compounds

Compounding of natural language units is a very common phenomena. In this paper, we show, for the first time, that Twitter hashtags which, could be considered as correlates of such linguistic units, undergo compounding. We identify reasons for this compounding and propose a prediction model that can identify with 77.07% accuracy if a pair of hashtags compounding in the near future (i.e., 2 months after compounding) shall become popular. At longer times T = 6, 10 months the accuracies are 77.52% and 79.13% respectively. This technique has strong implications to trending hashtag recommendation since newly formed hashtag compounds can be recommended early, even before the compounding has taken place. Further, humans can predict compounds with an overall accuracy of only 48.7% (treated as baseline). Notably, while humans can discriminate the relatively easier cases, the automatic framework is successful in classifying the relatively harder cases.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 9 tables, published in CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing) 2016. in Proceedings of 19th ACM conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2016

Can majority support save an endangered language? A case study of language attitudes in Guernsey

Many studies of minority language revitalisation focus on the attitudes and perceptions of minorities, but not on those of majority group members. This paper discusses the implications of these issues, and presents research into majority andf minority attitudes towards the endangered indigenous vernacular of Guernsey, Channel Islands. The research used a multi-method approach (questionnaire and interview) to obtain attitudinal data from a representative sample of the population that included politicians and civil servants (209 participants). The findings suggested a shift in language ideology away from the post-second world war ‘culture of modernisation’ and monolingual ideal, towards recognition of the value of a bi/trilingual linguistic heritage. Public opinion in Guernsey now seems to support the maintenance of the indigenous language variety, which has led to a degree of official support. The paper then discusses to what extent this ‘attitude shift’ is reflected in linguistic behaviour and in concrete language planning measures