Improving passive microwave sea ice concentration algorithms for coastal areas: applications to the Baltic Sea

Sea ice concentration can be retrieved from passive microwave data using the NASA Team algorithm or the Artist Sea Ice (ASI) algorithm, for example. The brightness temperature measurements obtained from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) instrument or the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS (AMSR-E) are commonly used for this purpose. Due to the coarse resolution of these instruments considerable systematic ice concentration errors in coastal regions occur. In the vicinity of the coast the instrument footprints usually contain both land and sea surfaces. Compared to sea surfaces, land surfaces are characterized by higher emissivities and lower polarization differences at the involved microwave channels. Thus, a systematic overestimation of coastal ice concentration is caused. In this paper, a method is developed to remove the land impact on the observed radiation. Combining a high-resolution data set for the shoreline and the antenna gain function the brightness temperature contribution originating from land surfaces can be identified. The brightness temperature related to the ocean fraction within the considered footprint can then be extracted. This separation technique is applied to SSM/I measurements in the Baltic Sea and the resulting ice concentration fields are compared to high-resolution satellite images. The highly complex shoreline of the Baltic Sea region provides an ideal area for testing the method. However, the presented approach can as well be applied to Arctic coastal regions. It is shown that the method considerably improves ice concentration retrieval in regions influenced by land surfaces without removing actually existing sea ice

Off-types indicate natural outcrossing in five tropical forage legumes in Colombia

Flower colour has been used as a simple morphological marker for genetic studies in many species, including legumes. In several tropical forage legumes, grown to evaluate their environmental adaptation or for seed increase, white-flowered plants were observed when the predominant flower colour was either yellow (Chamaecrista rotundifolia) or pink, lilac or purple (Centrosema virginianum, Codariocalyx gyroides, Desmodium heterocarpon and Galactia striata). Open pollination of these 5 species took place each at one of 4 sites in Colombia. Progeny from white-flowered plants were examined for flower colour to assess the proportion of off-types. This ranged on average from 4 percent for D. heterocarpon, through 13 percent for both G. striata and Ch. rotundifolia, and 18 percent for Ce. virginianum, to 23 percent for Co. gyroides. Large differences were recorded among accessions of the same species, particularly in Ce. virginianum, where 4 of the accessions apparently produced autogamous offspring and the other 5 had high proportions of off-types, with a rate as high as 89 percent. Consequences of these results for germplasm collection, management and seed increase are discussed

Future Generations – Will Any Be Lacking Tropical Forage Genetic Resources?

It’s high time to stop talking about the (forage) plants and talk about the people. Three (Australia, India, USA) of the about a dozen curators of tropical and subtropical forage (TSTF) genetic resources collections involved in developing a Global Strategy on Conservation and Utilization of Tropical and Subtropical Forage Genetic Resources on behalf of the Global Crop Diversity Trust in 2015 have since retired. In all cases their replacements were not expert in this challenging commodity. Why? The commodity is highly diverse and requires understanding of a substantial body of knowledge generated over more than five decades. It requires a level of familiarity with two plant families, grasses and legumes, which comprise a plethora of genera and species. Some of these species, novel to agriculture, have been proven extremely useful for diverse livestock production systems, for environmental services and for people’s livelihoods. Others are rather ‘bycatch’ from early exploration and probably don’t deserve conservation at all, or at least at the highestgenebank standards. Why were there no mentored scientists waiting to take up the vacant positions? There is today a worldwide shortage of applied plant research capability as “–omic sciences” or modelling seem more appealing to emerging scientists. Few budding agricultural scientists want to dedicate their career to a commodity, which mostly ranks low in recognition of its science merits and funding support. At the same time forage science and forages are coming under greater scrutiny because of environmental factors, especially in relation to the impacts livestock production is having on global warming. However, there are emerging scientists wanting to build a career in tropical forage science. Unfortunately, they are often disconnected from similar work around the world, and their own work is insufficiently recognizedby aging, inward-looking institutions that still claim to lead global forage research and development despite the ever declining resources

Short-Term Memory in Orthogonal Neural Networks

We study the ability of linear recurrent networks obeying discrete time dynamics to store long temporal sequences that are retrievable from the instantaneous state of the network. We calculate this temporal memory capacity for both distributed shift register and random orthogonal connectivity matrices. We show that the memory capacity of these networks scales with system size.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let

Tropical Forage Genetic Resources -- Will Any Be Left for Future Generations?

After very active years of pasture and forage research at major institutes, interest in tropical forage genetic resources has drastically declined. Apparently, the early phases of collecting and evaluation were much more valued than conserving and keeping the germplasm available for future generations. Accumulated data are not easily accessible and, therefore, the knowledge of tropical forage genetic resources is progressively being lost. This worldwide decrease in activity and loss of knowledge is due to declining resources. It is suggested that a global database on tropical forage genetic resources should be established and also that finances be made available to at least maintain collections at their current reduced level

Rebuilding a Tropical Forages for the Future Network – A Call for Resuscitating Enthusiasm for a Commodity with Great Prospects and Innovation Potential

A series of Forages for the Future newsletters, outlining some of the latest tropical and subtropical forage (TSTF) research and development impacts and expertise, has been published since 2016. Amongst the research highlights were Brazilian scientists’ focus on grasses such as Urochloa, Megathyrsus maximus, Paspalum and Cenchrus purpureus, and on legumes, especially Arachis and Stylosanthes. Argentinian researchers are similarly targeting Acroceras macrum and Setaria sphacelata; while Indian and ILRI (East Africa) researchers are using plant breeding to overcome disease constraints in Napier grass (Cenchrus purpureus and associated hybrids). Also demonstrated were successfully using genetic resources of Desmanthus, Leucaena leucocephala and Macroptilium bracteatum to improve Australian livestock production in varying farming systems on heavy-textured soils. Amongst the most innovative forage-based development outcomes featured in the newsletters were the increasing role of Mucuna pruriens in crop-livestock systems of semi-arid Zimbabwe, and the enabling role that forage grasses and legumes play in the icipe-developed “push-pull”-system to control a range of pests in African maize farming-systems. Some common threads stand out in these impact-delivering programs: longevity and ongoing institutional support, clear end-user focus, deep understanding of species adaptation and their phenotypic diversity and, how various species and ecotypes might be used. These are just some of the successful research-for-development programs taking place across the tropics and subtropics; they provide an opportunity for strengthening TSTF research and development into the future. One missing ingredient is opportunity for teams from national, international centres and from the private sector to meet regularly to exchange results, ideas and challenges. International conferences and similar forums are expensive and too infrequent; but online options offer new communication approaches. The IGC in Nairobi is the perfect opportunity to discuss possible new collaboration forums and, if required, how they might operate to make for a better, well-informed and innovative international TSTF network

Who has a better auditory gaydar? Sexual orientation categorization by heterosexual and lesbian, gay and bisexual people

Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people are supposed to be better at gaydar than heterosexual. Across two studies we examined auditory gaydar performed by LGB and heterosexual listeners. In Study 1 participants (n = 127) listened to male and female speakers (n = 10) and judged their sexual orientation on a binary choice (gay/lesbian vs. heterosexual). In Study 2, participants (n = 192) judged speakers’ (n = 31) sexual orientation on a Kinsey-like scale (1 = exclusively heterosexual, 7 = exclusively gay/lesbian). Results showed gaydar judgments differences in relative terms that did not indicate an overall gaydar accuracy. Moreover, LGB participants were not better at gaydar than heterosexual participants but rather showed a shift in criterion when making auditory gaydar judgments, namely they report a weaker straight categorization bias. Overall, these findings contribute to the understanding of sexual orientation categorization among heterosexual majority and LGB minority groups.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio