Mulching Strawberry Plants for Winter Protection

In order to find out why the mulching practices are so unreliable, a research project was undertaken and the results are given in this bulletin. The first part of the bulletin deals with field mulching practices, in particular with the influence of mulching date and thickness of mulch on plant survival. The second part investigates plan response to climatic conditions, in particular, plan food reserves in their relation to hardiness

Effects of higher dietary protein and fiber intakes at breakfast on postprandial glucose, insulin, and 24-H interstitial glucose in overweight adults

Dietary protein and fiber independently influence insulin-mediated glucose control. However, potential additive effects are not well-known. Men and women (n = 20; age: 26 ± 5 years; body mass index: 26.1 ± 0.2 kg/m²; mean ± standard deviation) consumed normal protein and fiber (NPNF; NP = 12.5 g, NF = 2 g), normal protein and high fiber (NPHF; NP = 12.5 g, HF = 8 g), high protein and normal fiber (HPNF; HP = 25 g, NF = 2 g), or high protein and fiber (HPHF; HP = 25 g, HF = 8 g) breakfast treatments during four 2-week interventions in a randomized crossover fashion. On the last day of each intervention, meal tolerance tests were completed to assess postprandial (every 60 min for 240 min) serum glucose and insulin concentrations. Continuous glucose monitoring was used to measure 24-h interstitial glucose during five days of the second week of each intervention. Repeated-measures ANOVA was applied for data analyses. The HPHF treatment did not affect postprandial glucose and insulin responses or 24-h glucose total area under the curve (AUC). Higher fiber intake reduced 240-min insulin AUC. Doubling the amount of protein from 12.5 g to 25 g/meal and quadrupling fiber from 2 to 8 g/meal at breakfast was not an effective strategy for modulating insulin-mediated glucose responses in these young, overweight adults.T32 HL116276 - NHLBI NIH HHS; UL1 TR001108 - NCATS NIH HH

Is every toric variety an M-variety?

A complex algebraic variety X defined over the real numbers is called an M-variety if the sum of its Betti numbers (for homology with closed supports and coefficients in Z/2) coincides with the corresponding sum for the real part of X. It has been known for a long time that any nonsingular complete toric variety is an M-variety. In this paper we consider whether this remains true for toric varieties that are singular or not complete, and we give a positive answer when the dimension of X is less than or equal to 3.Comment: 13 page

Polymer coordination promotes selective CO_2 reduction by cobalt phthalocyanine

Cobalt phthalocyanine (CoPc) is a known electrocatalyst for the carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO_2RR) that, when adsorbed onto edge-plane graphite (EPG) electrodes, shows modest activity and selectivity for CO production along with co-generation of H_2. In contrast, electrodes modified with CoPc immobilized in a poly-4-vinylpridine (P4VP) film show dramatically enhanced activity and selectivity compared to those modified with CoPc alone. CoPc-P4VP films display a faradaic efficiency of ∼90% for CO, with a turnover frequency of 4.8 s^(−1) at just −0.75 V vs. RHE. Two properties of P4VP contribute to enhancing the activity of CoPc: (1) the ability of individual pyridine residues to coordinate to CoPc and (2) the high concentration of uncoordinated pyridine residues throughout the film which may enhance the catalytic activity of CoPc through secondary and other outer coordination sphere effects. Electrodes modified with polymer-free, five-coordinate CoPc(py) films (py = pyridine) and with CoPc catalysts immobilized in non-coordinating poly-2-vinylpyridine films were prepared to independently investigate the role that each property plays in enhancing CO_2RR performance of CoPc-P4VP. These studies show that a synergistic relationship between the primary and outer coordination sphere effects is responsible for the enhanced catalytic activity of CoPc when embedded in the P4VP membrane

A Better Garden Here\u27s How

Tips for planting a garden that will feed a family of five that will supplement the shortages of canned vegetables for civilians. It also has a listing of vegetables and when and how to plant them, and how to control vegetable diseases

Effects of dietary protein and fiber at breakfast on appetite, ad libitum energy intake at lunch, and neural responses to visual food stimuli in overweight adults

Increasing either protein or fiber at mealtimes has relatively modest effects on ingestive behavior. Whether protein and fiber have additive or interactive effects on ingestive behavior is not known. Fifteen overweight adults (5 female, 10 male; BMI: 27.1 ± 0.2 kg/m²; aged 26 ± 1 year) consumed four breakfast meals in a randomized crossover manner (normal protein (12 g) + normal fiber (2 g), normal protein (12 g) + high fiber (8 g), high protein (25 g) + normal fiber (2 g), high protein (25 g) + high fiber (8 g)). The amount of protein and fiber consumed at breakfast did not influence postprandial appetite or ad libitum energy intake at lunch. In the fasting-state, visual food stimuli elicited significant responses in the bilateral insula and amygdala and left orbitofrontal cortex. Contrary to our hypotheses, postprandial right insula responses were lower after consuming normal protein vs. high protein breakfasts. Postprandial responses in other a priori brain regions were not significantly influenced by protein or fiber intake at breakfast. In conclusion, these data do not support increasing dietary protein and fiber at breakfast as effective strategies for modulating neural reward processing and acute ingestive behavior in overweight adults.R01 MH102224 - NIMH NIH HHS; UL1 TR001108 - NCATS NIH HHS; UL1TR001108 - NCATS NIH HH

Regional grey matter volume and concentration in at-risk adolescents: Untangling associations with callous-unemotional traits and conduct disorder symptoms

Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging studies have reported volume reductions in several brain regions implicated in social cognition and emotion recognition in juvenile antisocial populations. However, it is unclear whether these structural abnormalities are specifically related to antisocial features, or to co-occurring callous-unemotional (CU) traits. The present study employed voxel-based morphometry to assess both grey matter volume (GMV) and grey matter concentration (GMC) in a large representative at-risk sample of adolescents (n=134; mean age 17.7 yr), characterized by a broad range of CU trait and conduct disorder (CD) symptom scores. There was a significant interaction between CD symptom and CU trait scores in the prediction of GMV in the anterior insula, with a significant positive association between CU traits and GMV in youth low on CD symptoms only. In addition, we found a significant unique positive association between CD symptoms and GMC in the amygdala, and unique negative associations between CU traits and GMC in the amygdala and insula. These findings are in line with accumulating evidence of distinct associations of CD symptoms and CU traits with amygdala and insula GMC in juvenile antisocial populations