Key to the Wood-Decaying Polyporaceae of the East Texas Region

The family includes those pore fungi whose fruiting bodies are tough, leathery or woody and whose pore layer usually cannot be separated easily from the context. The pores on the undersurface are only exterior openings of tubes bearing spores and in each species these tube mouths, or pores, are a definite shape and size. Occasionally pore walls will break up giving the appearance of teeth or gills. Fruiting bodies can be sessile, stemmed, effused-reflexed or resupinate (Fig . 2). Members of the family can be either perennial or annual, with the annual species growing during the summer and maturing that fall. All are typically wood-inhabiting, only rarely terrestrial. No other family of comparable size is more important economically than the Polyporaceae, causing 90 percent of the more important timber decays in the United States (Overholts 1967). Decay caused by the Polyporaceae can affect any part of the tree.https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ebooks/1007/thumbnail.jp

Fusiform Rust Trends in East Texas: 1969-1987

Five surveys of pine plantations in East Texas over an 18-year period (1969-1987) indicated that fusiform rust (Cronartium quercuum [Berk.] Miyabe ex Shirai f. sp. fusiforme Birdsall and Snow) infection rates have increased to current levels of about 50% on slash pine (Pinus elliottii Engelm.) and are continuing to increase on loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) to 10-15% levels. South. J. Appl. For. 12(4):259-26

Mobile target tracking using a reconfigurable low earth orbit constellation

Traditional Earth-observing satellite constellations must preselect orbits to match established mission objectives, inherently limiting the capability of the system to respond to dynamic events. A more flexible approach to constellation design which maneuvers satellites to new orbits throughout the mission lifetime can enable the tracking of mobile targets; such a concept will be explored and evaluated in the following paper. Currently, an existing approach for creating a reconfigurable constellation of satellites (ReCon) demonstrates some increased functionality. However, the repeating ground track (RGT) orbits used are only well-suited for static ground targets (i.e. particular latitude and longitude points) as they are defined by their repetitious passes over the particular points on the globe; inherently these orbits are not ideal for tracking mobile targets such as ships, oil spills, hurricanes, and other weather events. By addressing this gap and designing the constellation to follow these mobile targets, data return can be of higher quality and quantity leading toward improved predictions of future movements. Traditional non-maneuverable satellites may of course capture mobile feature data; however, the quality and quantity of data returned is driven by the satellites’ orbits which were not designed for the particular mobile target. A proposed concept of operations that models possible sequential satellite maneuvers as a graph has shown promise for tracking mobile targets in the case of a single satellite. In the following paper, this concept is further explored by the addition of an optimizer to this method, applied to both a single satellite and a constellation of maneuverable satellites, like ReCon. Results for a tropical storm case study indicate that with relatively low amounts of delta-V per satellite, many possible maneuver combinations are found which result in improved accesses with greater total access time and closer passes. Trade-offs are shown between total target access time, mean distance to targets upon access, and total delta-V used. The performance of increased constellation size is also explored. By having satellites dynamically respond to mobile targets such as hurricanes, satellite imagery and remote sensing can be of better quality and even contribute to better predictions for developing storms

Gossamer roadmap technology reference study for a solar polar mission

A technology reference study for a solar polar mission is presented. The study uses novel analytical methods to quantify the mission design space including the required sail performance to achieve a given solar polar observation angle within a given timeframe and thus to derive mass allocations for the remaining spacecraft sub-systems, that is excluding the solar sail sub-system. A parametric, bottom-up, system mass budget analysis is then used to establish the required sail technology to deliver a range of science payloads, and to establish where such payloads can be delivered to within a given timeframe. It is found that a solar polar mission requires a solar sail of side-length 100 – 125 m to deliver a ‘sufficient value’ minimum science payload, and that a 2. 5μm sail film substrate is typically required, however the design is much less sensitive to the boom specific mass

Noble gas films on a decagonal AlNiCo quasicrystal

Thermodynamic properties of Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe adsorbed on an Al-Ni-Co quasicrystalline surface (QC) are studied with Grand Canonical Monte Carlo by employing Lennard-Jones interactions with parameter values derived from experiments and traditional combining rules. In all the gas/QC systems, a layer-by-layer film growth is observed at low temperature. The monolayers have regular epitaxial fivefold arrangements which evolve toward sixfold close-packed structures as the pressure is increased. The final states can contain either considerable or negligible amounts of defects. In the latter case, there occurs a structural transition from five to sixfold symmetry which can be described by introducing an order parameter, whose evolution characterizes the transition to be continuous or discontinuous as in the case of Xe/QC (first-order transition with associated latent heat). By simulating fictitious noble gases, we find that the existence of the transition is correlated with the size mismatch between adsorbate and substrate's characteristic lengths. A simple rule is proposed to predict the phenomenon.Comment: 19 pages. 8 figures. (color figures can be seen at http://alpha.mems.duke.edu/wahyu/ or http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0953-8984/19/1/016007/

Nitrogen Response of Spring and Winter Wheat to Biosolids Compared to Chemical Fertiliser

Irish sewage sludge production was over 30,000 t/year in the 1990s (EPA, Ireland, 2003). Application to agricultural land is a management option for this organic material as it results in the recycling of the nutrients they contain for crop production. The EU Directive (91/271/EEC) encourages the recycling of sewage sludge as biosolids to agriculture. However, up to 1999, only about 5 % of biosolids produced was applied to agricultural land. In this study, several biosolids and a chemical fertiliser were used to assess N availability for spring and winter wheat (Triticum aestivum,) production in a pot experiment

The surface science of quasicrystals

The surfaces of quasicrystals have been extensively studied since about 1990. In this paper we review work on the structure and morphology of clean surfaces, and their electronic and phonon structure. We also describe progress in adsorption and epitaxy studies. The paper is illustrated throughout with examples from the literature. We offer some reflections on the wider impact of this body of work and anticipate areas for future development. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version

Developmentally vitamin D-deficient rats show enhanced prepulse inhibition after acute δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol

Developmental vitamin D (DVD) deficiency has been proposed as a risk factor for schizophrenia. DVD-deficient rats show selective cognitive deficits and novelty-induced hyperlocomotion and enhanced locomotor responses from acute treatment with psychomimetic drugs, such as amphetamine and MK-801. Here we aimed to examine the effect of a drug from a different class of psychomimetic/psychoactive compounds, Δ-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), on tasks of relevance to the cognitive and positive symptoms of schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to investigate whether DVD deficiency modulates the behavioural effects of THC on tests of delay-dependent memory, sensorimotor gating and locomotion. Adult control and DVD-deficient rats were injected with THC (0, 0.3, 0.6, 1.25, 2.5 mg/kg) 15 min before a delay match to sample (DMTS) task using variable delays (0-24 s). A separate group of rats was injected with either 2.5 mg/kg THC or vehicle before tests of either prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle response or in the open field. Control and DVD-deficient rats showed a similar dose-dependent impairment in performance on the DMTS. The greatest impairment was observed at 2.5 mg/kg for all delays (0-24 s). DVD-deficient rats showed THC-induced enhancement of PPI, which was not observed in control rats. There was no effect of maternal diet on acoustic startle response or locomotor responses in the open field. This study reports the novel findings that DVD-deficient rats were more sensitive to the acute effects of THC on PPI. It appears that prenatal vitamin D deficiency has long-term effects on sensitivity to the behavioural effects of cannabinoids

Study of ATLAS sensitivity to FCNC top decays

The ATLAS experiment sensitivity to top quark Flavour Changing Neutral Current (FCNC) decays was studied at LHC using ttbar events. While one of the top quarks is expected to follow the dominant Standard Model decay t->bW, the other decays through a FCNC channel, i.e. t-> Z u(c), t-> gamma u(c) or t-> g u(c). Different types of analyses, applied to each FCNC decay mode, were compared. The FCNC branching ratio sensitivity (assuming a 5sigma signal significance) and 95% confidence level limits on the branching ratios (in the hypothesis of signal absence) were obtained