2,892 research outputs found
Farmer Willingness to Supply Poultry Litter for Energy Conversion and to Invest in an Energy Conversion Cooperative
Conversion of poultry litter to energy can serve as a renewable energy source and provide an alternative to land application in areas where poultry production is intensive. Economies of size may limit a farmer’s ability to economically use on-farm conversion. Capital costs can be spread across several poultry farmers to convert poultry litter to energy in a centralized facility. This research determined influences on the amount of litter poultry producers will to sell to a centralized conversion facility, on their willingness to invest in a conversion cooperative, and on the prices for litter required to divert litter from current uses.poultry litter, supply, renewable energy, Agribusiness, Agricultural Finance, Farm Management, Financial Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q12, Q13,
A native promoter–gene fusion created by CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genomic deletion offers a transgene-free method to drive oil accumulation in leaves
Achieving gain-of-function phenotypes without inserting foreign DNA is an important challenge for plant biotechnologists. Here we show that a gene can be brought under the control of a promoter from an upstream gene by deleting the intervening genomic sequence using dual-guide CRISPR/Cas9. We fuse the promoter of a non-essential photosynthesis-related gene to DIACYLGLYCEROL ACYLTRANSFERASE 2 (DGAT2) in the lipase-deficient sugar-dependent 1 mutant of Arabidopsis thaliana to drive ectopic oil accumulation in leaves. DGAT2 expression is enhanced more than twenty-fold and the triacylglycerol content increases by around thirty-fold. This deletion strategy offers a transgene-free route to engineering traits that rely on transcriptional gain-of-function, such as producing high lipid forage to increase the productivity and sustainability of ruminant farming
Dust masses of disks around 8 Brown Dwarfs and Very Low-Mass Stars in Upper Sco OB1 and Ophiuchus
We present the results of ALMA band 7 observations of dust and CO gas in the
disks around 7 objects with spectral types ranging between M5.5 and M7.5 in
Upper Scorpius OB1, and one M3 star in Ophiuchus. We detect unresolved
continuum emission in all but one source, and the CO J=3-2 line in two
sources. We constrain the dust and gas content of these systems using a grid of
models calculated with the radiative transfer code MCFOST, and find disk dust
masses between 0.1 and 1 M, suggesting that the stellar mass / disk
mass correlation can be extrapolated for brown dwarfs with masses as low as
0.05 M. The one disk in Upper Sco in which we detect CO emission, 2MASS
J15555600, is also the disk with warmest inner disk as traced by its H - [4.5]
photometric color. Using our radiative transfer grid, we extend the correlation
between stellar luminosity and mass-averaged disk dust temperature originally
derived for stellar mass objects to the brown dwarf regime to , applicable to spectral types
of M5 and later. This is slightly shallower than the relation for earlier
spectral type objects and yields warmer low-mass disks. The two prescriptions
cross at 0.27 L, corresponding to masses between 0.1 and 0.2 M
depending on age.Comment: 9 pages,6 figures, accepted to ApJ on 26/01/201
Intrinsic charge transport on the surface of organic semiconductors
The novel technique based on air-gap transistor stamps enabled realization of
the intrinsic (not dominated by static disorder) transport of the
electric-field-induced charge carriers on the surface of rubrene crystals over
a wide temperature range. The signatures of the intrinsic transport are the
anisotropy of the carrier mobility, mu, and the growth of mu with cooling. The
anisotropy of mu vanishes in the activation regime at lower temperatures, where
the charge transport becomes dominated by shallow traps. The deep traps,
deliberately introduced into the crystal by X-ray radiation, increase the
field-effect threshold without affecting the mobility. These traps filled above
the field-effect threshold do not scatter the mobile polaronic carriers.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Radio-frequency methods for Majorana-based quantum devices: fast charge sensing and phase diagram mapping
Radio-frequency (RF) reflectometry is implemented in hybrid
semiconductor-superconductor nanowire systems designed to probe Majorana zero
modes. Two approaches are presented. In the first, hybrid nanowire-based
devices are part of a resonant circuit, allowing conductance to be measured as
a function of several gate voltages ~40 times faster than using conventional
low-frequency lock-in methods. In the second, nanowire devices are capacitively
coupled to a nearby RF single-electron transistor made from a separate
nanowire, allowing RF detection of charge, including charge-only measurement of
the crossover from 2e inter-island charge transitions at zero magnetic field to
1e transitions at axial magnetic fields above 0.6 T, where a topological state
is expected. Single-electron sensing yields signal-to-noise exceeding 3 and
visibility 99.8% for a measurement time of 1 {\mu}s
Randomized Clinical Trial of Azithromycin vs. Erythromycin for the Treatment of Chlamydia Cervicitis in Pregnancy
Objective: The purpose of this study was to prospectively test the null hypothesis that there is no
difference in the clinical effectiveness of azithromycin and erythromycin for the treatment of chlamydia
cervicitis in pregnancy
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