Modelling predicts that heat stress and not drought will limit wheat yield in Europe

Global warming is characterised by shifts in weather patterns and increases in extreme weather events. New crop cultivars with specific physiological traits will therefore be required if climate change is not to result in losses of yield and food shortages. However, the intrinsic uncertainty of climate change predictions poses a challenge to plant breeders and crop scientists who have limited time and resources and must select the most appropriate traits for improvement. Modelling is, therefore, a powerful tool to identify future threats to crop production and hence targets for improvement. Wheat is the most important crop in temperate zones, including Europe, and is the staple food crop for many millions of humans and their livestock. However, its production is highly sensitive to environmental conditions, with increased temperature and incidence of drought associated with global warming posing potential threats to yield in Europe. We have therefore predicted the future impacts of these environmental changes on wheat yields using a wheat simulation model combined with climate scenarios based on fifteen global climate models from the IPCC AR4 multi-model ensemble. Despite the lower summer precipitation predicted for Europe, the impact of drought on wheat yields is likely to be smaller than at present, because the warmer conditions will result in earlier maturation before drought becomes severe later in the summer. By contrast, the probability of heat stress around flowering is predicted to increase significantly which is likely to result in considerable yield losses for heat sensitive wheat cultivars commonly grown in north Europe. Breeding strategies should therefore focus on the development of wheat varieties which are tolerant to high temperature around flowering, rather than on developing varieties resistant to drought which may be required for other parts of the world

Key Performance Indicators for Measuring and Evaluating Users’ Sensory Perceptions and Behaviors in Learning Spaces in Higher Design Education

The research aims to develop a comprehensive list of key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be employed by designers and businesses in determining the sensory performance of learning spaces, particularly in higher education institutions (HEIs) of design learning. It answers the question of how sense-based performance in learning spaces could be understood, measured, and evaluated and how the field of interior design could create tools for measuring and customizing students' sensory experiences in learning spaces. The research fills the gap created by the non-existence of comprehensive research that identifies a unique set of KPIs for learning spaces based on sensorial metrics in interior space evaluation studies that have sought to identify a set of KPls to measure the performance of learning spaces. The importance of the research would be manifested in the strong connection between the performances of research and teaching spaces and the sensorial performances of those who use them. A four-phase mixed-methods research (MMR) methodology is employed in the study. Each phase is chronologically arranged, encompassing field research and experimental research, with Politecnico di Milano (PoliMl) design school as a field of experiment. The research is expected to provide guidelines for designing and managing the sensory performance of learning environments. Therefore, potential beneficiaries will include interior designers, architects, engineers, contractors, facilities managers, and policymakers in educational establishments. The initial study findings within PoliMI learning community regarding the sensory experiences in various classrooms at the design campus revealed that sight is the most significant sense of all. Furthermore, lighting, ventilation, and acoustics are the most effective interior design elements that have an impact on the sensory performance of the learning space

Control of Initiation, Rate, and Routing of Spontaneous Capillary-Driven Flow of Liquid Droplets through Microfluidic Channels on SlipChip

This Article describes the use of capillary pressure to initiate and control the rate of spontaneous liquid–liquid flow through microfluidic channels. In contrast to flow driven by external pressure, flow driven by capillary pressure is dominated by interfacial phenomena and is exquisitely sensitive to the chemical composition and geometry of the fluids and channels. A stepwise change in capillary force was initiated on a hydrophobic SlipChip by slipping a shallow channel containing an aqueous droplet into contact with a slightly deeper channel filled with immiscible oil. This action induced spontaneous flow of the droplet into the deeper channel. A model predicting the rate of spontaneous flow was developed on the basis of the balance of net capillary force with viscous flow resistance, using as inputs the liquid–liquid surface tension, the advancing and receding contact angles at the three-phase aqueous–oil–surface contact line, and the geometry of the devices. The impact of contact angle hysteresis, the presence or absence of a lubricating oil layer, and adsorption of surface-active compounds at liquid–liquid or liquid–solid interfaces were quantified. Two regimes of flow spanning a 104-fold range of flow rates were obtained and modeled quantitatively, with faster (mm/s) flow obtained when oil could escape through connected channels as it was displaced by flowing aqueous solution, and slower (micrometer/s) flow obtained when oil escape was mostly restricted to a micrometer-scale gap between the plates of the SlipChip (“dead-end flow”). Rupture of the lubricating oil layer (reminiscent of a Cassie–Wenzel transition) was proposed as a cause of discrepancy between the model and the experiment. Both dilute salt solutions and complex biological solutions such as human blood plasma could be flowed using this approach. We anticipate that flow driven by capillary pressure will be useful for the design and operation of flow in microfluidic applications that do not require external power, valves, or pumps, including on SlipChip and other droplet- or plug-based microfluidic devices. In addition, this approach may be used as a sensitive method of evaluating interfacial tension, contact angles, and wetting phenomena on chip