A broad look at charcoal rot in the Northern Region broadacre crops through soil sampling and in-crop surveys

Macrophomina phaseolina (Tassi) Goid. is a generalist soil-born pathogen, which is endemic to Australia. The pathogen has a broad host-range of both monocot and dicot plant species which include numerous weed and crop plant species (1, 2). The disease is most commonly identified with summer crops, e.g. soybean, sorghum, sunflower, maize and mungbean (3) and occurs most often when hot, dry conditions occur during the growing season. Current estimates predict that north-eastern Australia will become hotter and dryer as a result of climate change (4, 5). Thus, it is likely that conditions favouring the development of this disease will become more common in the future. However, to date, no work has been done to determine the extent of the pathogen’s presence in Australian soils, in-paddock spatial variability, or the occurrence of the disease as correlated with pathogen presence and population levels. In this paper, we present findings from soil sampling and end-of-season disease assessments in sorghum paddocks across northern New South Wales (NNSW), south eastern Queensland (SEQ) and central Queensland (CQ) during the 2016/17 and 2017/18 summer cropping seasons

Systematic Literature Review of Diffusion Coefficient Studies for Pharmaceutically-Active Compounds

Pharmaceutically-active compounds (PHACs) such as analgesics, antibiotics, hormones, and antiseptics have been proven beneficial to human life as they can cure illnesses and increase life expectancy. However, heightened usage has led to their emergence in various bodies of water. This has negatively impacted humankind and the environment due to these compounds’ toxicity levels and adverse health effects on living organisms. Therefore, this systematic literature review evaluated the existing literature on the diffusion coefficients of various PHACs. The diffusion coefficient of these compounds serves as a parameter that measures their transport through hydrological mediums and is inversely proportional to molecular size. This review focused on the prevalence of different types of PHACs, the methods used in these diffusion studies, and other affecting parameters. Upon conducting the review, it was determined that analgesics, followed by antibiotics, were the most frequently reported and studied PHACs found in bodies of water. Moreover, the Taylor Dispersion Method and molecular modeling were the most popular methods of diffusion coefficient. At the same time, measurements using electric conductivity were preferred mainly due to convenience in terms of simplicity and cost-effectiveness. Observations of related parameters, such as temperature and molecular size, mostly aligned with the previously established theory with diffusion coefficients of PHACs’ particles, have a direct relationship with temperature and an inverse relationship with molecular size

Number of progeny number and accuracy of breeding value in productive traits of alpacas. A simulation study

El objetivo del estudio fue evaluar mediante simulación las exactitudes de la predicción del valor de cría según la heredabilidad de la característica y el número de progenie. Se simularon poblaciones con seis números de progenie para machos (n = 15, 30, 50, 75, 100 y 150) y tres para hembras (n = 1, 2 y 3) y características con tres heredabilidades (h2 = 0.098, 0.22 y 0.56). La predicción de los valores de cría fue mediante el método del mejor predictor lineal insesgado y la exactitud fue calculada a partir de la diagonal de la matriz de la ecuación de los modelos mixtos. Se obtuvo que a mayor heredabilidad la exactitud fue también mayor en todos los escenarios. Respecto al número de hijos por reproductor, se obtuvo valores encima de 0.9 de exactitud cuando la progenie fue mayor a 30 hijos. En el caso de las hembras, las mayores exactitudes fueron para la heredabilidad de 0.56 con valores de 0.71, 0.74 y 0.76 para 1, 2 y 3 hijos, respectivamente. La exactitud de la predicción del valor de cría en características con heredabilidad similar a las de importancia en alpacas fue mayor cuando se incrementó el número de hijos por padre y cuando la heredabilidad de la característica fue mayor

Possible ΔΔ\Delta\Delta dibaryons in the quark cluster model

In the framework of RGM, the binding energy of one channel $\Delta\Delta_{(3,0)}$($d^*$) and $\Delta\Delta_{(0,3)}$ are studied in the chiral SU(3) quark cluster model. It is shown that the binding energies of the systems are a few tens of MeV. The behavior of the chiral field is also investigated by comparing the results with those in the SU(2) and the extended SU(2) chiral quark models. It is found that the symmetry property of the $\Delta\Delta$ system makes the contribution of the relative kinetic energy operator between two clusters attractive. This is very beneficial for forming the bound dibaryon. Meanwhile the chiral-quark field coupling also plays a very important role on binding. The S-wave phase shifts and the corresponding scattering lengths of the systems are also given.Comment: LeTex with 2 ps figure

A Rigourous Treatment of the Lattice Renormalization Problem of F_B

The $B$-meson decay constant can be measured on the lattice using a $1/m_b$ expansion. To relate the physical quantity to Monte Carlo data one has to know the renormalization coefficient, $Z$, between the lattice operators and their continuum counterparts. We come back to this computation to resolve discrepancies found in previous calculations. We define and discuss in detail the renormalization procedure that allows the (perturbative) computation of $Z$. Comparing the one-loop calculations in the effective Lagrangian approach with the direct two-loop calculation of the two-point $B$-meson correlator in the limit of large $b$-quark mass, we prove that the two schemes give consistent results to order $\alpha_s$. We show that there is, however, a renormalization prescription ambiguity that can have sizeable numerical consequences. This ambiguity can be resolved in the framework of an $O(a)$ improved calculation, and we describe the correct prescription in that case. Finally we give the numerical values of $Z$ that correspond to the different types of lattice approximations discussed in the paper.Comment: 27 pages, 2 figures (Plain TeX, figures in an appended postscript file

Observations of the Hubble Deep Field with the Infrared Space Observatory. I. Data reduction, maps and sky coverage

We present deep imaging at 6.7 micron and 15 micron from the CAM instrument on the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO), centred on the Hubble Deep Field (HDF). These are the deepest integrations published to date at these wavelengths in any region of sky. We discuss the observation strategy and the data reduction. The observed source density appears to approach the CAM confusion limit at 15 micron, and fluctuations in the 6.7 micron sky background may be identifiable with similar spatial fluctuations in the HDF galaxy counts. ISO appears to be detecting comparable field galaxy populations to the HDF, and our data yields strong evidence that future IR missions (such as SIRTF, FIRST and WIRE) as well as SCUBA and millimetre arrays will easily detect field galaxies out to comparably high redshifts.Comment: 7 pages, LaTeX (using mn.sty), 9 figures included as GIFs. Gzipped Postscipt version available from http://artemis.ph.ic.ac.uk/hdf/papers/ps/. Further information on ISO-HDF project can be found at http://artemis.ph.ic.ac.uk/hdf

HST Imaging of the BL Lacertae Object OJ 287

Hubble Space Telescope WFPC-2 I-band (F814W) images of the BL Lacertae object OJ 287 and the surrounding field are presented. We find evidence of associated extended nebulosity near OJ 287, as well as a small nebulosity to the West, which may be spatially coincident with the position of previously observed radio emission. The brightness of a host galaxy is difficult to determine due to the brightness of the active nucleus, but it lies in the range -21.5 > M_R > -23.1 (H_0 = 100 km s^{-1} Mpc^{-1}, q_0 = 0). No evidence is seen for the previously reported optical ``jet'' at position angle 220 degrees to a surface brightness limit of I = 24.3 mag arcsec^{-2}. There are several resolved and unresolved objects within 17'' of OJ~287 in the field to limits of I=25 (point source 5\sigma detections). The magnitudes and relative positions of these objects are reported. An offset in the centroid position between the OJ 287 point source and the underlying nebulosity reported by Wurtz, Stocke and Yee is confirmed and measured to be about 0.4 (1.2h^{-1} kpc at the redshift of OJ~287). This offset is tentatively interpreted as evidence for recent merger activity rather than a sign of gravitational microlensing.Comment: To appear in ApJ Letters, 3 jpg figure

Bayes-optimal inverse halftoning and statistical mechanics of the Q-Ising model

On the basis of statistical mechanics of the Q-Ising model, we formulate the Bayesian inference to the problem of inverse halftoning, which is the inverse process of representing gray-scales in images by means of black and white dots. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate statistical properties of the inverse process, especially, we reveal the condition of the Bayes-optimal solution for which the mean-square error takes its minimum. The numerical result is qualitatively confirmed by analysis of the infinite-range model. As demonstrations of our approach, we apply the method to retrieve a grayscale image, such as standard image `Lenna', from the halftoned version. We find that the Bayes-optimal solution gives a fine restored grayscale image which is very close to the original.Comment: 13pages, 12figures, using elsart.cl