The Emergent Vinifera Wine Industry in North Carolina: A Descriptive Overview

The North Carolina (NC) wine industry has grown rapidly over the past decade and is expected to grow even more as the worldwide wine consumption and export of wines rises. In the United States, the wine market has grown by 13.7 percent since 2002 in volume and by more than 15 percent in dollars as wine has progressed from being a beverage of an elite segment of the market to becoming a mainline beverage, taking its place alongside beer and liquor (MKF Research LLC, 2007; Oches, 2009). The Piedmont Triad Region is uniquely positioned to increase its presence in this industry. Of the 80 wineries in NC that are currently open to the public, nearly half are located in the Piedmont Triad Region. However, growing grapes and making wine is a long term commitment to a community, both financially and physically. The MKF Research report states that the capital-intensive nature of the winery and vineyard sectors is often underestimated, with new entrants to the industry at times unprepared for the extended cash requirements. In addition, only a few local institutions are familiar with the unique needs of the winemaking business. In order to address factors that will impede growth in this nascent industry, it is important to identify the state of the industry and obtain management perspectives on the needs and challenges facing their operations. This study provides information that would help gain a better understanding of the business issues and needs related to the wine and grape industry in North Carolina. Data for this study was drawn from a census of 34 wine producers located in the Yadkin, Swan Creek, and the Haw River valley regions of North Carolina. Descriptive statistics using frequencies and means is used to provide a demographic overview of the industry and to identify the factors that wine producers perceive to be important in affecting their profitability. Results from the study shows that most of the wineries share some common traits: they are small, relatively new to the wine and grape industry and grow grapes other than the traditional native Muscadine grape. Primarily, a majority of the wineries are family-based entrepreneurial businesses that have to behave like mini-conglomerates. These findings are consistent with a study conducted by Taplin and Breckenridge (2008).Profitability Constraints, Financial Management, Marketing, Distribution, Agribusiness, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Farm Management,

NC Agricultural Tourism Directional Signage Program (NCATDSP) Study

This research project focused on studying the NCATDSP (North Carolina Agricultural Tourism Directional Signage Program) from a regulatory standpoint and benchmarking it against other similar highway signage programs in select states across the country. NCATDSP is currently co-administered by NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services (NCDA&CS) and NC Department of Transportation (NCDOT). A total of 21 different highway signage programs across 10 different states were studied, including NCATDSP, NC Logos and NC TODS. Additionally, many interviews were held with key stakeholders in North Carolina and the selected peer states to collect data and information needed for the analysis

Nitrogen driven niche differentiation in bacterioplankton communities of northeast coastal Bay of Bengal

The Bay of Bengal receives nitrogen inputs from multiple sources and the potential role of nitrogenmetabolizing microbial communities in the surface water is not well understood. The nitrogen budget estimate shows a deficit of 4.7±2.4 TgNyr-1, suggesting a significant role of dissolved organic nitrogen remineralization in fuelling ecosystem processes. Unravelling the process of remineralization leading to increasing concentrations of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) in coastal ecosystems such as in mangroves require a better understanding of the composition of functional resident bacterioplankton communities. Bacterioplankton communities were elucidated from eight stations along different estuaries spanning west to east of northeast coastal Bay of Bengal to understand the influence of DIN on shaping these communities. The eight stations were differentiated into ‘low’ and ‘high’ DIN stations based on DIN concentration, with five stations with High DIN concentration (>45 μM) and three stations with Low DIN concentration (<40μM). The V3–V4 region of 16S rRNA was amplified and sequenced to elucidate resident bacterioplankton community structure from environmental DNA. Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Firmicutes were the dominant bacterioplankton phyla across all stations. Nitrogen-fixing groups such as Nitrospirae, Lentisphaerae, Chloroflexi, and Planctomycetes make up about1%of the bacterioplankton communities. Abundances of Spirochaetes and Tenericutes showed a positive correlation with DIN. Pseudomonadales, Alteromonadales, and Desulfovibrionales were found to distinctly vary in abundance between Low and High DIN stations. Predicted metagenomic profiles from taxonomically derived community structures indicated bacterial nitrate-nitrite reductase to be negatively correlated with prevalent DIN concentration in High DIN stations but positively correlated in Low DIN stations. This trend was also consistent for genes encoding for nitrate/nitrite response regulators and transporter proteins. This indicates the need to delineate functional bacterioplankton community structures to better understand their role in influencing rates and fluxes of nitrogen within mangroves

Salinity from Space Unlocks Satellite-Based Assessment of Ocean Acidification

Approximately a quarter of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that we emit into the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean. This oceanic uptake of CO2 leads to a change in marine carbonate chemistry resulting in a decrease of seawater pH and carbonate ion concentration, a process commonly called “Ocean Acidification”. Salinity data are key for assessing the marine carbonate system, and new space-based salinity measurements will enable the development of novel space-based ocean acidification assess- ment. Recent studies have highlighted the need to develop new in situ technology for monitoring ocean acidification, but the potential capabilities of space-based measurements remain largely untapped. Routine measurements from space can provide quasi-synoptic, reproducible data for investigating processes on global scales; they may also be the most efficient way to monitor the ocean surface. As the carbon cycle is dominantly controlled by the balance between the biological and solubility carbon pumps, innovative methods to exploit existing satellite sea surface temperature and ocean color, and new satellite sea surface salinity measurements, are needed and will enable frequent assessment of ocean acidification parameters over large spatial scales

Supersymmetric Many-particle Quantum Systems with Inverse-square Interactions

The development in the study of supersymmetric many-particle quantum systems with inverse-square interactions is reviewed. The main emphasis is on quantum systems with dynamical OSp(2|2) supersymmetry. Several results related to exactly solved supersymmetric rational Calogero model, including shape invariance, equivalence to a system of free superoscillators and non-uniqueness in the construction of the Hamiltonian, are presented in some detail. This review also includes a formulation of pseudo-hermitian supersymmetric quantum systems with a special emphasis on rational Calogero model. There are quite a few number of many-particle quantum systems with inverse-square interactions which are not exactly solved for a complete set of states in spite of the construction of infinitely many exact eigen functions and eigenvalues. The Calogero-Marchioro model with dynamical SU(1,1|2) supersymmetry and a quantum system related to short-range Dyson model belong to this class and certain aspects of these models are reviewed. Several other related and important developments are briefly summarized.Comment: LateX, 65 pages, Added Acknowledgment, Discussions and References, Version to appear in Jouranl of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical (Commissioned Topical Review Article

Extended superconformal symmetry and Calogero-Marchioro model

We show that the two dimensional Calogero-Marchioro Model (CMM) without the harmonic confinement can naturally be embedded into an extended SU(1,1|2) superconformal Hamiltonian. We study the quantum evolution of the superconformal Hamiltonian in terms of suitable compact operators of the N=2 extended de Sitter superalgebra with central charge and discuss the pattern of supersymmetry breaking. We also study the arbitrary D dimensional CMM having dynamical OSp(2|2) supersymmetry and point out the relevance of this model in the context of the low energy effective action of the dimensionally reduced Yang-Mills theory.Comment: 18 pages, RevTeX, No figures; Added clarifications & discussions, Change in format, version to appear in Journal of Physics A : Mathematical & General; Corrected typo

Exploring the Use of Cytochrome Oxidase c Subunit 1 (COI) for DNA Barcoding of Free-Living Marine Nematodes

BackgroundThe identification of free-living marine nematodes is difficult because of the paucity of easily scorable diagnostic morphological characters. Consequently, molecular identification tools could solve this problem. Unfortunately, hitherto most of these tools relied on 18S rDNA and 28S rDNA sequences, which often lack sufficient resolution at the species level. In contrast, only a few mitochondrial COI data are available for free-living marine nematodes. Therefore, we investigate the amplification and sequencing success of two partitions of the COI gene, the M1-M6 barcoding region and the I3-M11 partition.MethodologyBoth partitions were analysed in 41 nematode species from a wide phylogenetic range. The taxon specific primers for the I3-M11 partition outperformed the universal M1-M6 primers in terms of amplification success (87.8% vs. 65.8%, respectively) and produced a higher number of bidirectional COI sequences (65.8% vs 39.0%, respectively). A threshold value of 5% K2P genetic divergence marked a clear DNA barcoding gap separating intra- and interspecific distances: 99.3% of all interspecific comparisons were >0.05, while 99.5% of all intraspecific comparisons were <0.05 K2P distance.ConclusionThe I3-M11 partition reliably identifies a wide range of marine nematodes, and our data show the need for a strict scrutiny of the obtained sequences, since contamination, nuclear pseudogenes and endosymbionts may confuse nematode species identification by COI sequence

Optimum satellite remote sensing of the marine carbonate system using empirical algorithms in the global ocean, the Greater Caribbean, the Amazon Plume and the Bay of Bengal

Improving our ability to monitor ocean carbonate chemistry has become a priority as the ocean continues to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This long-term uptake is reducing the ocean pH; a process commonly known as ocean acidification. The use of satellite Earth Observation has not yet been thoroughly explored as an option for routinely observing surface ocean carbonate chemistry, although its potential has been highlighted. We demonstrate the suitability of using empirical algorithms to calculate total alkalinity (AT) and total dissolved inorganic carbon (CT), assessing the relative performance of satellite, interpolated in situ, and climatology datasets in reproducing the wider spatial patterns of these two variables. Both AT and CT in situ data are reproducible, both regionally and globally, using salinity and temperature datasets, with satellite observed salinity from Aquarius and SMOS providing performance comparable to other datasets for the majority of case studies. Global root mean squared difference (RMSD) between in situ validation data and satellite estimates is 17 μmol kg−1 with bias  < 5 μmol kg−1 for AT and 30 μmol kg−1 with bias  < 10 μmol kg−1 for CT. This analysis demonstrates that satellite sensors provide a credible solution for monitoring surface synoptic scale AT and CT. It also enables the first demonstration of observation-based synoptic scale AT and CT temporal mixing in the Amazon plume for 2010–2016, complete with a robust estimation of their uncertainty

A novel copro-diagnostic molecular method for qualitative detection and identification of parasitic nematodes in amphibians and reptiles

© 2017 Huggins et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Anthropogenic disturbance via resource acquisition, habitat fragmentation and climate change, amongst other factors, has led to catastrophic global biodiversity losses and species extinctions at an accelerating rate. Amphibians are currently one of the worst affected classes with at least a third of species categorised as being threatened with extinction. At the same time, they are also critically important for many habitats and provide man with a powerful proxy for ecosystem health by acting as a bioindicator group. Whilst the causes of synchronised amphibian losses are varied recent research has begun to highlight a growing role that macroparasites are playing in amphibian declines. However, diagnosing parasite infection in the field can be problematic, principally relying on collection and euthanasia of hosts, followed by necropsy and morphological identification of parasites in situ. The current study developed a non-invasive PCR-based methodology for sensitive detection and identification of parasitic nematode DNA released in the faeces of infected amphibians as egg or tissue fragments (environmental DNA). A DNA extraction protocol optimised for liberation of DNA from resilient parasite eggs was developed alongside the design of a novel, nematode universal, degenerate primer pair, thus avoiding the difficulties of using species specific primers in situations where common parasite species are unknown. Used in conjunction this protocol and primer pair was tested on a wide range of faecal samples from captive and wild amphibians. The primers and protocol were validated and detected infections, including a Railletnema nematode infection in poison dart frogs from ZSL London Zoo and Mantella cowani frogs in the wild. Furthermore, we demonstrate the efficacy of our PCR-based protocol for detecting nematode infection in other hosts, such as the presence of pinworm (Aspiculuris) in two tortoise species and whipworm (Trichuris muris) in mice. Our environmental DNA approach mitigates problems associated with microscopic identification and can be applied to detect nematode parasitoses in wild and captive hosts for infection surveillance and maintenance of healthy populations

ω(→π+π−π0) \omega (\to \pi^+\pi^-\pi^0) meson photoproduction on proton

The cross section is estimated for the $\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0$ invariant mass distribution in the $\gamma p$ reaction in the GeV region. This reaction is assumed to proceed through the formation of the $\omega$ meson in the intermediate state, since the production cross section for this meson in the $\gamma p$ reaction in GeV region is significant and it has large branching ratio (88.8%) in the $\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0$ channel. The cross sections for this reaction have been calculated using the energy dependent reaction amplitude, i.e., $f_{\gamma p \to \omega p}(0)$, extracted from the latest $\omega$ meson photoproduction data. We use established procedure to calculate other factors, like width and propagator of the $\omega$ meson, so that our calculation can provide reliable cross section. The calculated results reproduce the measured $\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0$ invariant mass distribution spectra in the $\gamma p$ reaction.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure