Header Attachments Help Save Grain Sorghum at Harvest

Damaging winds before and during grain sorghum harvest in South Dakota frequently result in high crop loss due to lodging. One way to avoid lodging is to harvest soon after maturity when grain is at high moisture content. This is acceptable in many areas. But in some areas, such as central South Dakota, many farmers believe they cannot justify the expense of drying equipment and. so they wait for the sorghum to mature naturally which increases possibilities of lodging. An investigation by the Agricultural Engineeering Department at South Dakota State University compared different header attachments on a conventional combine to determine if any could materially reduce crop losses due to lodging. Field losses of various header attachments were evaluated from tests in the fall of 1965 and 1966 at the Agricultural Engineering Experiment Station Research Farm near Brookings. The attachment which resulted in the lowest grain loss was then evaluated economically to determine if ownership could be justified under South Dakota conditions

Antihyperon-Production in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collision

Recently it has been shown that the observed antiproton yield in heavy-ion collisions at CERN-SpS energies can be understood by multi-pionic interactions which enforce local chemical equilibrium of the antiprotons with the nucleons and pions. Here we show that antihyperons are driven towards local chemical equilibrium with pions, nucleons and kaons on a timescale of less than 3 fm/c when applying a similar argument for the antihyperons by considering the inverse channel of annihilation reactions anti-Y + p to pions + kaons. These multi-mesonic reactions easily explain the antihyperon yields at CERN-SpS energies as advertised in pure thermal, hadronic models without the need of a quark gluon plasma phase. In addition, the argument also applies for AGS energies.Comment: 4 pages using RevTeX, 1 eps figur

Retinoic Acid-Binding Protein in Human Breast Cancer and Dysplasia

Seventy-five specimens of human breast tissue were checked for the presence of cellular retinoic acid-binding protein (cRABP). Fifty-two percent of the primary carcinomas and 43% of the dysplastic breast lesions (stage MIl) contained detectable amounts of cRABP, whereas no cRABP was found in normal tissue. Sucrose gradient centrifugation and electrophoresis on agarose were used for analysis of the presence of cRABP. The cRABP of human origin (normal uterus and neoplastic mammary tissue) differed in its mobility in agarose electrophoresis from that of rat testis cRA

Grown-up stars physics with MATISSE

MATISSE represents a great opportunity to image the environment around massive and evolved stars. This will allow one to put constraints on the circumstellar structure, on the mass ejection of dust and its reorganization , and on the dust-nature and formation processes. MATISSE measurements will often be pivotal for the understanding of large multiwavelength datasets on the same targets collected through many high-angular resolution facilities at ESO like sub-millimeter interferometry (ALMA), near-infrared adaptive optics (NACO, SPHERE), interferometry (PIONIER, GRAVITY), spectroscopy (CRIRES), and mid-infrared imaging (VISIR). Among main sequence and evolved stars, several cases of interest have been identified that we describe in this paper.Comment: SPIE, Jun 2016, Edimbourgh, Franc

Amyloids: From molecular structure to mechanical properties

AbstractMany proteins of diverse sequence, structure and function self-assemble into morphologically similar fibrillar aggregates known as amyloids. Amyloids are remarkable polymers in several respects. First of all, amyloids can be formed from proteins with very different amino acid sequences; the common denominator is that the individual proteins constituting the amyloid fold predominantly into a β-sheet structure. Secondly, the formation of the fibril occurs through non-covalent interactions between primarily the β-sheets, causing the monomers to stack into fibrils. The fibrils are remarkably robust, considering that the monomers are bound non-covalently. Finally, a common characteristic of fibrils is their unbranched, straight, fiber-like structure arising from the intertwining of the multiple β-sheet filaments. These remarkably ordered and stable nanofibrils can be useful as building blocks for protein-based functional materials, but they are also implicated in severe neurodegenerative diseases. The overall aim of this article is to highlight recent efforts aimed at obtaining insights into amyloid proteins on different length scales. Starting from molecular information on amyloids, single fibril properties and mechanical properties of networks of fibrils are described. Specifically, we focus on the self-assembly of amyloid protein fibrils composed of peptides and denatured model proteins, as well as the influence of inhibitors of fibril formation. Additionally, we will demonstrate how the application of recently developed vibrational spectroscopic techniques has emerged as a powerful approach to gain spatially resolved information on the structure–function relation of amyloids. While spectroscopy provides information on local molecular conformations and protein secondary structure, information on the single fibril level has been developed by diverse microscopic techniques. The approaches to reveal basic mechanical properties of single fibrils like bending rigidity, shear modulus, ultimate tensile strength and fracture behavior are illustrated. Lastly, mechanics of networks of amyloid fibrils, typically forming viscoelastic gels are outlined, with a focus on (micro-) rheological properties. The resulting fundamental insights are essential for the rational design of novel edible and biodegradable protein-based polymers, but also to devise therapeutic strategies to combat amyloid assembly and accumulation during pathogenic disorders

Beyond the energy gap law : the influence of selection rules and host compound effects on nonradiative transition rates in boltzmann thermometers

P.N. and M.H. contributed equally to this work. H.A.H., P.N., M.H., and E.T. thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for generous support (Project HO 4503/5-1). Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Apart from the energy gap law, control parameters over nonradiative transitions are so far only scarcely regarded. In this work, the impact of both covalence of the lanthanoid–ligand bond and varying bond distance on the magnitude of the intrinsic nonradiative decay rate between the excited 6P5/2 and 6P7/2 spin–orbit levels of Gd3+ is investigated in the chemically related compounds Y2[B2(SO4)6] and LaBO3. Analysis of the temperature-dependent luminescence spectra reveals that the intrinsic nonradiative transition rates between the excited 6PJ (  J = 5/2, 7/2) levels are of the order of only 10 ms−1 (Y2[B2(SO4)6]:Gd3+: 8.9 ms−1; LaBO3:Gd3+: 10.5 ms−1) and differ due to the different degree of covalence of the Gd—O bonds in the two compounds. Comparison to the established luminescent Boltzmann thermometer Er3+ reveals, however, that the nonradiative transition rates between the excited levels of Gd3+ are over three orders of magnitude slower despite a similar energy gap and the presence of a single resonant phonon mode. This hints to a fundamental magnetic dipolar character of the nonradiative coupling in Gd3+. These findings can pave a way to control nonradiative transition rates and how to tune the dynamic range of luminescent Boltzmann thermometers.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Hypnosis and superficial cervical anesthesia for total thyroidectomy in a high-risk patient - A case report.

Total thyroidectomy can be challenging in high-risk patients. Local cervical anesthesia with sedation is an alternative to general anesthesia. A 33-year old male patient with cyanotic congenital heart disease due to unrepaired tricuspid atresia type Ic and associated pulmonary arterial hypertension presented with tachycardic atrial fibrillation and amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis resulting in recurrent hemodynamic instability. Because of difficulties controlling the thyrotoxic state, the indication for total thyroidectomy was established. Total thyroidectomy was subsequently performed using local anesthesia combined using a hypnosis-analgesia technique instead of intravenous sedation. The intervention and the post-operative course were uneventful. A well-established therapist-patient relationship is crucial for a successful induction of hypnosis. Patient motivation and expectations are equally important for a successful implementation of this approach. We conclude that hypnosis combined with local anesthesia provides an effective alternative in selected patients with very high anesthesiological risk

Antimatter and Matter Production in Heavy Ion Collisions at CERN (The NEWMASS Experiment NA52)

Besides the dedicated search for strangelets NA52 measures light (anti)particle and (anti)nuclei production over a wide range of rapidity. Compared to previous runs the statistics has been increased in the 1998 run by more than one order of magnitude for negatively charged objects at different spectrometer rigidities. Together with previous data taking at a rigidity of -20 GeV/c we obtained 10^6 antiprotons 10^3 antideuterons and two antihelium3 without centrality requirements. We measured nuclei and antinuclei (p,d,antiprotons, antideuterons) near midrapidity covering an impact parameter range of b=2-12 fm. Our results strongly indicate that nuclei and antinuclei are mainly produced via the coalescence mechanism. However the centrality dependence of the antibaryon to baryon ratios show that antibaryons are diminished due to annihilation and breakup reactions in the hadron dense environment. The volume of the particle source extracted from coalescence models agrees with results from pion interferometry for an expanding source. The chemical and thermal freeze-out of nuclei and antinuclei appear to coincide with each other and with the thermal freeze-out of hadrons.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the conference on 'Fundamental Issues in Elementary Matter' Bad Honnef, Germany, Sept. 25-29, 200