Analysis of Competition and Phosphorus Response in Maize/Soybean and Maize/Rice Intercrops in Relation to Soil Phosphorus Availability in Different Environments

While the effect of nitrogen on intercrops has been extensively studied, little information is available on P effects. There is a dearth of information on how intercrops respond to varying levels of soil P availability leading to more efficiency. Field experiments were therefore conducted at University of Hawaii Experiment Stations in three environments to evaluate the productivity of intercrops, leaf properties, and root dry matter in relation to P in the soil solution. Intercrops of maize with soybean or rice were established at ten levels of soil solution P and evaluated against sole crop checks for grain yield, dry matter production, P uptake and P use efficiency to determine whether the increased productivity of the mixture was only due to increased uptake of resources or efficient conversion to dry matter or grain yield by intercrop components under competition. Differences between environments were large relative to the effects of P and intercropping systems. The response of grain and total dry matter yield to P (9Y/aP) was proportional to the inverse of P level for both maize and soybean in each environments. The response of the intercrop maize to P, was similar to that of the sole crop. The presence of soybean with maize had little effect on the performance of intercrop maize, however soybean yields were significantly reduced. The response of intercrop soybean to environment and P level was different than its sole crop. Grain and dry matter yield of sole crop soybean increased with increased P availability whereas intercrop soybean yield decreased. The magnitude of the increase or decrease (slope) depended on environment and the sign of the slope changed by intercropping. Higher maize yields across environments and P levels were associated with reduced growth of intercrop soybean. Intercrop advantage, as measured by the Land Equivalent Ratio, and the competitiveness of soybean decreased as P availability increased. The increased competitiveness of intercrop maize at high P levels was correlated with a reduction in yield of intercrop soybean. The advantage due to intercropping was maximum under low soil P availability under a wide range of environmental conditions. Growth of intercrop maize was no different than the sole crop for their leaf properties and P uptake, but was profoundly affected by environment and P availability in the soil. Soybean leaf properties, leaf tissue P concentration and P uptake were affected by environment, P level and intercrop system and their interactions. Phosphorus uptake increased as the availability increased irrespective of the environment and cropping system. Phosphorus use efficiency, measured as the grain yield or dry matter per unit of P uptake, decreased with increased P availability. Taken together, the intercrops extracted more P than sole crop maize. P use efficiency was reduced by intercropping. Total root biomass (dry weight) in the surface layer of the intercrops was higher than in the sole crops, with the difference changing according to P levels and year. An estimate of LER based on root dry weight was within the range calculated using above-ground dry matter or grain yield. The increased productivity of intercrops was associated with increased P uptake. In low-input subsistence agriculture, accelerated P mining — the faster removal of limited soil P — may cause the intercrop systems to be less sustainable

Antiviral Activity of Some Plants Used in Nepalese Traditional Medicine

Methanolic extracts of 41 plant species belonging to 27 families used in the traditional medicine in Nepal have been investigated for in vitro antiviral activity against Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and influenza virus A by dye uptake assay in the systems HSV-1/Vero cells and influenza virus A/MDCK cells. The extracts of Astilbe rivularis, Bergenia ciliata, Cassiope fastigiata and Thymus linearis showed potent anti-herpes viral activity. The extracts of Allium oreoprasum, Androsace strigilosa, Asparagus filicinus, Astilbe rivularis, Bergenia ciliata and Verbascum thapsus exhibited strong anti-influenza viral activity. Only the extracts of A. rivularis and B. ciliata demonstrated remarkable activity against both viruses

Maize in Nepal: Production Systems, Constraints, and Priorities for Research

Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Experimental Error Performance of Modulation Schemes Under a Controlled Laboratory Turbulence FSO Channel

This paper experimentally investigates the performance of different modulation schemes under the atmospheric turbulence conditions for free space optical communication links. The experiments were carried out in a dedicated and controlled indoor atmospheric chamber. The turbulence environment was created by introducing hot air, while the temperature profile was monitored throughout the chamber to maintain a constant environment. By evaluating the error performance of different modulation schemes under identical conditions, it was observed that pulse position modulation offers the best performance, followed by subcarrier intensity modulation under weak turbulence environments

A Variant Allele in Varicella-Zoster Virus Glycoprotein B Selected during Production of the Varicella Vaccine Contributes to Its Attenuation

Attenuation of the live varicella Oka vaccine (vOka) has been attributed to mutations in the genome acquired during cell culture passage of pOka (parent strain); however, the precise mechanisms of attenuation remain unknown. Comparative sequence analyses of several vaccine batches showed that over 100 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are conserved across all vaccine batches; 6 SNPs are nearly fixed, suggesting that these SNPs are responsible for attenuation. By contrast, prior analysis of chimeric vOka and pOka recombinants indicates that loci other than these six SNPs contribute to attenuation. Here, we report that pOka consists of a heterogenous population of virus sequences with two nearly equally represented bases, guanine (G) or adenine (A), at nucleotide 2096 of the ORF31 coding sequence, which encodes glycoprotein B (gB) resulting in arginine (R) or glutamine (Q), respectively, at amino acid 699 of gB. By contrast, 2096A/699Q is dominant in vOka (.99.98%). gB699Q/gH/gL showed significantly less fusion activity than gB699R/gH/gL in a cell-based fusion assay. Recombinant pOka with gB669Q (rpOka_gB699Q) had a similar growth phenotype as vOka during lytic infection in cell culture including human primary skin cells; however, rpOka_gB699R showed a growth phenotype similar to pOka. rpOka_gB699R entered neurons from axonal terminals more efficiently than rpOka_gB699Q in the presence of cell membrane-derived vesicles containing gB. Strikingly, when a mixture of pOka with both alleles equally represented was used to infect human neurons from axon terminals, pOka with gB699R was dominant for virus entry. These results identify a variant allele in gB that contributes to attenuation of vOka. IMPORTANCE The live-attenuated varicella vaccine has reduced the burden of chickenpox. Despite its development in 1974, the molecular basis for its attenuation is still not well understood. Since the live-attenuated varicella vaccine is the only licensed human herpesvirus vaccine that prevents primary disease, it is important to understand the mechanism for its attenuation. Here we identify that a variant allele in glycoprotein B (gB) selected during generation of the varicella vaccine contributes to its attenuation. This variant is impaired for fusion, virus entry into neurons from nerve terminals, and replication in human skin cells. Identification of a variant allele in gB, one of the essential herpesvirus core genes, that contributes to its attenuation may provide insights that assist in the development of other herpesvirus vaccines

Optimizing the Four-Index Integral Transform Using Data Movement Lower Bounds Analysis

International audienceThe four-index integral transform is a fundamental and com-putationally demanding calculation used in many computational chemistry suites such as NWChem. It transforms a four-dimensional tensor from one basis to another. This transformation is most efficiently implemented as a sequence of four tensor contractions that each contract a four-dimensional tensor with a two-dimensional transformation matrix. Differing degrees of permutation symmetry in the intermediate and final tensors in the sequence of contractions cause intermediate tensors to be much larger than the final tensor and limit the number of electronic states in the modeled systems. Loop fusion, in conjunction with tiling, can be very effective in reducing the total space requirement, as well as data movement. However, the large number of possible choices for loop fusion and tiling, and data/computation distribution across a parallel system, make it challenging to develop an optimized parallel implementation for the four-index integral transform. We develop a novel approach to address this problem, using lower bounds modeling of data movement complexity. We establish relationships between available aggregate physical memory in a parallel computer system and ineffective fusion configurations, enabling their pruning and consequent identification of effective choices and a characterization of optimality criteria. This work has resulted in the development of a significantly improved implementation of the four-index transform that enables higher performance and the ability to model larger electronic systems than the current implementation in the NWChem quantum chemistry software suite

MIMO Visible Light Communications Using a Wide Field-of-View Fluorescent Concentrator

This letter reports a demonstration of a 2 x 2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) indoor visible-light communication (VLC) system using a novel fluorescent optical concentrator-based receiver. This potentially allows a high degree of spatial multiplexing to be achieved using a simple receiver structure that can have a wide field-of-view. Details of a two-channel MIMO VLC system that operates at 32 Mb/s with a receiver acceptance angle of ±22.5° are given, and future directions are discussed.PostprintPeer reviewe

Multi-band carrier-less amplitude and phase modulation for bandlimited visible light communications systems

Visible light communications is a technology with enormous potential for a wide range of applications within next generation transmission and broadcasting technologies. VLC offers simultaneous illumination and data communications by intensity modulating the optical power emitted by LEDs operating in the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum (~370-780 nm). The major challenge in VLC systems to date has been in improving transmission speeds, considering the low bandwidths available with commercial LED devices. Thus, to improve the spectral usage, the research community has increasingly turned to advanced modulation formats such as orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing. In this article we introduce a new modulation scheme into the VLC domain; multiband carrier-less amplitude and phase modulation (m-CAP) and describe in detail its performance within the context of bandlimited systems

Invited perspectives: Mountain roads in Nepal at a new crossroads

In Nepal and many developing countries around the world, roads are vehicles for development for communities in rural areas. By reducing travel time on foot, opportunities are opened for quicker transportation of goods and better access to employment, education, health care and markets. Roads also fuel migration and numerous social changes, both positive and negative. Poorly constructed roads in mountainous areas of Nepal have increased erosion and landslide risk as they often cut through fragile geology, destabilizing slopes and altering local hydrological conditions, with costs to lives and livelihoods. The convergence of the newly constituted decentralized Nepali government with China's Belt and Road Initiative is likely to bring more roads to rural communities. The new provincial government administrations now have the opportunity to develop policies and practices, which can realign the current trend of poorly engineered, inefficient and hazardous road construction toward a more sustainable trajectory. This commentary provides an overview of some of the obstacles along the way for a more sustainable road network in Nepal and illustrates how good governance, development and landslide risk are intertwined. The opinion presented in this brief commentary lends little hope that Nepal's current pathway of unsustainable road construction will provide the country with the much-needed sustainable road network, unless checks and balances are put in place to curb noncompliance with existing laws and policies.</p

The 2015 Nepal earthquake disaster: lessons learned one year on

The 2015 earthquake in Nepal killed over 8000 people, injured more than 21,000 and displaced a further 2 million. One year later, a national workshop was organized with various Nepali stakeholders involved in the response to the earthquake. The workshop provided participants an opportunity to reflect on their experiences and sought to learn lessons from the disaster. Methods One hundred and thirty-five participants took part and most had been directly involved in the earthquake response. They included representatives from the Ministry of Health, local and national government, the armed forces, non-governmental organizations, health practitioners, academics, and community representatives. Participants were divided into seven focus groups based around the following topics: water, sanitation and hygiene, hospital services, health and nutrition, education, shelter, policy and community. Facilitated group discussions were conducted in Nepalese and the key emerging themes are presented. Results Participants described a range of issues encountered, some specific to their area of expertize but also more general issues. These included logistics and supply chain challenges, leadership and coordination difficulties, impacts of the media as well as cultural beliefs on population behaviour post-disaster. Lessons identified included the need for community involvement at all stages of disaster response and preparedness, as well as the development of local leadership capabilities and community resilience. A ‘disconnect’ between disaster management policy and responses was observed, which may result in ineffective, poorly planned disaster response. Conclusion Finding time and opportunity to reflect on and identify lessons from disaster response can be difficult but are fundamental to improving future disaster preparedness. The Nepal Earthquake National Workshop offered participants the space to do this. It garnered an overwhelming sense of wanting to do things better, of the need for a Nepal-centric approach and the need to learn the lessons of the past to improve disaster management for the future