Optimizing Red Clover (Trifolium pratense) for soil fertility:variety selection, management and cultivation

Environmental and economic considerations are currently driving a resurgence in interest in fertility-building crops. A literature review indicated red clover (Trifolium pratense) has the capacity to provide a large amount of nitrogen to subsequent crops, as well as a suite of ecosystem services. Available red clover varieties can be split into categories of early/late flowering, diploid/tetraploid and erect/prostrate. Many viable management and cultivation practices can be applied. A field trial focused on arable farming of six red clover varieties was carried out on clay soil in Cirencester UK from 2015-2017. Fertility-building was documented using dry matter (DM) and nitrogen (N) yields, extent of nodulation, soil mineral nitrogen (SMN) accumulation and morphological variation over two years. Treatments of one and two cuts were applied and all cuttings were removed. The experimental design in the fertility-building phase was two factorial (red clover variety and number of cuts) in completely randomized blocks. Soil fertility was then assessed using wheat (Triticum aestivum) and mustard (Sinapsis alba) as bioassay crops. The experimental design in the bioassay phase was a split-plot factorial design in completely randomized blocks with preceding variety and number of cuts as whole plot treatments and inclusion or omittance of herbicide as splits. The central hypothesis was that red clover variety selection, cutting management and use of herbicide significantly effect capacity to build soil-fertility. SMN accumulation was high in the first year, in which DM and N yields were low, but low in the second, in which DM and N yields were high. One cut and varieties Astred and Ruby were less susceptible to winter leaching of SMN. The early diploids Ruby and Astred were more resistant to clover rot (Sclerotina sp) and powdery mildew (Erysiphe sp) than other varieties and tetraploidy was not predictive of disease resistance. The late variety Amos provided most of its yield at the first cut and the early varieties the bulk of theirs at the second, but the intermediate variety Maro gave high yields at both cuts in both years. Morphology was highly variable, stem hair density may have effected disease resistance and mineralization rates and was correlated with growth habit. Nodulation and root biomass was assessed. All varieties were shown to be nodulated but Ruby had significantly fewer nodules than all other varieties and Ruby and Astred had significantly smaller root systems than all other varieties. Herbicide (glyphosate) application and omission was included as a treatment in bioassay cultivation. The non-herbicide (NH) treatment failed to adequately terminate the clover crop and volunteering became problematic and hindered crop production in the herbicide (H) treatment. Number of cuts and variety selection were non-significant in almost all cases in wheat production, but this may have been caused by the increased variability incurred by the clover volunteering. Variety Ruby and 1 cut treatment produced higher mustard DM and N yields but only in the H treatment. The interaction of variety and cut was seen most prominently in Ruby, in which one cut was consistently higher than two. Herbicide application following red clover cultivation did significantly effect subsequent crop performance, but this was likely only due to the elimination of volunteers. One cut yielded significantly more total mustard DM and N than two cut, whilst Ruby yielded significantly more total mustard DM and N than all other varieties

Alien Registration- Mckenna, Patrick J. (Rumford, Oxford County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/12487/thumbnail.jp

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThis dissertation establishes a new visualization design process model devised to guide visualization designers in building more effective and useful visualization systems and tools. The novelty of this framework includes its flexibility for iteration, actionability for guiding visualization designers with concrete steps, concise yet methodical definitions, and connections to other visualization design models commonly used in the field of data visualization. In summary, the design activity framework breaks down the visualization design process into a series of four design activities: understand, ideate, make, and deploy. For each activity, the framework prescribes a descriptive motivation, list of design methods, and expected visualization artifacts. To elucidate the framework, two case studies for visualization design illustrate these concepts, methods, and artifacts in real-world projects in the field of cybersecurity. For example, these projects employ user-centered design methods, such as personas and data sketches, which emphasize our teams' motivations and visualization artifacts with respect to the design activity framework. These case studies also serve as examples for novice visualization designers, and we hypothesized that the framework could serve as a pedagogical tool for teaching and guiding novices through their own design process to create a visualization tool. To externally evaluate the efficacy of this framework, we created worksheets for each design activity, outlining a series of concrete, tangible steps for novices. In order to validate the design worksheets, we conducted 13 student observations over the course of two months, received 32 online survey responses, and performed a qualitative analysis of 11 in-depth interviews. Students found the worksheets both useful and effective for framing the visualization design process. Next, by applying the design activity framework to technique-driven and evaluation-based research projects, we brainstormed possible extensions to the design model. Lastly, we examined implications of the design activity framework and present future work in this space. The visualization community is challenged to consider how to more effectively describe, capture, and communicate the complex, iterative nature of data visualization design throughout research, design, development, and deployment of visualization systems and tools

The Catholic Motor Missions in Missouri

The Catholic Motor Missions operated from 1935 to 1965 to combat anti-Catholic prejudice. Traveling throughout Missouri by car with a portable pulpit and a public address system, Vincentians gave informal talks on the most controversial or misunderstood aspects of Catholicism. They also had a box through which people could submit anonymous questions about the faith. Since the missioners were addressing fundamentalist Protestants, the talks were grounded in references to the King James Bible. The missioners never took collections or attempted conversions. The missions later became a way to reach Catholics as well. They were very successful and inspired similar efforts around the country

Assessing the quality of health technology registers for national guidance development.

Background: The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence makes use of registers to collect data for technologies that require more evidence to inform future decision-making. This is particularly so for the Interventional Procedures Programme, which since 2003 has produced guidance for procedures that are typically not well established, meaning that named registers are often recommended for future data collection. Methods: We constructed a questionnaire based on quality standards for recommended registers defined by the Interventional Procedures Programme. All guidance from 2003 to 2016 were reviewed to identify recommended registers and compile a list of corresponding registries. We made a maximum of four attempts to contact each registry. Each register was scored on seven quality standards: accessibility, responsiveness, data publication, data coverage, data validity, independent oversight and data protection, with a maximum of 14 points. Results: We obtained responses from 17 out of 24 eligible registries, a response rate of 70.8%. The mean total score was 8.5 (standard deviation 2.9, range 4-14). Overall, the quality of recommended registers was disappointing, with a split between large registries that scored highly across all standards and smaller registries that scored poorly. Conclusions: This the first study to our knowledge to assess the quality of registers recommended by health technology assessment agencies. Only a limited number of registers were mature enough to deliver evidence of sufficiently high quality to inform funding decisions. A standardised quality assessment tool is needed to evaluate registers before their recommendation for observational data gathering by decision-making bodies

Extant Fragments

Extant Fragments explores the social context of the artist’s studio space and the importance of developing an art making process that is personal. The studio becomes a metaphor for the confines of daily life and the art making process a metaphor for ritualistic and behavioral patterns. In exploring a litany of qualitative and perceptual experiences within the artist’s social space, it is the present materials that are addressed and reassessed – incessantly and obsessively – the ‘left-overs’, the minutia, bits and scraps, detritus... This process of dealing ONLY with what is presently available leads to a profound self-discovery: to examine ones process of art making is a way to remain invested in the present. What exists’ in the present are [the few] historical remnants – Extant Fragments

The influence of surface films on interfacial flow dynamics

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Ocean Engineering, 1997.Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-160).by Sean Patrick McKenna.M.S