Federal Budget Policy and Defense Strategy

Defense economist Dennis S. Ippolito dissects Federal budget practices over the past several decades, with a particular focus on sources and trends in our national deficit spending syndrome. Underlying his message is an unsettling truth, that no matter how the current debate over balancing the budget turns out, future cases for the Army Budget are going to have to be made in an even more challenging spending environment as discretionary spending margins shrink. Army professionals, now more than ever, need to be articulate advocates of landpower for the 21st century. But before articulate and reasoned arguments can be made for the kind of force that will ensure that the nation does, indeed, build and maintain the world\u27s best Army (or Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps), one must take into account the realities of the Federal budget.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1877/thumbnail.jp

Budget Policy, Deficits, and Defense: A Fiscal Framework for Defense Planning

The author focuses on the spending policy, deficit and debt, and retirement and healthcare entitlement dynamics that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to fund current defense plans. Transformational strategies, he concludes, must be adjusted to lower and more volatile future spending levels. The most important adjustment is to shift spending priorities to readiness and traditional modernization needs that are more urgent in terms of capabilities than transformational technologies, as well as more predictable and controllable in terms of costs.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1744/thumbnail.jp

Phase sensitive detection of dipole radiation in a fiber-based high numerical aperture optical system

We theoretically study the problem of detecting dipole radiation in an optical system of high numerical aperture in which the detector is sensitive to \textit{field amplitude}. In particular, we model the phase sensitive detector as a single-mode cylindrical optical fiber. We find that the maximum in collection efficiency of the dipole radiation does not coincide with the optimum resolution for the light gathering instrument. The calculated results are important for analyzing fiber-based confocal microscope performance in fluorescence and spectroscopic studies of single molecules and/or quantum dots.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

An Overview of Metabolic Activity, Beneficial and Pathogenic Aspects of Burkholderia Spp

Burkholderia is an important bacterial species which has different beneficial effects, such as promoting the plant growth, including rhizosphere competence for the secretion of allelochemicals, production of antibiotics, and siderophores. In addition, most of Burkholderia species have demonstrated promising biocontrol action against different phytopathogens for diverse crops. In particular, Burkholderia demonstrates significant biotechnological potential as a source of novel antibiotics and bioactive secondary metabolites. The current review is concerned with Burkholderia spp. covering the following aspects: discovering, classification, distribution, plant growth promoting effect, and antimicrobial activity of different species of Burkholderia, shedding light on the most important secondary metabolites, their pathogenic effects, and biochemical characterization of some important species of Burkholderia, such as B. cepacia, B. andropogonis, B. plantarii, B. rhizoxinica, B. glumae, B. caryophylli and B. gladioli

Applications of Absorbent Polymers for Sustainable Plant Protection and Crop Yield

Natural strategies for protecting the environment as well as plant, animal and human health is considered one of the main goals of developed countries. Recently, the use of absorbent polymers and hydrogel in agriculture has demonstrated several benefits for soil amendments, saving water content, reducing the consumption of soil nutrients, minimizing the negative impacts of dehydration and moisture stress in crops and controlling several phytopathogens. The seed-coating technology for establishing the crops is a recent common practice used for improving seed protection and enhancing plant growth. Coating materials include absorbent polymers and hydrogels based on growth regulators, pesticides, fertilizers and antagonist microorganisms. The current review has highlighted the importance of different types of superabsorbent polymers and hydrogels in an integrated strategy to protect seeds, plants and soil in a balanced manner to preserve the ecosystem

Case Study of an SEL Coach and Instructional Specialist: Understanding a New Role

As social and emotional learning (SEL) moves to the forefront of elementary education, new roles are emerging: SEL coaches and instructional specialists. While these new roles may mirror literacy coaches in many ways, there is still much that is unknown. Therefore, this exploratory qualitative case study documents how a district-based SEL instructional specialist/coach describes her role and the impact of her work. Analyses focus on semi-structured interviews and artifacts, such as her formal role description and weekly sample schedules. Findings illustrate three main ways of synthesizing and integrating a multitude of professional SEL responsibilities: 1) through building relationships and ongoing communication; 2) through adopting a “blended” mindset to see the overlap across equity, behavioral, and SEL work; and finally, 3) through continual personal/professional learning. The case ends with comparisons to literacy coaching literature and practices, as well as implications for future research, policies, and practices related to SEL educators specifically

Investigating the Effects of Plant Essential Oils on Post-Harvest Fruit Decay

Essential oils are one of the most important natural products derived from plants, due to their various biological properties and their medicinal and nutritional uses. This chapter provides an overview of several different aspects relating to essential oils including a historical perspective, the uses of essential oils, their main sources and antifungal activity, their bioactive single constituents and their modes of action. The chapter will also give an insight into the chemical measures necessary for controlling plant pathogens and their negative impact on human health and/or the environment. It will also review the different sources of essential oils such as sage, oregano, thyme and marjoram from the Lamiaceae family, vervain from the Verbanacae family, and magnolia from the Magnoliaceae family. The antimicrobial activity of essential oils is reviewed, with particular emphasis on the antifungal properties exhibited against some serious pathogenic fungi and post-harvest disease. Moreover, various antimicrobial tests and techniques, such as various kill-time studies, killing time determination, LD-50 and growth curve recording, poisoned food techniques, spore germination and measurement of metabolic CO2 are included. Finally, five case studies relating to the antifungal activity of some plant essential oils, either in vitro or in vivo, against post-harvest pathogenic fungi are reviewed at the end of this chapter

Ordered monolayer gold nano-urchin structures and their size induced control for high gas sensing performance

The synthesis of ordered monolayers of gold nano-urchin (Au-NU) nanostructures with controlled size, directly on thin films using a simple electrochemical method is reported in this study. In order to demonstrate one of the vast potential applications, the developed Au-NUs were formed on the electrodes of transducers (QCM) to selectively detect low concentrations of elemental mercury (Hg0) vapor. It was found that the sensitivity and selectivity of the sensor device is enhanced by increasing the size of the nanospikes on the Au-NUs. The Au-NU-12 min QCM (Au-NUs with nanospikes grown on it for a period of 12 min) had the best performance in terms of transducer based Hg0 vapor detection. The sensor had 98% accuracy, 92% recovery, 96% precision (repeatability) and significantly, showed the highest sensitivity reported to date, resulting in a limit of detection (LoD) of only 32 μg/m3 at 75 °C. When compared to the control counterpart, the accuracy and sensitivity of the Au-NU-12 min was enhanced by ~2 and ~5 times, respectively. The results demonstrate the excellent activity of the developed materials which can be applied to a range of applications due to their long range order, tunable size and ability to form directly on thin-films

Strong extinction of a far-field laser beam by a single quantum dot

Through the utilization of index-matched GaAs immersion lens techniques we demonstrate a record extinction (12%) of a far-field focused laser by a single InAs/GaAs quantum dot. This contrast level enables us to report for the first time resonant laser transmission spectroscopy on a single InAs/GaAs quantum dot without the need for phase-sensitive lock-in detection

Chemical Composition and Antimicrobial Properties of Mentha x piperita cv. ‘Kristinka’ Essential Oil

Several economically important crops, fruits and vegetables are susceptible to infection by pathogenic fungi and/or bacteria postharvest or in field. Recently, plant essential oils (EOs) extracted from different medicinal and officinal plants have had promising antimicrobial effects against phytopathogens. In the present study, the potential microbicide activity of Mentha x piperita cv. ‘Kristinka’ (peppermint) EO and its main constituents have been evaluated against some common phytopathogens. In addition, the cell membrane permeability of the tested fungi and the minimum fungicidal concentrations were measured. The antifungal activity was tested against the following postharvest fungi: Botrytis cinerea, Monilinia fructicola, Penicillium expansum and Aspergillus niger, whereas antibacterial activity was evaluated against Clavibacter michiganensis, Xanthomonas campestris, Pseudomonas savastanoi and P. syringae pv. phaseolicola. The chemical analysis has been carried out using GC-MS and the main components were identified as menthol (70.08%) and menthone (14.49%) followed by limonene (4.32%), menthyl acetate (3.76%) and -caryophyllene (2.96%). The results show that the tested EO has promising antifungal activity against all tested fungi, whereas they demonstrated only a moderate antibacterial effect against some of the tested bacteria