Wagon-Based Silage Yield Mapping System

Rosana G. Moreira, Editor-in-Chief; Texas A&M UniversityThis is a paper from International Commission of Agricultural Engineering (CIGR, Commission Internationale du Genie Rural) E-Journal Volume 7 (2005): Wagon-Based Silage Yield Mapping System by W. S. Lee, J. K. Schueller, T. F. Burk

Impact Of The COVID-19 Pandemic On Online Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Support Community Members: Survey Study

Background: People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have faced unique challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research from the first two months of the pandemic suggests that a small proportion of people with OCD experienced worsening in their OCD symptoms since the pandemic began, whereas the rest experienced either no change or an improvement in their symptoms. However, as society-level factors relating to the pandemic have evolved, the effects of the pandemic on people with OCD have likely changed as well, in complex and population-specific ways. Therefore, this study contributes to a growing body of knowledge on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people and demonstrates how differences across studies might emerge when studying specific populations at specific timepoints. Objective: This study aimed to assess how members of online OCD support communities felt the COVID-19 pandemic had affected their OCD symptoms, around 3 months after the pandemic began. Methods: We recruited participants from online OCD support communities for our brief survey. Participants indicated how much they felt their OCD symptoms had changed since the pandemic began and how much they felt that having OCD was making it harder to deal with the pandemic. Results: We collected survey data from June through August 2020 and received a total of 196 responses, some of which were partial responses. Among the nonmissing data, 65.9% (108/164) of the participants were from the United States and 90.5% (152/168) had been subjected to a stay-at-home order. In all, 92.9% (182/196) of the participants said they experienced worsening of their OCD symptoms since the pandemic began, although the extent to which their symptoms worsened differed across dimensions of OCD; notably, symmetry and completeness symptoms were less likely to have worsened than others. Moreover, 95.5% (171/179) of the participants felt that having OCD made it difficult to deal with the pandemic. Conclusions: Our study of online OCD support community members found a much higher rate of OCD symptom worsening than did other studies on people with OCD conducted during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Factors such as quarantine length, location, overlapping society-level challenges, and differing measurement and sampling choices may help to explain this difference across studies

Yield sensing technologies for perennial and annual horticultural crops: a review

Yield maps provide a detailed account of crop production and potential revenue of a farm. This level of details enables a range of possibilities from improving input management, conducting on-farm experimentation, or generating profitability map, thus creating value for farmers. While this technology is widely available for field crops such as maize, soybean and grain, few yield sensing systems exist for horticultural crops such as berries, field vegetable or orchards. Nevertheless, a wide range of techniques and technologies have been investigated as potential means of sensing crop yield for horticultural crops. This paper reviews yield monitoring approaches that can be divided into proximal, either direct or indirect, and remote measurement principles. It reviews remote sensing as a way to estimate and forecast yield prior to harvest. For each approach, basic principles are explained as well as examples of application in horticultural crops and success rate. The different approaches provide whether a deterministic (direct measurement of weight for instance) or an empirical (capacitance measurements correlated to weight for instance) result, which may impact transferability. The discussion also covers the level of precision required for different tasks and the trend and future perspectives. This review demonstrated the need for more commercial solutions to map yield of horticultural crops. It also showed that several approaches have demonstrated high success rate and that combining technologies may be the best way to provide enough accuracy and robustness for future commercial systems

Micro-fabrication of Carbon Structures by Pattern Miniaturization in Resorcinol-Formaldehyde Gel

A simple and novel method to fabricate and miniaturize surface and sub-surface micro-structures and micro-patterns in glassy carbon is proposed and demonstrated. An aqueous resorcinol-formaldehyde (RF) sol is employed for micro-molding of the master-pattern to be replicated, followed by controlled drying and pyrolysis of the gel to reproduce an isotropically shrunk replica in carbon. The miniaturized version of the master-pattern thus replicated in carbon is about one order of magnitude smaller than original master by repeating three times the above cycle of molding and drying. The micro-fabrication method proposed will greatly enhance the toolbox for a facile fabrication of a variety of Carbon-MEMS and C-microfluidic devices.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Interventions to Modify Psychological Well-Being: Progress, Promises, and an Agenda for Future Research

Psychological well-being, characterized by feelings, cognitions, and strategies that are associated with positive functioning (including hedonic and eudaimonic well-being), has been linked with better physical health and greater longevity. Importantly, psychological well-being can be strengthened with interventions, providing a strategy for improving population health. But are the effects of well-being interventions meaningful, durable, and scalable enough to improve health at a population-level? To assess this possibility, a cross-disciplinary group of scholars convened to review current knowledge and develop a research agenda. Here we summarize and build on the key insights from this convening, which were: (1) existing interventions should continue to be adapted to achieve a large-enough effect to result in downstream improvements in psychological functioning and health, (2) research should determine the durability of interventions needed to drive population-level and lasting changes, (3) a shift from individual-level care and treatment to a public-health model of population-level prevention is needed and will require new infrastructure that can deliver interventions at scale, (4) interventions should be accessible and effective in racially, ethnically, and geographically diverse samples. A discussion examining the key future research questions follows

Self‐pollination in island and mainland populations of the introduced hummingbird‐pollinated plant, Nicotiana glauca (Solanaceae)

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142032/1/ajb20672.pd

Sigma-phase in Fe-Cr and Fe-V alloy systems and its physical properties

A review is presented on physical properties of the sigma-phase in Fe-Cr and Fe-V alloy systems as revealed both with experimental -- mostly with the Mossbauer spectroscopy -- and theoretical methods. In particular, the following questions relevant to the issue have been addressed: identification of sigma and determination of its structural properties, kinetics of alpha-to-sigma and sigma-to-alpha phase transformations, Debye temperature and Fe-partial phonon density of states, Curie temperature and magnetization, hyperfine fields, isomer shifts and electric field gradients.Comment: 26 pages, 23 figures and 83 reference

Protein kinase A regulatory subunit distribution in medulloblastoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previous studies showed a differential distribution of the four regulatory subunits of cAMP-dependent protein kinases inside the brain, that changed in rodent gliomas: therefore, the distribution of these proteins inside the brain can give information on the functional state of the cells. Our goal was to examine human brain tumors to provide evidence for a differential distribution of protein kinase A in different tumors.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The distribution of detergent insoluble regulatory (R1 and R2) and catalytic subunits of cAMP dependent kinases was examined in pediatric brain tumors by immunohistochemistry and fluorescent cAMP analogues binding.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>R2 is organized in large single dots in medulloblastomas, while it has a different appearance in other tumors. Fluorescent cAMP labelling was observed only in medulloblastoma.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A different distribution of cAMP dependent protein kinases has been observed in medulloblastoma.</p

Later life sex and Rubin’s ‘Charmed Circle'

Gayle Rubin’s now classic concept of the ‘charmed circle’ has been much used by scholars of sexuality to discuss the ways in which some types of sex are privileged over others. In this paper, I apply the concept of the charmed circle to a new topic– later life – in order both to add to theory about later life sex and to add an older-age lens to thinking about sex hierarchies. Traditional discursive resources around older people’s sexual activities, which treat older people’s sex as inherently beyond the charmed circle, now coexist with new imperatives for older people to remain sexually active as part of a wider project of ‘successful’ or ‘active’ ageing. Drawing on the now-substantial academic literature about later life sex, I discuss some of the ways in which redrawing the charmed circle to include some older people’s sex may paradoxically entail the use of technologies beyond the charmed circle of ‘good, normal, natural, blessed’ sex. Sex in later life also generates some noteworthy inversions in which types of sex are privileged and which treated as less desirable, in relation to marriage and procreation. Ageing may, furthermore, make available new possibilities to redefine what constitutes ‘good’ sex and to refuse compulsory sexuality altogether, without encountering stigma

Recurrent fusions in PLAGL1 define a distinct subset of pediatric-type supratentorial neuroepithelial tumors

Ependymomas encompass a heterogeneous group of central nervous system (CNS) neoplasms that occur along the entire neuroaxis. In recent years, extensive (epi-)genomic profiling efforts have identified several molecular groups of ependymoma that are characterized by distinct molecular alterations and/or patterns. Based on unsupervised visualization of a large cohort of genome-wide DNA methylation data, we identified a highly distinct group of pediatric-type tumors (n = 40) forming a cluster separate from all established CNS tumor types, of which a high proportion were histopathologically diagnosed as ependymoma. RNA sequencing revealed recurrent fusions involving the pleomorphic adenoma gene-like 1 (PLAGL1) gene in 19 of 20 of the samples analyzed, with the most common fusion being EWSR1:PLAGL1 (n = 13). Five tumors showed a PLAGL1:FOXO1 fusion and one a PLAGL1:EP300 fusion. High transcript levels of PLAGL1 were noted in these tumors, with concurrent overexpression of the imprinted genes H19 and IGF2, which are regulated by PLAGL1. Histopathological review of cases with sufficient material (n = 16) demonstrated a broad morphological spectrum of tumors with predominant ependymoma-like features. Immunohistochemically, tumors were GFAP positive and OLIG2- and SOX10 negative. In 3/16 of the cases, a dot-like positivity for EMA was detected. All tumors in our series were located in the supratentorial compartment. Median age of the patients at the time of diagnosis was 6.2 years. Median progression-free survival was 35 months (for 11 patients with data available). In summary, our findings suggest the existence of a novel group of supratentorial neuroepithelial tumors that are characterized by recurrent PLAGL1 fusions and enriched for pediatric patients