An analysis and comparative study of the growth characteristics and nutritional value of Desmanthus (Desmanthus spp.) cultivars as a potential silage

Desmanthus (Desmanthus spp.) is a promising improved pasture legume for use across tropical, subtropical and possibly temperate Australia (Gardiner 2016). Since introduction there has been significant investment in the development of new cultivars (McLachlan 2021). Importantly, this includes the Progardes® range, which comprises a large number of newly developed cultivars including JCU 1 (D. leptophyllus), JCU 2 (D. virgatus), JCU 3 (D. virgatus), JCU 4 (D. bicornutus), JCU 5 (D. virgatus), JCU 6 (D. bicornutus), JCU 7 (D. leptophyllus), JCU 8 (D. virgatus) and JCU 9 (D. pernambucanus) (Gardiner 2016; McLachlan 2021). Being tolerable to the northern environment and more importantly heavier textured soils, Desmanthus cultivars can be used to redefine the opportunities for livestock grazing performance (Gardiner 2016). The objective of this study was to analyse and compare six cultivars of the leguminous plant Desmanthus in relation to the selected parameters of growth and development and nutritional quality for potential silage production. This entailed implementation of a greenhouse trial involving nelly bin plots at The University of Queensland Gatton Campus Nursery Facility

Galactic Extinction from Colors and Counts of Field Galaxies in WFPC2 Frames: An Application to GRB 970228

We develop the ``simulated extinction method'' to measure average foreground Galactic extinction from field galaxy number-counts and colors. The method comprises simulating extinction in suitable reference fields by changing the isophotal detection limit. This procedure takes into account selection effects, in particular, the change in isophotal detection limit (and hence in isophotal magnitude completeness limit) with extinction, and the galaxy color--magnitude relation. We present a first application of the method to the HST WFPC2 images of the gamma-ray burster GRB 970228. Four different WFPC2 high-latitude fields, including the HDF, are used as reference to measure the average extinction towards the GRB in the F606W passband. From the counts, we derive an average extinction of A_V = 0.5 mag, but the dispersion of 0.4 mag between the estimates from the different reference fields is significantly larger than can be accounted by Poisson plus clustering uncertainties. Although the counts differ, the average colors of the field galaxies agree well. The extinction implied by the average color difference between the GRB field and the reference galaxies is A_V = 0.6 mag, with a dispersion in the estimated extinction from the four reference fields of only 0.1 mag. All our estimates are in good agreement with the value of 0.81\pm0.27 mag obtained by Burstein & Heiles, and with the extinction of 0.78\pm0.12 measured by Schlegel et al. from maps of dust IR emission. However, the discrepancy between the widely varying counts and the very stable colors in these high-latitude fields is worth investigating.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures; submitted to the Astrophysical Journa

Performance of hybrid Napier cultivars CO-5 (Pennisetum glaucum × P. purpureum schumach) and Sampoorna (Pennisetum pedicillatum × P. americanum) harvested at five intervals during Yala season of the year

Low quality tropical forages are one of the main constraints for ruminant feeding in Sri Lanka leading to low animal productivity. As a solution to this, two hybrid Napier cultivars; CO-5 and Sampoorna were recently introduced and have been described as superior yielding to previous cultivars of CO-3 (Pennisetum perpureum × P. typhodium) and CO-4 (Pennisetum glaucum × P. purpureum). The objective of this study were to evaluate the yield and nutrient composition of the CO-5 and Sampoorna Napier cultivars grown under rain fed conditions during the Yala season (May to September)

Are three contact efforts really reflective of a repeated high-intensity effort bout?

The use of 3 or more efforts (running and contact), separated by short recovery periods, is widely used to define a 'repeated high-intensity effort' (RHIE) bout in rugby league. It has been suggested that due to fatigue, players become less effective after RHIE bouts; however, there is little evidence to support this. This study determined whether physical performance is reduced after performing 1, 2, or 3 efforts with minimal recovery. Twelve semiprofessional rugby league players (age: 24.5 ± 2.9 years) competed in 3 'off-side' small-sided games (2 × 10-minute halves) with a contact bout performed every 2 minutes. The rules of each game were identical except for the number of contact efforts performed in each bout. Players performed 1, 2, or 3 × 5-second wrestling bouts in the single-, double- and triple-contact game, respectively. Movement demands of each game were monitored using global positioning system units. From the first to the second half, there were trivial reductions in relative distance during the single-contact game (ES -0.13 ± 0.12), small reductions during the double-contact game (ES -0.47 ± 0.24), and moderate reductions during the triple-contact game (ES -0.74 ± 0.27). These data show that running intensity is progressively reduced as the number of contact efforts per bout is increased. Targeting defensive players and forcing them to perform 2 or more consecutive contact efforts is likely to lead to greater reductions in running intensity. Conditioning performing multiple contact efforts while maintaining running intensity should therefore be incorporated into training for contact team sports

Flight-based chemical characterization of biomass burning aerosols within two prescribed burn smoke plumes

Biomass burning represents a major global source of aerosols impacting direct radiative forcing and cloud properties. Thus, the goal of a number of current studies involves developing a better understanding of how the chemical composition and mixing state of biomass burning aerosols evolve during atmospheric aging processes. During the Ice in Clouds Experiment-Layer Clouds (ICE-L) in the fall of 2007, smoke plumes from two small Wyoming Bureau of Land Management prescribed burns were measured by on-line aerosol instrumentation aboard a C-130 aircraft, providing a detailed chemical characterization of the particles. After ~2–4 min of aging, submicron smoke particles, produced primarily from sagebrush combustion, consisted predominantly of organics by mass, but were comprised primarily of internal mixtures of organic carbon, elemental carbon, potassium chloride, and potassium sulfate. Significantly, the fresh biomass burning particles contained minor mass fractions of nitrate and sulfate, suggesting that hygroscopic material is incorporated very near or at the point of emission. The mass fractions of ammonium, sulfate, and nitrate increased with aging up to ~81–88 min and resulted in acidic particles. Decreasing black carbon mass concentrations occurred due to dilution of the plume. Increases in the fraction of oxygenated organic carbon and the presence of dicarboxylic acids, in particular, were observed with aging. Cloud condensation nuclei measurements suggested all particles >100 nm were active at 0.5% water supersaturation in the smoke plumes, confirming the relatively high hygroscopicity of the freshly emitted particles. For immersion/condensation freezing, ice nuclei measurements at −32 °C suggested activation of ~0.03–0.07% of the particles with diameters greater than 500 nm

Pre-emergence growth and development in the arctic midge Trichotanypus alaskensis Brundin

Developing at low mean temperatures, arctic chironomids often have prolonged larval growth yet adult emergence is typically a brief and highly synchronous event. How does a midge population achieve synchronous emergence? Under the Absolute Spring Species Hypothesis (AbSS), adult eclosion by early-emerging species may be synchronized by overwintering as fully mature larvae. Such prepupal larvae would neither feed nor grow after spring thaw, only pupate and emerge. The podonomine Trichotanypus alaskensis Brundin is an abundant midge in tundra ponds on Alaska’s Arctic Coastal Plain, and one of the earliest-emerging species in this chironomid-dominated insect community. T. alaskensis is univoltine in these arctic ponds, with most emergence from any one pond occurring within less than a one-week span during late June, typically about three weeks after pond thaw. We evaluated T. alaskensis for conformity to the AbSS model by documenting the overwintering state of this species in a tundra pond near Barrow, Alaska, then monitoring larval growth and development of the population from spring thaw to pupation. Most T. alaskensis were immature instar IV larvae when collected in late September of both 2010 and 2011, with 10-30% still in late instar III. Immediately after pond thaw in 2011, all collected larvae had imaginal disc primordia showing early stages of instar IV development. Within the first two weeks following pond thaw, most larvae had doubled their dry mass and developed into mature (prepupal) final-instar larvae. Highly synchronized emergence by T.  alaskensis is not a consequence of a population overwintering as fully-mature larvae, as per the Absolute Spring Species Hypothesis. Rather, larvae in a given tundra pond appear to develop synchronously throughout the life cycle, including a period of substantial growth and rapid prepupal development between spring thaw and early-summer emergence

Altered Anesthetic Sensitivity of Mice Lacking Ndufs4, a Subunit of Mitochondrial Complex I

RDP and AQ were supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). AQ was a recipient of MICINN postdoctoral mobility program fellowship from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. PGM and MMS were supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant GM58881. These studies were also supported in part by the Mitochondrial Research Guild. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Anesthetics are in routine use, yet the mechanisms underlying their function are incompletely understood. Studies in vitro demonstrate that both GABAA and NMDA receptors are modulated by anesthetics, but whole animal models have not supported the role of these receptors as sole effectors of general anesthesia. Findings in C. elegans and in children reveal that defects in mitochondrial complex I can cause hypersensitivity to volatile anesthetics. Here, we tested a knockout (KO) mouse with reduced complex I function due to inactivation of the Ndufs4 gene, which encodes one of the subunits of complex I. We tested these KO mice with two volatile and two non-volatile anesthetics. KO and wild-type (WT) mice were anesthetized with isoflurane, halothane, propofol or ketamine at post-natal (PN) days 23 to 27, and tested for loss of response to tail clamp (isoflurane and halothane) or loss of righting reflex (propofol and ketamine). KO mice were 2.5 - to 3- fold more sensitive to isoflurane and halothane than WT mice. KO mice were 2-fold more sensitive to propofol but resistant to ketamine. These changes in anesthetic sensitivity are the largest recorded in a mammal

Sensitivity curves for spaceborne gravitational wave interferometers

To determine whether particular sources of gravitational radiation will be detectable by a specific gravitational wave detector, it is necessary to know the sensitivity limits of the instrument. These instrumental sensitivities are often depicted (after averaging over source position and polarization) by graphing the minimal values of the gravitational wave amplitude detectable by the instrument versus the frequency of the gravitational wave. This paper describes in detail how to compute such a sensitivity curve given a set of specifications for a spaceborne laser interferometer gravitational wave observatory. Minor errors in the prior literature are corrected, and the first (mostly) analytic calculation of the gravitational wave transfer function is presented. Example sensitivity curve calculations are presented for the proposed LISA interferometer. We find that previous treatments of LISA have underestimated its sensitivity by a factor of $\sqrt{3}$.Comment: 27 pages + 5 figures, REVTeX, accepted for publication in Phys Rev D; Update reflects referees comments, figure 3 clarified, figure 5 corrected for LISA baselin