EC96-1768 Windbreak Management

The windbreaks on your farm are an important part of the agricultural landscape. They provide protection for the farmstead, livestock, and crops; provide habitat for wildlife; and contribute to an overall healthy environment for you and your family. They are living systems with youth, maturity, and old age. Like any other living thing they need proper care and management in order to continue to function at their best. Windbreak management requires an understanding of how your windbreak works. Your goal is to maintain the health and vigor of individual trees and shrubs while maintaining the overall structure of the windbreak as an effective wind barrier. To accomplish this goal, practices such as weed control, protection from large animals and rodents, corrective pruning, insect and disease control, and proper chemical use in nearby fields and farmstead areas need to be included in your management plan. With proper care, a windbreak will serve a long life of protection while providing wildlife habitat and adding beauty to the landscape

EC96-1768 Windbreak Management

The windbreaks on your farm are an important part of the agricultural landscape. They provide protection for the farmstead, livestock, and crops; provide habitat for wildlife; and contribute to an overall healthy environment for you and your family. They are living systems with youth, maturity, and old age. Like any other living thing they need proper care and management in order to continue to function at their best. Windbreak management requires an understanding of how your windbreak works. Your goal is to maintain the health and vigor of individual trees and shrubs while maintaining the overall structure of the windbreak as an effective wind barrier. To accomplish this goal, practices such as weed control, protection from large animals and rodents, corrective pruning, insect and disease control, and proper chemical use in nearby fields and farmstead areas need to be included in your management plan. With proper care, a windbreak will serve a long life of protection while providing wildlife habitat and adding beauty to the landscape

Silicea Gastrointestinal Gel Improves Gastrointestinal Disorders: A Non-Controlled, Pilot Clinical Study

Aim. To investigate efficacy and tolerability of Silicea Gastrointestinal Gel in patients with gastrointestinal disorders. Methods. Open, prospective pivotal phase IV study with oral Silicea Gastrointestinal Gel over 6 weeks. Symptom score was part 1 of the Nepean Dyspepsia Index: 15 questions addressing intensity, frequency and impact of upper abdominal symptoms. 10 lower abdominal symptoms were asked analogously. A responder showed reduction of score of >50%. Results. 62 of 90 patients were evaluated per protocol. Upper and lower abdomen sum scores decreased already in the first three weeks (P < 0.001), which continued the following three weeks (P < 0.01). Mean symptom score for upper abdomen decreased from 52.2 ± 31.0 to 33.7 ± 28.7 (or by 35.4%; responder rate 37%); for lower from 39.6 ± 24.7 to 22.6 ± 21.7 (by 42.9%; responder rate 46%). Subgroups with diarrhea, IBS and GERD presented highest responder rates. 6% of patients reported adverse reactions with probable or possible relationship to the test product. Conclusions. Silicea Gastrointestinal Gel seems suitable beyond infectious acute gastrointestinal disorders. Responses are relevant for chronic functional disorders, but it remains unclear, how much of that might be placebo-effect. Controlled studies are recommended in gastrointestinal syndromes like IBS or GERD

ESTIMATIVA do Fator de Perfil k na Medição Ultrassônica Por Tempo de Trânsito em Escoamentos Assimétricos Utilizando a Técnica de Problemas Inversos Acoplada a Simulação Numérica

A medic¸ao de vazao ´e uma importante opera¸cao no escopo das aplica¸coes industriais, sendo regulamentado por diversos ´orgaos reguladores. Para satisfazer tais exigencias, a tecnologia por medi¸cao ultrassonica tem passado por grande evolu¸cao nos u´ltimos anos, muito em func¸ao de sua caracter´&#305;stica de baixa perda de carga associada, devido `a sua con&#64257;gura¸cao. Contudo, acidentes de linha causam interferencia em suas leituras, devido a altera¸coes no per&#64257;l de velocidades do escoamento. Novas pesquisas e modelos sao apresentados de forma a entender e considerar tais perturba¸coes, e adaptar as condi¸coes das instala¸coes industriais. De modo a agregar novos esfor¸cos, o presente trabalho apresenta uma aproxima¸cao do fator de per&#64257;l k atrav´es de t´ecnicas de problemas inversos. Essa abordagem busca quanti&#64257;car as altera¸coes no per&#64257;l de velocidade e considerar tais efeitos no fator k. Neste trabalho foram abordadas simulac¸oes de escoamentos com Nu´mero de Reynolds entre 1&#8677;104 a2&#8677;106 sob in&#64258;uencia de curvas. Aproxima¸coes foram feitas com simula¸coes a 10D, 20D e 80D a` jusante da curva. Os resultados encontrados mostram-se promissores, sendo que, as diferen¸cas entre as simulac¸oes obtidas atrav´es da presente proposta para o fator k e os valores de vazao de referencia, &#64257;caram abaixo de 2% na maioria dos casos simulados. Palavras-chave: Medidor de vazao ultrassonico, canal acu´stico, escoamentos turbulentos, problema inverso, Levemberg-Marquardt

Virtualization Infrastructure within the Controls Environment of the Light Sources at HZB

The advantages of visualization techniques and infrastructures with respect to configuration management, high availability and resource management have become obvious also for controls applications. Today a choice of powerful products are easy to use and support desirable functionality, performance, usability and maintainability at very matured levels. This paper presents the architecture of the virtual infrastructure and its relations to the hardware based counterpart as it has emerged for BESSY II and MLS controls within the past decade. Successful experiences as well as abandoned attempts and caveats on some intricate troubles are summarize

Bypassing the structural bottleneck in the ultrafast melting of electronic order

The emergent properties of quantum materials, such as symmetry-broken phases and associated spectral gaps, can be effectively manipulated by ultrashort photon pulses. Impulsive optical excitation generally results in a complex non-equilibrium electron and lattice dynamics that involves multiple processes on distinct timescales, and a common conception is that for times shorter than about 100 fs the gap in the electronic spectrum is not seriously affected by lattice vibrations. Here, we directly monitor the photo-induced collapse of the spectral gap in a canonical charge-density-wave material, blue bronze Rb0.3MoO3. We find that ultra-fast (about 60 fs) vibrational disordering due to efficient hot-electron energy dissipation quenches the gap significantly faster than the typical structural bottleneck time corresponding to one half-cycle oscillation (about 315 fs) of the coherent charge-density-wave amplitude mode. This result not only demonstrates the importance of incoherent lattice motion in the photo-induced quenching of electronic order, but also resolves the perennial debate about the nature of the spectral gap in a coupled electron-lattice system

Effectiveness of Home-Based Cupping Massage Compared to Progressive Muscle Relaxation in Patients with Chronic Neck Pain-A Randomized Controlled Trial

Chronic neck pain is a major public health problem with very few evidence-based complementary treatment options. This study aimed to test the efficacy of 12 weeks of a partner-delivered home-based cupping massage, compared to the same period of progressive muscle relaxation in patients with chronic non-specific neck pain. Patients were randomly assigned to self-directed cupping massage or progressive muscle relaxation. They were trained and asked to undertake the assigned treatment twice weekly for 12 weeks. Primary outcome measure was the current neck pain intensity (0-100 mm visual analog scale; VAS) after 12 weeks. Secondary outcome measures included pain on motion, affective pain perception, functional disability, psychological distress, wellbeing, health-related quality of life, pressure pain thresholds and adverse events. Sixty one patients (54.1±12.7 years; 73.8%female) were randomized to cupping massage (n = 30) or progressive muscle relaxation (n = 31). After treatment, both groups showed significantly less pain compared to baseline however without significant group differences. Significant effects in favor of cupping massage were only found for wellbeing and pressure pain thresholds. In conclusion, cupping massage is no more effective than progressive muscle relaxation in reducing chronic non-specific neck pain. Both therapies can be easily used at home and can reduce pain to a minimal clinically relevant extent. Cupping massage may however be better than PMR in improving well-being and decreasing pressure pain sensitivity but more studies with larger samples and longer follow-up periods are needed to confirm these results.Trial Registration:ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01500330. © 2013 Lauche et al

SPIN-MIMS simplifying the SPIN-MAS instrumentation for online measurement of 15N-abundances of ammonium, nitrite and nitrate in aqueous solutions

Common methods for measuring selectively the 15N abundances in individual N-species such as NH4+, NO2- and NO3- in samples with multiple N-species are laborious and time consuming. The SPIN-MAS technique (Stange et al. 2007) offers an automated, rapid and selective determination of 15N abundances in NH4+, NO2- and NO3- in aqueous samples. During a SPIN-MAS measurement one of three different reaction solutions is mixed with the aqueous sample in a Sample Preparation unit for Inorganic N-species (SPIN). The reaction solution is chosen in dependence on the N-species of interest. The gaseous reaction products (N2 or NO) are then conducted to a quadrupole mass spectrometer (MAS) in a helium stream. This measurement technique is not commonly used due to its complex instrumentation. The instrumentation can be significantly simplified by the use of a membrane inlet mass spectrometer (MIMS). The presented SPIN-MIMS approach relies on the use of a reaction capillary in which the sample containing the N-species of interest is mixed with the corresponding reaction solution. The mixture of reaction solution and sample is pumped from the reaction capillary directly to the membrane inlet of the mass spectrometer. The reaction products (N2 or NO) formed during the reaction of NH4+, NO2- and NO3- with the reaction solutions are passed through the gas-permeable membrane of the inlet directly into the ion source of the mass spectrometer. 15N standards with different at% 15N (NH4+, NO2- and NO3- respectively in dist. Water) were used to assess the performance of the system. Overall, SPIN-MIMS measurements showed a good agreement between measured and expected 15N abundances (range 0.36 – 10 at% 15N deviations: &lt;0.5 at% 15N for NH4+-, &lt;0.23 for NO2-- and &lt;0.15 at% 15N for NO3-- standards)

Complex thermorheology of living cells

Temperature has a reliable and nearly instantaneous influence onmechanical responses of cells.As recently published, MCF-10Anormal epithelial breast cells follow the time–temperature superposition (TTS) principle. Here,wemeasured thermorheological behaviour of eightcommoncell types within physiologically relevant temperatures and appliedTTS to creep compliance curves.Our results showed that superposition is not universal and was seen in four of the eight investigated cell types. For the other cell types, transitions of thermorheological responses were observed at 36 °C.Activation energies (EA)were calculated for all cell types and ranged between 50 and 150 kJmol−1.The scaling factors of the superposition of creep curves were used to group the cell lines into three categories. They were dependent on relaxation processes aswell as structural composition of the cells in response tomechanical load and temperature increase.This study supports the view that temperature is a vital parameter for comparing cell rheological data and should be precisely controlledwhen designing experiments