Trace Element Partitioning in ‘Sibera’ Grapevines as Affected by Nitrogen Fertilisation

A study on grapevine cv. Sibera was carried out in a vineyard located near Kraków (Poland) in 2010 and2011. The plants were treated with three nitrogen application rates (0, 50 and 100 kg N ha-1), administeredas ammonium nitrate in a single application three weeks before flowering. Samples of leaf petioles andblades, as well as grapes, were taken. After wet microwave digestion in HNO3, the nutrient elements boron(B), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo) and sodium (Na), and thetrace elements aluminium (Al), barium (Ba), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), lithium (Li), nickel (Ni),lead (Pb), strontium (Sr), titanium (Ti) and vanadium (V), were measured using the ICP-OES technique.Environmental factors such as temperature and available water had a significant effect on the nutrientconcentration in the grapes. In the wet and warm 2010 vintage, higher amounts of B, Cu, Cd, Ti and Vwere measured in the leaves, and of Mn, Al, Ba and Ti in the grape juice. The dry season of 2011 increasedthe leaf Fe, Mn, Zn, Mo, Na, Ba, Cr, Li and Ni content, which was associated with a higher Zn, Mo, Na,Sr, Cd and Ni concentration in the grape must. The study showed that, in slightly acid soils, mineral Nfertilisers containing ammonium can augment the uptake and accumulation of microelements such asFe, Mn, Zn, Al and Ti by the grape must. In contrast, nitrogen fertilisation depressed the concentrationsof some elements, such as B, Fe, Mn, Cd, Cr, Ni and Ti in the leaves. Correlations between the mineralcontent of the analysed plant tissues are also discussed

Prompt Generation Networks for Input-based Adaptation of Frozen Vision Transformers

With the introduction of the transformer architecture in computer vision, increasing model scale has been demonstrated as a clear path to achieving performance and robustness gains. However, with model parameter counts reaching the billions, classical finetuning approaches are becoming increasingly limiting and even unfeasible when models become hosted as inference APIs, as in NLP. To this end, visual prompt learning, whereby a model is adapted by learning additional inputs, has emerged as a potential solution for adapting frozen and cloud-hosted models: During inference, this neither requires access to the internals of models' forward pass function, nor requires any post-processing. In this work, we propose the Prompt Generation Network (PGN) that generates high performing, input-dependent prompts by sampling from an end-to-end learned library of tokens. We further introduce the "prompt inversion" trick, with which PGNs can be efficiently trained in a latent space but deployed as strictly input-only prompts for inference. We show the PGN is effective in adapting pre-trained models to various new datasets: It surpasses previous methods by a large margin on 12/12 datasets and even outperforms full-finetuning on 5/12, while requiring 100x less parameters.Comment: Tech report, 12 pages. Code: https://github.com/jochemloedeman/PG

Wine of Cool-climate Areas in South Poland

A number of new vinery production regions, especially in the southern parts of Poland, have appearedin the last ten-odd years. This study was aimed at completing the chemical characterisation of wineproduced from ten Polish grape cultivars planted near Krakow. The wine was analysed to determineorganic acid concentrations, total polyphenols and extract content, antioxidant activity, alcohol content,total acidity and pH. Moreover, a sensory analysis was performed on the wine. Significant differenceswere recorded between red and white wine. The total acidity expressed as tartaric acid, and tartaric andmalic acid concentrations, were significantly higher in white and red wines, whereas antioxidant activityand phenolic content were significantly higher in the red wines. Similarities and relationships betweenvarious parameters and specific wine brands were further examined with cluster analysis. Our resultsshow that, under Polish climatic conditions, it is possible to produce wine with quality comparable towine from established wine denomination regions. Selected wine brands showed high antioxidantactivity (FRAP – ferric reducing antioxidant power) and a high level of polyphenols. This study alsoprovides confirmation that wines from colder climates frequently reveal unique and desirable properties

The Pneumococcal Serine-Rich Repeat Protein Is an Intra-Species Bacterial Adhesin That Promotes Bacterial Aggregation In Vivo and in Biofilms

The Pneumococcal serine-rich repeat protein (PsrP) is a pathogenicity island encoded adhesin that has been positively correlated with the ability of Streptococcus pneumoniae to cause invasive disease. Previous studies have shown that PsrP mediates bacterial attachment to Keratin 10 (K10) on the surface of lung cells through amino acids 273-341 located in the Basic Region (BR) domain. In this study we determined that the BR domain of PsrP also mediates an intra-species interaction that promotes the formation of large bacterial aggregates in the nasopharynx and lungs of infected mice as well as in continuous flow-through models of mature biofilms. Using numerous methods, including complementation of mutants with BR domain deficient constructs, fluorescent microscopy with Cy3-labeled recombinant (r) BR, Far Western blotting of bacterial lysates, co-immunoprecipitation with rBR, and growth of biofilms in the presence of antibodies and competitive peptides, we determined that the BR domain, in particular amino acids 122-166 of PsrP, promoted bacterial aggregation and that antibodies against the BR domain were neutralizing. Using similar methodologies, we also determined that SraP and GspB, the Serine-rich repeat proteins (SRRPs) of Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus gordonii, respectively, also promoted bacterial aggregation and that their Non-repeat domains bound to their respective SRRPs. This is the first report to show the presence of biofilm-like structures in the lungs of animals infected with S. pneumoniae and show that SRRPs have dual roles as host and bacterial adhesins. These studies suggest that recombinant Non-repeat domains of SRRPs (i.e. BR for S. pneumoniae) may be useful as vaccine antigens to protect against Gram-positive bacteria that cause infection

In search of the origins and enduring impact of agile software development

The Agile Manifesto is a philosophical touchpoint for all agile software development (ASD) methods. We examine the manifesto and some of its associated agile methods in an effort to identify the major impacts of ASD. We have encountered some difficulty in delineating agile and non-agile software processes, which is partially the result of terminological confusion. It is clear from the volume of published research that ASD has made a significant contribution, and we have identified two lasting and important impacts. Firstly, the reduction in iteration durations and secondly, the push for reduced levels of documentation (especially in relation to software requirements). Other aspects of the Agile Manifesto may not have exerted a significant impact; for example, the use of tooling to automate processes has become central to continuous software engineering (CSE) and may not be wholly congruent with the manifesto. Furthermore, many organisations may still rely on business contracts despite calls in the manifesto for greater levels of informal customer collaboration

Biomass and floristic patterns in the ground layer vegetation of box-gum grassy eucalypt woodland in Goorooyarroo and Mulligans Flat Nature Reserves, Australian Capital Territory

We establish a methodology and present baseline data for a long-term grassy woodland restoration study that commenced in 2007 in two nature reserves (Mulligans Flat, Goorooyarroo (35° 9–13’ S; 149° 9–12’ E)) totalling 1386 ha on the northern boundary of Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory in south eastern Australia. The experimental infrastructure comprises 96 × 1 ha sites established in Eucalyptus blakelyi / Eucalyptus melliodora dominated woodland. These are being subjected to varying kangaroo grazing pressure and augmentation with logs, while burning treatments are planned. One reserve (Mulligans Flat) has been fenced for feral predator control and contains half the sites, forming a companion experiment to Goorooyarroo. Our baseline floristic study comprised estimates, at the site level, of ground layer biomass, species biomass, ground cover types and soil (0–10 cm) properties. From these data we conclude that the groundlayer vegetation is dominated by Joycea pallida, Austrodanthonia spp., Themeda australis and Aristida ramosa. These grasses varied in abundance according to differences in soil pH, phosphorus and to a lesser extent nitrates. Forb frequencies were highly sensitive to nitrate levels with annual exotic forbs dominating at high nitrate sites. More generally, soil nutrient levels and exotic species in some sites indicated areas of previous pasture improvement activities. Biomass estimates indicated extremely high grazing pressure, sufficient to negatively affect the habitat quality for ground-dependent fauna and some soil processes. These data will provide an important basis for examining rates of ecosystem recovery under different restoration strategies

The changing landscape of genetic testing and its impact on clinical and laboratory services and research in Europe

The arrival of new genetic technologies that allow efficient examination of the whole human genome (microarray, next-generation sequencing) will impact upon both laboratories (cytogenetic and molecular genetics in the first instance) and clinical/medical genetic services. The interpretation of analytical results in terms of their clinical relevance and the predicted health status poses a challenge to both laboratory and clinical geneticists, due to the wealth and complexity of the information obtained. There is a need to discuss how to best restructure the genetic services logistically and to determine the clinical utility of genetic testing so that patients can receive appropriate advice and genetic testing. To weigh up the questions and challenges of the new genetic technologies, the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG) held a series of workshops on 10 June 2010 in Gothenburg. This was part of an ESHG satellite symposium on the 'Changing landscape of genetic testing', co-organized by the ESHG Genetic Services Quality and Public and Professional Policy Committees. The audience consisted of a mix of geneticists, ethicists, social scientists and lawyers. In this paper, we summarize the discussions during the workshops and present some of the identified ways forward to improve and adapt the genetic services so that patients receive accurate and relevant information. This paper covers ethics, clinical utility, primary care, genetic services and the blurring boundaries between healthcare and research