Deficit Irrigation of Kentucky Bluegrass for Intermountain West Urban Landscapes

Due to end users irrigating with excess water, water conservation of turfgrass can make a large impact in urban water conservation by reducing water applied while still maintaining visual appearance. This study was conducted to determine if Kentucky bluegrass (Poapratensis L.) can be deficit irrigated to maintain minimum acceptable appearance while conserving water. The study investigated water stress in terms of stomatal conductance, chlorophyll index, leaf temperature and predawn leaf water potential at the point of water stress, or where visual quality no longer meets expectations during dry down conditions. Water use was measured over well established Kentucky bluegrass with an eddy covariance system that was validated with soil water measurements. Turfgrass was irrigated at 80% of reference evapotranspiration based on allowable depletion of 12 mm of soil water during growing season that was considered to be well-watered. Two dry downs were conducted over a two-year period (early and late summer). Turfgrass was allowed to dry down without irrigation until visual quality reached the minimum acceptable points (score ≤ 6). During drying periods, visual rating, chlorophyll index, predawn leaf water potential, and leaf temperature with stomatal conductance rapidly decreased once stomatal conductance fell to approximately half of well-watered levels. Both soil water content and evapotranspiration had weak correlation with stomatal conductance; however, stomatal conductance tended to have higher correlation with the change in soil moisture than with the change in crop evapotranspiration. Soil water use and eddy covariance data in terms of crop evapotranspiration had high correlation. The plant water use factor ranged from around 0.8 to 1.1 under well-watered condition corresponding to visual rating from 7 to 9. At the minimum acceptable point of visual rating, which is 5.5 to 6, the plant factor ranged from 0.65 to 0.87. This value of plant factor is quite high at this point. Even when Kentucky bluegrass went below acceptable visual quality, the grass still used significant amounts of water with the plant factor value ranging from 0.6 to 0.8. The data suggested that deficit irrigation cannot be applied with Kentucky bluegrass in the Intermountain West area

Analyzing financial factors to improve production and business efficiency

In order to complete this paper, the authors would like to thank Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel Joint Stock Company for their support in discussing and providing necessary information related to the article, thank SHB Commercial Joint Stock Bank for supporting the review of the paper and financial results for the authors in the research process. The authors also thank the Faculty of Economic Information Systems, Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology.Purpose: The paper’s aim is to analyze the business and production activities of an enterprise on researching and analyzing financial situation and factors affecting financial indices. On this basis, the article gives a panoramic view of the current financial situation and offers effective solutions to manage finances. Design/Methodology/Approach: In this article we have conducted a survey and analyzed the reality of the financial situation of TISCO in the period of 2016-2018. On that basis, the authors proposed an effective financial management solution for TISCO. Findings: On the basis of analyzing the advantages of an enterprise financial factor analysis methods the paper took advantage of the strengths of the existing method combined with testing analysis, descriptive statistics and charts to assess the current situation and give general and specific overview of the financial situation of large Vietnamese enterprises such as TISCO. The paper suggests a solution for the corporate restructuring of TISCO. Practical implications: Based on the methods of financial factor analysis combined with descriptive statistical analysis the article has been applied to analyze and assess the actual financial situation in large enterprises in Vietnam and make recommendations on corporate financial management to help businesses operate more effectively. Originality/Value: The authors have conducted research and applied the analysis of the financial reality of a large enterprise that is now in a period of great loss. This article gives an accurate, honest and objective assessment of the reality of TISCO making effective recommendations on corporate financial management.peer-reviewe

Energy forward price prediction with a hybrid adaptive model

This paper presents a forecasting technique for forward electricity/gas prices, one day ahead. This technique combines a Kalman filter (KF) and a generalised autoregressive conditional heteroschedasticity (GARCH) model (often used in financial forecasting). The GARCH model is used to compute next value of a time series. The KF updates parameters of the GARCH model when the new observation is available. This technique is applied to real data from the UK energy markets to evaluate its performance. The results show that the forecasting accuracy is improved significantly by using this hybrid model. The methodology can be also applied to forecasting market clearing prices and electricity/gas loads

Combining the wavelet transform and forecasting models to predict gas forward prices

This paper presents a forecasting technique for forward energy prices, one day ahead. This technique combines a wavelet transform and forecasting models such as multi- layer perceptron, linear regression or GARCH. These techniques are applied to real data from the UK gas markets to evaluate their performance. The results show that the forecasting accuracy is improved significantly by using the wavelet transform. The methodology can be also applied to forecasting market clearing prices and electricity/gas loads

Cyanine Dyes Targeting G-quadruplex DNA: Significance in Sequence and Conformation Selectivity

Small molecules interacting with DNA is an emerging theme in scientific research due to its specificity and minimal side-effect. Moreover, a large amount of research has been done on finding compounds that can stabilize G-quadruplex DNA, a non-canonical secondary DNA structure, to inhibit cancerous cell proliferation. G-quadruplex DNA is found in the guanine-rich region of the chromosome that has an important role in protecting chromosomes from unwinding, participate in gene expression, contribute in the control replication of cells and more. In this research, rationally designed, synthetic cyanine dye derivatives, which were tested under physiologically relevant conditions, were found to selectively bind to G-quadruplex over duplex DNA and are favored to one structure over another. The interactions were observed using UV-Vis thermal melting, fluorescence titration, circular dichroism titration, and surface plasmon resonance analysis. For fluorescence and selectivity properties, cyanine dyes, therefore, have the potential to become the detections and/or therapeutic drugs to target cancers and many other fatal diseases

Photocleavable Linker for Protein Affinity Labeling to Identify the Binding Target of KCN-1

KCN-1 is known to reduce tumor growth 6-fold in mice implanted with LN229 glioma cells. Although this inhibitor is effective, the mechanism of action for KCN-1 is not well understood. Based on preliminary studies, KCN-1 reduces tumor growth by disrupting the HIF 1 (hypoxia-induced factor-1) pathway. The binding target of KCN-1 needs to be investigated in order to develop KCN-1 or its analogs for therapeutic applications. In this research, a molecule was designed and synthesized for the identification of the binding target of KCN-1. Specifically, this molecule contains the inhibitor (KCN-1), a photocleavable linker, beads, and the affinity label (L DOPA). When UV light shines on the linker, the trans-alkene isomerizes to cis-alkene and undergoes intramolecular ring-closing reaction, which helps cleave the immobilized bead from the linker. The immobilized bead is used to separate the binding fragment attached to the photocleavable linker from the solution after enzyme digestion. The affinity label (L-DOPA) reacts with a nucleophile from the binding target and creates a covalent bond. If the design is successful, this method is able to analyze the mass of the peptide sequence and determine the binding target of KCN-1

Fast kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of strained heteroepitaxy in three dimensions

Accelerated algorithms for simulating the morphological evolution of strained heteroeptiaxy based on a ball and spring lattice model in three dimensions are explained. We derive exact Green's function formalisms for boundary values in the associated lattice elasticity problems. The computational efficiency is further enhanced by using a superparticle surface coarsening approximation. Atomic hoppings simulating surface diffusion are sampled using a multi-step acceptance-rejection algorithm. It utilizes quick estimates of the atomic elastic energies from extensively tabulated values modulated by the local strain. A parameter controls the compromise between accuracy and efficiency of the acceptance-rejection algorithm.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Proceedings of Barrett Lectures 2007, Journal of Scientific Computin

Orientation of particle attachment and local isotropy in diffusion limited aggregation (DLA)

We simulate 50 off-lattice DLA clusters, one million particles each. The probability distribution of the angle of attachment of arriving particles with respect to the local radial direction is obtained numerically. For increasing cluster size, $N$, the distribution crosses over extremely accurately to a cosine, whose amplitude decreases towards zero as a power-law in $N$. From this viewpoint, asymptotically large DLA clusters are locally $isotropic$. This contradicts previous conclusions drawn from density-density correlation measurements [P. Meakin, and T. Viscek, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 32}, 685 (1985)]. We present an intuitive phenomenological model random process for our numerical findings.Comment: 10 pages, RevTex 3.0, 11-9

LGB Cancer Survivors are More Likely to Participate in Risky Behaviors than Straight Cancer Survivors, United States, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2014

Cancer registries do not collect sexual orientation in their records, leading to limited information about LGB cancer survivorship. Studies have shown that both the LGB population and the population of cancer survivors participate in risky behaviors (i.e. smoking, drinking, and being overweight/obese; sleep inadequacy among cancer survivors), but information about LGB cancer survivors is limited. 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data was used to determine if LGB cancer survivors were more likely to participate in risky behaviors than straight cancer survivors. LGB survivors were more likely to drink at least one alcoholic beverage within the past 30 days (AOR: 1.99, 95% CI: 1.44-2.75), to report being an ever smoker (AOR: 1.59, 95% CI: 1.12-2.25), and to binge drink (AOR: 1.99, 95% CI: 1.21-3.28) than straight cancer survivors. There is a strong association between sexual orientation among cancer survivors and risky behaviors. The findings of this study concludes that risky behaviors may be detrimental to the health and survivorship of LGB cancer survivors and further research is needed to determine the association between LGB cancer survivorship, being an adolescent and young adult (AYA), and risky behavior

Planning Routes Across Economic Terrains: Maximizing Utility, Following Heuristics

We designed an economic task to investigate human planning of routes in landscapes where travel in different kinds of terrain incurs different costs. Participants moved their finger across a touch screen from a starting point to a destination. The screen was divided into distinct kinds of terrain and travel within each kind of terrain imposed a cost proportional to distance traveled. We varied costs and spatial configurations of terrains and participants received fixed bonuses minus the total cost of the routes they chose. We first compared performance to a model maximizing gain. All but one of 12 participants failed to adopt least-cost routes and their failure to do so reduced their winnings by about 30% (median value). We tested in detail whether participants’ choices of routes satisfied three necessary conditions (heuristics) for a route to maximize gain. We report failures of one heuristic for 7 out of 12 participants. Last of all, we modeled human performance with the assumption that participants assign subjective utilities to costs and maximize utility. For 7 out 12 participants, the fitted utility function was an accelerating power function of actual cost and for the remaining 5, a decelerating power function. We discuss connections between utility aggregation in route planning and decision under risk. Our task could be adapted to investigate human strategy and optimality of route planning in full-scale landscapes