The lichen genus Chiodecton in Tasmania

Three species of Chiodecton occur in Tasmania: C. colensoi, the endemic C. flavovirens, and C. montanum which is reported here from Australia for the first time. It was known previously from two localities in New Zealand. A key to these three Tasmanian species is provided, together with notes on their ecology and distribution

Using Computer Vision to Build a Predictive Model of Fruit Shelf-life

Computer vision is becoming a ubiquitous technology in many industries on account of its speed, accuracy, and long-term cost efficacy. The ability of a computer vision system to quickly and efficiently make quality decisions has made computer vision a popular technology on inspection lines. However, few companies in the agriculture industry use computer vision because of the non-uniformity of sellable produce. The small number of agriculture companies that do utilize computer vision use it to extract features for size sorting or for a binary grading system: if the piece of fruit has a certain color, certain shape, and certain size, then it passes and is sold. If any of the above criteria are not met, then the fruit is discarded. This is a highly wasteful and relatively subjective process. This thesis proposes a process to undergo to use computer vision techniques to extract features of fruit and build a model to predict shelf-life based on the extracted features. Fundamentally, the existing agricultural processes that do use computer vision base their distribution decisions on current produce characteristics. The process proposed in this thesis uses current characteristics to predict future characteristics, which leads to more informed distribution decisions. By modeling future characteristics, the process proposed will allow fruit characterized as “unfit to sell” by existing standards to still be utilized (i.e. if the fruit is too ripe to ship across the country, it can still be sold locally) which decreases food waste and increases profit. The process described also removes the subjectivity present in current fruit grading systems. Further, better informed distribution decisions will save money in storage costs and excess inventory. The proposed process consists of discrete steps to follow. The first step is to choose a fruit of interest to model. Then, the first of two experiments is performed. Sugar content of a large sample of fruit are destructively measured (using a refractometer) to correlate sugar content to a color range. This step is necessary to determine the end-point of data collection because stages of ripeness are fundamentally subjective. The literature is consulted to determine “ripe” sugar content of the fruit and the first experiment is undertaken to correlate a color range that corresponds to the “ripe” sugar content. This feature range serves as the end-point of the second experiment. The second experiment is large-scale data collection of the fruit of interest, with features being recorded every day, until the fruit reaches end-of-life as determined by the first experiment. Then, computer vision is used to perform feature extraction and features are recorded over each sample fruit’s lifetime. The recorded data is then analyzed with regression and other techniques to build a model of the fruit’s shelf-life. The model is finally validated. This thesis uses bananas as a proof of concept of the proposed process

Letter from Beach Police Magistrate Thor G. Plomasen to William Langer Regarding the Ole Skrukrud Case, December 18, 1919.

Letter dated December 18, 1919 from Beach Police Magistrate Thor G. Plomasen to William Langer regarding the Ole Skrukrud Case. Plomasen gives an overview of the case, call it a whiskey case in which Skrukrud was arrested for offering to sell liquor. Plomasen notes that the court date has been moved several times due to the non-appearance of both parties. Plomasen argues that the defendant should either have his hearing or it should be dismissed if there is no evidence, so as to stop wasting money prolonging the case. A handwritten note at the bottom of the letter states that Mr. Skrukrud was admitted to bail of $2,000.https://commons.und.edu/langer-papers/1257/thumbnail.jp

Developing Plasmodium falciparum malaria vaccines for populations living in areas with stable parasite transmission

Individuals living in areas with stable transmission of Plasmodium falciparum parasites develop substantial protective immunity to the disease during childhood. Because of naturally acquired immunity, which appears mainly to target parasite-encoded Variable Surface Antigens (VSA) on the Infected Erythrocytes (IE), severe and life-threatening disease among adults in such areas is rare. However, low-grade asymptomatic parasitaemia continues to be present in a large proportion of people. So far, experimental P. falciparum malaria vaccination employing non-VSA antigens have resulted in variable degrees of protection, including sterile protection, but the duration of the protection afforded is short-lived, probably due to insufficient boosting. Based on these findings, our approach to vaccine development is to accelerate naturally acquired VSA-specific immunity. The ambition is to develop vaccines that will protect against mortality and severe morbidity, but which allow persistence of low-grade, asymptomatic infection. Hopefully, this approach will ensure regular boosting of immunity that appears necessary for the long-lasting protection required of vaccines to be deployed in malaria-endemic areas

The Boson peak in supercooled water

We perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations of the TIP4P/2005 model of water to investigate the origin of the Boson peak reported in experiments on supercooled water in nanoconfined pores and in hydration water around proteins. We find that the onset of the Boson peak in supercooled bulk water coincides with the crossover to a predominantly low-density-like liquid below the Widom line TW. The frequency and onset temperature of the Boson peak in our simulations of bulk water agree well with the results from experiments on nanoconfined water. Our results suggest that the Boson peak in water is not an exclusive effect of confinement. We further find that, similar to other glass-forming liquids, the vibrational modes corresponding to the Boson peak are spatially extended and are related to transverse phonons found in the parent crystal, here ice Ih.We thank S. V. Buldyrev and S. Sastry for helpful discussions. The simulations were in part performed using resources provided by the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at the NSC and HPC2N centers. LGMP, KTW and DS were supported by the Swedish Research Council. KTW is also supported by the Icelandic Research Fund through the START programme. PK acknowledges the support of National Academies Keck Future Initiatives award. HES thanks NSF Grants No. CHE0911389, No. CHE0908218, and No. CHE-1213217. (Swedish Research Council; Icelandic Research Fund through the START programme; National Academies Keck Future Initiatives award; CHE0911389 - NSF; CHE0908218 - NSF; CHE-1213217 - NSF)Published versio

The Boson peak in supercooled water

We perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations of the TIP4P/2005 model of water to investigate the origin of the Boson peak reported in experiments on supercooled water in nanoconfined pores, and in hydration water around proteins. We find that the onset of the Boson peak in supercooled bulk water coincides with the crossover to a predominantly low-density-like liquid below the Widom line $T_W$. The frequency and onset temperature of the Boson peak in our simulations of bulk water agree well with the results from experiments on nanoconfined water. Our results suggest that the Boson peak in water is not an exclusive effect of confinement. We further find that, similar to other glass-forming liquids, the vibrational modes corresponding to the Boson peak are spatially extended and are related to transverse phonons found in the parent crystal, here ice Ih.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figure

Micro and macro evidence of the relationship between income mobility and taxation

How taxation influences income mobility is largely a neglected topic. In this study we discuss the relationship between taxation and income mobility by analyzing both macro and micro data. Administrative register data based on income tax returns are used to produce individual and aggregate measures of income mobility from 1994 to 2021. Income mobility is explained in terms of marginal tax rates on both wage income and capital income. Estimation results are obtained from an autoregressive distributed lag model and a fixed effects linear probability model for the macro and micro data approaches, respectively. The macro and micro evidence point in the same direction — we find that income mobility is negatively influenced by higher marginal tax rates on both earnings and capital income, with the largest effect found for tax on capital income