Registration of ‘Rasmusson’ barley

‘Rasmusson’ (Reg. No. CV-345, PI 658495) is a spring, six-rowed, malting barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) released by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station in January 2008. It was named after Donald Rasmusson, who worked as a barley breeder at the University of Minnesota from 1958 to 2000. Rasmusson has the pedigree M95/‘Lacey’ and is the product of advanced cycle breeding derived from crosses among elite breeding lines within the University of Minnesota breeding program. Rasmusson was released based on its superior yield performance across the Upper Midwest of the United States and surrounding regions in Canada and favorable malting quality, in particular, high malt extract. Rasmusson is resistant to spot blotch [caused by Cochliobolus sativus (Ito and Kuribayashi) Drechs. ex Dastur] and the prevalent races of stem rust (caused by Puccinia graminis Pers.: Pers. f. sp. tritici Erikss. & E. Henn)

Registration of ‘Quest’ spring malting barley with improved resistance to Fusarium head blight

‘Quest’ (Reg No. CV-348, PI 663183) is a spring, six-rowed, malting barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) released by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station in January 2010 on the basis of its improved resistance to Fusarium head blight [FHB; caused by Fusarium graminearum Schwabe; teleomorph Gibberella zeae (Schwein) Petch]. Quest was developed over three breeding cycles of selection for yield, malting quality, and FHB resistance. Disease resistance traces to the Midwest cultivar MNBrite and the two-rowed accession from China Zhedar1. Quest has about half the level of disease and about 40% less of the associated mycotoxin, deoxynivalenol, compared to the historically important cultivar in the region ‘Robust’. Quest is similar in yield to the current dominant varieties in the region and was approved as a malting variety by the American Malting Barley Association

Citizen Science 2.0 : Data Management Principles to Harness the Power of the Crowd

Citizen science refers to voluntary participation by the general public in scientific endeavors. Although citizen science has a long tradition, the rise of online communities and user-generated web content has the potential to greatly expand its scope and contributions. Citizens spread across a large area will collect more information than an individual researcher can. Because citizen scientists tend to make observations about areas they know well, data are likely to be very detailed. Although the potential for engaging citizen scientists is extensive, there are challenges as well. In this paper we consider one such challenge – creating an environment in which non-experts in a scientific domain can provide appropriate and accurate data regarding their observations. We describe the problem in the context of a research project that includes the development of a website to collect citizen-generated data on the distribution of plants and animals in a geographic region. We propose an approach that can improve the quantity and quality of data collected in such projects by organizing data using instance-based data structures. Potential implications of this approach are discussed and plans for future research to validate the design are described

Physical Processes in Star Formation

© 2020 Springer-Verlag. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-020-00693-8.Star formation is a complex multi-scale phenomenon that is of significant importance for astrophysics in general. Stars and star formation are key pillars in observational astronomy from local star forming regions in the Milky Way up to high-redshift galaxies. From a theoretical perspective, star formation and feedback processes (radiation, winds, and supernovae) play a pivotal role in advancing our understanding of the physical processes at work, both individually and of their interactions. In this review we will give an overview of the main processes that are important for the understanding of star formation. We start with an observationally motivated view on star formation from a global perspective and outline the general paradigm of the life-cycle of molecular clouds, in which star formation is the key process to close the cycle. After that we focus on the thermal and chemical aspects in star forming regions, discuss turbulence and magnetic fields as well as gravitational forces. Finally, we review the most important stellar feedback mechanisms.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio