Fertilizer Facts

This publication provides information on plant nutrients and their effect on plant growth. Fertilizer terms and definitions, sources and forms of common commercial fertilizers, calculating fertilizer rates and cost, and nutrient loss are also explained

Book Reviews

Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis. By David T.Moore. At The Center Of The Storm: The CIA During America\u27s Time of Crisis. By George Tenet with Bill Harlow. Female Suicide Bombers. By Rosemarie Skaine. Information Operations: Doctrine and Practice. By Christopher Paul. The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency. By Matthew M. Aid. The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist\u27s Memoir of Death and Redemption. By Kamal Saleem with Lynn Vincent. Attaché Extraordinaire: Vernon A. Walters in Brazil. By Frank Márcio De Oliveira

Network Creation Games: Think Global - Act Local

We investigate a non-cooperative game-theoretic model for the formation of communication networks by selfish agents. Each agent aims for a central position at minimum cost for creating edges. In particular, the general model (Fabrikant et al., PODC'03) became popular for studying the structure of the Internet or social networks. Despite its significance, locality in this game was first studied only recently (Bil\`o et al., SPAA'14), where a worst case locality model was presented, which came with a high efficiency loss in terms of quality of equilibria. Our main contribution is a new and more optimistic view on locality: agents are limited in their knowledge and actions to their local view ranges, but can probe different strategies and finally choose the best. We study the influence of our locality notion on the hardness of computing best responses, convergence to equilibria, and quality of equilibria. Moreover, we compare the strength of local versus non-local strategy-changes. Our results address the gap between the original model and the worst case locality variant. On the bright side, our efficiency results are in line with observations from the original model, yet we have a non-constant lower bound on the price of anarchy.Comment: An extended abstract of this paper has been accepted for publication in the proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Mathematical Foundations on Computer Scienc

Common Host Responses in Murine Aerosol Models of Infection Caused by Highly Virulent Gram-Negative Bacteria from the Genera Burkholderia, Francisella and Yersinia

This is the final version. Available on open access from MDPI via the DOI in this recordContent includes material subject to © Crown copyright (2019), Dstl. This material is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected] virulent bacterial pathogens cause acute infections which are exceptionally difficult to treat with conventional antibiotic therapies alone. Understanding the chain of events that are triggered during an infection of a host has the potential to lead to new therapeutic strategies. For the first time, the transcriptomic responses within the lungs of Balb/C mice have been compared during an acute infection with the intracellular pathogens Burkholderia pseudomallei, Francisella tularensis and Yersinia pestis. Temporal changes were determined using RNAseq and a bioinformatics pipeline; expression of protein was also studied from the same sample. Collectively it was found that early transcriptomic responses within the infected host were associated with the (a) slowing down of critical cellular functions, (b) production of circulatory system components, (c) lung tissue integrity, and (d) intracellular regulatory processes. One common molecule was identified, Errfi1 (ErbB receptor feedback inhibitor 1); upregulated in response to all three pathogens and a potential novel marker of acute infection. Based upon the pro-inflammatory responses observed, we sought to synchronise each infection and report that 24 h p.i. of B. pseudomallei infection closely aligned with 48 h p.i. of infection with F. tularensis and Y. pestis. Post-transcriptional modulation of RANTES expression occurred across all pathogens, suggesting that these infections directly or indirectly modulate cell trafficking through chemokine expression/detection. Collectively, this unbiased NGS approach has provided an in-depth characterisation of the host transcriptome following infection with these highly virulent pathogens ultimately aiding in the development of host-directed therapies as adjuncts or alternatives to antibiotic treatment

Book Reviews

Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis. By David T.Moore. At The Center Of The Storm: The CIA During America's Time of Crisis. By George Tenet with Bill Harlow. Female Suicide Bombers. By Rosemarie Skaine. Information Operations: Doctrine and Practice. By Christopher Paul. The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency. By Matthew M. Aid. The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist's Memoir of Death and Redemption. By Kamal Saleem with Lynn Vincent. Attaché Extraordinaire: Vernon A. Walters in Brazil. By Frank Márcio De Oliveira