Estimation of the Tropical Cyclone Diurnal Cycle Using Simulated Observations from the NASA TROPICS Earth Venture Mission

No abstract availabl

Assessing the identity of the variety "Pedro Giménez" grown in Argentina through the use of microsatellite markers.

'Pedro Giménez' es una variedad criolla blanca cultivada en Argentina, principalmente en las provincias de Mendoza y San Juan, siendo la variedad con la mayor superficie entre las uvas blancas de vinificación. Su origen es desconocido, como también su relación con la variedad española 'Pedro Ximénez', cultivada especialmente en la región de Jerez, España. En trabajos previos se ha probado que la mayoría de las variedades criollas existentes en América se habrían originado del cruzamiento de 'Moscatel de Alejandría' x 'Criolla Chica'. El presente trabajo tuvo como objetivos comparar las variedades 'Pedro Giménez' y 'Pedro Ximénez', y establecer relaciones de parentesco con 'Moscatel de Alejandría' y 'Criolla Chica'. Se utilizaron 18 loci microsatélites nucleares y 3 loci microsatélites de cloroplasto. 'Pedro Giménez' compartió sólo el 38% de los alelos con 'Pedro Ximénez', por lo que se pudo inferir que se trata de variedades diferentes. En todos los loci polimórficos nucleares analizados 'Pedro Giménez' compartió uno de los alelos con 'Moscatel de Alejandría' y el otro con 'Criolla Chica'. Estos datos, junto con el resultado del análisis de SSR de cloroplastos, avalan la hipótesis que, como muchas de las variedades criollas, 'Pedro Giménez' sería fruto del cruzamiento entre estos dos progenitores, siendo 'Criolla Chica' probablemente el progenitor materno.´Pedro Giménez´ is a white criolla variety cropped in Argentina, mainly in Mendoza and San Juan, being the most planted white variety destined for wine making in the country. Its origin remains unknown, as well as its relationship with Spanish variety ´Pedro Ximénez´, mostly grown in Jerez, Spain. Previous works have probed that most of Criollas varieties existing in America at the moment, are the offspring of ´Muscat of Alexandria´ x ´Criolla Chica´. The aim of the present work was to compare ´Pedro Giménez´ with the Spanish variety ´Pedro Ximénez´, and to establish its degree of relatedness to ´Muscat of Alexandria´ and ´Criolla Chica´. Therefore we used a set of 18 nuclear SSR loci and 3 chloroplast SSR loci. ´Pedro Giménez´ shared only 38% of the alleles under analysis with ´Pedro Ximénez´, indicating that they are indeed two different varieties. In all 18 polymorphic nuclear SSR loci ´Pedro Giménez´ shared 50% of its alleles with ´Muscat of Alexandria´, while the other 50% of the alleles present in ´Pedro Giménez´ were also present in ´Criolla Chica´. This data, along with those from the chloroplast SSR analysis, strongly suggest that ´Pedro Giménez´ is the progeny of ´Muscat of Alexandria´ x ´Criolla Chica´, being the latest one the most likely female progenitor.Fil: Duran, Martin Francisco. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Biología Agrícola de Mendoza. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Instituto de Biología Agrícola de Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Agüero, Cecilia B.. University of California at Davis; Estados UnidosFil: Martínez, Liliana Estela. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas. Cátedra de Fisiología Vegetal; Argentin

An Analysis of Elementary Science Teachers’ Beliefs Regarding Inquiry Science Teaching

The National Science Teachers Association (2015) recommends that teachers experience science as inquiry as a part of their teacher preparation; however, what assistance can be provided to practicing teachers? This paper describes the results of a professional development program in inquiry science teaching for third through sixth grade teachers and its effects on the participants’ beliefs about the teaching of science. Qualitative data were collected using reflections written by the teachers at the end of the program, lesson summaries completed throughout the program, and observations paired with interviews of teachers implementing inquiry lessons in their own classrooms. The data suggest that the following aspects of the professional development model employed in the study enhanced the participants’ feelings of self- confidence, preparation, and excitement about teaching science to their students: 1) supplying teachers with content/background knowledge, 2) promoting positive experiences with inquiry, 3) providing a chance to implement inquiry lessons in the classroom, 4) facilitating collaboration, and 5) modeling effective teaching strategies. Follow-up studies will include quantitative analyses to further examine teachers’ beliefs, as well as to determine if their beliefs are sustained over time

Fast Hierarchical Clustering and Other Applications of Dynamic Closest Pairs

We develop data structures for dynamic closest pair problems with arbitrary distance functions, that do not necessarily come from any geometric structure on the objects. Based on a technique previously used by the author for Euclidean closest pairs, we show how to insert and delete objects from an n-object set, maintaining the closest pair, in O(n log^2 n) time per update and O(n) space. With quadratic space, we can instead use a quadtree-like structure to achieve an optimal time bound, O(n) per update. We apply these data structures to hierarchical clustering, greedy matching, and TSP heuristics, and discuss other potential applications in machine learning, Groebner bases, and local improvement algorithms for partition and placement problems. Experiments show our new methods to be faster in practice than previously used heuristics.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures. A preliminary version of this paper appeared at the 9th ACM-SIAM Symp. on Discrete Algorithms, San Francisco, 1998, pp. 619-628. For source code and experimental results, see http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/projects/pairs

Supply Chain Assessment and Process Benchmarking of Coffee Industry in Selected Areas of Misamis Oriental, Southern Philippines

The Philippine’s coffee production has now shifted to Mindanao, which accounts for 70% of the annual production. However, several gaps in its supply chain management are needed to be addressed. This study assesses the supply chain management practices of the coffee industry in selected areas of Misamis Oriental and identifies areas for improvement. It focuses on the following objectives: first, to map out the flow of the product; second, to analyze and assess the current state of the supply chain management performance of coffee; and lastly, to identify areas for improvement in the supply chain such as behavioral, institutional, and processes. Both primary and secondary data were used in the study. It uses simple random sampling method in selecting the respondents. Descriptive statistics is used in the analysis of data and chain performance analysis. Results indicate that the absence of market information and inconsistency of performance responsiveness in terms of price, volume, and quality of the products greatly affects the efficiency of the coffee industry’s supply chain. The flow of price, supply, and technical information are more inefficient at the farmers’ level than the traders. The overall performance of the coffee industry in the study needs further improvement in terms of efficiency (cost minimization), flexibility (customer satisfaction), responsiveness, and product quality

A phylogenetic analysis of Jurinea (Compositae) species from Turkey based on ITS sequence data

In this study, the taxa which belong to the Jurinea Cass. genus, grown naturally in Turkey and collected from different localities, are compared in terms of their internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA). The DNAs of the taxa were isolated by using a commercial kit (Nucleon Phytopure). Sequences were aligned with Clustal X. Phylogenetic relationships are assessed by sequence analysis, conducted with the DNASTAR software after the amplification of ITS regions with the universally recognized primers, named as 17SE and 26SE. In conclusion, morphologically similartaxa are also clustered together when a phylogenetic analysis is conducted based on molecular data. Jurinea species of the Anatolian peninsula are closely related with the topography of the region and certain level of molecular isolation of the species is evidenced

Diffusion of a granular pulse in a rotating drum

The diffusion of a pulse of small grains in an horizontal rotating drum is studied through discrete elements methods simulations. We present a theoretical analysis of the diffusion process in a one-dimensional confined space in order to elucidate the effect of the confining end-plate of the drum. We then show that the diffusion is neither subdiffusive nor superdiffusive but normal. This is demonstrated by rescaling the concentration profiles obtained at various stages and by studying the time evolution of the mean squared deviation. Finally we study the self-diffusion of both large and small grains and we show that it is normal and that the diffusion coefficient is independent of the grain size