Dissecting the Multifaceted Relationship Between Maize and Cochliobolus carbonum race 1

The maize pathogen Cochliobolus carbonum race 1 (CCR1) utilizes HC-toxin, an inhibitor of histone deacetylases, as a key determinant of virulence. The maize Hm1 gene confers complete resistance to CCR1 at all stages of development by encoding for an NADPH-dependent reductase that inactivates HC-toxin. Hm1A, Hm1-SM1, and Hm1-SM2 are alleles of Hm1 that exhibit an adult plant resistance (APR) phenotype, being fairly susceptible during the seedling stage and gradually increasing in resistance with development. The HM1A protein differs from HM1 by five amino acid substitutions while HM1-SM1 and HM1-SM2 have a single amino acid substitution each in the predicted NADPH binding pocket. Given that gene and protein expression of these APR alleles do not increase with age, the APR phenotype must be dictated post-translationally. In this study we characterize the biochemical basis underlying APR. We show that the pool of the NADPH cofactor is higher during the day in adult leaf tissue compared to juvenile leaves. We also demonstrate that the various APR alleles do in fact display compromised enzymatic activities, while also characterizing recombinant proteins to conclude that the superior resistance conferred by Hm1 is unlikely to be simply due to the stronger affinity of its enzyme for the NADPH substrate

An Analysis of Psychological Manipulation in Military Culture

While strict discipline is substantiated as necessary by the armed forces, this creates an environment where individual decision-making is oppressed in favor of mob mentality. Much like how individuals adhere to the culture of common society, the military presents its own social structures for its soldiers. The film A Few Good Men (1992) explores these military institutions where its hierarchal structure emphasizes motifs of obedience, ideology, conformity, and labels, which are central to how it deals with unpredictable problems. Although necessary, these shape the underlying vulnerable psychology of soldiers who learn to view themselves as instruments for superiors, to coincide to militaristic morals, and to seek a sense of community. Psychosomatic research places these in context to the similar nature of identity depravity in prison, authoritarianism, and the reduced sensibility of actions through routinization--all of which play a role in the mental manipulation that the film analyzes in soldiers who conform to military ideals. This paper explores the potential moral, physical, and mental abuse that these military standards can provoke through the psychological exploitation of individual soldiers, which the overall military environment reinforces

Schreier families and F\mathcal{F}-(almost) greedy bases

Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a hereditary collection of finite subsets of $\mathbb{N}$. In this paper, we introduce and characterize $\mathcal{F}$-(almost) greedy bases. Given such a family $\mathcal{F}$, a basis $(e_n)_n$ for a Banach space $X$ is called $\mathcal{F}$-greedy if there is a constant $C\geqslant 1$ such that for each $x\in X$, $m \in \mathbb{N}$, and $G_m(x)$, we have $$\|x - G_m(x)\|\ \leqslant\ C \inf\left\{\left\|x-\sum_{n\in A}a_ne_n\right\|\,:\, |A|\leqslant m, A\in \mathcal{F}, (a_n)\subset \mathbb{K}\right\}.$$ Here $G_m(x)$ is a greedy sum of $x$ of order $m$, and $\mathbb{K}$ is the scalar field. From the definition, any $\mathcal{F}$-greedy basis is quasi-greedy and so, the notion of being $\mathcal{F}$-greedy lies between being greedy and being quasi-greedy. We characterize $\mathcal{F}$-greedy bases as being $\mathcal{F}$-unconditional, $\mathcal{F}$-disjoint democratic, and quasi-greedy, thus generalizing the well-known characterization of greedy bases by Konyagin and Temlyakov. We also prove a similar characterization for $\mathcal{F}$-almost greedy bases. Furthermore, we provide several examples of bases that are nontrivially $\mathcal{F}$-greedy. For a countable ordinal $\alpha$, we consider the case $\mathcal{F}=\mathcal{S}_\alpha$, where $\mathcal{S}_\alpha$ is the Schreier family of order $\alpha$. We show that for each $\alpha$, there is a basis that is $\mathcal{S}_{\alpha}$-greedy but is not $\mathcal{S}_{\alpha+1}$-greedy. In other words, we prove that none of the following implications can be reversed: for two countable ordinals $\alpha < \beta$, $$\mbox{quasi-greedy}\ \Longleftarrow\ \mathcal{S}_\alpha\mbox{-greedy}\ \Longleftarrow\ \mathcal{S}_\beta\mbox{-greedy}\ \Longleftarrow\ \mbox{greedy}.$

Loss prevention for hog farmers: Insurance, on-farm biosecurity practices, and vaccination

Using agricultural household survey data and claim records from insurers for the year 2009, this paper analyzes hog producers' choice of means of loss prevention and identifies the relationships among biosecurity practices, vaccination, and hog insurance. By combining one probit and two structural equations, we adopt three-stage estimations on a mixed-process model to obtain the results. The findings indicate that biosecurity practices provide the basic infrastructure for operating pig farms and complement both the usage of quality vaccines and the uptake of hog insurance. In addition, there is a strong relationship of substitution between quality of vaccine and demand for hog insurance. Hog farmers that implement better biosecurity practices are more likely to seek high-quality vaccines or buy into hog insurance schemes but not both. For those households with hog insurance, better biosecurity status, better management practices, and higher-quality vaccine significantly help to reduce loss ratios. However, we also find a moral hazard effect in that higher premium expenditure by the insured households might induce larger loss ratios.Biosecurity, hog insurance, loss prevention, vaccine,