Herbicide resistance in weeds

Resistance at the field level is best considered as 'shades of grey', with a continuum from complete susceptibility through to complete resistance. This poses a considerable challenge in detection and in assessing the severity and impact of resistance. Herbicide resistance often results in reduced herbicide activity, rather than no activity at all. The evolution of herbicide resistance as a practical problem in an individual field is dependent on the interaction of three risk factors, including herbicide risk, weed risk, and management practices. Early detection of resistance is very important so that effective management strategies can be introduced over the whole farm to minimise the impact and spread of resistance. Strategies for resistance prevention and management are of no use unless they are implemented. It is vital that the very considerable research effort worldwide produces sound, practical herbicide‐resistant weed management strategies solutions that are easily implemented by farmers

MOXE: An X-ray all-sky monitor for Soviet Spectrum-X-Gamma Mission

A Monitoring Monitoring X-Ray Equipment (MOXE) is being developed for the Soviet Spectrum-X-Gamma Mission. MOXE is an X-ray all-sky monitor based on array of pinhole cameras, to be provided via a collaboration between Goddard Space Flight Center and Los Alamos National Laboratory. The objectives are to alert other observers on Spectrum-X-Gamma and other platforms of interesting transient activity, and to synoptically monitor the X-ray sky and study long-term changes in X-ray binaries. MOXE will be sensitive to sources as faint as 2 milliCrab (5 sigma) in 1 day, and cover the 2 to 20 KeV band

Barriers to reporting non-motor symptoms to health-care providers in people with Parkinson's

Background: Non-motor symptoms (NMS) are common in Parkinson's disease (PD) and cause significant distress. A high rate of non-declaration of NMS by patients to healthcare providers (HCP) means that many NMS remain untreated. Current understanding of the factors preventing disclosure of NMS to HCPs is limited. The present study aimed to i) further assess the prevalence of NMS and associated distress, ii) establish current rates of NMS reporting across a range of sources, and iii) explore overall and any symptom specific barriers to help-seeking for NMS. Methods: 358 PD patients completed a cross-sectional survey of NMS severity, reporting and barriers to help-seeking. A series of Generalised Estimating Equations were used to determine whether barriers were symptom specific. Results: A mean of 10.5 NMS were reported by each patient. Rates of non-reporting of NMS ranged from 15 to 72% of those experiencing distressing symptoms. The most commonly reported barriers to help-seeking were acceptance of symptoms; lack of awareness that a symptom was associated with PD, and belief that no effective treatments were available. Symptom specific barriers were found for sexual dysfunction (embarrassment), unexplained pain and urinary problems (belief about lack of treatment availability). Conclusion: A diverse range of barriers prevent PD patients reporting NMS to HCPs and these barriers differ between NMS. The study provides the foundations for developing interventions to increase reporting by targeting individual NMS. Increasing rates of help-seeking for NMS by patients to their Parkinson's healthcare providers will increase appropriate clinical care which may improve quality of life and well-being

GPCRTree: online hierarchical classification of GPCR function

Background: G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) play important physiological roles transducing extracellular signals into intracellular responses. Approximately 50% of all marketed drugs target a GPCR. There remains considerable interest in effectively predicting the function of a GPCR from its primary sequence. Findings: Using techniques drawn from data mining and proteochemometrics, an alignment-free approach to GPCR classification has been devised. It uses a simple representation of a protein's physical properties. GPCRTree, a publicly-available internet server, implements an algorithm that classifies GPCRs at the class, sub-family and sub-subfamily level. Conclusion: A selective top-down classifier was developed which assigns sequences within a GPCR hierarchy. Compared to other publicly available GPCR prediction servers, GPCRTree is considerably more accurate at every level of classification. The server has been available online since March 2008 at URL: http://igrid-ext.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/gpcrtree

Stability analysis for the background equations for inflation with dissipation and in a viscous radiation bath

The effects of bulk viscosity are examined for inflationary dynamics in which dissipation and thermalization are present. A complete stability analysis is done for the background inflaton evolution equations, which includes both inflaton dissipation and radiation bulk viscous effects. Three representative approaches of bulk viscous irreversible thermodynamics are analyzed: the Eckart noncausal theory, the linear and causal theory of Israel-Stewart and a more recent nonlinear and causal bulk viscous theory. It is found that the causal theories allow for larger bulk viscosities before encountering an instability in comparison to the noncausal Eckart theory. It is also shown that the causal theories tend to suppress the radiation production due to bulk viscous pressure, because of the presence of relaxation effects implicit in these theories. Bulk viscosity coefficients derived from quantum field theory are applied to warm inflation model building and an analysis is made of the effects to the duration of inflation. The treatment of bulk pressure would also be relevant to the reheating phase after inflation in cold inflation dynamics and during the radiation dominated regime, although very little work in both areas has been done, the methodology developed in this paper could be extended to apply to these other problems.Comment: 27 pages, 14 figures, Published version JCA

Towards A Mean-Field Formulation Of The Babcock-Leighton Type Solar Dynamo. I. Alpha Coefficient Versus Durney's Double Ring Approach

We develop a model of the solar dynamo in which, on the one hand, we follow the Babcock-Leighton approach to include surface processes like the production of poloidal field from the decay of active regions, and, on the other hand, we attempt to develop a mean field theory that can be studied in quantitative detail. One of the main challenges in developing such models is to treat the buoyant rise of toroidal field and the production of poloidal field from it near the surface. We build up a dynamo model with two contrasting methods of treating buoyancy. In one method, we incorporate the generation of the poloidal field near the solar surface by Durney's procedure of double ring eruption. In the second method, the poloidal field generation is treated by a positive alpha-effect concentrated near the solar surface, coupled with an algorithm for handling buoyancy. The two methods are found to give qualitatively similar results.Comment: 32 pages, 27 figures, uses aastex.cls and epsfig.st