A Comparative study of germination strategies of two species of genus Allium sect. Allium

Germination experiments were performed with seeds of two species of genus Allium section Allium, a rare and endangered species A. pyrenaicum and a common A. sphaerocephalon. Different pre-treatments and a photoperiod of 24 h darkness were applied in order to simulate different germination conditions. Both species showed a high percentage of viable seeds a part of which were dormant. An elevate percentage of dormant seeds could be caused by a later collection time. Low altitude populations had more mortality than the others, possibly caused by the hard summer conditions during flowering and fruiting time. Comparisons between dates of species coexistence localities only show inter-population variability and it could be caused by the detected dormancy. Darkness accelerates germination, possibly for elongation radicle stimulation. Heat-shock pre-treatments decreased germination time in seeds from localities where fire is a probable event. The rarity of A. Pyrenaicum not seems to be caused by restricted germination requirements but is attributable to distinct habitat preferences, related to his altitudinal range of distribution

Knowledge integration within an applied mobile robot summer course

This paper presents the use of a mobile robot platform as an innovative educational tool in order to promote and integrate different curriculum knowledge. Hence, it is presented the acquired experience within a summer course named ldquoapplied mobile roboticsrdquo. The main aim of the course is to integrate different subjects as electronics, programming, architecture, perception systems, communications, control and trajectory planning by using the educational open mobile robot platform PRIM. The summer course is addressed to a wide range of student profiles. However, it is of special interests to the students of electrical and computer engineering around their final academic year. The summer course consists of the theoretical and laboratory sessions, related to the following topics: design & programming of electronic devices, modelling and control systems, trajectory planning and control, and computer vision systems. Therefore, the clues for achieving a renewed path of progress in robotics are the integration of several knowledgeable fields, such as computing, communications, and control sciences, in order to perform a higher level reasoning and use decision tools with strong theoretical base