Anther Extrusion and Fusarium Head Blight Resistance in European Wheat

Anther extrusion has been widely discussed as a factor influencing fusarium head blight (FHB) resistance in wheat. This is despite a paucity of quantitative information on its importance, between cultivars, in contrast to that for heading date and plant height. We describe a method applicable to a plant breeding
situation at 10 days postanthesis, for assessing the distinct characteristics of anther retention (anthers held within the spikelet) and trapped anthers (partially
extruded and trapped between the lemma and palea of the wheat spikelet). FHB resistance was tested in field experiments in 2004 and 2005. In these experiments designed to resemble applications to a plant breeding selection scheme anther retention was significantly correlated with FHB in 2004 (r = 0.26; P < 0.05) and 2005 (r = 0.26; P < 0.05). A higher proportion of anthers retained relating, albeit weakly, with increased FHB susceptibility in European wheat.

Visually extracting data records from the deep web

Web sites that rely on databases for their content are now ubiquitous. Query result pages are dynamically generated from these databases in response to user-submitted queries. Automatically extracting structured data from query result pages is a challenging problem, as the structure of the data is not explicitly represented. While humans have shown good intuition in visually understanding data records on a query result page as displayed by a web browser, no existing approach to data record extraction has made full use of this intuition. We propose a novel approach, in which we make use of the common sources of evidence that humans use to understand data records on a displayed query result page. These include structural regularity, and visual and content similarity between data records displayed on a query result page. Based on these observations we propose new techniques that can identify each data record individually, while ignoring noise items, such as navigation bars and adverts. We have implemented these techniques in a software prototype, rExtractor, and tested it using two datasets. Our experimental results show that our approach achieves significantly higher accuracy than previous approaches. Furthermore, it establishes the case for use of vision-based algorithms in the context of data extraction from web sites.

Comment on "On the Uniqueness of Stable Marriage Matchings" [Economic Letters 69(1):1-8, 2000]

We prove with the help of a counterexample that Lemma 6 and Corollary 7 from Eeckhout [1] are incorrect.

The Map of Watchful Architecture 2.0:Defensive forms along Ireland's border

For The Map of Watchful Architecture I only concerned myself with defensive architecture along the Border. As the map followed a border it came out as a wavy line of points. This was largely artificial, I only charted architecture within the Border corridor, but was not entirely artificial. That linear landscape has long been staked-out by the regularity of certain kinds of architecture. The 1st/2nd century Black Pig’s Dyke and Dorsey correspond with today’s Border. The concentration of souterrains in north Louth indicate that it may have been a volatile interface zone in later centuries. In 1618 Londonderry and its walls were built. Further north and two centuries later, Martello Towers were constructed to watch over Lough Foyle. During the Second World War pillboxes and observation posts were manned along the Border, close to what was now an international frontier. Then came the Operation Banner installations built during The Troubles. All this adds up to be one of the longest unbroken traditions of defensive architecture anywhere in Western Europe, a tradition some thought finally broken as the last of the Operation Banner towers were de-installed in 2007. But, take a bus south across the Border and you will often be pulled over by the Garda Síochána. They ID check the passengers in an attempt to stop illegal immigration via the UK. What about illegal immigrants who walk through the fields or along quiet lanes? They will have understood the Border is not really how it seems on most maps. It is not a solid line, it is a row of points.

Solving Decision Problems with Limited Information

We present a new algorithm for exactly solving decision-making problems represented as an influence diagram. We do not require the usual assumptions of no forgetting and regularity, which allows us to solve problems with limited information. The algorithm, which implements a sophisticated variable elimination procedure, is empirically shown to outperform a state-of-the-art algorithm in randomly generated problems of up to 150 variables and 10^64 strategies.

Solving Limited Memory Influence Diagrams

We present a new algorithm for exactly solving decision making problems represented as influence diagrams. We do not require the usual assumptions of no forgetting and regularity; this allows us to solve problems with simultaneous decisions and limited information. The algorithm is empirically shown to outperform a state-of-the-art algorithm on randomly generated problems of up to 150 variables and 10^64 solutions. We show that these problems are NP-hard even if the underlying graph structure of the problem has low treewidth and the variables take on a bounded number of states, and that they admit no provably good approximation if variables can take on an arbitrary number of states.

Solving Limited Memory Influence Diagrams

We present a new algorithm for exactly solving decision making problems represented as influence diagrams. We do not require the usual assumptions of no forgetting and regularity; this allows us to solve problems with simultaneous decisions and limited information. The algorithm is empirically shown to outperform a state-of-the-art algorithm on randomly generated problems of up to 150 variables and 10^64 solutions. We show that the problem is NP-hard even if the underlying graph structure of the problem has small treewidth and the variables take on a bounded number of states, but that a fully polynomial time approximation scheme exists for these cases. Moreover, we show that the bound on the number of states is a necessary condition for any efficient approximation scheme.

The Complexity of Approximately Solving Influence Diagrams

Influence diagrams allow for intuitive and yet precise description of complex situations involving decision making under uncertainty. Unfortunately, most of the problems described by influence diagrams are hard to solve. In this paper we discuss the complexity of approximately solving influence diagrams. We do not assume no-forgetting or regularity, which makes the class of problems we address very broad. Remarkably, we show that when both the treewidth and the cardinality of the variables are bounded the problem admits a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme.

Efficacy of Wind Power in Mitigation of CO2 Emission from the Irish Electrical Grid

The results in this paper are based on a data set containing system demand, wind generation and CO2 emission between Jan 2010 and Sep 2013. The data was recorded at 15 minute intervals and reflects the macroscopic operation of the Republic of Ireland's electrical grid. The data was analyzed by investigating how daily wind generation effected daily CO2 emission across multiple days with equivalent daily demand. A figure for wind turbine efficiency was determined by dividing the CO2 mitigation potential of wind power by the CO2 intensity of the grid; both in units of Tonnes of CO2 per MWh. The yearly wind power efficiency appears to have increased by 5.6% per year, now standing around 90%. Over the four years significant regularity was observed in the profiles of wind turbine efficiency against daily demand. It appears that the efficiency profile has moved in recent years so that maximum efficiency coincides with most frequent demand.

Solutions of fourth-order parabolic equation modeling thin film growth

In this paper we study the well-posedness for a fourth-order parabolic equation modeling epitaxial thin film growth. Using Kato's Method [1], [2] and [3] we establish existence, uniqueness and regularity of the solution to the model, in suitable spaces, namelyC⁰([0,T];L^p(Ω)) where  with 1<α<2, n∈N and n≥2. We also show the global existence solution to the nonlinear parabolic equations for small initial data. Our main tools are L_p–L_q-estimates, regularization property of the linear part of e^−tΔ2 and successive approximations. Furthermore, we illustrate the qualitative behavior of the approximate solution through some numerical simulations. The approximate solutions exhibit some favorable absorption properties of the model, which highlight the stabilizing effect of our specific formulation of the source term associated with the upward hopping of atoms. Consequently, the solutions describe well some experimentally observed phenomena, which characterize the growth of thin film such as grain coarsening, island formation and thickness growth.

Point-and-shoot: rapid quantitative detection methods for on-site food fraud analysis – moving out of the laboratory and into the food supply chain

Major food adulteration and contamination events occur with alarming regularity and are known to be episodic, with the question being not if but when another large-scale food safety/integrity incident will occur. Indeed, the challenges of maintaining food security are now internationally recognised. The ever increasing scale and complexity of food supply networks can lead to them becoming significantly more vulnerable to fraud and contamination, and potentially dysfunctional. This can make the task of deciding which analytical methods are more suitable to collect and analyse (bio)chemical data within complex food supply chains, at targeted points of vulnerability, that much more challenging. It is evident that those working within and associated with the food industry are seeking rapid, user-friendly methods to detect food fraud and contamination, and rapid/high-throughput screening methods for the analysis of food in general. In addition to being robust and reproducible, these methods should be portable and ideally handheld and/or remote sensor devices, that can be taken to or be positioned on/at-line at points of vulnerability along complex food supply networks and require a minimum amount of background training to acquire information rich data rapidly (ergo point-and-shoot). Here we briefly discuss a range of spectrometry and spectroscopy based approaches, many of which are commercially available, as well as other methods currently under development. We discuss a future perspective of how this range of detection methods in the growing sensor portfolio, along with developments in computational and information sciences such as predictive computing and the Internet of Things, will together form systems- and technology-based approaches that significantly reduce the areas of vulnerability to food crime within food supply chains. As food fraud is a problem of systems and therefore requires systems level solutions and thinking.