Tritordeum, wheat and triticale yield components under multi-local mediterranean drought conditions

The species x location interaction was of great importance in explaining the behaviour of genetic material. The study presented here shows, for the first time, the performance, under field conditions of the new tritordeum species, compared to wheat and triticale in a wide range of Mediterranean countries (Spain, Lebanon and Tunisia). The results obtained revealed that despite the diversity of environmental conditions, the main differences in yield were due to genotypes, especially to differences between species. The multi-local study with different growth conditions revealed important information about the water availability effect on yield. In the lowest yielding environments (Tunisia rainfed), Tritordeum and triticale yields were equivalent. However under better growth conditions (Spain), tritordeum yield was shown to be lower than wheat and triticale. Interestingly, when water limitation was extended during the pre-anthesis period, differences in tritordeum versus wheat-triticale yield rate were larger than when water stress occurred during anthesis. These variations were explained by the fact that kernel weight has been found as the limiting factor for yield determination in tritordeum, and a delay in the anthesis date may have been the cause for the low kernel weight and low yield under Mediterranean drought conditions. Such differences in yield between tritordeum and wheat or triticale could be explained by the fact that tritordeum is a relatively new species and far fewer resources have been devoted to its improvement when compared to wheat and triticale. Our results suggest that breeding efforts should be directed to an earlier anthesis date and a longer grain filling period. tritordeum proved to have possibilities to be grown under drought environments as a new crop, since its performance was quite close to wheat and triticale. Besides, it has qualitative added values that may improve farmers' income per unit land.

Leading indicator properties of US high-yield credit spreads

In this paper we examine the out-of-sample forecast performance of high-yield credit spreads regarding real-time and revised data on employment and industrial production in the US. We evaluate models using both a point forecast and a probability forecast exercise. Our main findings suggest the use of few factors obtained by pooling information from a number of sector-specific high-yield credit spreads. This can be justified by observing that, especially for employment, there is a gain from using a principal components model fitted to high-yield credit spreads compared to the prediction produced by benchmarks, such as an AR, and ARDL models that use either the term spread or the aggregate high-yield spread as exogenous regressor. Moreover, forecasts based on real-time data are generally comparable to forecasts based on revised data. JEL Classification: C22; C53; E32 Keywords: Credit spreads; Principal components; Forecasting; Real-time data.

Reduction of oxidative cellular damage by overexpression of the thioredoxin TRX2 gene improves yield and quality of wine yeast dry active biomass

Background: Wine Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains, adapted to anaerobic must fermentations, suffer oxidative stress when they are grown under aerobic conditions for biomass propagation in the industrial process of active dry yeast production. Oxidative metabolism of sugars favors high biomass yields but also causes increased oxidation damage of cell components. The overexpression of the TRX2 gene, coding for a thioredoxin, enhances oxidative stress resistance in a wine yeast strain model. The thioredoxin and also the glutathione/glutaredoxin system constitute the most important defense against oxidation. Trx2p is also involved in the regulation of Yap1p-driven transcriptional response against some reactive oxygen species. Results: Laboratory scale simulations of the industrial active dry biomass production process demonstrate that TRX2 overexpression increases the wine yeast final biomass yield and also its fermentative capacity both after the batch and fed-batch phases. Microvinifications carried out with the modified strain show a fast start phenotype derived from its enhanced fermentative capacity and also increased content of beneficial aroma compounds. The modified strain displays an increased transcriptional response of Yap1p regulated genes and other oxidative stress related genes. Activities of antioxidant enzymes like Sod1p, Sod2p and catalase are also enhanced. Consequently, diminished oxidation of lipids and proteins is observed in the modified strain, which can explain the improved performance of the thioredoxin overexpressing strain. Conclusions: We report several beneficial effects of overexpressing the thioredoxin gene TRX2 in a wine yeast strain. We show that this strain presents an enhanced redox defense. Increased yield of biomass production process in TRX2 overexpressing strain can be of special interest for several industrial applications.

Subsurface drip irrigation emitter spacing effects on soil water redistribution, corn yield and water productivity

Emitter spacings of 0.3 to 0.6 m are commonly used for subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) of corn on the deep, silt loam soils of the U.S. Great Plains. Subsurface drip irrigation emitter spacings of 0.3, 0.6, 0.9 and 1.2 m were examined for the resulting differences in soil water redistribution, corn grain yield, yield components, seasonal water use, and water productivity in a 4‐year field study (2005 through 2008) at the Kansas State University Northwest Research‐Extension Center, Colby, Kansas. The results indicate that there is increased preferential water movement along the dripline (parallel) as compared to perpendicular to the dripline and that this phenomenon partially compensates for wider emitter spacings in terms of soil water redistribution. Corn yield and water productivity (WP) were not significantly affected by the emitter spacing with application of a full irrigation regime

Not all university degrees yield the same return: private and social returns to higher education for males in Spain

In this paper we use micro data from the Spanish Family Expenditure Survey for 1990 to estimate, for the first time, the private and social rates of return of different university degrees in Spain. We compute internal rates of return and include investment on higher education financed by the public purse to estimate social rates of return. Our main finding is that, as presumed, there is large heterogeneity in rates of return amongst different university

Identificació de components inclusius en alguns centres escolars d'educació infantil i primària de la comarca d'Osona

The present essay –which is a pilot study conceived to continue the research in depth in the future- is based in a comparative analysis of educational practice between five different primary and pre-school teaching centres in Osona and the educational practice in inclusive educational centres. The essay introduces the objectives of the research and the theoretical and conceptual framework in which it is based (chapter 1) in relation with the main themes and expressions which are the purpose of the study: comprensivity, inclusive school and inclusive practice. The theoretical framework is linked to the principal regulations applied in our context. The study describes the instruments and procedure analysis describes the instruments and procedure analysis which have been designed and used for a qualitative methodological approach, together with the data obtained from the analysis of five teaching centres (chapter 2). The results from the research show that the practice done in the analised schools are not totally comparable to the ones in the inclusive environment. Notwithsanding, there are some similar points, although not totally coincident, like the fact that either the analysed schools or the ones with an inclusive approach show availability and interest in improving integration of all the pupils in the school, also the teachers work together in some aspects like, evaluation of pupils with special needs, objectives and contents and activities fort he specific kind of pupils with special needs parents and the majority of the analyzed schools, like those fallowing inclusive educational approaches, try the pupils with special needs to develop their acquisition within the ordinary class with adapted material. I think, these verifications, some of them close to inclusive educational practice, could constitute a starting point to analyse our model, in order to offer a common curriculum that could respect the different styles and rhythms of acquisition of all the pupils, so that promoting a more flexible and open schooling. In conclusion, the results of this analysis, although dues to its limits, they can not be generalized, they can help to find the necessary changes to bet for a qualitative education in a school for everyone.

Construcció modular d'agents basats en components: estudi i desenvolupament

La complexitat de disseny d’agents mòbils creix a mesura que s’incrementen les seves funcionalitats. Aquest projecte proposa enfocar el problema des d’un punt de vista modular. S’ha realitzat un estudi tant dels propis agents com de les parts que ho integren. De la mateixa forma, s’han establert i s'han implementat els mecanismes necessaris per habilitar les comunicacions segures entre agents. Finalment, s’han desenvolupat dos components que ofereixen les funcionalitats de seguiment de l’agent mòbil i la recuperació dels resultats generats. El desenvolupament d’agents basats en components tracta d’aplicar la vella estratègia "divideix i venceràs" a la fase de disseny, reduint, així,la seva gran complexitat.

Llibreria de components per a la modelització del procés de sortides de passatgers d'un aeroport

Nota: Aquest document conté originàriament altre material i/o programari només consultable a la Biblioteca de Ciència i Tecnologia.

Audiofaktor, comerç online de components hi-Fi i HT

Memòria de creació d'un comerç online dedicat a la comercialització de components d'alta fidelitat i cinema a casa.

Lluís Oliver i els components fonamentals de la matèria

Entrevista en Lluís Oliver, químic gironí

On the use of principal components in contemporany population genetics: a case study

In human Population Genetics, routine applications of principal component techniques are oftenrequired. Population biologists make widespread use of certain discrete classifications of humansamples into haplotypes, the monophyletic units of phylogenetic trees constructed from severalsingle nucleotide bimorphisms hierarchically ordered. Compositional frequencies of the haplotypesare recorded within the different samples. Principal component techniques are then required as adimension-reducing strategy to bring the dimension of the problem to a manageable level, say two,to allow for graphical analysis.Population biologists at large are not aware of the special features of compositional data and normally make use of the crude covariance of compositional relative frequencies to construct principalcomponents. In this short note we present our experience with using traditional linear principalcomponents or compositional principal components based on logratios, with reference to a specificdataset

Interpretation of wind components as compositional variables

The classical statistical study of the wind speed in the atmospheric surface layer is madegenerally from the analysis of the three habitual components that perform the wind data,that is, the component W-E, the component S-N and the vertical component,considering these components independent.When the goal of the study of these data is the Aeolian energy, so is when wind isstudied from an energetic point of view and the squares of wind components can beconsidered as compositional variables. To do so, each component has to be divided bythe module of the corresponding vector.In this work the theoretical analysis of the components of the wind as compositionaldata is presented and also the conclusions that can be obtained from the point of view ofthe practical applications as well as those that can be derived from the application ofthis technique in different conditions of weather

Adding new components to the knowledge plane GMPLS over WDM networks

A recent study defines a new network plane: the knowledge plane. The incorporation of the knowledge plane over the network allows having more accurate information of the current and future network states. In this paper, the introduction and management of the network reliability information in the knowledge plane is proposed in order to improve the quality of service with protection routing algorithms in GMPLS over WDM networks. Different experiments prove the efficiency and scalability of the proposed scheme in terms of the percentage of resources used to protect the network

I-SS: integrated supervision systems approach based on interactive components

Process supervision is the activity focused on monitoring the process operation in order to deduce conditions to maintain the normality including when faults are present Depending on the number/distribution/heterogeneity of variables, behaviour situations, sub-processes, etc. from processes, human operators and engineers do not easily manipulate the information. This leads to the necessity of automation of supervision activities. Nevertheless, the difficulty to deal with the information complicates the design and development of software applications. We present an approach called "integrated supervision systems". It proposes multiple supervisors coordination to supervise multiple sub-processes whose interactions permit one to supervise the global process