Productivity and chemical composition of food-type soybeans sown on different dates.

ABSTRACT. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of different sowing dates on the yield, 100-grain weight, oil, protein and isoflavone contents of food-type soybean breeding lines UEL 110, UEL 115 and UEL 123 and a cultivar BRS 257. The materials were seeded on four sowing dates, and the experiment was conducted in a randomized block design with four replications. The productivity and 100- grain weight varied with the sowing dates and soybean genotypes. The protein content ranged from 36.40 to 42.44%, and the oil content ranged from 18.29 to 22.71%. No significant interaction was found between the genotype and sowing dates for the protein content. The isoflavone content also varied with the sowing dates and soybean genotypes. The cultivar BRS 257 had the highest isoflavone content, including the β- glucoside, malonyl glucoside and aglycones forms. The different sowing dates influenced the productivity, 100-grain weight, oil and protein content and isoflavone levels. Higher temperatures and lower rainfall during the grain filling decreased the productivity and isoflavone content and increased the protein content. For all sowing dates, the BRS 257 soybean food-type cultivar showed the highest isoflavone content, indicating that the effect of genotype is more important. Keywords: soybean, oil, protein, isoflavones. RESUMO. O objetivo deste trabalho foi investigar o efeito das diferentes épocas de semeadura na produtividade, massa de 100 grãos, teor de proteínas, óleo e isoflavonas de linhagens de soja tipo alimento UEL 110, UEL 115 e UEL 123 e cultivar BRS 257. O material foi semeado em quatro épocas de semeadura e o experimento foi conduzido em blocos casualizados com quatro repetições. A produtividade e a massa de 100 grãos variaram com a época de semeadura e com os diferentes genótipos. O teor de proteínas variou de 36,40 a 42,44% e o de óleo de 18,29 a 22,71%. Não foi encontrada interação entre genótipo e épocas de semeadura para o teor de proteínas. O teor de isoflavonas variou com as épocas de semeadura e com os genótipos. A cultivar BRS 257 apresentou maior teor de β-glicosídeos, malonil-glicosídeos e agliconas. As diferentes épocas de semeadura influenciam a produtividade, massa de 100 grãos, conteúdo de óleo, proteínas e isoflavonas. Altas temperaturas e baixas precipitações durante o enchimento dos grãos reduzem a produtividade e teor de isoflavonas e aumentam o teor de proteínas. A cultivar BRS 257 apresenta o maior teor de isoflavonas indicando que o efeito genético é mais importante.

Strategies to enhance the productivity of rainfed off-season maize.

In Brazil, off-season rainfed maize is usually affected by limited water due to irregularities in rainfall. Alternatives to mitigate these effects include ground cover to reduce evaporation losses and the use of cultivars with a deeper rooting system. We conducted a study in Goias, Brazil, to evaluate the influence of different crop management strategies to mitigate the effect of limited water in maize yield. Modeling was used to simulate scenarios that consisted of 0, 3.5 and 5.0 t ha-1 of soybean residue left on the soil surface combined with cultivar ideotypes with 0.30 m, 0.50 m 0.70 m deep rooting system grown with 60 and 340 kg ha-1of nitrogen. The results showed that maintaining residue in the soil surface in combination with the use of cultivars with deeper rooting systems favored higher yields of off-season maize. Our results also indicated that a cultivar with rooting system in the top 0.50 m of the soil fertilized with a high nitrogen rate tended to be more efficient in the use of the soil available water

Speaker identification using higher order spectral phase features and their effectiveness vis-a-vis Mel-Cepstral features

The effectiveness of higher-order spectral (HOS) phase features in speaker recognition is investigated by comparison with Mel Cepstral features on the same speech data. HOS phase features retain phase information from the Fourier spectrum unlikeMel–frequency Cepstral coefficients (MFCC). Gaussian mixture models are constructed from Mel– Cepstral features and HOS features, respectively, for the same data from various speakers in the Switchboard telephone Speech Corpus. Feature clusters, model parameters and classification performance are analyzed. HOS phase features on their own provide a correct identification rate of about 97% on the chosen subset of the corpus. This is the same level of accuracy as provided by MFCCs. Cluster plots and model parameters are compared to show that HOS phase features can provide complementary information to better discriminate between speakers.

Occupant health and productivity : an Australian perspective

The issue of whether improved building services such as air quality, provision of daylight, thermal comfort etc, have a positive impact on the health and productivity of building occupants is still an open question. There is significant anecdotal evidence supporting the notion that health and productivity of building occupants can be improved by improving the quality of the indoor environment, but there are actually few published quantitative studies to substantiate this contention. This paper reports on a comprehensive review of the worldwide literature which relates health of building occupants with the different aspects of the indoor environment which are believed to impact of these issues, with a particular focus on studies in Australia, The paper analyses the existing research and identifies the key deficiencies in our existing understanding of this problem. The key focus of this research is office and school buildings, but the scope of the literature surveyed includes all commercial buildings, including industrial buildings. There is a notable absence of detailed studies on this link in Australian buildings, although there are studies on thermal comfort, and a number of studies on indoor air quality in Australia, which do not make the connection to health and productivity. Many international studies have focused on improved lighting, and in particular the provision of daylight in buildings, but again there are few studies in Australia which focus in this area.