The Weights of Individual Grains of the Wheat Ear in Relation to Their Growth Potential, the Supply of Assimilate and Interaction Between Grains

1978 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 61 ◽  
Author(s):  
PM Bremner ◽  
HM Rawson

The work reported here was done to explore the extent to which the mature weight of a grain is determined by (i) its potential for growth, defined as its intrinsic capacity to accumulate dry matter, and (ii) the resistance to assimilate transport imposed by the vascular system of the ear. Estimation of growth potential was attempted by observing the effects of systematic patterns of grain removal on the mature weights of grains remaining, these being compared with weights of matched grains from intact ears. Resistance to transport of assimilate was inferred from the apparent order of priority between grains for the supply of assimilate, as revealed by comparing their weights when assimilate supply was either normal, or reduced by plant shading. When neighbouring grains were removed, those remaining usually grew larger to an extent that indicated growth potential appreciably in excess of that utilized in intact ears under the most favourable conditions. Although grains within a spikelet of an intact ear attain quite different weights, the experiments suggested that their differing potentials for growth seemed to play only a minor role in this, and that the major influence was the relative ease with which assimilate could reach the grains; this depended largely on the distance of the grains from the spike rachis. Comparing between spikelets, the difference found in intact ears between grains in the same spikelet location tended to persist when some grains were removed from each spikelet, indicating a possible role of growth potential as a controlling influence. This may be partly due to the sequence of morphogenesis, established as early as the double ridge stage. Although the removal of competing grains within a spikelet usually enhanced the growth of the one remaining, this was not always so; there was evidence from one experiment that removal of competing grains towards the spikelet apex represented the removal of some beneficial influence. The bearing of the results on possible limitations to grain yield are discussed.

1958 ◽  
Vol 02 (05/06) ◽  
pp. 462-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Verstraete ◽  
Patricia A. Clark ◽  
Irving S. Wright

SummaryAn analysis of the results of prothrombin time tests with different types of thromboplastins sheds some light on the problem why the administration of coumarin is difficult to standardize in different centers. Our present ideas on the subject, based on experimental data may be summarized as follows.Several factors of the clotting mechanism are influenced by coumarin derivatives. The action of some of these factors is by-passed in the 1-stage prothrombin time test. The decrease of the prothrombin and factor VII levels may be evaluated in the 1-stage prothrombin time determination (Quick-test). The prolongation of the prothrombin times are, however, predominantly due to the decrease of factor VII activity, the prothrombin content remaining around 50 per cent of normal during an adequate anticoagulant therapy. It is unlikely that this degree of depression of prothrombin is of major significance in interfering with the coagulation mechanism in the protection against thromboembolism. It may, however, play a minor role, which has yet to be evaluated quantitatively. An exact evaluation of factor VII is, therefore, important for the guidance of anticoagulant therapy and the method of choice is the one which is most sensitive to changes in factor VII concentration. The 1-stage prothrombin time test with a rabbit lung thromboplastin seems the most suitable method because rabbit brain preparations exhibit a factor VII-like activity that is not present in rabbit lung preparations.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christel Björkstrand

This paper is an interdisciplinary analysis of Friedrich Schiller’s play Wilhelm Tell (1804). An initial study of its dramatic structure suggests a change in the relationship between the Swiss peasants and nobles. A further analysis, based on Brown’s and Levinson’s politeness theory confirms the development of a social utopia in the play, but also reveals that Wilhelm Tell plays a minor role in the social development described. The comparison of the play with earlier versions of the Tell legend highlights the roles of peasants and nobles in the establishment of the Swiss Confederation and suggests that Schiller elaborated extensively on the idea of a ‘common ground’ among the Swiss from different classes. The comparison between Schiller’s play and the contemporary German philosopher Johann Benjamin Erhard’s essay Über das Recht des Volks zu einer Revolution illustrates that Schiller’s social utopia develops in accordance with contemporary social visions. However, Tell’s act of murder separates him from the other Swiss protagonists in Schiller’s attempt to outline a righteous revolution, different from the one in France.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-128
Author(s):  
Łukasz Duśko ◽  
Mateusz Szurman

Recently, the role of the victim in criminal proceedings became more significant. An observation was made that the legal interests of the victim are much more severely affected by the crime than the collective legal interests in the form of public or social order. However, the differences in the rights the victim is vested with differ substantively between particular countries. The authors present the position of the victim in American, English and French law. The solutions provided for in these systems are confronted with legal regulations adopted in Poland, i.e. the home country of the authors. It shows, surprisingly, that the role of the victim in criminal proceedings has evolved somehow independently of the implementation of the concept of restitution. On the one hand, there are legal systems in which the criminal court may order the offender to pay compensation for the damage caused, but the role of the victim still remains marginal. On the other hand, there are systems in which the victim is not only entitled to receive restitution, but he or she also has significant powers which enable him or her to play an active role in the criminal proceedings.


Pharmaceutics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshiyuki Kubo ◽  
Miki Yamada ◽  
Saki Konakawa ◽  
Shin-ichi Akanuma ◽  
Ken-ichi Hosoya

Lysosomal trapping at the blood–retinal barrier (BRB) was investigated through quinacrine and fluorescence-labeled verapamil (EFV) uptake. Quinacrine uptake by conditionally immortalized rat retinal capillary endothelial (TR-iBRB2) cells suggested saturable and non-saturable transport processes in the inner BRB. The reduction of quinacrine uptake by bafilomycin A1 suggested quinacrine distribution to the acidic intracellular compartments of the inner BRB, and this notion was also supported in confocal microscopy. In the study using the lysosome-enriched fraction of TR-iBRB2 cells, quinacrine uptake was inhibited by bafilomycin A1, suggesting the lysosomal trapping of quinacrine in the inner BRB. Pyrilamine, clonidine, and nicotine had no effect on quinacrine uptake, suggesting the minor role of lysosomal trapping in their transport across the inner BRB. Bafilomycin A1 had no effect on EFV uptake, and lysosomal trapping driven by the acidic interior pH was suggested as a minor mechanism for EFV transport in the inner BRB. The minor contribution of lysosomal trapping was supported by the difference in inhibitory profiles between EFV and quinacrine uptakes. Similar findings were observed in the outer BRB study with the fraction of conditionally immortalized rat retinal pigment epithelial (RPE-J) cells. These results suggest the usefulness of lysosome-enriched fractions in studying lysosomal trapping at the BRB.


2010 ◽  
Vol 214 ◽  
pp. R38-R50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Boysen-Hogrefe ◽  
Dominik Groll

This paper lays out the various reasons for the exceptional performance of the German labour market during and after the Great Recession of 2008/9. The reference point of our analysis is provided by an empirical model of both total hours worked and employment. We conduct dynamic simulations of the crisis period to assess how surprising the reaction of the labour market really was. We argue that the most important precondition for the minor reaction of employment during this crisis was the pronounced wage moderation observed in the years before, which constitutes a distinct difference to all other recessions in Germany. Beyond that, the flexibility of adjusting working time, which has increased considerably during the past ten years, facilitated a tendency to labour hoarding. In contrast, short-time work plays a minor role in explaining the difference from previous recessions, since this instrument has always been available to firms in Germany and its use has not been extraordinary compared with earlier recessions.


2008 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Zima ◽  
J. Makinia ◽  
M. Swinarski ◽  
K. Czerwionka

This paper presents effects of dispersion on predicting longitudinal ammonia concentration profiles in activated sludge bioreactor located at “Wschod” WWTP in Gdansk. The aim of this study was to use the one-dimensional advection-dispersion Equation (ADE) to simulate the flow conditions (based on the inert tracer concentrations in selected points) and longitudinal profile of reactive pollutant (based on the ammonia concentration profiles in selected points). The simulation results were compared with the predictions obtained using a traditional “tanks-in-series” (TIS) approach, commonly used in designing biological reactors. The use of dispersion coefficient calculated from an empirical formula resulted in substantial differences in the tracer concentration distributions in two sampling points in the bioreactor. Simulations using the one-dimensional ADE and TIS model, with the nitrification rate incorporated as the source term, revealed that the hydraulic model plays a minor role compared to the biochemical transformations in predicting the longitudinal ammonia concentration profiles.


1988 ◽  
Vol 116 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Pirouz ◽  
F. Ernst ◽  
T. T. Cheng

AbstractIn the growth of thin films of compound semiconductors on (001) silicon substrates by vapor deposition techniques, it is usual to employ a two-step process. In this method, an initial (buffer) layer is first grown at a relatively low temperature; once a continuous film has formed on the substrate, its temperature is raised for the subsequent bulk growth. Carrying out the growth in a one-step process by heating the substrate to the final temperature before allowing the gases into the CVD reactor usually results in a polycrystalline aggregate. In this paper, classical nucleation and growth mechanisms are used to explain-the reasons for the different morphology of the one-step and two-step growth films.The heteroepitaxial films on (001) silicon often contain a high density of stacking faults and twins. The occurrence of these planar defects is usually attributed to stresses that arise from lattice mismatch and/or thermal mismatch (differences in coefficients of thermal expansion) between the substrate and the epilayer. It is argued that, in fact, mismatch stresses play a minor role in the generation of planar defects. Instead, an alternative mechanism for their formation is proposed which is based on the facetted shape of nuclei and errors in stacking of {111} planes which occur during deposition on the facets.Conventional and high resolution transmission electron microscopy have been used to investigate three systems grown by CVD or MOCVD: SiC/Si, GaAs/Si and GaP/Si. These systems have different lattice and thermal mismatches, and the results support the proposed model for the formation of defects.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Jonathan Ehret ◽  
Andrea Bönsch ◽  
Lukas Aspöck ◽  
Christine T. Röhr ◽  
Stefan Baumann ◽  
...  

For conversational agents’ speech, either all possible sentences have to be prerecorded by voice actors or the required utterances can be synthesized. While synthesizing speech is more flexible and economic in production, it also potentially reduces the perceived naturalness of the agents among others due to mistakes at various linguistic levels. In our article, we are interested in the impact of adequate and inadequate prosody, here particularly in terms of accent placement, on the perceived naturalness and aliveness of the agents. We compare (1) inadequate prosody, as generated by off-the-shelf text-to-speech (TTS) engines with synthetic output; (2) the same inadequate prosody imitated by trained human speakers; and (3) adequate prosody produced by those speakers. The speech was presented either as audio-only or by embodied, anthropomorphic agents, to investigate the potential masking effect by a simultaneous visual representation of those virtual agents. To this end, we conducted an online study with 40 participants listening to four different dialogues each presented in the three Speech levels and the two Embodiment levels. Results confirmed that adequate prosody in human speech is perceived as more natural (and the agents are perceived as more alive) than inadequate prosody in both human (2) and synthetic speech (1). Thus, it is not sufficient to just use a human voice for an agents’ speech to be perceived as natural—it is decisive whether the prosodic realisation is adequate or not. Furthermore, and surprisingly, we found no masking effect by speaker embodiment, since neither a human voice with inadequate prosody nor a synthetic voice was judged as more natural, when a virtual agent was visible compared to the audio-only condition. On the contrary, the human voice was even judged as less “alive” when accompanied by a virtual agent. In sum, our results emphasize, on the one hand, the importance of adequate prosody for perceived naturalness, especially in terms of accents being placed on important words in the phrase, while showing, on the other hand, that the embodiment of virtual agents plays a minor role in the naturalness ratings of voices.


1933 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 334-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. H. Brittain ◽  
Dorothy E. Newton

The chief purpose of the investigations described in this paper was to determine the relative pollen constancy of the various insect pollinators of the apple. In addition to the hive bee, these proved to be solitary bees belonging to the genera Halictus and Andrena, with Bremidae and various Diptera playing a minor role. It is pointed out that apparent flower constancy depends a great deal upon availability and that almost any result may be obtained by choosing certain periods in which to make tests. The results, based on analyses of the pollen loads of bees captured in apple blossoms, place the hive bee first as regards the number of pure loads, followed by Halictus, with Andrena a poor third. Taking into consideration the results of the entire season, and the analyses of bees from different sources of pollen, Halictus came first in these particular tests, but the difference is not considered significant. The supposed superiority of the hive bee from the standpoint of constancy does not appear to have been proved. Both Halictus and the hive bee, however, evidenced a significant superiority over the Andrena species studied.


2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friederike Vogel ◽  
Reinhard Gansmüller ◽  
Thomas Leiblein ◽  
Otto Dietmaier ◽  
Hans Wassmuth ◽  
...  

AbstractThis study related clinical effects to daily doses and serum concentrations of ziprasidone by retrospective analysis of data from a therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) survey established for patients treated with the new antipsychotic drug. In the total sample of 463 patients ziprasidone doses ranged between 20 and 320 mg/d and correlated significantly (r2 = 0.093, P < 0.01) with serum concentrations. The latter were highly variable within and between individual patients (between patients median 67 ng/ml, 25–75th percentile 40–103 ng/ml). Pharmacokinetic interactions with comedication played a minor role. According to the clinical global impressions (CGI) scale most of the 348 patients who were under antipsychotic monotherapy with ziprasidone were either much or very much improved (43.3 and 17.3%, respectively). The previously proposed therapeutic range of 50–130 ng/ml ziprasidone in serum or plasma, which can in effect be used interchangeable, was confirmed. In patients who were at least much improved and defined as “responders” mean serum concentrations of ziprasidone were 80 ng/ml and 78 ng/ml in patients who did not reach this improvement score. In patients with serum levels above or below 50 ng/ml, the number of responders was 66 or 63%, respectively. The difference between the two groups was not significant (P = 0.375), and improvement or side effects did not correlate significantly (P > 0.05) with doses or serum levels. It is concluded that TDM of ziprasidone may be useful for treatment optimization because of highly variable serum concentrations resulting under therapeutically recommended doses of the drug.


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