Food Preservation by Freezing

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Affective incoherence: when affective concepts and embodied reactions clash.

In five studies, the authors examined the effects on cognitive performance of coherence and incoherence between conceptual and experiential sources of affective information. The studies crossed the priming of happy and sad concepts with affective experiences. In different experiments, these included approach or avoidance actions, happy or sad feelings, and happy or sad expressive behaviors. In all studies, coherence between affective concepts and affective experiences led to better recall of a story than did affective incoherence. The authors suggest that the experience of such experiential affective cues serves as evidence of the appropriateness of affective concepts that come to mind. The results suggest that affective coherence has epistemic benefits and that incoherence is costly in terms of cognitive performance

Genetic Linkage Between Isozyme, Morphological, and DNA Markers in Tepary Bean

A genetic map of tepary bean (Phaseolus acutitolius A. Gray) may be useful to plant breeders attempting to transfer desirable genes from this species to other Phaseolus species. In order to expand the genetic information available for tepary bean, the inheritance of and linkage relationships among 23 morphological, isozyme, and RFLP markers were determined. All but one of the characters segregated in a monogenic fashion, and low levels of segregation distortion were observed. New two-locus linkages Identified included Aat-2/Gpi-c2, Aco-2/Dia-3, and Dia-3/ldh-x. Nine of the 23 loci exhibited linkage to other loci analyzed and could be assigned to one of three district linkage groups. Two tepary bean linkage groups (Adh-1/Aat-2, Aco-2/Dia-3) appear to be conserved in common bean, although the linkage estimates for Adh-1Aat-2 are dramatically different in these species. The Adh-1/Aat-2 linkage also appears to be conserved in lentil and pea. Additionally, the Gpi-c1/Pgd-3 linkage has a possible counterpart in soybean, and the Fdh-1/Gpi-c1 linkage in tepary bean is maintained In chickpe

Martian surface physical properties to be derived by radar altimeter on the Mars observer spacecraft

The potential is described of a candidate Mars Observer altimeter for determining dielectric properties of Mars regolith. It is pointed out that it is straightforward to use the time between altimeter pulse trains for passive radiometry (hence dielectric properties) and roughness can be derived. Given the mission plan the whole surface can be mapped at least three times, yielding data on seasonal variability

Activity of glycolytic enzymes in the gut of Hormogaster elisae (Oligochaeta, Hormogastridae)

The glycolytic enzymatic activities in the gut of the endogeic earthworm #Hormogaster elisae from El Molar (Madrid, Spain) were studied in order to determine its digestive capacity and to assess its alimentary regime. Most endogeic earthworms have weak enzymatic complement and they usually establish mutualistic relationships with soil microflora to digest some organic compounds. Therefore, the intestinal wall tissues were cultured in vitro to assess the origin of the glycolytic enzymes found in the gut and enzymatic activities were measured in both cultured tissues and culture media. #H. elisae had a wide but not very strong enzyme complement, since all substrates were degraded but most of them at a low rate. This species cannot produce cellulase and mannamase, so for the digestion of these substrates it probably uses the digestive enzymatic capabilities of the ingested microflora. (Résumé d'auteur

High-resolution measurements of surface topography with airborne laser altimetry and the global positioning system

Recently, an airborne lidar system that measures laser pulse time-of-flight and the distortion of the pulse waveform upon reflection from earth surface terrain features was developed and is now operational. This instrument is combined with Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and a two-axis gyroscope for accurate recovery of aircraft position and pointing attitude. The laser altimeter system is mounted on a high-altitude aircraft platform and operated in a repetitively-pulsed mode for measurements of surface elevation profiles at nadir. The laser transmitter makes use of recently developed short-pulse diode-pumped solid-state laser technology in Q-switched Nd:YAG operating at its fundamental wavelength of 1064 nm. A reflector telescope and silicon avalanche photodiode are the basis of the optical receiver. A high-speed time-interval unit and a separate high-bandwidth waveform digitizer under microcomputer control are used to process the backscattered pulses for measurements of terrain. Other aspects of the lidar system are briefly discussed

A Class of Selenocentric Retrograde Orbits With Innovative Applications to Human Lunar Operations

Selenocentric distant retrograde orbits with radii from approx. 12,500 km to approx. 25,000 km are assessed for stability and for suitability as crewed command and control infrastructure locations in support of telerobotic lunar surface operations and interplanetary human transport. Such orbits enable consistent transits to and from Earth at virtually any time if they are coplanar with the Moon's geocentric orbit. They possess multiple attributes and applications distinct from NASA's proposed destination orbit for a redirected asteroid about 70,000 km from the Moon

Hybrid Algorithms Based on Integer Programming for the Search of Prioritized Test Data in Software Product Lines

In Software Product Lines (SPLs) it is not possible, in general, to test all products of the family. The number of products denoted by a SPL is very high due to the combinatorial explosion of features. For this reason, some coverage criteria have been proposed which try to test at least all feature interactions without the necessity to test all products, e.g., all pairs of features (pairwise coverage). In addition, it is desirable to first test products composed by a set of priority features. This problem is known as the Prioritized Pairwise Test Data Generation Problem. In this work we propose two hybrid algorithms using Integer Programming (IP) to generate a prioritized test suite. The first one is based on an integer linear formulation and the second one is based on a integer quadratic (nonlinear) formulation. We compare these techniques with two state-of-the-art algorithms, the Parallel Prioritized Genetic Solver (PPGS) and a greedy algorithm called prioritized-ICPL. Our study reveals that our hybrid nonlinear approach is clearly the best in both, solution quality and computation time. Moreover, the nonlinear variant (the fastest one) is 27 and 42 times faster than PPGS in the two groups of instances analyzed in this work.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER under contract TIN2014-57341-R, the University of Málaga, Andalucía Tech and the Spanish Network TIN2015-71841-REDT (SEBASENet)

Scaling up index insurance for smallholder farmers: Recent evidence and insights

This report explores evidence and insights from five case studies that have made significant recent progress in addressing the challenge of insuring poor smallholder farmers and pastoralists in the developing world. In India, national index insurance programmes have reached over 30 million farmers through a mandatory link with agricultural credit and strong government support. In East Africa (Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania), the Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE) has recently scaled to reach nearly 200,000 farmers, bundling index insurance with agricultural credit and farm inputs. ACRE has built on strong partnerships with regional initiatives such as M-PESA mobile banking. In Ethiopia and Senegal, the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative has scaled unsubsidized index insurance to over 20,000 poor smallholder farmers who were previously considered uninsurable, using insurance as an integral part of a comprehensive risk management portfolio. With strong public and private sector support, the Mongolia Index-Based Livestock Insurance Project (IBLIP) insures more than 15,000 nomadic herders and links commercial insurance with a government disaster safety net. Finally, the Index-Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) project in Kenya and Ethiopia demonstrates innovative approaches to insuring poor nomadic pastoralists in challenging circumstances. A few common features appear to have contributed to recent progress within these case studies: explicitly targeting obstacles to improving farmer income; integration of insurance with other development interventions; giving farmers a voice in the design of products; investing in local capacity; and investing in science-based index development. Evidence from these case studies can inform the ongoing debate about the viability of scaling up index-based insurance for vulnerable smallholder farmers in the developing world. The rapid progress observed in recent years suggests that index insurance has the potential to benefit smallholder farmers at a meaningful scale, and suggests the need to reassess arguments that lack of demand and practical implementation challenges prevent index-based insurance from being a useful tool to reduce rural poverty