In Deep Water: Towards a Greater Commitment for Human Rights in Sea Operations Coordinated by FRONTEX?

Introduction: The paper is organized in four sections. The first section of this paper will be devoted to analysing the broad concept of border surveillance adopted by the Regulation on the sea border operations coordinated by Frontex. In the following two sections, the paper will focus on examining to what extent the new rules applicable to the detection, interception of vessels, and search and rescue situations respect the obligations arising from the main international law treaties binding on the Member States. Finally, in the fourth section, the paper provides a detailed exam of the principle of non-refoulement in the context of Frontex operations. It is important to determine the content and scope of the principle of non-refoulement when interception of vessels takes place in the territorial seas and contiguous zone of the Member States. Furthermore, it is crucial to know whether the principle applies extraterritorially, in particular on the high seas and in the territorial waters of third states

Common fixed point theorems of different compatible type mappings using Ciric\u27s contraction type condition

The purpose of this paper is to establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of common fixed points for a compatible pair of selfmaps under Ciric\u27s contraction type condition. These theorems improve and generalize the results of Mukherjee and Verma [11] and Jungck [9] to a pair of selfmaps. Also established the existence of common fixed points for a pair of compatible mappings of type (B), and obtain a result on the existence of common fixed points for a pair of compatible mappings of type (A) as corollary. Greguš fixed point theorem follows as a special case to our results

Transatlantic Transfer of Personal Data: Rebuilding Trust in EU-US Data Relations?

Introduction: This paper aims to analyse firstly, the extent to which the NSA scandal has damaged trust in EU-US transfer of data. PNR and SWIFT already raised serious concerns regarding breaches of data protection rights of EU citizens but the NSA scandal constituted the last straw in the already troubled waters of transatlantic data exchanges. While PNR and SWIFT are not the only existing data transfer agreements between the EU and the US, they are the most contentious. Secondly, this paper will try to examine whether the Umbrella Agreement can contribute to rebuilding trust in EUUS relations by laying down a sufficient and effective framework for data protection in the context of transatlantic cooperation. For that purpose, this paper will first look at the implications of the NSA scandal for trust in transatlantic data relations. Secondly, the challenges to transfers of data in EU-US relations will be examined, paying particular attention to weak level of protection in SWIFT and PNR as well as to their review process and issues of accountability. Thirdly, an analysis of the Commission’s Non- Paper on the state of play of negotiations on the Umbrella Agreement will serve as a ground to assess whether the agreed proposals will provide sufficient safeguards against the identified concerns. Finally, provisional conclusions will be drawn on the basis of the current state of negotiations

Impact of high temperature stress on floret fertility and individual grain weight of grain sorghum: sensitive stages and thresholds for temperature and duration

Citation: Prasad PVV, Djanaguiraman M, Perumal R and Ciampitti IA (2015) Impact of high temperature stress on floret fertility and individual grain weight of grain sorghum: sensitive stages and thresholds for temperature and duration. Front. Plant Sci. 6:820. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2015.00820Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] yield formation is severely affected by high temperature stress during reproductive stages. This study pursues to (i) identify the growth stage(s) most sensitive to high temperature stress during reproductive development, (ii) determine threshold temperature and duration of high temperature stress that decreases floret fertility and individual grain weight, and (iii) quantify impact of high daytime temperature during floret development, flowering and grain filling on reproductive traits and grain yield under field conditions. Periods between 10 and 5 d before anthesis; and between 5 d before- and 5 d after-anthesis were most sensitive to high temperatures causing maximum decreases in floret fertility. Mean daily temperatures >25°C quadratically decreased floret fertility (reaching 0% at 37°C) when imposed at the start of panicle emergence. Temperatures ranging from 25 to 37°C quadratically decreased individual grain weight when imposed at the start of grain filling. Both floret fertility and individual grain weights decreased quadratically with increasing duration (0–35 d or 49 d during floret development or grain filling stage, respectively) of high temperature stress. In field conditions, imposition of temperature stress (using heat tents) during floret development or grain filling stage also decreased floret fertility, individual grain weight, and grain weight per panicle

Implications of high temperature and elevated CO2on flowering time in plants

Citation: Jagadish, S. V. K., Bahuguna, R. N., Djanaguiraman, M., Gamuyao, R., Prasad, P. V. V., & Craufurd, P. Q. (2016). Implications of high temperature and elevated CO2on flowering time in plants. Frontiers in Plant Science, 7. doi:10.3389/fpls.2016.00913Flowering is a crucial determinant for plant reproductive success and seed-set. Increasing temperature and elevated carbon-dioxide (e[CO2]) are key climate change factors that could affect plant fitness and flowering related events. Addressing the effect of these environmental factors on flowering events such as time of day of anthesis (TOA) and flowering time (duration from germination till flowering) is critical to understand the adaptation of plants/crops to changing climate and is the major aim of this review. Increasing ambient temperature is the major climatic factor that advances flowering time in crops and other plants, with a modest effect of e[CO2]. Integrated environmental stimuli such as photoperiod, temperature and e[CO2] regulating flowering time is discussed. The critical role of plant tissue temperature influencing TOA is highlighted and crop models need to substitute ambient air temperature with canopy or floral tissue temperature to improve predictions. A complex signaling network of flowering regulation with change in ambient temperature involving different transcription factors (PIF4, PIF5), flowering suppressors (HvODDSOC2, SVP, FLC) and autonomous pathway (FCA, FVE) genes, mainly from Arabidopsis, provides a promising avenue to improve our understanding of the dynamics of flowering time under changing climate. Elevated CO2mediated changes in tissue sugar status and a direct [CO2]-driven regulatory pathway involving a key flowering gene, MOTHER OF FT AND TFL1 (MFT), are emerging evidence for the role of e[CO2] in flowering time regulation. © 2016 Jagadish, Bahuguna, Djanaguiraman, Gamuyao, Prasad and Craufurd

Experimental and modeling analysis of internal luminescence in III-V solar cells

In high quality solar cells, the internal luminescence can be harnessed to enhance the overall performance. Internal confinement of the photons can lead to an increased open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current. Alternatively, in multijunction solar cells the photons can be coupled from a higher bandgap junction to a lower bandgap junction for enhanced performance. We model the solar cell as an optical cavity and compare calculated performance characteristics with measurements. We also describe how very high luminescent coupling alleviates the need for top-cell thinning to achieve current-matching

Genotypic variation in sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] exotic germplasm collections for drought and disease tolerance

Citation: Kapanigowda, M., . . . & Little, C. (2013). Genotypic variation in sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] exotic germplasm collections for drought and disease tolerance. SpringerPlus, 2, 650. https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-2-650Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] grain yield is severely affected by abiotic and biotic stresses during post-flowering stages, which has been aggravated by climate change. New parental lines having genes for various biotic and abiotic stress tolerances have the potential to mitigate this negative effect. Field studies were conducted under irrigated and dryland conditions with 128 exotic germplasm and 12 adapted lines to evaluate and identify potential sources for post-flowering drought tolerance and stalk and charcoal rot tolerances. The various physiological and disease related traits were recorded under irrigated and dryland conditions. Under dryland conditions, chlorophyll content (SPAD), grain yield and HI were decreased by 9, 44 and 16%, respectively, compared to irrigated conditions. Genotype RTx7000 and PI475432 had higher leaf temperature and grain yield, however, genotype PI570895 had lower leaf temperature and higher grain yield under dryland conditions. Increased grain yield and optimum leaf temperature was observed in PI510898, IS1212 and PI533946 compared to BTx642 (B35). However, IS14290, IS12945 and IS1219 had decreased grain yield and optimum leaf temperature under dryland conditions. Under irrigated conditions, stalk and charcoal rot disease severity was higher than under dryland conditions. Genotypes IS30562 and 1790E R had tolerance to both stalk rot and charcoal rot respectively and IS12706 was the most susceptible to both diseases. PI510898 showed combined tolerance to drought and Fusarium stalk rot under dryland conditions. The genotypes identified in this study are potential sources of drought and disease tolerance and will be used to develop better adaptable parental lines followed by high yielding hybrids