125,221 research outputs found
Greenhouse and field techniques for testing sugar beet for resistance to Rhizoctonia root and crown rot
No full textRhizoctonia-resistant sugar beet varieties are the key to an integrated control strategy for Rhizoctonia root rot. Because of the unpredictable occurrence of Rhizoctonia solani in the field testing of sugar beet for resistance to Rhizoctonia root rot is difficult. The aim of the study was to develop advanced greenhouse and field techniques which allow a reliable assessment of sugar beet for resistance to R. solani. A highly infectious liquid inoculum was used for the first time in this study. It can be produced in large quantities of a standardized quality, sterile, and exactly quantified according to its carbon content. In a greenhouse trial, sugar beet grown in the same way as field grown beet was inoculated by applying a suspension of Rhizoctonia mycelium (equivalent to 10 mg carbon per plant) to the beet crown. After 3 weeks, inoculation had led to uniform and severe root rot. Disease symptoms were similar to those found under natural conditions in the field. No 'escapes', i.e. susceptible plants apparently expressing resistance were observed in the test. A new nine-class disease scale was established and a Rhizoctonia index (RI) was calculated. Reliability of disease assessment was demonstrated on progeny of plants, selected from segregating populations, showing Rhizoctonia resistance more closely related to the resistant parent lines than to the susceptible ones. Sugar beet varieties could be assessed in the greenhouse within only 11 weeks. All varieties were affected by the pathogen but partially resistant varieties could be clearly recognized by a significantly lower Rhizoctonia index. Significant differences in susceptibility were also found within the group of new resistant genotypes. Infection studies performed in the field showed the superiority of the new liquid inoculum compared with a solid form and revealed the influence of inoculation date and inoculum level on the development of Rhizoctonia root rot. In field tests performed at different sites under different environmental conditions, susceptible and partially resistant sugar beet varieties could be reproducibly rated according to their susceptibility to R. solani. On average, susceptible varieties showed a Rhizoctonia index of 8 while resistant genotypes ranged from 5 to 6. The newly developed techniques allow fast and reliable evaluation of sugar beet for resistance to R. solani
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
The volcanic ash problem
No full textExplosive volcanic eruptions are the result of intensive magma and rock fragmentation, and they produce volcanic ash, which consists of fragments < 2 min in average diameter. The problem with volcanic ash is that its formation is poorly understood from the standpoint of eruption energetics. Because the source of explosive eruption energy should be the thermal energy of magma, and because an explosion requires rapid conversion of energy into a mechanical form, and because of the physical properties of magma thermal energy is dominantly released by conduction, the energy release on a short time scale (explosion) in volcanic processes has to be the result of a special mechanism, probably a positive feedback mechanism of fragmentation and heat exchange. In fact, the most explosive volcanic explosions are characterized by the most intensive fragmentation. In any fragmentation mechanism the generated particle sizes reflect the kinetic energy available (i.e. the fragmentation energy density). Consequently, fine ash (less than or equal to 64 mum) provides information on fragmentation mechanisms that are the most energetic and related to the highest explosive energy release. In this letter we discuss mechanisms of formation of fine volcanic ash, using experimental results, theoretical considerations, and field observations. We focus on the potency of these mechanisms to explain fine ash produced by explosive volcanism. We conclude that quantitative analysis of fine ash particles is necessary to estimate the mechanical energy of volcanic explosions
Identifying magma-water interaction from the surface features of ash particles
No full textThe deposits from explosive volcanic eruptions (those eruptions that release mechanical energy over a short time span(1)) are characterized by an abundance of volcanic ash(2,3). This ash is produced by fragmentation of the magma driving the eruption and by fragmenting and ejecting parts of the pre-existing crust (host rocks). Interactions between rising magma and the hydrosphere (oceans, lakes, and ground water) play an important role in explosive volcanism(4,5), because of the unique thermodynamic properties of water that allow it to very effectively convert thermal into mechanical energy, Although the relative proportion of magma to host-rock fragments is well preserved in the pyroclastic rocks deposited by such eruptions, it has remained difficult to quantitatively assess the interaction of magma with liquid water from the analysis of pyroclastic deposits(2-5). Here we report the results of a study of natural pyroclastic sequences combined with scaled laboratory experiments. We find that surface features of ash grains can be used to identify the dynamic contact of magma with liquid water, The abundance of such ash grains can then be related to the water/magma mass ratios during their interaction
Pragmatic Case Studies as a Source of Unity in Applied Psychology
No full textTo unify or not to unify applied psychology: that is the question. In this article we review pendulum swings in the historical efforts to answer this question—from a comprehensive, positivist, “top-down,” deductive yes between the 1930s and the early 60s, to a postmodern no since then. A rationale and proposal for a limited, “bottom-up,” inductive yes in applied psychology is then presented, employing a case-based paradigm that integrates both positivist and postmodern themes and components. This paradigm is labeled “pragmatic psychology” and, its specific use of case studies, the “Pragmatic Case Study Method” (“PCS Method”). We call for the creation of peer-reviewed journal-databases of pragmatic case studies as a foundational source of unifying applied knowledge in our discipline. As one example, the potential of the PCS Method for unifying different angles of theoretical regard is illustrated in an area of applied psychology, psychotherapy, via the case of Mrs. B. The article then turns to the broader historical and epistemological arguments for the unifying nature of the PCS Method in both applied and basic psychology.Peer reviewe
Dr. Edwin Wright Collection: Author Unknown
No full textNotes - The author relates several short stories about his neighbours including Alex McDonell, homesteading and life around Meanook and Athabasca (1 page
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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