1,720,963 research outputs found
Processing Tomato Responses to Plant-Based Biostimulants Are Modulated by Environmental Conditions
No full textTomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum L.), rich in health-promoting bioactive compounds, are vital to the economy and culture of Mediterranean regions such as southern Italy. However, open-field cultivation in these areas faces increasing challenges due to fluctuating environmental conditions, which intensify oxidative stress, accelerate ripening, and compromise yield and quality. Plant-based protein hydrolysates (PHs) and optimized irrigation practices have emerged as promising strategies to enhance crop resilience. This study assessed the effects of two foliar-applied biostimulants: MU, a seaweed and plant amino acid-based formulation, and SR, a potassium-rich botanical extract. Both were tested on tomatoes (cv. "H1534") under open-field conditions in southern Italy (Foggia) over two seasons (2019-2020). Both biostimulants had no significant impact on yield traits or technological quality, whereas year-to-year variability markedly influenced outcomes. In 2020, compared with 2019, total yield declined by 45%, and defective fruits rose by 311%.°Brix, polyphenols, lycopene, and sweetness index also decreased significantly (-41%, -18%, -58%, and -14%, respectively), indicating stress conditions. Under these circumstances, MU increased polyphenols (+27%) and enhanced essential (+42%) and branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs, +63%), while SR also stimulated BCAAs accumulation (+30%). These findings suggest that, under variable open-field conditions, biostimulants mainly influenced fruit metabolic profiles rather than directly enhancing growth or yield. Their performance appears closely tied to environmental factors, reinforcing the need for realistic, context-specific evaluations to guide their effective integration into sustainable cropping systems
Balancing yield, water productivity, and fruit quality of processing tomatoes through the combined use of biodegradable mulch film and regulated deficit irrigation
No full textItaly is the third largest producer of processing tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum L.) worldwide. Tomato production is projected to be considerably affected by climate change, especially in drought-prone regions where maximizing water use efficiency is essential. A two-year on-farm experiment was conducted to compare full irrigation (T1) with two water-saving irrigation strategies: T2 (regulated deficit irrigation, RDI) and T3 (RDI combined with soil-biodegradable mulch film). The experiment was conducted at two representative sites in southern Italy, where yield performance, sustainability, and fruit quality were assessed. T2 resulted in 31 % water savings and maintained comparable yields, increasing irrigation (+44 %) and economic (+56 %) water productivities with respect to T1. Nevertheless, the accelerated crop cycle observed in T2 reduced the leaf coverage of fruit, leading to a higher number of sun-scalded fruits and decreased lycopene content at harvest. The negative effects of RDI were partially mitigated by combining it with soil-biodegradable mulch film (T3), which improved the soluble solid content (+4 %), marketable (+23 %) and Brix (+28 %) yields, and irrigation (+71 %) and economic (+78 %) water productivities compared with T1. Metabolic profiling further highlighted that T3 increased key stress-related metabolites, including alanine (+50 %), glycine (+31 %), and proline (+44 %), indicating enhanced metabolic adaptation to water stress. The increase in proline, a crucial osmolyte and antioxidant, suggests improved nitrogen use efficiency and overall metabolic resilience under water-deficient conditions. Based on these findings, T3 is recommended as a valuable practice for improving yield and sustainability, while maintaining fruit quality in drought-prone areas
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe 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
Can Microbial Consortium Applications Affect Yield and Quality of Conventionally Managed Processing Tomato?
No full textThree commercial microbial-based biostimulants containing fungi (arbuscular mycorrhizae and Trichoderma spp.) and other microrganisms (plant growth-promoting bacteria and yeasts) were applied on a processing tomato crop in a two-year field experiment in southern Italy. The effects of the growing season and the microorganism-based treatments on the yield, technological traits and functional quality of the tomato fruits were assessed. The year of cultivation affected yield (with a lower fruit weight, higher marketable to total yield ratio and higher percentage of total defective fruits in 2020) and technological components (higher dry matter, titratable acidity, total soluble solids content in 2020). During the first year of the trial, the consortia-based treatments enhanced the soluble solids content (+10.02%) compared to the untreated tomato plants. The sucrose and lycopene content were affected both by the microbial treatments and the growing season (greater values found in 2021 with respect to 2020). The year factor also significantly affected the metabolite content, except for tyrosine, essential (EAA) and branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs). Over the two years of the field trial, FID-consortium enhanced the content of proteins (+53.71%), alanine (+16.55%), aspartic acid (+31.13%), γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) (+76.51%), glutamine (+55.17%), glycine (+28.13%), monoethanolamine (MEA) (+19.57%), total amino acids (TAA) (+33.55), EAA (+32.56%) and BCAAs (+45.10%) compared to the control. Our findings highlighted the valuable effect of the FID microbial inoculant in boosting several primary metabolites (proteins and amino acids) in the fruits of the processing tomato crop grown under southern Italian environmental conditions, although no effect on the yield and its components was appreciated
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe 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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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