European soybean to benefit people and the environment.

Europe imports large amounts of soybean that are predominantly used for livestock feed, mainly sourced from Brazil, USA and Argentina. In addition, the demand for GM-free soybean for human consumption is project to increase. Soybean has higher protein quality and digestibility than other legumes, along with high concentrations of isoflavones, phytosterols and minerals that enhance the nutritional value as a human food ingredient.

Contrasting leaf-scale photosynthetic low-light response and its temperature dependency are key to differences in crop-scale radiation use efficiency.

Radiation use efficiency (RUE) is a key crop adaptation trait that quantifies the potential amount of aboveground biomass produced by the crop per unit of solar energy intercepted. But it is unclear why elite maize and grain sorghum hybrids differ in their RUE at the crop level. Here, we used a non-traditional top-down approach via canopy photosynthesis modelling to identify leaf-level photosynthetic traits that are key to differences in crop-level RUE.

The antibacterial effectiveness of lavender essential oil against methicillin-resistant : a systematic review.

With the overuse and misuse of antibiotics, multi-drug resistant organisms have become a prominent issue in healthcare, increasing morbidity and mortality in affected patients. One such organism of concern is methicillin-resistant (MRSA) which is a leading cause of a variety of clinical infections. Therefore, in the interest of finding alternate substances to antibiotics, there has been increased interest in the antibacterial properties of lavender essential oil (LEO).

A conceptual framework for the dynamic modeling of time-resolved phenotypes for sets of genotype-environment-management combinations: a model library.

Introduction: Dynamic crop growth models are an important tool to predict complex traits, like crop yield, for modern and future genotypes in their current and evolving environments, as those occurring under climate change. Phenotypic traits are the result of interactions between genetic, environmental, and management factors, and dynamic models are designed to generate the interactions producing phenotypic changes over the growing season. Crop phenotype data are becoming increasingly available at various levels of granularity, both spatially (landscape) and temporally (longitudinal, time-series) from proximal and remote sensing technologies.

Immediate-access grafts provide comparable patency to standard grafts, with fewer reinterventions and catheter-related complications.

Background: No independent comparisons, with midterm follow-up, of standard arteriovenous grafts (SAVGs) and immediate-access arteriovenous grafts (IAAVGs) exist. The goal of this study was to compare "real-world" performance of SAVGs and IAAVGs.

Methods: Consecutive patients who underwent placement of a hemodialysis graft between November 2014 and April 2016 were retrospectively identified from the electronic medical record and Vascular Quality Initiative database at two tertiary centers.

Current Experience and Midterm Follow-up of Immediate-Access Arteriovenous Grafts.

Background: No independent reviews, with midterm follow-up, of current experience with immediate-access arteriovenous grafts (IAAVGs) exist. The goal of this project was to assess the real-world performance of 2 different IAAVGs over a 2-year period at a large tertiary referral center.

Methods: Between January 2014 and April 2016, all consecutive patients who underwent placement of Acuseal (Gore) or Flixine (Maquet) IAAVGs were identified for retrospective analysis from the electronic medical record and Vascular Quality Initiative database.

The Sorghum bicolor reference genome: improved assembly, gene annotations, a transcriptome atlas, and signatures of genome organization.

Sorghum bicolor is a drought tolerant C4 grass used for the production of grain, forage, sugar, and lignocellulosic biomass and a genetic model for C4 grasses due to its relatively small genome (approximately 800 Mbp), diploid genetics, diverse germplasm, and colinearity with other C4 grass genomes. In this study, deep sequencing, genetic linkage analysis, and transcriptome data were used to produce and annotate a high-quality reference genome sequence. Reference genome sequence order was improved, 29.

Sorghum Dw2 Encodes a Protein Kinase Regulator of Stem Internode Length.

Sorghum is an important C4 grass crop grown for grain, forage, sugar, and bioenergy production. While tall, late flowering landraces are commonly grown in Africa, short early flowering varieties were selected in US grain sorghum breeding programs to reduce lodging and to facilitate machine harvesting. Four loci have been identified that affect stem length (Dw1-Dw4).

Bioenergy Sorghum Crop Model Predicts VPD-Limited Transpiration Traits Enhance Biomass Yield in Water-Limited Environments.

Bioenergy sorghum is targeted for production in water-limited annual cropland therefore traits that improve plant water capture, water use efficiency, and resilience to water deficit are necessary to maximize productivity. A crop modeling framework, APSIM, was adapted to predict the growth and biomass yield of energy sorghum and to identify potentially useful traits for crop improvement. APSIM simulations of energy sorghum development and biomass accumulation replicated results from field experiments across multiple years, patterns of rainfall, and irrigation schemes.

3D Sorghum Reconstructions from Depth Images Identify QTL Regulating Shoot Architecture.

Dissecting the genetic basis of complex traits is aided by frequent and nondestructive measurements. Advances in range imaging technologies enable the rapid acquisition of three-dimensional (3D) data from an imaged scene. A depth camera was used to acquire images of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), an important grain, forage, and bioenergy crop, at multiple developmental time points from a greenhouse-grown recombinant inbred line population.

Identification of Dw1, a Regulator of Sorghum Stem Internode Length.

Sorghum is an important C4 grain and grass crop used for food, feed, forage, sugar, and biofuels. In its native Africa, sorghum landraces often grow to approximately 3-4 meters in height. Following introduction into the U.

Harnessing Genetic Variation in Leaf Angle to Increase Productivity of Sorghum bicolor.

The efficiency with which a plant intercepts solar radiation is determined primarily by its architecture. Understanding the genetic regulation of plant architecture and how changes in architecture affect performance can be used to improve plant productivity. Leaf inclination angle, the angle at which a leaf emerges with respect to the stem, is a feature of plant architecture that influences how a plant canopy intercepts solar radiation.

RIG: Recalibration and interrelation of genomic sequence data with the GATK.

Recent advances in variant calling made available in the Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK) enable the use of validated single-nucleotide polymorphisms and indels to improve variant calling. However, large collections of variants for this purpose often are unavailable to research communities. We introduce a workflow to generate reliable collections of single-nucleotide polymorphisms and indels by leveraging available genomic resources to inform variant calling using the GATK.

Resolution of genetic map expansion caused by excess heterozygosity in plant recombinant inbred populations.

Recombinant inbred populations of many plant species exhibit more heterozygosity than expected under the Mendelian model of segregation. This segregation distortion causes the overestimation of recombination frequencies and consequent genetic map expansion. Here we build upon existing genetic models of differential zygotic viability to model a heterozygote fitness term and calculate expected genotypic proportions in recombinant inbred populations propagated by selfing.

Energy sorghum--a genetic model for the design of C4 grass bioenergy crops.

Sorghum is emerging as an excellent genetic model for the design of C4 grass bioenergy crops. Annual energy Sorghum hybrids also serve as a source of biomass for bioenergy production. Elucidation of Sorghum's flowering time gene regulatory network, and identification of complementary alleles for photoperiod sensitivity, enabled large-scale generation of energy Sorghum hybrids for testing and commercial use.

What can be learned from the types of community benefit programs that hospitals already have in place?

After implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) how will tax-exempt hospitals adjust their community benefit programs to maintain their non-profit status? This literature review categorized existing hospital-based community benefit programs by reviewing published articles that met the following inclusion criteria: affiliated or funded by a hospital; described the program design; focused on community benefit or outreach; evaluated program outcomes; located within the United States. Of 4,917 original citations, we reviewed 265 full-text articles. One hundred and six (106) programs met all inclusion criteria and were used to develop a hospital-based community benefit program taxonomy.

Genetic determinants of cell size at birth and their impact on cell cycle progression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

In most cases, cells must increase their size before they can divide. Hence, a small size has been used often as a phenotype for mutants that accelerate initiation of division, such as the celebrated WHI mutants of budding yeast. Recently, we measured the DNA content of all nonessential gene deletion strains in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Viewing and feeling touch modulates hand position for reaching.

Action requires knowledge of our body location in space. Here we asked if interactions with the external world prior to a reaching action influence how visual location information is used. We investigated if the temporal synchrony between viewing and feeling touch modulates the integration of visual and proprioceptive body location information for action.

Cortical representations of bodies and faces are strongest in commonly experienced configurations.

Faces and bodies are perhaps the most salient and evolutionarily important visual stimuli. Using human functional imaging, we found that the strength of face and body representations depends on long-term experience. Representations were strongest for stimuli in their typical combinations of visual field and side (for example, left field, right body), although all conditions were simply reflections and translations of one another.

An empirical explanation of the flash-lag effect.

When a flash of light is presented in physical alignment with a moving object, the flash is perceived to lag behind the position of the object. This phenomenon, known as the flash-lag effect, has been of particular interest to vision scientists because of the challenge it presents to understanding how the visual system generates perceptions of objects in motion. Although various explanations have been offered, the significance of this effect remains a matter of debate.