Manhattan High School

In Kansas, productivity of grain sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is affected by weather conditions at planting and during pollination. Planting date management and selection of hybrid maturity group can help to avoid severe environmental stresses during these sensitive stages. The hypothesis of the study was that late May planting improves grain sorghum yield and yield components compared with late June planting. The objectives of this research were to investigate the influence of planting dates yield and yield components of different grain sorghum hybrids, and to determine the optimal planting date and hybrid combination for maximum biomass and grains production. Three sorghum hybrids (early, medium, and late maturing) were planted in late May and late June without irrigation in Kansas at Manhattan/Ashland Bottom Research Station, and Hutchinson in 2010; and at Manhattan/North Farm and Hutchinson in 2011. Data on dry matter production, yield and yield components were collected. Grain yield and yield components were influenced by planting date depending on environmental conditions. At Manhattan (2010), greater grain yield, number of heads per plant, were obtained with late-June planting compared with late May planting, while at Hutchinson (2010) greater yield was obtained with late May planting for all hybrids. The yield component most affected at Hutchinson was the number of kernels∙panicle−1 and plant density. Late-May planting was favorable for late maturing hybrid (P84G62) in all locations. However, the yield of early maturing hybrid (DKS 28-05) and medium maturing hybrid (DKS 37-07) was less affected by delayed planting. The effects of planting dates on yield and yield components of grain sorghum hybrids were found to be variable among hybrid maturity groups and locations.

The real estate industry is one of the most vital industries in any economy. The industry entails improvements to structures, roads, utility systems, and buildings and is responsible for creating many jobs. Many challenges have faced the real estate industry, including outbreaks of COVID-19 and Pneumoconiosis. The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge effect on the real estate industry, with sales of property declining significantly. There are three scenarios that can be used to explain the trajectory of the real estate industry after the pandemic. The first scenario, which is the negative scenario, shows that commercial property sales will decline by 13% year on year. The second optimistic scenario points out that sales will increase during the second half of the year and cause a 7% decrease year-on-year. Lastly, under the neutral scenario, sales will be the same as those of the previous years, and the decrease may exceed 10%. In conclusion, the real estate industry faces significant challenges due to the pandemic. There are likely to be differences in recovery as first-tier cities such as Shanghai and Beijing are expected to rebound due to a fall in mortgage rates and strong talent recruiting. Second-tier cities will experience the quickest recovery due to strong urban foundations, high population, housing demand, and economic resilience.

We investigate liquid dielectrophoresis (LDEP) to implement field-effect pumps (FEPs) that drive liquids from source, via gate, toward drain electric fields between parallel plates without external pumps or the problem of dead volume. The appropriate gate electric field establishes a wall-less virtual microchannel to transfer the liquid from source to drain with an adjustable flow rate (Q) controlled by the difference of the square of the electric field strength (ΔE2DS). Analogous to field-effect transistors (FETs), the FEPs can operate in a "linear", "transition" or "saturation" region depending on ΔE2GD and ΔE2DS. With a sufficient ΔE2GD and a small ΔE2DS, the FEPs operated in the linear region where Q was linearly proportional to ΔE2DS and inversely proportional to the flow resistance R that was mainly determined by the length (L), width (W) and height (H) of a stable and fully-occupied virtual microchannel. With an insufficient ΔE2GD and a moderate to large ΔE2DS, narrowing, tapering and even pinch-off of virtual microchannels were observed, which increased R and changed the operation into the transition or saturation region. A field-effect stream merger regulating two streams was built based on two FEPs with shared gate and drain electrodes. The versatility of FEPs was demonstrated with preliminary studies on whole blood and particle solutions.

High-quality monoisotopic hBN were synthesized using Fe-Cr flux. Boron and nitrogen were dissolved at a high temperature, then hBN single crystals were precipitated during cooling process.

The potential of feed ingredients to serve as vehicles for African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) introduction to the US is a significant concern. ASFV DNA has been detected in the Chinese feed system; raw grains and meals drying on the ground and milling facilities and feed delivery vehicles. Experimental evidence of ASFV survival in multiple soy-based feed ingredients during a simulated 30-day transoceanic journey and the transmission of ASFV through the natural consumption of contaminated feed has been published. Therefore, it’s important to understand the quantity of soy-based ingredients that enter the US from ASFV-positive countries via ocean shipping and rank sea ports of Entry (POEs) according to annual volume of these products to manage this risk.The quantity of soy-based feed ingredients and their specific ports of entry was obtained at the International Trade Commission Harmonized Tariff Schedule website (www.hs.usitc.gov), a publically available website that provides a transaction of specific trade commodities between the US and its international trading partners. A close review of this database identified 10 HTS codes pertaining to soy-based feed ingredients, including soybeans, soybean meal, soy oil cake and soy oil. Specific queries on these 10 HTS codes were designed to provide information on country of origin, quantity of product, date of entry, and POE into the US. Data were exported into Microsoft Excel, then organized into pivot tables that described the quantity of specific product by country of origin and POE. The analysis focused on the 43 ASFV-positive countries on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Watch List.In 2018, 104,707 metric tons (MT) of soy-based ingredients were imported to the US from a total of nine foreign countries that are included on the CFIA Watch List. 52.6 % of this volume that was imported, or 55,101 MT, originated from China. These soy-based products from China entered the US from a total of 13 separate ports of entry (POEs). Of these POEs, a total of 4 POEs received greater than 88% of all of soy-based ingredients originating from CHina, including San Francisco/Oakland, CA (60.36%), Seattle, WA (20.54%), Baltimore, MD (4.13%), and Los Angeles, CA (3.78%).This is a new approach to analyze the risk management of feed imports, focusing on seaport of highest risk and quantity of product received. This work represents an initial step towards building a comprehensive listing of imported products introduced into the pork supply chain, and provide a roadmap to understanding risks involved in global livestock feed ingredient sourcing.

Abstract Lipids have been observed attached to lumen-facing surfaces of mature xylem conduits of several plant species, but there has been little research on their functions or effects on water transport, and only one lipidomic study of the xylem apoplast. Therefore, we conducted lipidomic analyses of xylem sap from woody stems of seven plants representing six major angiosperm clades, including basal magnoliids, monocots, and eudicots, to characterize and quantify phospholipids, galactolipids, and sulfolipids in sap using mass spectrometry. Locations of lipids in vessels of Laurus nobilis were imaged using TEM and confocal microscopy. Xylem sap contained the galactolipids di- and mono-galactosyldiacylglycerol (DGDG and MGDG), as well as all common plant phospholipids, but only traces of sulfolipids, with total lipid concentrations in extracted sap ranging from 0.18 to 0.63 nmol / mL across all seven species. Contamination of extracted sap from lipids in cut living cells was found to be negligible. Lipid composition of sap was compared to wood in two species and was largely similar, suggesting that sap lipids, including galactolipids, originate from cell content of living vessels. Seasonal changes in lipid composition of sap were observed for one species. Lipid layers coated all lumen-facing vessel surfaces of Laurus nobilis, and lipids were highly concentrated in inter-vessel pits. The findings suggest that apoplastic, amphiphilic xylem lipids are a universal feature of angiosperms. The findings require a reinterpretation of the cohesion-tension theory of water transport to account for the effects of apoplastic lipids on dynamic surface tension and hydraulic conductance in xylem.