ABCD Spring meeting in Belfast

Fibre or recycled material used in the concrete improves resistance, ductility, and durability of concrete. Concrete has fire-resistant properties but the most worrying thing about reinforced concrete structures during the fire is related to rebars. Therefore, there is a suggestion about use of alternative materials such as recycled metal spring in order to reduce above mentioned risks. In this paper, we conduct laboratory study to assess performance of concrete containing recycled metal spring while using volumetric amounts of 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6% at temperatures of 25, 100, 250, 500, 700 and 900 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, compressive strength and tensile strength of the most optimal combination of spring in the concrete are compared with concrete containing steel fibre and polypropylene. The results show that spring used in the concrete improves compressive strength and tensile strength. But the more the spring is used in the concrete, the more the resistance is reduced. Therefore, if the spring with 0.2 volume percent that is considered as the most optimal combination percentage is increased by 3 times, it increases compressive strength and tensile strength. Furthermore, the optimal compressive strength of spring in different temperatures is about 2 – 3 times of steel fibre and polypropylene and its tensile strength is close to strength of steel fibre. Fibre used in concrete reduces width of the cracks created after the test by 3 times.

هدف از پژوهش کنونی بررسی دورنمایی از اثرات احتمالی تغییر اقلیم بر جابه‌جایی زمانی تاریخ وقوع اولین و آخرین یخبندان‌های پاییزه و بهارۀ ایران است. بدین منظور از داده‌های دیده‌بانی 43 ایستگاه همدید کشور (1981-2010) و داده‌های شبیه‌سازی شدۀ LARS WG در دو مدل آب‌وهوای جهانی GFCM21 و HadCM3 در بازه‌های زمانی (2065-2046) و (2099-2080)، تحت سه سناریوی انتشار A1B، A2 و B1استفاده گردید. نتایج، بیانگر جابه‌جایی اولین یخبندان پاییزه‌ به سمت اوایل زمستان و جابه‌جایی آخرین یخبندان بهاره به‌سوی اواخر زمستان در گسترۀ ایران است. پراکنش زمانی-مکانی تغییرات متفاوت است؛ به‌گونه‌ای که بیشترین جابه‌جایی‌های مثبت در رخداد اولین یخبندان پاییزه در دورۀ (2065-2046) در ایستگاه‌هایی چون خرم‌‌آباد، رشت و گرگان مشاهده می‌شود. میزان تغییرات در ایستگاه‌های شمال شرقی (سبزوار و سمنان)، نیمۀ جنوبی (کرمان، بم و آباده) و بیشتر ایستگاه‌های شمال‌غرب نسبت به دیگر مناطق کمتر است. در دورۀ (2080-2099) بیشترین روند منفی در ایستگاه‌های گرگان، رشت، اردبیل و شهرکرد خواهد بود. خوی، قزوین، بم و کاشان کمترین جابه‌جایی منفی خواهند داشت.

THE PROPERTIES OF RATTAN CALAMUS CAESIUS (RATTAN SEGA) AND ITS APPLICATION IN SPRING FORM. Rattan is one of the natural resources in the Peninsular of Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. The lack of information of the properties of rattan is a reason why this material is not known as engineering materials. The flexibility or the plasticity of the rattan is actually a strong point to develop it as an engineering materials such as a reinforced of the cement to resist the earthquake or as a spring. This paper therefore shows the properties of rattan calamus caesius (Rattan Sega) and its application as spring. The determination of the properties of rattan was conducted according to ASTM standard with a suitable modification. This research shows the plasticity of the rattan which makes it remain in spring form. The stiffness coefficient of the spring was measured based on the relation of the force and displacement. The value of the stiffness of spring gained from measurement was compared with the analytical method which is valid in an elastic region.

Understanding root growth response of creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera L.) to coring will help golf course superintendents maintain high quality putting green turf. The objective of this field study was to examine the effects of coring on summer rooting in young creeping bentgrass grown on a sand‐based root zone and maintained as a putting green. The study was initiated on 7‐mo‐old ‘Providence' creeping bentgrass in 2006 and compared spring (SP) only coring, spring plus three summer (SU) corings (SP + SU) and a noncored control through 2007. The minirhizotron imagining technique was used to measure total root count (TRC) and total root length (TRL) from late spring to late summer. The percentage of the TRC in the surface 0‐ to 6‐cm root zone depth averaged over measurement dates was 48 to 53% and 33 to 44% among all treatments in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Greater TRC were observed in 2006 with 28, 51, and 50% lower TRC's found in SP + SU, SP only, and noncored plots in 2007, respectively. Spring + SU coring generally reduced TRC and TRL at various root zone depths and dates during the first year of establishment. In 2007, greater TRC and TRL were observed throughout the 0‐ to 24‐cm root zone in SP + SU cored compared to SP only and noncored plots. Thus, SP + SU coring in the second study year promoted creeping bentgrass root growth and/or longevity, but coring during the first summer of establishment reduced rooting.

Drivers of Departure and Prospecting in Dispersing Juvenile Red Kites (Milvus milvus)

Microsite influences development and resource allocation of Dactylis glomerata L. (orchardgrass), a traditional pasture species with potential as an understory crop in silvopasture of humid temperate regions. An experiment using container-grown orchardgrass was conducted under field conditions to determine how open (O), shaded woodland (W) and open-to-shaded woodland transition zone (EO, EW) microsites influenced leaf DM production. Plants established in spring (SP) and late summer (LS) were clipped each time mean canopy height reached 20 cm. Dry matter production and allocation among structures differed, as a function of light attenuation. Specific leaf area (SLA) and photosynthetic nitrogen-use efficiency (PNUE) were associated with leaf DM production, whereas leaf N, net assimilation rate and shoot total nonstructural carbohydrates (TNC), were not. Specific leaf area was related to leaf DM of LS plants, whereas PNUE influenced leaf DM of SP plants. Stembase TNC was inversely related to relative regrowth rate (RGRR) with RGRR greatest and TNC the least at W. The relationship for RGRR and TNC for SP plants growing at O and LS plants growing at W was similar. Regardless of how indices of growth are related, SP and LS plantings responded as separate populations (representing young and established plants respectively) that have different leaf DM production efficiencies. Orchardgrass was able to sustain leaf production when subjected to simultaneous stresses of shade and repeated defoliation. The LS plants growing at W respond in a manner similar to SP plants and may require management practices attuned to establishing or immature plants.

The geometry of natural selection in cave and spring populations of the amphipod Gammarus minus Say (Crustacea: Amphipoda)

In fruit trees damage of frost and freezing is depended to time of chillhng and tree phonological stage. Almond (Prunus amygdalus B. (and apricot (P. armeniaca L.) cultivars are usually the first fruit trees to bloom and susceptible to damaging frosts in the early spring. A study was conducted on different types of almond and apricot cultivars in order to investigation the main factors related to frosting, irregular of productivity and low crop load of trees for 10 years. Six almond cultivars; Sahand, A200, Shkoofeh (very late bloom), Touno, Super nova (late bloom and self- compatibility), Managa (early bloom) and 6 apricot cultivars; Canino, Royal, Telton (self- compatibility), Ordbad, Nasiri and Asgarabad (self- Incompatibility) were evaluated for aspects of some biological and physiological characteristics that related to frost tolerance and fruit set. The results of 10 years evaluation showed that some cultivars despite were resistant to spring frost and usually their crop load was optimum. In addition of freezing damage, other factors like; undesirable climatic conditions in flowering time, direct or indirect influence on bearing and fruit set. Touno and Super nova as self compatibility and late blooming almond cultivars, Canino, Royal and Tilton as self- compatibility apricot cultivars were tolerant to cool and unfavorable climatic conditions in early spring. Therefore, they usually had higher and regular productivity. This differences were related to some phonological and physiological characteristics like; time of flowering, interior components of flower buds, time of niter and period of dormancy, temperature reaction of flower buds, effective pollination period, self – compatibility, frost resistance of pistils and flowers.

The purpose of the research is substantiation of the structure of crop acreage and cultural practice in the steppe zone of Orenburg Region. Time constant Held trial was carried out on the site of the Kuibyshev's experimental production farm located in Orenburg district. Field investigation method was used. Seed material was the following winter rye, winter wheat, spring durum wheat, spring soft wheat, peas, millet, barley. The research was based on the analysis of data on meteorological conditions and crop yields over 30 years. During the research period (1990-2019) significant changes in weather conditions took place. The greatest impact on productivity was exerted by air temperature, increased by 2.0°C during the agricultural year, in autumn period it decreased by 1.4°C, winter became warmer than usual by 2.6°C, spring and summer - by 1.8 and 0.4°C, respectively. Maximum precipitation period was observed in the first rotation - 477 mm, which is 110 mm more than the long - term average (367 mm), minimum - in the fifth rotation (334 mm), the deficit amounted to 33 mm. The most favorable conditions were for winter rye, the yield level rotation ranged from 2.18-3.26 tons per 1 ha. The highest winter wheat yield was observed in the first rotation - 2.54 ton per 1 ha. Barley is more resistant to local weather changes, it was inferior only to winter crops in yield, and the rotation range was1.21-2.49 ton per 1 ha. For other grain crops the objects of the study weather conditions were extremely unfavorable. The research was carried out in accordance with the research plan over 2020-2021, developed by the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution titled «Federal Scientific Center for Biological Systems and Agritechnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences» (№0761-2019-0003). The article is dedicated to the memory of V. A. Korchagin - Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, Professor, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation.

Introduction: Seed germination is an important stage in the life history of plant affecting seedling development, survival, and population dynamics. Germination begins with seed, water uptake and terminates with the elongation of the embryonic axis from the seed coat. Germination and seedling emergence are the most important phonological development stages in pigweed and have a vital role in its establishment. Accordingly, predicting the phenological stages would be resulted in improvement of crop management as the number and time of pigweed emergence could be quantified. Sigmoidal curves, also known as growth models, have wide application in agricultural research and can be evaluated by means of nonlinear models, which operates through data modelling by a nonlinear combination of parameters depending on one or more independent variables. This study was conducted to evaluate various regression models to describe the response of germination rate to temperature range in two pigweed ecotypes (Alborz and Fars). Materials and Methods: A glasshouse experiment was carried out as a completely randomized design with four replicates. The seeds were sterilized by soaking in a 3% solution of hypochlorite sodium for 30 seconds. After the treatment, the seeds were washed several times with distilled water. 25 seeds were put in each Petri dish (with 9 cm diameter). The petri dish is monitored on a daily basis and afterwards germinated seeds (according to exit of radicles to the size of 2 mm) were measured and recorded daily in each Petri dish. Six regression models were applied to quantify the germination patterns of two pigweed ecotypes (Alborz and Fars) under a range of temperature between 5 to 35 °C. For both regions, during spring and summer, the range of temperatures was selected in order to simulate the temperature changes. The models were included Weibull, Lognormal, Logistic, Gompertz, Sigmoidal and Chapman. Some criteria were used to describe the goodness of fits of the models, including coefficient of determination (R2), root mean square of error (RMSE) and Akaike index (AIC). Moreover, a simple program called Germin was used to calculate D10, D50 and D90 (the time interval to maximum 10, 50 and 90% of germination, respectively). Results and Discussion: Results showed that Weibull four-parameter and logistic models were the best for describing the germination rate in Alborz and Fars ecotypes, respectively compared to the other models. The difference between ecotypes could be attributed to their base temperatures and thermal time requirements at each developmental stage. Therefore, it can be concluded weed germination during different seasons is not a random phenomenon. However, the germination and emergence of a clear pattern over time follows the pattern of different environmental conditions is subject to change. Results also indicated that the time to D90 was only 4 and 5 days in Alborz and Fars ecotypes, respectively meaning that with increasing temperature during early spring, this weed would germinate much sooner than spring crops and consequently resulted in crop damage. The results showed that the in Alborz population, with increases temperature from 10 to 30 °C, germination percentage linearly increased and with increasing temperature to the desired temperature, it decreased. However, germination in Fars ecotype showed that, in temperatures 10, 15 and 20 °C respectively, the germination was 36, 56 and 84 percent, while, with an increase in temperature from 25 to 35 °C, this component was always a constant process. Germination rate increased with increasing temperature from 10 to 35 °C which was higher in Alborz ecotype compared to Fars. At lower temperatures, the main reason for less germination rate could be decrement of water imbibition and enzyme activity in biochemical processes of germination. Conclusion: Increasing public awareness and concern about the impacts of herbicides on the environment, development of herbicide-resistant weeds, and the high economic cost of herbicides have increased the need to reduce the amount of herbicides used in agriculture. Prediction of weed emergence timing would help reduce herbicide use through the optimization of the timing of weed control. It was concluded that Weibull four-parameter and logistic models could be used as decision making tools in Alborz and Fars, respectively, to predict seed emergence of pigweed which in turn resulted in efficient management as well as reduction of herbicides usage. Future research should be addressed to determine a wider validation of the models, which could be valuable tools for farmers and practitioners for adequate timing of control in pigweed weed.

Hybrid wheat breeding is gaining prominence worldwide because it ensures higher and more static yield than conventionally bred varieties. The cleistogamous floral architecture of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) impedes anthers inside the floret, making it largely an inbreeder. For hybrid seed production, high anther extrusion is needed to promote cross pollination and to ensure a high level of pollen availability for the seed plant. This study, therefore, aimed at the genetic dissection of anther extrusion (AE) in panels of spring (SP), and winter wheat (WP) accessions by genome wide association studies (GWAS). We performed GWAS to identify the SNP markers potentially linked with AE in each panel separately. Phenotypic data were collected for 3 years for each panel. The average levels of Pearson's correlation (r) among all years and their best linear unbiased estimates (BLUEs) within both panels were high (r(SP) = 0.75, P < 0.0001;r(WP) = 0.72, P < 0.0001). Genotypic data (with minimum of 0.05 minor allele frequency applied) included 12,066 and 12,191 SNP markers for SP and WP, respectively. Both genotypes and environment influenced the magnitude of AE. In total, 23 significant (|log10(P)| > 3.0) marker trait associations (MTAs) were detected (SP = 11; WP = 12). Anther extrusion behaved as a complex trait with significant markers having either favorable or unfavorable additive effects and imparting minor to moderate levels of phenotypic variance (R2(SP) = 9.75−14.24%; R2 (WP) = 9.44−16.98%). All mapped significant markers as well as the markers within their significant linkage disequilibrium (r2 ≥ 0.30) regions were blasted against wheat genome assembly (IWGSC1+popseq) to find the corresponding genes and their high confidence descriptions were retrieved. These genes and their orthologs in Hordeum vulgare, Brachypodium distachyon, Oryza sativa, and Sorghum bicolor revealed syntenic genomic regions potentially involved in flowering-related traits. Moreover, the expression data of these genes suggested potential candidates for AE. Our results suggest that the use of significant markers can help to introduce AE in high yielding varieties to increase cross fertilization rates and improve hybrid-seed production in wheat.

In this research the thermal stratification of the water in the Torogh Dam Basin and the resulted changes in its quality with respect to temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen was investigated using the Dynamic Reservoir Simulation Model. The results indicated that in wet years such as 1998, when the average annual precipitation and the resulted inflows to the basin is higher than its long-term average, the water level in the basin reaches above 50 m. Under such conditions, thermal stratification starts from mid-spring and lasts to the end of summer, and establishes through the total depth of the basin. Consequently, considerable changes in water quality occur through the depth. However in dry years such as year 2000, the water level in the basin diminishes considerably (16 to 20m in depth) and thermal stratification either does not establish or if establishes, it is incomplete, starts much earlier and persists for much shorter periods of time. On the basis of the model’s results, the differences observed in the average temperatures of the surface and deep layers of the basin during the spring and summer seasons of 1998 were 10◦C and 11◦C, respectively while in the spring of 2002, the observed difference was only 1.5◦C. The results of the study also showed concurrent occurrence of salinity stratification with thermal stratification which results in increase in salinity with increase in depth. The difference between salt concentration of the surface and deep water layers of the basin was observed to be 43 mg/lit in the spring of 1998 and 10 mg/lit for the summer of the same year. In regard to the dissolved oxygen concentration, the simulation results showed a difference in the range of 0 to 9 mg/lit between the surface and deep water layers. With the start of stratification, oxygen concentration decreases gradually with depth., such that in July the lowest 10m layer of the basin becomes completely anaerobic, providing conditions for production of undesired odors, tastes and color. During the period of 1998 to 2004 (period of data analysis and simulation run), the water quality of the basin was observed to be uniform in autumn and winter months indicating a complete mixing condition in the basin. Key Words: Water Quality Models, Thermal Stratification, Water Salinity, Dissolved Oxygen, Dam’s Basin.

Although the seasonal shift from carbohydrate to lipid metabolism in hibernators is well established, a comprehensive study of lipid regulation in one species is lacking. To address this we studied triglyceride (TG) and lipoprotein metabolism in spring (SPR), summer (SUM) and hibernating (HIB) 13‐lined ground squirrels (5–6 per group). Plasma TGs are carried in VLDL particles in all seasons. There are no differences among the groups in ApoB mRNA in liver and gut or ApoB protein in liver and plasma. Fasting decreases plasma TGs 2‐fold in SPR (p&lt;0.05), but not in SUM. Plasma TGs are lower in torpid HIB (76.7±43.9 mg/dl) than interbout arousal (IBA) HIB (178.0±17.4 mg/dl), and both are less than SUM (278.2±44.4 mg/dl) (P&lt;0.05). Plasma free fatty acids (FFAs) are highest in torpid HIB, equal in SUM and IBA HIB (P&lt;0.001), and are not affected by fasting in SPR or SUM. Liver TGs are higher in torpid HIB than in SPR or IBA HIB (P&lt;0.05), but liver FFAs are highest in torpid HIB (P&lt;0.05). White adipose tissue (WAT) TGs do not vary among states, but WAT FFAs are lower in torpid HIB than SUM (P&lt;0.05). mRNA levels of the TG synthesis enzymes MGAT2 and DGAT2 are greater in HIB than SUM (P&lt;0.05). The results provide insight into how hibernating species regulate synthesis and distribution of lipids throughout the body during their annual cycle of feeding and fasting.

대부분의 오븐 렌지는 위에서 아래로 여는 도어로 되어 있다. 오븐 렌지와 같이 열고 닫는 가전제품의 경우 도어의 감성이 제품 전체의 품질에 영향을 준다. 도어의 감성 품질을 평가하는 항목은 문을 열 때의 개방력, 문을 닫 을 때의 폐쇄력, 문을 완전 개방하였을 때 발생하는 튕김 현상이 있다. 개방력과 폐쇄력이 크면 소비자의 불만 요소 가 될 수 있고, 튕김 현상이 크면 소비자가 도어를 열었을 때 도어는 물론 몸체에도 충격이 가해져서 파손의 우려가 있다. 감성 품질을 향상시키기 위해서는 개방력, 폐쇄력, 튕김 현상을 최소화하여야 한다. 본 연구에서는 개방력, 폐쇄 력, 튕김 현상을 최소화하기 위해 비선형 캠과 스프링을 이용하여 기존의 이중 압축 스프링과 캠 구조를 개선한 메커 니즘을 제안하였다. 또한, 제안된 메커니즘을 위해 비선형 캠을 설계 및 제작한 후 실제 오븐 렌지에 적용하여 기존 보다 감성 품질이 우수함을 확인하였다.

The jews' spring gardens