Identification of Genetic Loci on Chromosome 4B for Improving the Grain Number per Spike in Pre-Breeding Lines of Wheat

The grain number per spike (GNPS) is an important yield component, and much attention is given to the increase in GNPS for current yield improvement of common wheat. Here, a panel of 259 pre-breeding lines and elite commercial varieties were collected for the investigation of 12 agronomic traits, especially for spike-related traits, with 2-year replicates. The high correlation between GNPS and kernel number per spikelet (KNS) suggested that the high GNPS trait in our pre-breeding lines was mainly controlled by grain set number per spikelet. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using the 660K SNP genotyping assay suggested that a major locus on chromosomes 4BS contributed to the high GNPS trait, which contributed to 33% and 48% of the variation in KNS and GNPS, respectively. A good diagnostic KASP marker AX-109286577 flanking the 4BS locus was developed for easy selection of the large spike trait. Taken together, the results suggested that untapped rare allele variation in our pre-breeding lines can be used for improvement of the yield component of set grain number per spike.

Spike in Asthma Healthcare Presentations in Eastern England during June 2021: A Retrospective Observational Study Using Syndromic Surveillance Data

Thunderstorm asthma is often characterised by a sudden surge in patients presenting with exacerbated symptoms of asthma linked to thunderstorm activity. Here, we describe a large spike in asthma and difficulty breathing symptoms observed across parts of England on 17 June 2021. The number of healthcare presentations during the asthma event was compared to expected levels for the overall population and across specific regions. Across affected geographical areas, emergency department attendances for asthma increased by 560% on 17 June compared to the average number of weekday daily attendances during the previous 4 weeks. General practitioner out of hours contacts increased by 349%, National Health Service (NHS) 111 calls 193%, NHS 111 online assessments 581% and ambulance call outs 54%. Increases were particularly noted in patient age groups 5–14 and 15–44 years. In non-affected regions, increases were small (<10%) or decreased, except for NHS 111 online assessments where there was an increase of 39%. A review of the meteorological conditions showed several localised, weak, or moderate thunderstorms specifically across parts of Southeast England on the night of June 16. In this unprecedented episode of asthma, the links to meteorologically defined thunderstorm activity were not as clear as previous episodes, with less evidence of ‘severe’ thunderstorm activity in those areas affected, prompting further discussion about the causes of these events and implications for public health management of the risk.

Transcription Factor TaWRKY51 Is a Positive Regulator in Root Architecture and Grain Yield Contributing Traits

Wheat is one of the staple food crops. The utilization of elite genetic resources to develop resource-efficient wheat varieties is an effective approach to deal with the challenges of climate change and population growth. WRKY transcription factors (TFs) are multifaceted regulators of plant growth and development and response to environmental stress. The previous studies have shown that TaWRKY51 positively regulates the development of lateral roots, while its roles in agronomic trait development are not clear, and there is no functional marker for molecular breeding. To bridge the gap, we cloned the three members of TaWRKY51 and found they were highly expressed in the roots and flag leaves at the flowering stage and were induced by the multiple abiotic stresses and phytohormones. The highest expression level was observed in TaWRKY51-2D, followed by TaWRKY51-2A and -2B. The two haplotypes/alleles for each member were identified in the natural populations, and functional markers were developed accordingly. The association assays revealed that Hap-2A-I was an elite haplotype for the large spike, Hap-2B-II and allele-G were favorable haplotypes/alleles for long root. However, only Hap-2A-I was selected for wheat breeding in China. The results of transgenic experiments showed that the rice lines overexpressing TaWRKY51 had large panicle, high thousand-grain-weight, and more crown and lateral roots, which further confirmed the results of association analysis. In short, TaWRKY51 is a positive regulator of the root architecture and grain yield (GY) contributing traits. The elite gene resources and functional markers may be utilized in the marker-assisted selection for high-yield breeding in wheat.

Overestimation by misspecification: revisiting the relation between the unemployment rate and disability insurance claims in the USA

PurposeDespite numerous studies, our understanding of the determinants of disability insurance (DI) claim rates in the USA is clouded. When the unemployment (UE) rate soars during an economic downturn such as the spread of COVID-19, assuming a linear positive relationship between the two variables, as the prior literature has suggested, forewarns a large spike in DI claim rates. Yet, if the model is misspecified, it can lead to misinformed decisions such as reducing DI awards during an economic downturn when such awards are needed the most. This study aims to improve the accuracy of the DI claims' prediction.Design/methodology/approachThis study suggests that the relationship between the UE rate and DI claim rate is nonlinear and examines this hypothesis using a panel dataset of 866 state-year observations from 2002–2018.FindingsThe results provided compelling evidence in support of the proposed quadratic relationship between the UE rate and DI claim rate and revealed that compared to a quadratic model, the linear model overestimated the DI claim rate by approximately 18 percent or 172,000 claims per year.Practical implicationsGiven that DI awards represent hundreds of thousands of dollars in present value terms, the impact of increase in DI claims on the Social Security Disability Fund during an economic downturn might not be as high as some model might forecast.Originality/valueTo our knowledge, no other studies have examined a quadratic relationship between the UE rate and the DI claim rate. This study is especially relevant during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and its aftermath. In April 2020, the UE rate spiked to nearly 15 percent nationwide, with Nevada and Michigan at 28 percent and 22.7 percent, respectively. The nonlinear model used in this study suggests that, as the UE increases, DI claims increase, albeit at a decreasing rate. On the contrary, a linear relationship between the UE rate and DI claim rates implies that the increase in the DI claim rate would be constant regardless of the UE rate. This misspecification can result in misinformed decisions, such as the reduction of DI awards because of the overestimation of claims during economic downturns. This can lead to lower award rates during economic turmoil when this assistance is most needed.

Banks' Backtesting Exceptions during the COVID-19 Crash: Causes and Consequences

Banks' numerous and simultaneous backtesting exceptions in March 2020, during the COVID-19-related market crash, would have amplified their already-large spike in market risk capital requirements in the absence of regulatory intervention. This note provides background on how backtesting exceptions affect capital requirements generally, the source of those exceptions during the COVID-19 crash, and how regulators exercised discretion to mitigate the unintended capital increase.

Cal-Maine Foods, Inc.: stock price estimation in the midst of pandemic

This case concerns an analyst’s task to value Cal-Maine Foods, Inc., the largest and only publicly traded U.S. egg production firm. The case takes place in 2020, at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. Historically volatile egg prices were even more volatile in April 2020, with a large spike in prices that led the state of Texas to sue the firm for price gouging. Added to this, Cal-Maine had an unexpectedly bad earnings report a few months earlier, and prior to that, the firm cut its dividend. How should the analyst incorporate these shocks – or should they be included at all? How can the analyst assess the risk of a company that has volatile revenues and costs and a widely varying beta? Which factors is the analysis most sensitive to? Was the market overvaluing Cal-Maine? Or, was there potential for investors to profit from investing in the firm?

Local Failure Analysis of Bolted Flanges

Protection against local failure is one of the integral components in the design-by-analysis requirements in ASME BPVC Section VIII, Division 2. Of the methods offered by the ASME, the Local Strain Limit procedure outlined in 5.3.3.1 is the typical calculation method. However, it has been found that relying on this procedure alone can lead to untenable utilization results if used on certain analyses with varied load paths. The flange described in this study was calculated using “design by analysis” according to Part 5 of ASME BPVC Section VIII, Division 2. The elastic-plastic stress analysis method was used. The flange was loaded with an initial bolt pre-tension and then with internal pressure. During the local failure calculation, an abnormal condition was encountered in the form of a large spike in the history curve of the ratio between plastic strain and limiting triaxial strain. An investigation found that despite being in a stress state below yield stress, some nodes had a non-zero plastic strain and high triaxiality factor. This was caused by the load sequence: first, the bolt pre-tension and then internal pressure. The flange was first bent due to the pre-tension load, and later experienced bending in the opposite direction after the internal pressure load was applied. This resulted in a relatively low stress state with a high triaxiality factor and non-zero plastic strain in certain areas, which then showed high utilization under the local failure strain limit criterion. This paper will discuss how this issue can be avoided by using the strain limit damage calculation procedure 5.3.3.2 outlined in ASME BPVC Section VIII, Division 2.

A subadult individual of Styracosaurus albertensis (Ornithischia: Ceratopsidae) with comments on ontogeny and intraspecific variation in Styracosaurus and Centrosaurus.

Styracosaurus albertensis is an iconic centrosaurine horned dinosaur from the Campanian of Alberta, Canada, known for its large spike-like parietal processes. Although described over 100 years ago, subsequent discoveries were rare the last few decades, during which time several new skulls, skeletons, and bonebeds were found. Here we described an immature individual, the smallest known for the species, represented by a complete skull and fragmentary skeleton. Although ~80% maximum size, it possesses a suite of characters associated with immaturity, and is regarded as a subadult. The ornamentation is characterized by a small, recurved, but fused nasal horncore; low, rounded postorbital horncores; and short, triangular, and flat parietal processes. Using this specimen, and additional skulls and bonebed material, the cranial ontogeny of Styracosaurus is described, and compared to Centrosaurus. Styracosaurus shows a similar early ontogeny of the nasal horncore, starting thin, recurved, and unfused, but retains the recurved morphology into large adult size, and never develops the procurved morphology common in Centrosaurus. The postorbital horncores of Styracosaurus are lower and more rounded than those of Centrosaurus throughout ontogeny, and show greater resorption later in ontogeney. The length and thickness of the parietal processes increase drastically through ontogeny, but their position and orientation are static across the size series. Several diagnostic Styracosaurus albertensis specimens now preserve medially orientated P3 spikes, causing issues for the diagnosis of S. ovatus. Variability in parietal ornamentation, either expression of P1 and P2 parietal processes, or other cranial ornamentations, does not appear to correlate with stratigraphy.

An intelligent peer-to-peer streaming model for minimizing flash crown

Peer-to-peer streaming systems (P2PSS) have become well deployed over the Internet in recent times due to its robustness, scalability, distributive nature and cost effectiveness. It is not un-common that peers arrive on the system in large numbers at a particular time in order to retrieve multimedia files. The large spike in the number of peers arriving at a time can be referred to as flash crowd. Several methods have been proposed, models have been designed aiming at providing solution to the problem. This paper attempts to alleviate flash crowd that may occur in the system using a fuzzy logic control system. Inputs were created and fuzzified, rules were developed and then the outputs were defuzzified. Analysis of the results derived from the MATLAB simulation reveal that under a flash crowd scenario, our fuzzy logic controller functions appropriately by the detecting flash crowd when it is about to occur and then necessary actions are taken. Also, with the fuzzy logic control system peer access in and out of the system is successfully controlled. The system allows for new peers to connect more with high bandwidth peers aiming at making the upload rate of each parent proportional to its upload bandwidth thereby utilizing the limited bandwidth resources of the entire P2P system more effectively.Keywords: Peer-to-peer networks, video streaming and flash crowdVol. 26, No. 1, June, 2019