Developing minimal-input techniques for invasive plant management: perimeter treatments enlarge native grass patches

There is a continual need for invasive plant science to develop approaches for cost-effectively benefiting native over nonnative species in dynamic management and biophysical contexts, including within predominantly nonnative plant landscapes containing only small patches of native plants. Our objective was to test the effectiveness of a minimal-input strategy for enlarging native species patches within a nonnative plant matrix. In Pecos National Historical Park, New Mexico, USA, we identified 40 native perennial grass patches within a matrix of the nonnative annual forb kochia [Bassia scoparia (L.) A.J. Scott]. We mechanically cut B. scoparia in a 2-m-wide ring surrounding the perimeters of half the native grass patches (with the other half as uncut controls) and measured change in native grass patch size (relative to pretreatment) for 3 yr. Native grass patches around which B. scoparia was cut grew quickly the first posttreatment year and by the third year had increased in size four times more than control patches. Treated native grass patches expanded by an average of 25 m2, from 4 m2 in October 2015 before treatment to 29 m2 in October 2018. The experiment occurred during a dry period, conditions that should favor B. scoparia and contraction of the native grasses, suggesting that the observed increase in native grasses occurred despite suboptimal climatic conditions. Strategically treating around native patches to enlarge them over time showed promise as a minimal-input technique for increasing the proportion of the landscape dominated by native plants.

The Alpha Crucis Carbonate Ridge (ACCR): Discovery of a giant ring-shaped carbonate complex on the SW Atlantic margin

Recently acquired bathymetric and high-resolution seismic data from the upper slope of Santos Basin, southern Brazilian margin, reveal a major geomorphological feature in the SW Atlantic that is interpreted as a carbonate ridge - the Alpha Crucis Carbonate Ridge (ACCR). The ACCR is the first megastructure of this type described on the SW Atlantic margin. The ~17 × 11-km-wide ring-shaped ACCR features tens of >100-m-high steep-sided carbonate mounds protruding from the surrounding seabed and flanked by elongated depressions. Comet-like marks downstream of the mound structures indicate that the area is presently influenced by the northward flow of the Intermediate Western Boundary Current (IWBC), a branch of the Subtropical Gyre that transports Antarctic Intermediate Water. Abundant carbonate sands and gravels cover the mounds and are overlain by a biologically significant community of living and dead ramified corals and associated invertebrates. The IWBC acts as a hydrodynamic factor that is responsible for both shaping the bottom and transporting coral larvae. We contend that the ACCR was formed by upward fluid flow along active sub-surface faults and fractures that formed by lateral extension generated by the ascending movement of salt diapirs at depth. The ACCR provides an important modern and accessible analogue for a seabed carbonate build-up related to sub-surface hydrocarbon systems.

Fretting Wear as an Example of Destruction of Railway Vehicles Wheelsets

The article refers to the importance of the aspect of durability and reliability of wheelsets. It contains a short analysis of railway accidents in which the causes were failures of wheelsets. The paper lists most common faults occurring in the course of the wheelsets operation. The major problem of the paper were laboratory analyses of fretting wear developing in interference joints. The research has been conducted using a wheelset comprising a shaft and a sleeve. Fatigue tests in conditions close to the wheelset operating environment have been conducted. The laboratory analyses included macroscopic observation that indicated fretting wear signs on both sides of the wheel seat in form of a 3.5 mm wide ring around the entire perimeter. The following procedures included microscopic observations in the wear signs area, that indicated numerous material accumulations exposed to plastic deformation and oxidation.

Evaluation of the Surrounding Ring of Two Different Extra-Short Implant Designs in Crestal Bone Maintanence: A Histologic Study in Dogs

The aim of this study was to compare the implant stability and bone resorption and formation of two different extra-short implant designs with different diameter rings placed in a dog´s maxilla. Thirty-six extra-short, 5 mm diameter × 4 mm length (Short DM®, Bioner Sistemas Implantológicos, Barcelona, Spain), delayed implants were placed in each hemimaxilla of six dogs at the bone crest level. Eighteen implants of each design (wide and narrow ring) were installed. After 8 and 12 weeks of healing, histomorphometric analyses of the specimens were carried out to measure the crestal bone level values and the tissue thickness around the wide and narrow ring implant designs. In the microscopic analysis, less buccal bone resorption was observed in the narrow ring implants with a statistical significance (p < 0.001). For the peri-implant tissue thickness, the distance from the implant shoulder to the external portion of the epithelium was significantly higher for the implants installed with a wide ring with statistical significance (p < 0.001). Our findings suggest that the amount of peri-implant tissues (crestal bone loss) after remodeling over a period of 12 weeks was smaller in the narrow ring extra-short implant installed in the healed maxilla, compared with the wide ring extra-short implants.

Choriocapillaris impairment around the atrophic lesions in patients with geographic atrophy: a swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography study

AimsTo evaluate the choriocapillaris (CC) flow alterations around geographic atrophy (GA) in eyes with dry age-related macular degeneration.MethodsUsing a swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography (SS-OCTA) device, two volume 6×6 mm scans were acquired in patients with GA presenting between June and December 2017 at the Doheny-UCLA Eye Centers. The area of GA was delineated on the en face structural OCT fundus images. For each eye, the en face OCTA slabs at the level of the CC from the two acquisitions were averaged and compensated for signal loss using the corresponding structural en face images. The resulting images were binarised and analysed for the percentage of flow voids in the para-atrophy zone (a 500 µm wide ring around the immediate edge of the atrophy) and in the peri-atrophy zone (a 500 µm wide ring around the para-atrophy zone edge), the latter considered as a reference in the comparative analysis.ResultsThirty eyes of 20 patients were enrolled. The percentage of flow voids in the para-atrophy zone was 27.23%±6.29% and was significantly higher than in the surrounding peri-atrophy zone (23.4%±6.01%; p<0.001). There was no significant correlation between the flow void percentage in these regions and age, visual acuity, extent of the atrophic area or central choroidal thickness.ConclusionsA significant impairment of the CC flow is present in the zone immediately surrounding the GA lesions strengthening the hypothesis that CC alterations may be relevant to the progression of GA.

ANALYSIS OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF USING CRN+a-C:H:W COATINGS TO MITIGATE FRETTING WEAR IN PUSH FIT JOINTS OPERATING IN ROTATIONAL BENDING CONDITIONS

In this article, the results of wear tests of a push fit joint operating in rotational bending conditions have been presented. The assumed operation conditions were similar to those for a real rail vehicle wheel set. Samples made of uncoated C45 steel and those in which shafts were covered with a CrN+a-C:H:W coating were analysed. The push fit joint was loaded with 550 N, and it completed 8x106 cycles. Following wear tests, the macroscopic and microscopic observations of the shaft top layer were conducted to determine the intensity of fretting wear development. The former demonstrated that, in the case of uncoated shafts, wear occurs on either side of the joint, in the form of a maximum 2 mm wide ring. The use of protective coatings significantly reduced damage to the shaft top layer. Traces of fretting wear occur occasionally at the shaft circumference and affect small areas. The microscopic observations and EDS analysis of the chemical composition of the areas affected by fretting demonstrated mainly wear in the form of the build-up of material originating from, first of all, the shearing of sleeve top layer micro-irregularities that underwent plastic deformation and then oxidation.

Structure of Herbig AeBe disks at the milliarcsecond scale

Context. It is now generally accepted that the near-infrared excess of Herbig AeBe stars originates in the dust of a circumstellar disk. Aims. The aims of this article are to infer the radial and vertical structure of these disks at scales of order 1 au, and the properties of the dust grains. Methods. The program objects (51 in total) were observed with the H-band (1.6 μm) PIONIER/VLTI interferometer. The largest baselines allowed us to resolve (at least partially) structures of a few tenths of an au at typical distances of a few hundred parsecs. Dedicated UBVRIJHK photometric measurements were also obtained. Spectral and 2D geometrical parameters are extracted via fits of a few simple models: ellipsoids and broadened rings with azimuthal modulation. Model bias is mitigated by parallel fits of physical disk models. Sample statistics were evaluated against similar statistics for the physical disk models to infer properties of the sample objects as a group. Results. We find that dust at the inner rim of the disk has a sublimation temperature Tsub ≈ 1800 K. A ring morphology is confirmed for approximately half the resolved objects; these rings are wide δr/r ≥ 0.5. A wide ring favors a rim that, on the star-facing side, looks more like a knife edge than a doughnut. The data are also compatible with the combination of a narrow ring and an inner disk of unspecified nature inside the dust sublimation radius. The disk inner part has a thickness z/r ≈ 0.2, flaring to z/r ≈ 0.5 in the outer part. We confirm the known luminosity-radius relation; a simple physical model is consistent with both the mean luminosity-radius relation and the ring relative width; however, a significant spread around the mean relation is present. In some of the objects we find a halo component, fully resolved at the shortest interferometer spacing, that is related to the HAeBe class.

Broken Rice Detection Based on Transmission Power Measurement Using a Microstrip Wide-Ring Sensor

This paper proposes a microstrip wide-ring sensor for percentage of broken rice determination based on transmission power measurement. The microstrip wide-ring sensor with low insertion loss was designed to operate at frequency range from 1 GHz to 3 GHz. Calibration equations for measurement of percentage of broken rice at 1.93 GHz and 2.50 GHz were obtained and validated with white rice for percentage of broken rice ranging from 0% to 100%. The lowest error in percentage of broken rice prediction was 11.03% at 1.93 GHz.