Letteratura scientifica selezionata sul tema "Almond Pollen"

California almonds [Prunus dulcis, (Mill.) D.A. Webb, syn. Prunus amygdalus Batsch] are self-incompatible requiring cross-pollination to produce a commercial crop. Within seven known pollen groups, they also display cross-incompatibility. Coincidence of bloom between compatible cultivars is essential for cross-pollination. Since almonds are pollinated primarily by honeybees [Apis mellifera L.], arranging pollinizers in close proximity to one another promotes maximum pollen transfer. Almonds are frequently subject to inclement weather during their February bloom period. Strong honeybee colonies are better able to forage during marginal weather conditions than are weak colonies. Honeybee management can encourage pollen foraging and placement of colonies can affect flight activity and ultimately nut-set. Weather permitting vigorous honeybee flight activity is the most important factor for setting a good crop. Temperature also affects anther dehiscence, pollen germination, and pollen tube growth. The sooner an almond flower is cross-pollinated after opening, the greater the chance of fertilization and nut-set. Optimizing all of these pollination factors is therefore essential to achieve maximum production in almond orchards.

Certain crops depend upon pollination services for fruit set, and, of these, almonds are of high value for Australia. Stressors, such as diseases, parasites, pesticides, and nutrition, can contribute to honey bee Apis mellifera L. colony decline, thereby reducing bee activity and pollination efficiency. In Australia, field studies are required to monitor honey bee health and to ascertain whether factors associated with colony decline are impacting hives. We monitored honey bee colonies during and after pollination services of almond. Video surveillance technology was used to quantify bee activity, and bee-collected pollen was periodically tested for pesticide residues. Plant species diversity was also assessed using DNA metabarcoding of the pollen. Results showed that bee activity increased in almond but not in bushland. Residues detected included four fungicides, although the quantities were of low risk of oral toxicity to bees. Floral diversity was lower in the pollen collected by bees from almonds compared to bushland. However, diversity was higher at the onset and conclusion of the almond bloom, suggesting that bees foraged more widely when availability was low. Our findings suggest that commercial almond orchards may sustain healthier bee colonies compared to bushland in early spring, although the magnitude of the benefit is likely landscape-dependent.

The cultivated almond displays a gametophytic self-incompatibility system, which avoids self-fertilization, and it is controlled by a multi-allelic locus (S-locus) containing two genes specifically expressed in pistil (S-RNase) and pollen (SFB). Studies on almonds with the same S-haplotype but different phenotype pointed to the existence of unknown components in this system to explain its functioning. The increase of knowledge on this reproductive barrier would allow better management of fruit production and germplasm selection. This work proposes candidates to components of the almond gametophytic self-incompatibility system, by identifying differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) after compatible and incompatible pollen–pistil interactions in almonds with the same S-haplotype but a different incompatibility phenotype using iTRAQ and 2D-nano-LC ESI/MSMS analyses. The protein quantitation analysis revealed 895 DEPs, which were grouped into different functional categories. The largest functional group was “metabolic proteins”, followed by “stress resistance and defense proteins”, with higher up-regulation after pollination. The identity of certain DEPs, such as Thaumatin, LRR receptors, such as kinase and pathogenesis related protein PR-4, indicated that some pollen–pistil interactions in almond could have the same bases as host–parasite interactions. Furthermore, additional RT-qPCR analysis revealed the differentially expressed transcription regulator GLABROUS1 enhancer-binding protein-like (GEBPL) could be involved in the gametophytic self-incompatibility system in almond.

The development, survivorship, fecundity, and cannibalism of the predatory phytoseiid mite, Amblyseius herbicolus (Chant), fed six different alternative foods (Oulenziella bakeri, Tyrophagus putrescentiae, Aleuroglyphus ovatus, almond pollen (Prunus armeniaca), apple pollen (Malus pumila), maize pollen (Zea mays)), and natural prey (Tetranychus urticae) were determined in the laboratory. Our findings indicated that A. herbicolus that fed on all six alternative foods could normally complete its developmental and reproductive cycles. The shortest pre-adult developmental duration was observed when A. herbicolus fed on almond pollen (4.91 d) as well as T. urticae (4.90 d), and the longest when it fed on maize pollen (6.24 d). Pre-adult survival rates were higher when the predator fed on almond pollen (0.99), maize pollen (0.96), and O. bakeri (0.93). The highest fecundity was observed when A. herbicolus fed on apple pollen (28.55 eggs/female), almond pollen (26.06 eggs/female), and O. bakeri (26.02 eggs/female) in addition to T. urticae (48.95 eggs/female), and the lowest when it fed on maize pollen (7.84 eggs/female). The highest value of the intrinsic rate of increase (r) was obtained when A. herbicolus fed on O. bakeri (0.202 d−1) in addition to T. urticae (0.210 d−1), followed by almond pollen (0.163 d−1), and the lowest was when it fed on maize pollen (0.064 d−1). Cannibalism of conspecific eggs by adults of A. herbicolus did not occur when O. bakeri and T. urticae were provided. The cannibalism rate of the predatory mite was the lowest when fed on almond pollen, T. putrescentiae, and A. ovatus and the highest on apple pollen. Above all, when fed on O. bakeri and almond pollen, and with no or low cannibalism rate, A. herbicolus had the best development, survivorship, fecundity, and population parameters. Therefore, O. bakeri and almond pollen could be potential alternative foods for mass rearing programs of A. herbicolus or to support its population in the fields.

Notwithstanding the advantageous traits of Typhlodromus bagdasarjani Wainstein and Arutunjan to feed on alternative food such as pollen ensuring the long-term control of greenhouses pests, the nutritional ecology and the role of this predator in biological pest control are rarely addressed. In the current study, the predator’s development and reproduction on three food sources including Tetranychus urticae Koch, almond pollen, as well as T. urticae+ almond pollen; and the no food condition were evaluated. Additionally, all diets were tested on both artificial and leaf-based substrates to assess the potential host plant effects on the predator’s performance. Although all larvae on both rearing substrates successfully developed into protonymphal stage, they did not succeed to reach the next stage. Development of T. bagdasarjani was shorter, both female and male, on artificial substrate mainly feeding on almond pollen. Females feeding on almond pollen and almond pollen + T. urticae on artificial substrates had the highest intrinsic and finite rate of increase as well as oviposition rate. Consequently, almond pollen could be used as a conservation management tool to support the early buildup of pre-established natural populations of T. bagdasarjani in open field crops.

Due to the importance of obtaining almond cultivars adapted to the agroecological conditions of Serbia, in the period 2005-2006 pollen viability and self-(in)compatibility in 19 almond genotypes selected from the seedling population on Slankamen hill, were studied. All analyzed almond genotypes had good (50-70%) or high (over 70%) pollen germination. The study of self-(in)compatibility was done by monitoring of the fruit set in the field and observing self-pollen growth by fluorescence microscopy. Self-incompatibility was confirmed in all the 19 genotypes by both methods. Pollen tube penetration was stopped mostly at the upper third of the style of all genotypes, with characteristic irregularities.

In order to select the best pollinizer for late-flowering varieties of Azar (A.H.50), Shokoufeh (AH.3) Sahand (L-62), and Feragues, a range of studies were carried out at Azar-Shahr Horticultural Research Station (Tabriz, Iran) and actions undertaken for introduction of the best pollinizers for these varieties under both laboratory and orchard conditions by a Dactroil Statistical Plan with a completely random base plan. Seven types of pollens from Shokoufes (AH.3), Azar (A.H.50), Sahand (L-62), Ferragnos (Fer), Neplus Ultra (N.P.U.), None Paril (N.P.), and Harir (A.H.25) were selected and the pollen prepared. Pollen was collected from the experimental grounds. Hand-pollination was repeated in three stages for 3 days. Honeybees and other insects were controlled before and after artificial pollination to not interfere with the experiment. Percent fruiting was recorded twice 1 month after pollination (1 June) and again 1 July and analyzed statistically. Average fruiting for female flowers (pollen receivers) was from 0% to 47%. Thus, all varieties could not produce fruit (control). Average fruiting from other pollens with different ratios were significant from 1% to 5%. The almond varieties Azar, Shokoufeh, Sahand, and Ferragnos are self-incompatible and there is no need to emasculate pollen in pollination programs. However, Azar and Harir are incompatible with each other. Pollination efficiency of late-flowering almond varieties depends on the pollinizers and the compatibility with the cultivars, provided that pollination is carried out only by insects, particularly honeybees. The effect of wind on pollination in our almond orchards appeared to be insignificant.

Pollen of the California almond cultivars Nonpareil, Ne Plus Ultra, Sonora, and Peerless was evaluated for viability following storage over 12 months at 4, 0, -20, and -80 °C. The proportion of viable pollen exceeded 80% for all cultivars and for all temperatures evaluated after 2 months of storage. Following 12 months of storage at 4 °C, germination decreased to 8% for `Nonpareil', 10% for `Ne Plus Ultra', 50% for `Sonora', with no germination observed for `Peerless'. Storage at sub-freezing temperatures maintained pollen viability above 70% in `Nonpareil', `Ne Plus Ultra', and `Sonora' and above 40% in `Peerless'. Cultivars differed significantly in their tolerance to low temperature pollen storage. Within cultivars, differences in pollen germination following storage at 0, -20, or -80 °C were nonsignificant.

Abstract Global western honey bee, Apis mellifera (L.) (Hymenoptera: Apidae), colony declines pose a significant threat to food production worldwide. Poor nutrition resulting from habitat loss, extensive monocultures, and agricultural intensification is among the several suggested drivers for colony declines. Pollen is the primary source of protein for honey bees; therefore, both pollen abundance and diversity are critical for colony growth and survival. Many cropping systems that employ honey bee colonies for pollination may lack sufficient pollen diversity and abundance to provide optimal bee nutrition. In this observational study, we documented the diversity and relative abundance of pollen collected by honey bees in five major pollinator-dependent crops in the western United States. We sampled pollen from pollen traps installed on honey bee colonies in the following cropping systems—almond, cherry, highbush blueberry, hybrid carrot, and meadowfoam. The pollen diversity was estimated by documenting the number of different pollen pellet colors and plant taxa found in each pollen sample. The lowest pollen diversity was found in almond crop. Relatively higher quantities of pollen collection were collected in almond, cherry, and meadowfoam cropping systems. The information gleaned from this study regarding pollen diversity and abundance may help growers, land managers, and beekeepers improve pollen forage available to bees in these cropping systems.

The pistil (S-RNase) and the pollen [S-haplotype-specific F-box protein (SFB)] components of the Sf allele, presumably conferring self-compatibility in almond {Prunus amygdalus Batsch [syn. P. dulcis (Mill.) D.A. Webb]}, were identified and sequenced in ‘Ponç’, a local Spanish almond cultivar, confirming their identity with the published sequences of these components. Despite the presence of the Sf allele, the ‘Ponç’ phenotype was self-incompatible as confirmed by different pollination tests, including self pollen tube growth, fruit set after self-pollination, and fruit set in bagged branches. However, the pistil and the pollen of ‘Ponç’ were fully viable when pollinated by a cross-compatible pollen or used on a cross-compatible pistil. The fact that ‘Ponç’ presents two different S-proteins with RNase activity may indicate an active function of its Sf -RNase, whereas in the self-compatible almond cultivars thus far studied, the Sf -RNase has been inactive. This activation indicates that the presence of the Sf allele may not be the exclusive source of self-compatibility in almond, and other factors may also be involved in the expression of almond self-compatibility.

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La utilización de madrigueras actuales y fósiles de roedores, permite obtener registros polínicos que reflejan adecuadamente la vegetación local en zonas áridas donde existen vacios de información. Además la cuantificación de los rangos de distribución climática actual de cada tipo polínico permite determinar con gran precisión las condiciones paleoclimáticas a través de una función de transferencia, la misma que realiza la estimación a partir de la frecuencia relativa de polen fósil. Se presenta una reconstrucción cuantitativa de la temperatura media anual y la precipitación anual para el transecto Altiplánico ubicado entre Pozo-Almonte y Salar del Huasco, usando la función de transferencia polen-clima de los Promedios Ponderados (PP ó WA- Weighted Averaging-, por su significado original en inglés). Según los resultados obtenidos, el clima imperante hace unos 10.000-10.500 años cal A.P. (Holoceno Temprano) fue 5,2°-9,5°C más frío y tuvo una precipitación 3,5-6,3mm mayor que la actual; entre 8.000 y 3.000 años cal A.P. (Holoceno Medio) los escasos registros dan cuenta de un agudo proceso de sequía cuyo peak se encuentra representado en torno a 3.800 años cal A.P. con una temperatura 14°C mayor y una disminución de las precipitaciones cercana a los 12mm; finalmente, los últimos 2.500 años cal A.P. se presentan como un período de gran oscilación entre momentos (más) húmedos/fríos y secos/cálidos. Este escenario es caracterizado por la mayor humedad del presente registro en torno a 2.000 y 1.000 años cal A.P. con temperaturas menores 12,6°-13°C y con un gran incremento en las precipitaciones de 8-8,1mm; luego de lo cual se instauraron las actuales condiciones de aridez.

In January 1941, Franklin Roosevelt reached a milestone that went unnoticed. For the first time in his presidency his approval rating topped 70 percent. The poll was no fluke. FDR had been inching toward such a high approval in the year before, and he would maintain it throughout the rest of his presidency until his death. It is a record that stands unsurpassed in the annals of presidential approval covering almost a century by now, and perhaps ever, if we had polls. What made Franklin Roosevelt such an especially popular president?...

Chapter one describes “The Quandary Over Plant Sex” in its historical context. The sexual role of pollen wasn’t discovered until the late 17th century, suggesting a deep cultural bias. Beliefs concerning sex in humans, from Galen and Aristotle onward, were influenced by gender ideology. The lower social status of women suggested a one-sex model, whereby female character and physiology were construed as deficient versions of the male. Plants, because of their association with women, came to be regarded as female. Flowers are often emblematic of women in literature, but flowers seem to produce fruits without carnality, by parthenogenesis. In paintings of the Annunciation, the lily appears almost as regularly as the angel Gabriel as a symbol of Mary’s purity. The association of flowers with female purity hindered the discovery of sex in plants. Although most people are aware of pollen, widespread confusion about its role in sexual reproduction still lingers.

Chapter 5 shows the shifts that occurred in the types of civil cases African Americans were able to litigate in southern courts at the end of the nineteenth century, as segregation and disfranchisement became increasingly written into law around the South. Even as white southerners dismantled the political system put in place during Reconstruction, they did not change the structure of the legal system. They viewed black southerners’ involvement in the courts as far less dangerous than African Americans entering the polling booth. As African American men lost the power to vote, however, the kinds of civil cases black southerners were able to litigate against whites in southern courts narrowed. Almost three quarters of their appellate civil suits in the first two decades of the twentieth century now involved particularly egregious cases of fraud in property dealings or personal injury claims and highlighted black people in dependent, vulnerable positions.

This work articulates empirical and theoretical elements in the understanding of relational and intergenerational experiences of knowledge construction having as reference the tradition of studies that analyze the links between cinema and education. It was important to understand how a historical tradition of learning by and for cinema was configured in Cataguases / MG. The Cinema Cycle in Cataguases (1920s) had a significant impact on the constitution of the original bases of Brazilian cinema not only because it instituted a certain way of making cinema, but also because it created ways to bring together people from different origins, interests and perspectives around creation and dissemination of cinematographic works. Thus, it was possible to identify and analyze possible connections between experiences, memories and ways of transmitting knowledge generated by these people and the contemporary creation (2010) of an audiovisual production pole in the same city. The study sought to understand the structure of this Pole which took up the story of filmmaker Humberto Mauro to consolidate itself as a cultural experience; how the people who were / are in front of it seek the past to refer to a powerful cinema present; what were the conditions of possibility that caused the cinema to reappear in Cataguases almost 100 years later; and why there are concerns at the Pole in an attempt to build relationships with the school. The cataguasenses are heirs of the knowledge built in a process whose internal convergence is given by the cinema and continues configuring new knowledge and new ways of producing it.

The chapter presents an integrative cross-national comparative analysis of party change in all twenty-six countries under study. It finds that, apart from often sharing the same decline trend, the various indicators of party change appear to be independent of one another. The indicators that refer to the various mediators and those that refer to voters point clearly to decline, while those that look at the party background of representatives stand out as prominent survivors of a major decline trend. Party decline is evident in almost all countries, but its levels vary. Many explanations for variance are ruled out, leaving room for the possibility that human agency rather than environmental factors may prove to be the cause. Parties are not on their way out, but in some countries they have already experienced sharp decline, while in others their experience may be better described as adaptation. In many others still, parties lie somewhere in-between these poles.

No studies have explicitly addressed the attitudes and desires of terminally ill patients on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). In this prospective cohort study, 988 terminally ill patients and 893 caregivers were surveyed. A total of 60.2% patients supported euthanasia or PAS in a standard poll question, but only 10.6% seriously considered these interventions for themselves. Patients with depressive symptoms, moderate to severe pain, and significant care needs were more likely to consider euthanasia and PAS. Half of the patients who initially considered euthanasia or PAS changed their minds at the follow-up interview, and an almost equal number newly considered these interventions. Patients with depressive symptoms and dyspnea were more likely to change their minds over time. According to the caregivers of 256 deceased patients, 5.6% of patients discussed euthanasia or PAS in the last month of life, 2.5% hoarded drugs for suicide, and 0.4% died by PAS.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

This chapter examines the biology of pollen, the primary reward for flowers in an evolutionary sense and probably the resource for which animals first went to flowers. The inherent characteristics of pollen make it a useful resource to exploit as food, potentially collectable by almost any animal. It remains a crucial reward for pollen-eating and pollen-gathering visitors, such as some flies, some beetles, and virtually all bees. Pollen’s function as a reward of visitors is mutually incompatible with its function in reproduction. The chapter first describes the characteristics of pollen grains before discussing the storage and delivery of pollen in the plant. It then considers pollen packaging, pollen gathering by animals, pollen as food, and pollen preferences. It also explores the longevity and viability of pollen, pollen-only flowers, and pollen competition. Finally, it reflects on the question of how much pollen a plant “should” produce.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt so dominated the American political scene from the fall of 1932 through the end of the Depression decade that historians refer to these years as the Age of Roosevelt. He won the 1932 presidential race in one of the greatest landslides in American history, trouncing Hoover—who the electorate blamed for the Depression—by almost seven million votes. FDR then presided over the extensive New Deal recovery, relief and reform programs, whose popularity helped keep him in the White House longer than any other president. But Roosevelt’s great popularity with the general public did not initially carry over onto college campuses. During most of his first term, neither FDR nor his major programs captured the imagination of the American student body. Roosevelt’s presidential campaign in 1932 failed to generate much excitement on campus, and from 1933 to 1935 the cause that most inspired college youth was world peace rather than the New Deal. If the choice had been left to college students, the straw polls show, Franklin Roosevelt would not have been elected president in 1932. FDR ran far behind Hoover in the campus polls taken shortly before election day. Only 31 percent of the collegians polled supported Roosevelt, while 49 percent endorsed Hoover. Roosevelt even did badly on campuses where he had direct, personal connections. At Harvard, FDR’s alma mater, the Democratic candidate lost to Hoover by a margin of more than three to one: 1211 students there voted for Hoover, while only 395 cast their ballots for Roosevelt. Support for Roosevelt was also weak among undergraduates at Columbia University, despite the fact that several of his key advisers, popularly known as the New Deal “brain trust,” including Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, and Adolph Berle, were Columbia professors. With almost two thirds of Columbia undergraduates voting, FDR attracted only 221 votes, losing not only to Hoover, who drew 307 votes, but also to Norman Thomas, the socialist candidate, who won 421 votes. This enabled Columbia socialists to boast at the Norman Thomas rally at Madison Square Garden that “Columbia Professors May Write Roosevelt’s Speeches But Columbia Students Vote For Thomas.”

An allergy is an overreaction of the immune system to a substance called an antigen, e.g., pollen from grasses, dust mites, etc. The drugs used for allergy in allopathy have undesirable side effects. The use of medicinal plants becomes popular due to the adverse effects of allopathic drugs. Nutraceuticals are food playing a significant role in maintaining normal physiological function. Mast cells are immunologically important cells found in almost all parts of our body, and contain histamines, leukotrienes within their granular sacs, along with those of basophils, are responsible for the symptoms of allergy. According to sources mast cell stabilizers can be classified into three categories, e.g., synthetic, semi synthetic and natural. Mast cell stabilising agents from natural resources can be obtained from different group of compounds, e.g., flavonoids, coumarins, phenols, terpenoids, alkaloids. In this book chapter, the active constituents present in them and their mode of action are highlighted using techniques of computational biology, e.g., molecular docking, etc.

THE END of the Second World War revealed the huge extent of the damage to Poland, damage which was not just physical. The country had lost nearly six million of its citizens, including almost its entire Jewish population. According to Albert Stankowski, only some 425,000 of the estimated pre-war Jewish population of 3,330,000 were still alive at the end of the war. Not all of them returned to Poland from the Soviet Union, where the largest proportion had survived. As a result, in the immediate post-war period the Jewish population of the country numbered between 220,000 and 350,000, including almost 160,000 Jews repatriated from the USSR....

The Dutch started to develop parts of the Guianas mainly because they had not succeeded in conquering, defending and exploiting Caribbean islands suitable for profitable plantation agriculture. The colonial economies remained fragile and growth would increasingly depend on credits extended from the Republic. The one unique and lasting Dutch contribution to the technology of sugar production was the adaptation of the Dutch polder system to plantation agriculture. The population of the colonies was overwhelmingly of African birth and descent, and almost entirely enslaved. While manumission was rare, in Suriname the major route out of slavery was marronage, and Berbice saw a major slave revolt, which almost ended Dutch rule.

This chapter focuses on sculptor Józef Reguła's wooden Jews. It asks why ‘Jewish culture’ is circulating in almost Jewless, post-communist Poland. And, in particular, what does it mean that Poles carve tiny Jewish figurines and that these days Jewish tourists buy them? Secular American Jews who travel to Poland, purchase Jewish figurines, and display them in their homes, show how symbolic, how iconographic a lot of Jewishness is today. But such Jewishness is not the only kind that Jews bring to Poland. For Max Rogers, a hasidic Jew from London who travels to Poland frequently on business, Jewishness is an encompassing matter of daily practice.

This chapter describes Rabbi Simhah Bunem of Pshiskhe as a Polish tsadik who created an elitist, individualist, almost anarchic form of Hasidism. It discusses the Hasidism that emphasized the inner dimension of divine worship, required the individual to be true to himself, and decried the culture of miracle-work that prevailed in the courts of many other tsadikim. It also mentions Menahem Mendel, who is commonly depicted as a typical Galician-style tsadik, whose popular branch of Hasidism was centred on the tsadik’s absolute supremacy over the ordinary Hasidim. The chapter highlights how Menahem Mendel encouraged his Hasidim about worshipping simply without seeking to transcend everyday practical observance. It clarifies what inspired the elitist Simhah Bunem with the desire to visit Menahem Mendel.

This chapter is a commemoration of Professor Chone Shmeruk of the Hebrew University. In his scholarly work Shmeruk bridged remote eras and combined several disciplines into a unified world of Jewish cultural creativity. He mastered literature, history, and linguistics, knew them thoroughly, and sensed their finest interrelations. This great intellectual figure was at home in many cultures. His erudition knew no boundaries. His studies covered almost every European culture in the vast territory from the Rhine to the Urals. He was well versed in the German, Russian, and of course Polish cultures, as well as in Jewish culture in its linguistic diversity. This broad horizon enabled Shmeruk to see the whole cultural picture as a unified one. Shmeruk’s scholarship transcended political borders and crossed disciplinary limits.

This chapter reviews some recent studies on the Jews of Silesia. The history of the Jews in Silesia became an abandoned field for nearly two decades. Isolated, if sometimes very interesting, studies appeared (including works by Stefi Jersch-Wenzel and Karol Jonca), but they did not maintain the continuity of research, and it could certainly not be said that there was any systematic interest in the subject. But with the renaissance of Judaic studies in Germany and Poland in the second half of the 1980s came a revival of interest in Silesian Jewry. Two conferences on the history of the Jewish community in Silesia, organized almost simultaneously, can be regarded as a symbolic double threshold: the first took place at the Institute of History at Wrocław University in June 1988, the second, a year later in Berlin.

This chapter concerns Nahman Krochmal (1785–1840), a key figure in the development of Jewish spirituality in central and eastern Europe. It examines the extent to which Krochmal’s writings were influenced by the gaon of Pumbedita in Babylonia, Sherira (c.906–1006). Krochmal summed up his spiritual life and work in his incomplete study, Moreh nevukhei hazeman (‘guide of the perplexed of the time’). Its central theme is the Oral Torah, one of the pillars of rabbinic Judaism. In Krochmal’s time the Oral Torah was subjected to heavy criticism. But almost 850 years before Krochmal’s Moreh nevukhei hazeman, Sherira wrote a letter as a response to a series of questions concerning the formation of the Mishnah, the Tosefta, the Talmuds, etc., posed to him by Jacob ben Nissim on behalf of the holy community of Kairouan in North Africa.

Opening of additional polling stations in foreign countries has been brought forward as a method to raise the turnout of diaspora voters in Latvian parliamentary election, and the number of polling stations abroad during last four elections has almost doubled. In this article, the author tests the argument that the increase in the sheer number of polling stations and the expansion of territorial coverage is an election parameter in foreign countries with the potential to raise the election turnout. In sharp contrast to a popular argument and the academic debate, the results of the Latvian data analysis show that opening of new polling stations did not meet the intended goal and cannot be regarded as an effective method for raising the diaspora voter turnout; the means must be sought in other factors of election organisation and voter behaviour. To compare data of voter behaviour in foreign countries in four separate parliamentary elections and to determine tendencies in diaspora voting patterns, the deviation of the elections outcome in foreign countries from the general national results are analysed by the help of calculation model that uses the Voting Outcome Coefficient. The article outlines that the third and fourth wave of emigration have introduced a new tendency of extreme stratification in the results between the Latvian Association of Regions (2014), KPV LV (2018) and the rest of the political parties. The article also analyses the deviation of the elections outcome in the new polling stations from the vote share in particular foreign countries by the help of Polling Station Coefficient, and concludes that in the 13th Saeima election, all newly opened polling stations were beneficial for KPV LV as results in all of them were proportionally even better than the list’s overall results in a particular country.

Residential segregation in metropolitan areas is a phenomenon that can be observed all over the world. Recently, this was investigated via game-theoretic models. There, selfish agents of two types are equipped with a monotone utility function that ensures higher utility if an agent has more same-type neighbors. The agents strategically choose their location on a given graph that serves as residential area to maximize their utility. However, sociological polls suggest that real-world agents are actually favoring mixed-type neighborhoods, and hence should be modeled via non-monotone utility functions. To address this, we study Swap Schelling Games with single-peaked utility functions. Our main finding is that tolerance, i.e., agents favoring fifty-fifty neighborhoods or being in the minority, is necessary for equilibrium existence on almost regular or bipartite graphs. Regarding the quality of equilibria, we derive (almost) tight bounds on the Price of Anarchy and the Price of Stability. In particular, we show that the latter is constant on bipartite and almost regular graphs.

The heat transfer in the magnetic head sliders in hard disk drives, the thermal protrusion (TPR) of the head elements, and the flying height change of such sliders were numerically simulated. A simulated temperature distribution of the air-bearing surface correlated well with our experimental results. A parameter study showed that decreasing the thickness of the alumina base coat or increasing the size of the pole and shields of the head elements can reduce the magnitude of write-current-induced protrusion (W-TPR). However, a longer pole and shields increase ambient-temperature-induced protrusion (T-TPR). For W-TPR, the reduced flying height of the slider is partly compensated for by increased air pressure on the air-bearing surface. However, almost the entire magnitude of T-PTR translates into a reduction in flying height.

15MnNbR Spherical tanks in a lighter hydrocarbon reservoir were tested by internal MT. Almost whole circle crack located at fusion zone of the weld connecting equator plate and the lower pole plate was found. The cracks are parallel to the weld and the deepest depth is 10 mm. Through hardness testing, metallographic testing and residual stress testing, etc, the causes of cracks were analyzed. The analysis shows that strong assembly, poor welding process controlling and poor effect of post weld heat treatment are the main causes for formation of the cracks.

The goal of this research is to enhance the heat exchanger efficiency of pressurized water reactor (PWR) by using LIGA or LIGA-like technique made microstructures. The heat transfer inside the boiler is a complex combination of different physical phenomena, which, besides the traditional convection, conduction, and radiation, includes liquid to vapor phase change, vapor nucleation and evolution, surface tension between the liquid and heating element, and so on. This paper presents the updated total heat transfer enhancement results of the boiling process by adding microstructures on the surface of the heating elements. Different types of microstructure configurations were tested. The power input, temperature of the heating element, and boiling phenomena were recorded. The behavior of increase in power versus rise in temperature of testing coupon is used to evaluate the heat transfer efficiency of the heating element. The steam generating efficiency at fixed input power and fixed temperature have been used to assess the performance of heating elements with different microstructure configurations. The preliminary results show that by simply adding micro-sized poles on the surface of the heating element, the power input can be increased almost 100% higher than that without poles on the surface at 360°C. The current results suggest that the main factors leading to the enhanced boiling process are the surface morphology and configuration of the microstructures. These provide enhanced vapor nucleation sites at heating surface, which result in a better vapor evolution processes, and yield a low superheat temperature. It ultimately results in a higher boiling heat transfer efficiency.

Gas turbines ingest large quantities of air during operation. As a result, large quantities of foreign particles ranging in size from smoke (0.01 to 1.0 micron) to pollen (10 micron) enter the unit and can contribute to both fouling and erosion depending on particle size. Fouling and erosion both lead to reductions in unit output and efficiency resulting in increased operational cost. Operators have historically combatted fouling through a combination of online water washes, more effective off-line water washes, and air filtration. As is the case with almost all engineering problems, the trade-off between the cost and effectiveness of these methods must be evaluated. Online washing is somewhat effective but has led to first stage blade erosion and unit trips in some cases. Off-line washing is more effective at cleaning the unit, but requires the unit to be shut down for extended periods of time. Air filtration can help prevent foreign particles from entering the unit, but higher efficiency filters are generally associated with a larger inlet pressure drop, leading to decreased unit output; this is balanced against reduced fouling rates. These tradeoffs between the costs associated with higher efficiency filters and the frequency of compressor washing need to be evaluated on a plant-by-plant basis to determine the best combination of air filtration and compressor washing programs. This paper presents a field study carried out to determine the effectiveness of high efficiency filters in preventing compressor fouling. Fourteen units at four sites were monitored over a 9 month to 3 year time period to determine the changes in unit performance and the impact of water washes on unit performance for both pre and final filters of lower and higher efficiency ratings. Results to date indicate that higher efficiency filters are effective at reducing the need for off-line water washes and potentially reduce life-cycle cost. Reduced output from the higher pressure drop, high efficiency filters is offset by the better performance retention offered from reduced fouling rates.

The size of combustion generated particles ranges from a few nanometers up to 1 micron, whereas the size of naturally occurring PM such as pollens, plant fragments, and sea salt is generally larger than 1 micron. Particles generated by photochemical processes in the atmosphere are generally smaller than 1 micron. Ultrafine particles (UFP), also called “nanoparticles”, are <0.1 micron and in recent yearshave attracted attention due to potential adverse health effects associated with them. The contribution of UFP to the total PM mass is very small. However, they dominate the total number of particles in urban aerosols. Their sources are both mobile and stationary combustion sources and also gas-to-particle conversions. In coal and waste combustion systems, UFP are hypothesized to be generated mainly by nucleation of metal vapors. Coal naturally contains a vast range of inorganic elements among which are heavy metals. Sources of heavy metals in MSW include batteries, electronic devices, light bulbs, house dust and paint chips, food containers, used motor oils, plastics, yard wastes and some papers. The input of these metals into WTE facilities can be controlled by better source-separation of metal-containing materials. In 2007 almost 50% of the approximately 4.16 billion MWh generated in the United States was produced by coal power plants whereas only 0.3% was generated by the WTE industry. A preliminary study has shown that in terms of contribution to UHF in the atmosphere, MSW combustion has a minor effect in comparison to coal-fired power plants in the U.S. This paper will report on the results of this investigation.

Objectives: The overall goal of the project was to build an ultrastructural model of the Agrobacterium tumefaciens type IV secretion system (T4SS) based on electron microscopy, genetics, and immunolocalization of its components. There were four original aims: Aim 1: Define the contributions of contact-dependent and -independent plant signals to formation of novel morphological changes at the A. tumefaciens polar membrane. Aim 2: Genetic basis for morphological changes at the A. tumefaciens polar membrane. Aim 3: Immuno-localization of VirB proteins Aim 4: Structural definition of the substrate translocation route. There were no major revisions to the aims, and the work focused on the above questions. Background: Agrobacterium presents a unique example of inter-kingdom gene transfer. The process involves cell to cell transfer of both protein and DNA substrates via a contact-dependent mechanism akin to bacterial conjugation. Transfer is mediated by a T4SS. Intensive study of the Agrobacterium T4SS has made it an archetypal model for the genetics and biochemistry. The channel is assembled from eleven protein components encoded on the B operon in the virulence region of the tumor-inducing plasmid, plus an additional coupling protein, VirD4. During the course of our project two structural studies were published presenting X-ray crystallography and three-dimensional reconstruction from electron microscopy of a core complex of the channel assembled in vitro from homologous proteins of E. coli, representing VirB7, VirB9, and VirB10. Another study was published claiming that the secretion channels in Agrobacterium appear on helical arrays around the membrane perimeter and along the entire length of the bacterium. Helical arrangements in bacterial membranes have since fallen from favor however, and that finding was partially retracted in a second publication. Overall, the localization of the T4SS within the bacterial membranes remains enigmatic in the literature, and we believe that our results from this project make a significant advance. Summary of achievements : We found that polar inflations and other membrane disturbances relate to the activation conditions rather than to virulence protein expression. Activation requires low pH and nutrient-poor medium. These stress conditions are also reflected in DNA condensation to varying degrees. Nonetheless, they must be considered in modeling the T4SS as they represent the relevant conditions for its expression and activity. We identified the T4SS core component VirB7 at native expression levels using state of the art super-resolution light microscopy. This marker of the secretion system was found almost exclusively at the cell poles, and typically one pole. Immuno-electron microscopy identified the protein at the inner membrane, rather than at bridges across the inner and outer membranes. This suggests a rare or transient assembly of the secretion-competent channel, or alternatively a two-step secretion involving an intermediate step in the periplasmic space. We followed the expression of the major secreted effector, VirE2. This is a single-stranded DNA binding protein that forms a capsid around the transferred oligonucleotide, adapting the bacterial conjugation to the eukaryotic host. We found that over-expressed VirE2 forms filamentous complexes in the bacterial cytoplasm that could be observed both by conventional fluorescence microscopy and by correlative electron cryo-tomography. Using a non-retentive mutant we observed secretion of VirE2 from bacterial poles. We labeled the secreted substrates in vivo in order detect their secretion and appearance in the plant cells. However the low transfer efficiency and significant background signal have so far hampered this approach.