The objective of this paper is to evaluate the effect of Plant Variety Protection (PVP) on the productive merit ⁄yield increases of US seed varieties. As an example, we use wheat varieties, which are and have been available as both protected and unprotected under PVP from both the public and private sectors. We find evidence that PVP has contributed to the genetic improvement of wheat, using va...

The isolation from bud scales and partial characterisation of highly active, low molecular weight, germination inhibitors, in concentrations correlated quantitively with resistance of N52/219, N11, NCo376, and NCo293, holds promise for the development of a rapid, quantitative, chemical assay for evaluating sugarcane for pre-infectional resistance to smut. Histopathological studies on stalk and ...

• The concentration of anthocyanins in grape skins is a characteristic specific to each grape variety even if environmental and cultural factors play a role in determining the final amounts. Knowing the anthocyanin characteristics of grapes before harvest would allow the winemaker to choose the maceration regime best suited to maximize the potential of each incoming grape load. The initial goal...

We acknowledge the fact that situational details can have impact on the trust that a Trustor assigns to some Trustee. Motivated by that, we discuss and formalize functions for determining context-aware trust. A system implementing such functions takes into account the Trustee’s profile realized by what we call quality attributes. Furthermore, the system is aware of some context attributes chara...

Many species of large wildlife have declined drastically worldwide. These reductions often lead to profound shifts in the ecology of entire communities and ecosystems. However, the effects of these large-wildlife declines on other taxa likely hinge upon both underlying abiotic properties of these systems and on the types of secondary anthropogenic changes associated with wildlife loss, making i...

INTRODUCTION This paper argues that particular experiences in the workplace are more important than others and can lead to transformational learning. This may enable practitioners to cross 'vocational thresholds' to new ways of being. AIM A notion of 'vocational thresholds' is developed, aiming to help build an understanding of the most powerful learning experiences of general practitioners (GP...

I extended recruitment research by sampling from the applicant population to investigate factors related to a firm’s attractiveness as an employer on college campuses. Specifically, I surveyed potential applicants at nine different universities and university personnel (faculty and placement staff) at eight of those universities to investigate relationships of recruitment activities, organizati...

This paper proposes a framework for the development of models for the assessment of research activities and their impacts. It distinguishes three dimensions: theory, methodology and data, each of which is further characterized by three main building blocks: education, research and innovation (theory); efficiency, effectiveness and impact (methodology); and availability, interoperability and “un...

We describe the structure of those locally finite varieties whose first order theory is decidable. A variety is a class of universal algebras defined by a set of equations. Such a class is said to be locally finite if every finitely generated member of the class is finite. It turns out that in order for such a variety to have a decidable theory it must decompose into the varietal product of thr...