Macaw palm, Acrocomia aculeata is an oleaginous species of the Arecaceae family; it has been identified as one of the most promising plants for sustainable production of renewable energy, especially biodiesel. We developed an efficient protocol of genomic DNA extraction for A. aculeata using leaf and stipe tissues, based on the cationic hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide method, and we evaluate...

In this paper, we propose a novel heuristic algorithm for the volumetric-modulated arc therapy treatment planning problem, optimizing the trade-off between delivery time and treatment quality. We present a new mixed integer programming model in which the multi-leaf collimator leaf positions, gantry speed, and dose rate are determined simultaneously. Our heuristic is based on column generation; ...

This study examines urban quality of life by assessing the relationship between observed socioeconomic conditions and urban forest amenities in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA. Using remote-sensing methods and techniques, and ordinary least squares regression, the paper determines the relationship between urban leaf area and a population density parameter with median income and median housing value. ...

Lentic freshwater systems including those inhabited by aquatic stages of mosquitoes derive most of their carbon inputs from terrestrial organic matter mainly leaf litter. The leaf litter is colonized by microbial communities that provide the resource base for mosquito larvae. While the microbial biomass associated with different leaf species in container aquatic habitats is well documented, the...

Genetic progress for forage quality has been poor in alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), the most-grown forage legume worldwide. This study aimed at exploring opportunities for marker-assisted selection (MAS) and genomic selection of forage quality traits based on breeding values of parent plants. Some 154 genotypes from a broadly-based reference population were genotyped by genotyping-by-sequencing ...

Article type: Original Article Introduction: Geometric changes in the multileaf collimator (MLC) led to dosimetric considerations in intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) due to the number and size of the pixels in the intensity map, which are determined by the MLC leaf width. In this study, we evaluated the dosimetric effects of different MLC widths on physical dose distributions for IM...

Leaf vein length per unit leaf area (VLA; also known as vein density) is an important determinant of water and sugar transport, photosynthetic function, and biomechanical support. A range of software methods are in use to visualize and measure vein systems in cleared leaf images; typically, users locate veins by digital tracing, but recent articles introduced software by which users can locate ...

Plant traits are the key factors that determine herbivore foraging selection. The traits serving as defense traits against herbivores represent a wide range of traits, such as chemical, physiological, morphological and life-history traits. While many studies considered plant defense traits at the within-species scale, much less is known from comparisons of a wide range of closely related specie...

Satellite assessment of aboveground plant residue mass and quality is essential for agro-ecosystem management of organic nitrogen (N) because growers credit a portion of residue N towards crop requirements the following spring. Precision agriculture managers are calling for advanced satellite models to map field-scale residue mass and quality. Remote sensing has proven useful for assessing the ...