Seed Health Status of Sweet Corn (Zea mays L. saccharata Sturt) from Five Areas in China and Effect on Field Seedling Emergence

The health status of 18 sweet corn (Zea mays L. saccharata Sturt) hybrids classified to two types, collected from five areas in China, was examined by PDA method, and factors influencing seed health and relationships between seed health and field seedling emergence were studied. Seventeen fungal genera were isolated and Fusarium was the most frequently isolated. There were significant differences both in incidence of Fusarium and in percentage of infected seeds among 18 hybrids. Research also showed that significant and consistent differences both in seed-borne fungal taxa and in percentage of infected seeds existed between two types of sweet corn. Sugar enhanced corn is more slightly infected than super sweet corn both in fungal taxa (13 and 16, respectively) and in percentage of infected seeds (62.0 and 79.2%, respectively). There were also significant differences both in seed-borne fungal taxa and in percentage of infected seeds among five areas. Seeds from South China were most severely infected, for there were 14 fungal genera detected and the percentage of infected seeds was highly 99.1% while those from Northwest China were slightly infected, for there were 10 fungal genera detected and the percentage of infected seeds was only 14.3%. Further research showed that there were significant negative correlations both between incidence of Fusarium and percentage of field seedling emergence and between percentage of infected seeds and percentage of field seedling emergence. Percentage of field seedling emergence could be estimated by regression equations built by regression analysis.

Information Science Roles in the Emerging Field of Data Science

There has long been discussion about the distinctions of library science,information science,and informatics,and how these areas differ and overlap with computer science.Today the term data science is emerging that generates excitement and questions about how it relates to and differs from these other areas of study.

Evaluation of a Micro-scale Wind Model's Performance over Realistic Building Clusters Using Wind Tunnel Experiments

The simulation performance over complex building clusters of a wind simulation model（Wind Information Field Fast Analysis model, WIFFA） in a micro-scale air pollutant dispersion model system（Urban Microscale Air Pollution dispersion Simulation model, UMAPS） is evaluated using various wind tunnel experimental data including the CEDVAL（Compilation of Experimental Data for Validation of Micro-Scale Dispersion Models） wind tunnel experiment data and the NJU-FZ experiment data（Nanjing University-Fang Zhuang neighborhood wind tunnel experiment data）. The results show that the wind model can reproduce the vortexes triggered by urban buildings well, and the flow patterns in urban street canyons and building clusters can also be represented. Due to the complex shapes of buildings and their distributions, the simulation deviations/discrepancies from the measurements are usually caused by the simplification of the building shapes and the determination of the key zone sizes. The computational efficiencies of different cases are also discussed in this paper. The model has a high computational efficiency compared to traditional numerical models that solve the Navier–Stokes equations, and can produce very high-resolution（1–5 m） wind fields of a complex neighborhood scale urban building canopy（～ 1 km ×1km） in less than 3 min when run on a personal computer.

Relic Entropy Growth and Initial Big Bang Conditions, as a Subset of Quantum Information

This paper shows how increased entropy values from an initially low big bang level can be measured experimentally by counting relic gravitons. Furthermore the physical mechanism of this entropy increase is explained via analogies with early-universe phase transitions. The role of Ng’s revised infinite quantum statistics in the physics of gravitational wave detection is acknowledged. Ng’s infinite quantum statistics can be used to show that is a starting point to the increasing net universe cosmological entropy. Finally, in a nod to similarities with zero point energy (ZPE) analysis, it is important to note that the resulting in fact is much lower, allowing for evaluating initial graviton production as an emergent field phenomena, which may be similar to how ZPE states can be used to extract energy from a vacuum if entropy is not maximized. The rapid increase in entropy so alluded to without near sudden increases to 1088 may be enough to allow successful modeling of relic graviton production for entropy in a manner similar to zero point energy (ZPE) energy extraction from a vacuum state. This entropy count is akin to quantum information models used to tell how much “information” may be stored in initial conditions, and transferred from a prior to the present

Appraisal of the Production-Oriented Approach： An Introduction

The production-oriented approach （POA） has been developed over a decade. It is driven by the need to improve English classroom instruction for university students in China （Wen, 2016）. It is also motivated by the aspiration to enhance the quality of foreign language education in other similar pedagogical contexts outside China. A volume of research has been done by Wen Qiufang and her research team, to formulate the theory of POA and to test its effectiveness in classroom pedagogy （e.g. Wen, 2016, 2015; Yang, 2015; Zhang, 2015）. At the moment, the POA is still at an early stage of theory building and almost all empirical research is done in the Chinese context. In order to improve the quality of this theory and to make it intelligible to the international academic community, a one-day symposium was held in Beijing Foreign Studies University on May 15, 2017. The symposium was entitled ＇The first international forum on innovative foreign language education in China： Appraisal of the POA＇. In the forum, leading experts in applied linguistics were invited to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the POA and the directions for its future development. The symposium was the first attempt for the POA research team to discuss its latest work with international scholars. This Viewpoint section collects the responses of four experts who participated in the symposium, listed in alphabetical order. The collection of articles covers three topics related to the POA： its pedagogical application, its use for teacher training, and its research. Alister Cumming is Professor Emeritus and the former Head of the Centre for Educational Research on Languages and Literacies, University of Toronto, Canada. His article focuses primarily on POA research as an exemplary case of design-based research. Rod Ellis is Research Professor in the School of Education at Curtin University, Australia. He discusses POA in terms of pedagogy, teacher training and research, with both critiques and constructive suggestions. Paul Kei Matsuda is Professor of English and Director of Second Language Writing at Arizona State University, the writed states. He responds to POA from the perspective of an expert researcher and teacher of L2 writing. Charlene Polio is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Linguistics ＆ Germanic, Slavic, Asian ＆ African Languages atMichigan State University, the writed states. She conceptualises POA as a useful method to address some issues in pre-service teacher development. Overall, the articles in this section are insightful and reader-friendly. They are not only useful for the development of POA in particular, but may also be valuable to a broad range of researchers as they touch upon pertaining issues, as well as emerging topics, in the field of applied linguistics. We therefore find it necessary to make them accessible to a wide readership.