Afternoon Light Research Articles

Difficult at dusk? Illuminating the debate on cricket ball visibility

ObjectivesInvestigate the visibility of new and old red, white and pink cricket balls under lighting and background conditions experienced during a day–night cricket match. DesignWe modelled the luminance contrast signals available for a typical observer for a ball against backgrounds in a professional cricket ground, at different times of day. MethodsSpectral reflectance (light reflected as a function of wavelength) was derived from laboratory measurements of new and old red, white and pink balls. We also gathered spectral measurements from backgrounds (pitch, grass, sightscreens, crowd, sky) and spectral illuminance during a day–night match (natural afternoon light, through dusk to night under floodlights) from Lord's Cricket Ground (London, UK). The luminance contrast of the ball relative to the background was calculated for each combination of ball, time of day, and background surface. ResultsOld red and old pink balls may offer little or no contrast against the grass, pitch and crowd. New pink balls can also be of low contrast against the crowd at dusk, as can pink and white balls (of any age) against the sky at dusk. ConclusionsReports of difficulties with visibility of the pink ball are supported by our data. However, our modelling also shows that difficulties with visibility may also be expected under certain circumstances for red and white balls. The variable conditions in a cricket ground and the changing colour of an ageing ball make maintaining good visibility of the ball a challenge when playing day–night matches.

Timing of outdoor light exposure is associated with sleep-wake consolidation in community-dwelling older men

IntroductionA consolidated sleep-wake pattern is essential for maintaining healthy cognition in older individuals, but many suffer from sleep fragmentation that exacerbates age-related cognitive decline and worsens overall mental and physical health. Timed light exposure (light therapy) has been explored as a countermeasure, but mixed results have been obtained. To determine whether the timing of light exposure is important for sleep-wake consolidation, we analyzed the natural light diets of a cohort of community-dwelling older men.MethodsThe degree of sleep-wake fragmentation and light exposure patterns were obtained over a week using wrist actigraphy. Correlations between fragmentation, light patterns, and various physical and mental health measures were examined (n = 877).ResultsOur findings revealed that higher sleep-wake fragmentation correlated with poorer physical and mental health and reduced cognition. Moreover, reduced daytime light exposure was associated with increased sleep-wake fragmentation. Interestingly, morning and evening light exposure (>1,000 lux) were not useful in distinguishing between low and high sleep-wake fragmentation scores, while increased afternoon light exposure showed much better discrimination. Specifically, optimal discrimination between low and high fragmentation occurred 6.7 h after habitual sleep offset. This suggests that afternoon light therapy might be more efficient in consolidating sleep and wake in older adults, particularly in those with low-amplitude circadian rhythms.DiscussionThis study highlights the significance of properly-timed light exposure in promoting consolidated sleep and cognitive health among older individuals. Tailored light-based strategies may have the potential to enhance physical, mental, and cognitive well-being in the aging population.

Modeling the Effects of Napping and Non-napping Patterns of Light Exposure on the Human Circadian Oscillator.

In early childhood, consolidation of sleep from a biphasic to a monophasic sleep-wake pattern, that is, the transition from sleeping during an afternoon nap and at night to sleeping only during the night, represents a major developmental milestone. Reduced napping behavior is associated with an advance in the timing of the circadian system; however, it is unknown if this advance represents a standard response of the circadian clock to altered patterns of light exposure or if it additionally reflects features of the developing circadian system. Using a mathematical model of the human circadian pacemaker, we investigated the impact of napping and non-napping patterns of light exposure on entrained circadian phases. Simulated light schedules were based on published data from 20 children (34.2 ± 2.0 months) with habitual napping or non-napping sleep patterns (15 nappers). We found the model predicted different circadian phases for napping and non-napping light patterns: both the decrease in afternoon light during the nap and the increase in evening light associated with napping toddlers' later bedtimes contributed to the observed circadian phase difference produced between napping and non-napping light schedules. We systematically quantified the effects on phase shifting of nap duration, timing, and light intensity, finding larger phase delays occurred for longer and earlier naps. In addition, we simulated phase response curves to a 1-h light pulse and 1-h dark pulse to predict phase and intensity dependence of these changes in light exposure. We found the light pulse produced larger shifts compared with the dark pulse, and we analyzed the model dynamics to identify the features contributing to this asymmetry. These findings suggest that napping status affects circadian timing due to altered patterns of light exposure, with the dynamics of the circadian clock and light processing mediating the effects of the dark pulse associated with a daytime nap.

Searching for Roth, Kafka, and the Other Europe in Spain

Searching for Roth, Kafka, and the Other Europe in Spain Martyna Bryla (bio) When doing my phd on the literary image of eastern europe in the American Cold-War imaginary, I went to Prague one summer, just like Philip Roth did via Vienna, to follow in the footsteps of Franz Kafka. What I actually did was to follow in the footsteps of Roth tracing the steps of Kafka. Whenever I think back to that trip, I am reminded of this evocative sentence from Angelo Maria Ripellino's Magic Prague (1973): "To this day, every evening at five, Franz Kafka returns home to Celetná Street (Zeltnergasse) wearing a bowler hat and black suit" (3). In my mind, I follow Ripellino's lead: as Kafka's dark silhouette recedes into the distance, another figure materializes on an otherwise empty street hazed in golden afternoon light. That other man is of a similar height (they say Kafka was tall!)1 but of a more athletic build than Kafka. By contemporary standards, the man is dressed in a somewhat old-fashioned but still fairly modern manner. If these were the seventies, he would be pinpointed as a Westerner. Kafka never turns around, and the other man never manages to reach him, but they are linked by an invisible bond that transcends time and place that only literature, with its infinite possibilities for imagining other lives in different places, is capable of accommodating. For a long time, I was not aware that Philip Roth had a meaningful connection to Kafka and my part of Europe. As a teenager, I read bits of Portnoy's Complaint (1969), which, per Roth himself, was inspired by Kafka's stories of "spiritual disorientation and obstructed energies" ("In Search"). At the time, however, I would simply reach for whatever my older brother was reading, and Portnoy must have found its way into my hands somewhere between Polish modernism, which we were studying at school, and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer (1934). Roth's fiction was not on the syllabus when I was a student of English Philology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, but I remember devouring several [End Page 102] novels by Milan Kundera after my translation theory professor recommended The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984). The mind likes to detect patterns in seemingly unrelated occurrences, so, in hindsight, there seems to be something augural about my reading of Kundera, who had been friends with Roth and whose works I would be rereading several years later for my Roth-inspired PhD. However, when I was an undergraduate, the events of the Prague Spring, Soviet "normalization," and the Velvet Revolution were to me, born in 1983, little more than history book entries vaguely related to Poland's own struggle against communism epitomized in the red clumped letters of the Solidarity logo and Lech Wałęsa's mustachioed profile. My earliest association with the former Czechoslovakia must have been the rubber squeaky toys, including the little mole Krtek—the Mickey Mouse of the Eastern Bloc—my father once brought me from Prague for Christmas. Since we lived close to the border with eastern Slovakia, in the summer we would take short trips to Svidník, Bardejov, or the adjoining spa town, Bardejovské Kúpele, where the empress Sissi once took her water treatments. Whenever we crossed the border between Poland and Slovakia, following a routine wait and search at customs, I was amazed at the jarring contrast between the lush greenery of the Slovakian forests and the ugliness of World War II tanks and planes exhibited along the road in a manner of giant art installations. I was reminded of this intrusion of history and politics into the landscape of everyday life when as a teenager I was introduced to the East-Central European canon: Hašek, Kafka, and Hrabal. However, it was Kundera who brought Czechoslovakia into light for me, even if at the time I was reading him mostly for the titillating intertwining of politics and eroticism. In comparison to Kraków in the early 2000s, the Prague of the 1970s seemed tragic and romantic at the same time, while Kundera's fiction evoked the...

The Effect of Light Therapy on Electroencephalographic Sleep in Sleep and Circadian Rhythm Disorders: A Scoping Review.

Light therapy is used to treat sleep and circadian rhythm disorders, yet there are limited studies on whether light therapy impacts electroencephalographic (EEG) activity during sleep. Therefore, we aimed to provide an overview of research studies that examined the effects of light therapy on sleep macro- and micro-architecture in populations with sleep and circadian rhythm disorders. We searched for randomized controlled trials that used light therapy and included EEG sleep measures using MEDLINE, PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases. Five articles met the inclusion criteria of patients with either insomnia or delayed sleep–wake phase disorder (DSWPD). These trials reported sleep macro-architecture outcomes using EEG or polysomnography. Three insomnia trials showed no effect of the timing or intensity of light therapy on total sleep time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency and sleep stage duration compared to controls. Only one insomnia trial reported significantly higher sleep efficiency after evening light therapy (>4000 lx between 21:00–23:00 h) compared with afternoon light therapy (>4000 lx between 15:00–17:00 h). In the only DSWPD trial, six multiple sleep latency tests were conducted across the day (09:00 and 19:00 h) and bright light (2500 lx) significantly lengthened sleep latency in the morning (09:00 and 11:00 h) compared to control light (300 lx). None of the five trials reported any sleep micro-architecture measures. Overall, there was limited research about the effect of light therapy on EEG sleep measures, and studies were confined to patients with insomnia and DSWPD only. More research is needed to better understand whether lighting interventions in clinical populations affect sleep macro- and micro-architecture and objective sleep timing and quality.

A Hearth is a Kind of Home

A Hearth is a Kind of Home Isaac Yuen (bio) The King may sway and sing that home is where the heart is, but for some it's the reverse that holds the appeal. To ensconce one's whole being plus belongings inside a portable palace is the dream of any RV owner or singing scallop. Oh, to take off on a whim to visit oddporiums in Delaware one afternoon and New Jersey roadside elephants the next! To hinge-hinge-jet away at three in the morning when unscrupulous seastars might come a'prying! There is no freer living in this world than roaming the open road and sea, heeding only the words of wind and wave that the world can indeed be your oyster, as long as you never settle down like one. ________ But even should you fare more oyster than scallop, are instead salaried and sedentary, take comfort in the fact that there exists homebodies out there even less uprootable than you. Some will never have left their abode, not even if they live to the ripe age of a hundred sixty-eight, like one particular geoduck did before being dug up unceremoniously. Entrenched beneath silt and sea, this giant clam has never given a second thought (or a first) to moving out of its drab shell affair, even though the three-foot elephantine siphon it sports long outgrew the eight-inch interior. Then there is the Giant Aldabra Tortoise, who spends its own triple-digit lifespan in the same shell patrolling its atoll, tending to its proprietary turf blend of twenty herbs and grasses, and gazing out at the Indian Ocean. There is attachment to one's childhood home and then there is having it fused directly to your spine and ribs. While this does mean the tortoise need never worry about being eaten out of carapace and plastron, it also means that most accidents it suffers also double as at-home mishaps (Tortoise insurance claims must be simpler to process and then deny). Baked alive by the equatorial sun if it cannot lug shell and self into shade or cave; flipped over and stowed on deck by 17th-century sailors seeking respite from bad beef and hardtack—woe to be the architect of one's own non-ventilatable and easily tippable doom! Worst of all might be to trundle on through the decades attired in hopelessly dated decor. There are timeless styles and then there is tortoise scute mosaic. Luckily fashion trends are fickle, and nostalgia for upper-class Roman stylings may cycle back around one day to make tortoiseshell happen again. ________ For those unfazed by the sweet succor of childhood memories and bygone ages, you may be more concerned with the challenge and stress of changing places in which to lay your head. In an ideal world landlords would let you try a suite on for size, to see if the kitchen color scheme works in the afternoon light, or if the den has space for both you and your Rubbermaid-toted possessions, expanded. Purple [End Page 161] pincher hermit crabs in Belize sometimes test-drive their homes at impromptu swap meets, with up to twenty showing up and forming a conga line of descending size around a prospective shell. Once the Goldilocks crab comes to claims its new Goldilocks home, the house-swapping frenzy can commence and conclude in seconds. In an ideal world this social arrangement known as the vacancy chain would have everyone coming away with extra square inch-age, but often the shell game lives up to its name, with unlucky hermits clamped out of their homes and left even more bereft of worldly possessions than their misty mountain counterparts. There are likely as many regretful shell-pickers as there are regretful homebuyers, but instead of griping about not putting an offer on that duplex with the deluxe carport, the crustacean might rue loosening its grip on its old chestnut turban haunts in favor of the pink throat murex affair that seemed to have everything going for it, except for coziness. Luckily hermit crabs harbor no notions of qualms or shame or economic theory; they have been known to...

A Unified Model for Entrainment by Circadian Clocks: Dynamic Circadian Integrated Response Characteristic (dCiRC).

Circadian rhythms are ubiquitous and are observed in all biological kingdoms. In nature, their primary characteristic or phenotype is the phase of entrainment. There are two main hypotheses related to how circadian clocks entrain, parametric and non-parametric models. The parametric model focuses on the gradual changes of the clock parameters in response to the changing ambient condition, whereas the non-parametric model focuses on the instantaneous change of the phase of the clock in response to the zeitgeber. There are ample empirical data supporting both models. However, only recently has a unifying model been proposed, the circadian integrated response characteristic (CiRC). In the current study, we developed a system of ordinary differential equations, dynamic CiRC (dCiRC), that describes parameters of circadian rhythms and predicts the phase of entrainment in zeitgeber cycles. dCiRC mathematically extracts the underlying information of velocity changes of the internal clock that reflects the parametric model and the phase shift trajectory that reflects the non-parametric model from phase data under entraining conditions. As a proof of concept, we measured clock parameters of 26 Neurospora crassa ecotypes in both cycling and constant conditions using dCiRC. Our data showed that the morning light shortens the period of the clock while the afternoon light lengthens it. We also found that individual ecotypes have different strategies of integrating light effects to accomplish the optimal phase of entrainment, a model feature that is consistent with our knowledge of how circadian clocks are organized and encoded. The unified model dCiRC will provide new insights into how circadian clocks function under different zeitgeber conditions. We suggest that this type of model may be useful in the advent of chronotherapies.

Unlisted

Unlisted

P114 The effect of light interventions on sleep macro- and micro-architecture in sleep and circadian rhythm disorders: A scoping review

Abstract Introduction Light interventions have been used to treat sleep and circadian rhythm disorders. However, there are limited studies on the effect of light on electroencephalographic (EEG) activity during sleep. Therefore, we aimed to provide an overview of research using light intervention on sleep macro- and micro-architecture. Methods We searched for randomised controlled trials that used light interventions and examined the effect on sleep measured using EEG in MEDLINE, PubMed, CINAHL, CENTRAL and PsycINFO databases. We included studies that examined the light intervention on sleep EEG in participants with a sleep or circadian rhythm disorder. Results Four studies met the inclusion criteria in patients with insomnia only. These studies reported only sleep macro-architecture outcomes with three studies showing no effect of the timing or intensity of light intervention on total sleep time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency and sleep stage duration. Only one study reported a significantly higher sleep efficiency after night-time light intervention (>4,000 lx, 21:00-23:00 h) compared with afternoon light intervention (>4,000 lx, 15:00-17:00 h). However, none of these studies reported sleep micro-architecture (power spectral analysis). Conclusion Overall, there was limited evidence about the effect of light intervention on EEG sleep measures and studies were confined to insomnia patients only. This review could not find any data on sleep EEG spectral power related to light interventions. Research needs to be conducted into the effect of lighting interventions in clinical populations on sleep macro- and micro-architecture to better understand the effect on objective sleep timing and quality.

Do early‐successional weeds facilitate or compete with seedlings in forest restoration? Disentangling abiotic versus biotic factors

Abstract Semi‐arid forests need cost‐effective restoration strategies to address their severe degradation. Tree shelters are often used to minimize abiotic and biotic stress during seedling establishment. We asked if early‐successional weeds act as a natural shelter by facilitating native seedlings, contingent on abiotic and biotic stressors and seedling ecological strategy. We conducted a manipulative weed exclusion experiment at a semi‐arid site in South Texas targeted for large‐scale forest restoration to discern the net effect of weeds on the growth and survival of target thornscrub tree and shrub seedlings. We assessed the roles of contrasting seedling ecological strategies (fast vs. slow growth habit), temporal variation in abiotic stress, microclimate and mammalian herbivory in modulating weed–seedling interactions. Ungulate herbivory on seedlings was common, of similar frequency across most species, but not diminished by the presence of weed neighbours. On average, seedlings growing adjacent to weed neighbours experienced modest but non‐significant increases in both height and mortality after 6 months, relative to weed‐excluded areas. However, seedlings without significant herbivory and adjacent to weed neighbours grew more vigorously (increased height and branching) during hot and dry periods, particularly those species with a fast growth habit. Although seedling light‐saturated photosynthetic capacity (Asat) and air temperature were unaffected by weed presence during hot and dry periods, afternoon light levels were reduced by approximately 50%, possibly indicative of lower leaf temperatures and improved seedling water status. Our results show that realizing the facilitative potential of weeds in semi‐arid forest restoration requires minimizing mammalian herbivory and temporally separating competition for resources. Managing for intermediate but not excessive levels of forb canopy cover is likely required to reduce high radiation loads and reduce transpiration without adverse competitive effects. Longer‐term experiments manipulating cover crop identity, cover and mammalian herbivory will inform whether forbs can be effectively exploited to enhance restoration success at large scales.

A Journey into Steinbeck's California, A Journey into Steinbeck's California and A Journey into Steinbeck's California

A Journey into Steinbeck's California, A Journey into Steinbeck's California and A Journey into Steinbeck's California

The influence of intensity and timing of daily light exposure on subjective and objective sleep in adolescents with an evening circadian preference

Study objectivesThe aim of the present study is to examine the relationship between light and sleep, in adolescents with an evening circadian preference. MethodsFor a period of seven days, ninety-nine adolescents wore a wrist actigraph to assess light exposure and objective sleep and completed a sleep diary to assess subjective sleep. ResultsLower average light intensity across the preceding 24 h was associated with a later sleep onset (p < 0.01) and a later next-day sleep offset (p < 0.05). A later time of last exposure to more than 10 lux was associated with a later sleep onset (p < 0.001) and a shorter objective total sleep time (p < 0.001), as well as a later bedtime (p < 0.001) and a shorter subjective total sleep time (p < 0.001). Furthermore, exploratory analyses found that lower average early morning light exposure (between 4 and 9 AM) was associated with later sleep onset (p < 0.05), a later next-day sleep offset (p < 0.05), and a later next-day waketime (p < 0.01), lower average afternoon light exposure (between 2 and 7 PM) was associated with a later next-day sleep offset (p < 0.05), and lower average evening light exposure (between 7 PM and 12 AM) was associated with longer subjective total sleep time (p < 0.01). ConclusionThis study highlights the importance of light exposure, particularly the timing of light exposure, for establishing healthy patterns of sleep among adolescents with a propensity for a delayed bedtime and waketime. These findings provide additional evidence for targeting light exposure when designing interventions to improve adolescent sleep.

Yield-related biochemical response of understory mycorrhizal yellow sweet clover (Melilotus officinalis L.) to drought in agrisilviculture

ABSTRACT In the present study, the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, Funneliformis mosseae and Rhizophagus irregularis, on oxygen radical scavenging system (superoxide dismutase, catalase and peroxidase), osmotic adjustments (proline and soluble carbohydrates), relative water content, root colonization, leaf nutrients (N, P, K) and biological yield of Melilotus officinalis under rainfed and supplemental irrigation were studied in the morning and the afternoon light conditions in agrisilviculture system. A 2-year split-plot experiment was carried out using randomized complete block design with three replications in a plum (Prunus domestica (L.), Opal) orchard. Antioxidant activity was stimulated more in no-mycorrhizal inoculated plants in both of the irrigation systems for both of the light conditions. Enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants were decreased in mycorrhizal stressed plants. Despite the increase in the leaf total chlorophyll in mycorrhized plants, the concentrations of carotenoid were decreased. In irrigated plants, significant increases of biological yield and leaf nutrients were observed in the morning light condition for mycorrhization, similar to the rainfed. Inoculation with F. mosseae generated more biological yield in the morning light area. Water status improvement through declined antioxidant activity and osmolytes accumulation in mycorrhized plants resulted in compensation for yield loss. Abbreviations: AMF: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi; CAT: catalase; Funneliformis mosseaeL F. mosseae, H2O2: hydrogen peroxide; MDA: malondialdehyde; POX: peroxidase; ROS: reactive oxygen species; Rhizophagus irregularis, R. irregularis; RWC: relative water content; SOD: superoxide dismutase; TSS: Total soluble sugar.

Spring Training at the End of the World

Spring Training at the End of the World Richard Black (bio) Baseball is the only sport I know that begins each year at its peak and goes downhill from there. —Furman Bisher, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1981 The mother on the airport shuttle was wearing a tank top. I first noticed the tattoo on her shoulder as we waited curbside in a brisk, north wind for the Parking Spot van to arrive. The sky was spring-gray, and her brood surrounded her. One daughter in particular caught my eye. She was wearing sunglasses and what seemed like a long, blue fleecy robe. In her hands was a toy ukulele. When we boarded the bus I studied the family in some detail. The dad was military, I judged, by his tattoos and close crop and the way in which he seemed to hold their five children in check purely through his presence. There was one young boy, around eleven, the eldest child, and four girls. My eye kept returning to the youngest, clad in that comfy oversized blue fleece sweatshirt that looked like a robe on her small frame. Her sunglasses. That ukulele. "Will we see Natasha tomorrow?" she asked her mother. "No sweetie. And school is cancelled for a little while. And we may not see Nana for a few weeks either," her mother replied. "Because Nana could get sick?" another daughter asked. Her mother nodded. "See. Even if you get it you'll be okay, because you're young and strong. But Nana doesn't have the immune system you have. That's why we can't see her for a little bit." I was impressed by the way the kids seemed to take this news in such easy stride, like if they'd first learned how to skip, and also by the way their mother was able to communicate so clearly and yet honestly with them. I looked out the bus window. It was going to snow. About a decade ago I attended an academic conference in Albuquerque at the end of February. It was in the seventies and sunny all weekend. I had only packed a light fleece for the desert nights. My car had eight inches of snow on [End Page 59] it when I arrived back home to Kansas City on Saturday evening. The jacket I'd packed was no match for the raw northern wind, and my bare hands chapped and cracked in the cold as I had to brush the wet, heavy snow off my car and scrape the windshield. I thought of that trip when I saw the mother in her tank top and her daughter in the fleece robe and sunglasses, desperately clutching her ukulele like some totem of a sun-god they'd just abandoned. I knew from experience what it was like to return to a cold gray home after a stint in a sunny paradise. I knew it this day, as well, for I had to retrieve and don my Braves hoodie when I exited the plane and entered the chilly KCI terminal. The red and yellow of the script "A" logo-within-a-logo on my cap seemed incredibly muted in the dim slant of afternoon light after days of illumination in the spring training grandstands. I felt as if launched from sun-ripe Florida onto the gray and barren surface of the moon, stepping foot off of one planet and into an entirely different atmosphere, for this was the week that COVID-19 caused the sky to fall. ________ Daylight Savings Time began at 2 a.m. on March 8, 2020. This would mean a lost hour of sleep for an already-early drive from the northwest corner of Missouri to Kansas City International Airport to catch a 10 a.m. flight to Sarasota-Bradenton. My dad and I were going to spring training with the Atlanta Braves. We wouldn't be alone, though. We were joining the inaugural Road Scholar program entitled "Atlanta Braves Spring Training in Sarasota County." I was somewhat familiar with the Road Scholar outfit: my former colleague Jeff, a Tennessee Williams scholar, had recently completed a tour called "Ohio: Cradle of Presidents...

Bite Out Your Tongue

Bite Out Your Tongue

How do AMF-inoculation and supplemental irrigation affect the productivity of rainfed yellow sweet clover in agrisilviculture systems?

ABSTRACTYellow sweet clover (Melilotus officinalis L.) was assessed for its yield in an agri-silvicultural model of the plum (Prunus domestica (L.) cv. Opal). The treatments included two sun light exposures (morning light and afternoon light) as main plots and species of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) (Funneliformis mosseae, Rhizophagus irregularis and no-AMF-inoculated control) as subplots. The treatments were separately arranged for two irrigations (rainfed and supplemental irrigation) during 2016–2017. In irrigated and AMF-inoculated plants, a significant increase was observed in the performance of yellow sweet clover (dry weight and biological yield), seed nutrients (phosphorus and potassium) and weight of aerial parts in morning light conditions as much as rainfed conditions, identically for two species of fungi. In both rainfed and supplemental irrigations, the biological yield of F. mosseae inoculated plants increased by up to 23%. In supplemental irrigation, the maximum growth of plant height and relative water content were obtained from AMF-inoculated plants (R. irregularis) in afternoon light area as much as rainfed condition. In conclusion, the identical beneficial effects of mycorrhizal fungi species were enhanced by single supplemental irrigation. However, plant performance, including the quality and quantity of yield, was superior in the morning light part of each treatment.

Sonia's Call

Kabir says, “If you don't break your ropes while you're alivedo you think ghosts will do it after?”I read it in a book of poems.Now, in autumn's morning light I wonder. What ifAll of life is an invitationTo this momentTo this day of the goldening green marshAnd the call of falling leaves? What ifLetting go is all we really needTo learn?Would we pay to practice?Perhaps that's what we've done here,With Sonia, when trying something new. It seems to me the space between the letting goAnd moving forward, is eternal. That's where you'll find Sonia now.Her steady gaze, solid ground for bigger lives,If we dare. What ifthere is nothingnew to try?Only now. This moment,full of freedom and despair.How do we live more boldly now,in the afternoon light of Wellfleet woods?And now?And now?And now …— 1 October 2017

Calligraphies V

Calligraphies V Marilyn Hacker (bio) Late fall, near midnight,walking home alone from aloquacious dinner, I saw, heard, cop cars, sirens,thought: There's a big fire somewhere. Japanese touristsdescend from buses now, takeattack-site selfies. Illegal demonstrations.Terrorism: déjà vu. * Déjà vu, hard rainafter unseasonableblue bright mornings. You Google whom you once loved:wedding photo at fifty, face, body, thickened,shrunk, out of your fantasies.And what would you say [End Page 15] who said so much once overthose neutral restaurant tables? * Winter's not neutral:damp infiltrates bronchialpassages. You've coughed since that Burgundy Christmaspneumonia, twenty years past. But light's coming back.But a medical studentblew himself up in a square in Sultanahmetwhere you've been a tourist too. * She's been arguing,she's fed up with rhetoric,easy amalgams. You dip bread in olive oil,then dip it in the za'atar. Back from Geneva,with comrades at peace talks thataren't going to happen — You proofread her news-brief, seehow her frayed shirt is ripping. * [End Page 16] Attention frayingin late afternoon light, soonday will be done, not the work incumbent on it— whatever that might have been– Gnarls of an old textin the other alphabet:can I unknot them, reweave a mirror fabricof the unraveled phrases? * A day unravelsthat she, he, they spent waitingin line in rain in administrative limboor the emergency room. Are you immigrantsor political exilesor refugees? Words with different valences insubliminal translation. * Liminal space whereexiles with dictionarieslose themselves: barzakh, [End Page 17] Arabic isthmus, the spanfrom death to resurrection in Farsi: limbo,where Socrates murmurs tounbaptized babies in contrapuntal cognatesthey hear fardous, paradise. * Infantile, senile,when I read out loud I stop,stammer and stutter then pronounce everything wrong.An illiterate lover worse than the peasantaccents of emigrants whoreturn years later to the villages where theirmothers did not learn to read. * My mother would readto me- fables, fairy tales—until the day I said I could read them myself,and I did. I was three. [End Page 18] My mother would readmy notebooks, search desk drawerswhile I was at school. I had to tear up and flushmy revolts down the toilet. * Down the rain-splashed street,try not to keep your eyes downwhile the sky weighs down on the wrong side of winter.You don't forget you aren't young. Still, there's arrival—the desposeidos' priestmakes time for welcome, more liminal narrativesover midnight bacalão. [End Page 19] Marilyn Hacker Marilyn Hacker is the author of thirteen books of poems, including A Stranger's Mirror (Norton) and Names (Norton), and an essay collection, Unauthorized Voices (Michigan). Her translations from the French include Marie Etienne's King of a Hundred Horsemen (Farrar Strauss and Giroux), which received the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation and Emmanuel Moses's Preludes and Fugues (Oberlin). For her own work, she received the PEN Voelcker Award for poetry. She lives in Paris. Copyright © 2018 University of Nebraska Press

Our Life Together: Collective Homemaking in the Films of Ella Bergmann-Michel

‘Persil – for all washing’. Consider a photograph of a painted advertisement for laundry detergent, emblazoned on the side of a multi-storey building and caught in the late afternoon light (Fig. 1). The brightest highlights come from the white lettering for the product and its slogan, as if to testify to the very power of the powder. The asymmetrical design enlivens the flat expanse of its architectural support and makes the rendering of the Persil packaging pop out in high relief. The kinship between these abstract forms and the blocky typeface show that the same angular units, differently configured, can serve as both text and image, field and vector. The grey vertical that bisects the advertisement works against the directionality of the text, and as our eyes follow it from top to bottom, these flattened forms start to move in and out of spatial depth, appearing adjacent on the same plane in one glance, and stacked and floating in another. Of course, the entire wall supporting this advertisement is itself canted against the picture plane of the photograph. This difference exaggerates the animation of the design, but as we look from left to right, it also encourages the photographic image to echo and reinforce the play between flatness and depth. Through it, we see how the modernity of the new typography belies the stubborn persistence of existing architectural form. This is not an architecture of glass transparency and intersecting planes, but instead an expression of bourgeois solidity held over from the previous century. Once the sun sets, a gas light will still illuminate the streets.

Mobile Learning Education has Become More Accessible

In the information age all in a race to the technology to keep up with the emerging technological innovations make it more luxury and easy life. Since this era of educational reform, it has become many educational institutions are striving to digitize education, e-learning, distance learning, mobile learning afternoon light or the so-called (Mobile Learning), a technology that allows knowledge anytime, anywhere. Technological development of cellular phones and the applications that prove it day after day, as a result of the increased ownership by young people, and large cost to equip schools with computers advanced, make the introduction of cellular phones to school, learn a technological tools as desirable, viable and feasible. Mobile phones have evolved considerably over the past three decades, where it has passed the stages of many evolution added each stage to its predecessor a lot even appeared in the form that we see now, where Motorola «Free Motorola» company began manufacturing mobile phones early eighties of the twentieth century, and then Nokia came «nokia» in the second half of the eighties, and with the development in the mobile phone industry, and their small size and weight, and lower prices and prices of telephone calls, increased the proportion of sales of manufacturers have almost a decade ago. Is a mobile education a new form of distance education systems, which is characterized by the separation lecturer for students spatially and temporally and mobile learning a new language is a term that refers to the use of portable devices in the education process. This term focuses on the use of available technology with wireless communications to deliver information outside of the classroom, where he found this method to fit changing circumstances incident education process affected by the phenomenon of globalization. This can be achieved by using mobile and portable devices such as mobile phones Cell Phones digital assistants PDA) are computers Handheld) phones and computers Portable Computers personal computers and small Tablet PCs on all be equipped with technologies connect various wireless and wired alike which provides ease of information exchange between the students themselves on the one hand, and between students and lecturer on the other.