Dominant Source Research Articles

First Report of Strawberry Anthracnose Crown Rot Caused by Colletotrichum siamense in New England.

In the summer of 2023, the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station was contacted by a farm in southern Connecticut due to reports of strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) plants showing signs of severe wilting and crown rot across multiple fields, covering ~20 hectares. Cut crowns from diseased plants had marbled red and white lesions typically associated with anthracnose crown rot (ACR). Symptomatic plants were collected from five June-bearing cultivars (cvs. AC Valley Sunset, Lyla, Dickens, and Allstar) spanning four non-adjacent fields with incidence ranging from 5-90% and severity ranging mild wilting in low incidence fields to severe wilting/mortality in high incidence fields. Internal tissue from diseased crowns was surface sterilized in 0.6% NaOCL for 3 minutes, rinsed with sterile water, and plated on potato dextrose agar. After one-week, hyphal tips of fungi were transferred to fresh plates which formed dense mycelial mats of fluffy, greyish-white hyphae. Orange spore masses formed near the center of the colonies, each of which contained numerous cylindrical and fusiform straight conidia, matching spores within the genus Colletotrichum (De Silva et al. 2019). Average conidia (n=192) length was 15.7 ± 1.6 µm and width was 5.4 ± 0.7 µm. Fungi matching this morphology were isolated from 83% of the collected symptomatic crowns and hyphae were collected from two isolates, CT5-1 and CT23-1, for DNA extraction using the GeneJET Plant Genomic DNA Purification Kit. PCR was performed using primers targeting actin (ACT), calmodulin (CAL), β-tubulin (TUB2), GAPDH (gpdA), and ITS, followed by Sanger sequencing, which yielded identical sequences for both isolates (CT5-1 Accessions numbers: PP002078-81, OR999066)(Carbone and Kohn 1999; Hassan et al. 2018; Templeton et al. 1992). These were combined with sequences from fourteen Colletotrichum genomes, all of which were aligned, trimmed, and concatenated using Mega11 (Tamura, Stecher, and Kumar 2021). Model selection was conducted using IQ-TREE and selected parameters were used to generate maximum-likelihood trees from all five loci individually and the concatenated sequence, all of which placed the isolates in a high confidence cluster with Colletotrichum siamense (Nguyen et al. 2015). To confirm the pathogenicity of the pathogen, strawberry plants (cv. Jewel) (n=5) five weeks after bare root transplant were infected. The base of each crown was penetrated 5 mm deep with a sterile 20 µL pipette tip and then inoculated with 10 µL of spores at a concentration of 106 spores/mL. Control plants (n=5) were inoculated with 10 µL of sterile water. Plants were maintained at 30°C day (16-hour)/20°C night (8-hour) in a growth chamber and assessed after 14-days. Four of the five inoculated plants had visible wilt symptoms and bisected crowns revealed the marbled red and white lesions typifying ACR. Control plants had no clear wilting and bisected crowns were visibly healthy. C. siamense re-isolated from infected tissue presented with identical hyphal /spore morphology and ITS/Tub2 were re-amplified and sequenced, yielding identical sequences to CT5-1. Plant inoculations with the same variety were repeated, yielding identical symptom development and crown lesions. C. siamense has been a dominant source of ACR throughout the southeastern US but has not previously been a major problem in the Northeast. Given the extent of the field infection, it is likely that these isolates can survive the colder winter temperatures of New England, but further experimentation is necessary to determine the extent of the pathogen's winter hardiness.

Origin and evolution of the bread wheat D genome.

Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) is a globally dominant crop and major source of calories and proteins for the human diet. Compared with its wild ancestors, modern bread wheat shows lower genetic diversity, caused by polyploidisation, domestication and breeding bottlenecks1,2. Wild wheat relatives represent genetic reservoirs, and harbour diversity and beneficial alleles that have not been incorporated into bread wheat. Here we establish and analyse extensive genome resources for Tausch's goatgrass (Aegilops tauschii), the donor of the bread wheat D genome. Our analysis of 46 Ae. tauschii genomes enabled us to clone a disease resistance gene and perform haplotype analysis across a complex disease resistance locus, allowing us to discern alleles from paralogous gene copies. We also reveal the complex genetic composition and history of the bread wheat D genome, which involves contributions from genetically and geographically discrete Ae. tauschii subpopulations. Together, our results reveal the complex history of the bread wheat D genome and demonstrate the potential of wild relatives in crop improvement.

Mitigation of interfacial dielectric loss in aluminum-on-silicon superconducting qubits

We demonstrate aluminum-on-silicon planar transmon qubits with time-averaged T1 energy relaxation times of up to 270 μs, corresponding to Q = 5 million, and a highest observed value of 501 μs. Through materials analysis techniques and numerical simulations we investigate the dominant source of energy loss, and devise and demonstrate a strategy toward its mitigation. Growing aluminum films thicker than 300 nm reduces the presence of oxide, a known host of defects, near the substrate-metal interface, as confirmed by time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry. A loss analysis of coplanar waveguide resonators shows that this results in a reduction of dielectric loss due to two-level system defects. The correlation between the enhanced performance of our devices and the film thickness is due to the aluminum growth in columnar structures of parallel grain boundaries: transmission electron microscopy shows larger grains in the thicker film, and consequently fewer grain boundaries containing oxide near the substrate-metal interface.

Data-Driven Insights into the Contamination of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Marine Bays.

The synthesis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) data allows us to quantify and gain insights into the spatiotemporal dynamics of PAH contamination in marine bays. Here, a data synthesis framework was developed to understand data-driven insights into the spatiotemporal levels, compositional profiles, and potential sources of PAHs in water and sediment of marine bays. PAHs were detected in 69 bays worldwide, with contamination hotspots located in Asian bays. PAH concentrations in pre-2000 were significantly lower than those in the 2000s and post-2010, while the dominant species in water and sediment were 2-3 ring and 4-6 ring PAHs, respectively. The composition patterns of PAHs included 2-3 ring, 3-5 ring, and 4-5 ring dominant categories, but no significant distance decay relationship was found in the composition similarity due to international energy trade. Temporal dynamic patterns of concentrations included Descending-, Ascending-, and Inverted V-type, whereas over longer time spans, the pattern is more similar to the Inverted V-type owing to the reductions in emission intensity. PAHs were derived from both petrogenic and pyrolytic sources, with combustion from both coal and petroleum being the dominant source. These data-driven discoveries provide quantitative insights into the spatiotemporal patterns in the concentration and composition of PAHs, contributing to the mitigation of PAH contamination.

Tail risk spillover of commodity futures markets

AbstractThis paper examines the tail risk spillover in commodity futures markets, with a particular focus on the dynamics related to the Chinese markets. To overcome the limitations of conventional network methods in terms of dimensionality, we employ a bootstrap‐based probabilistic analysis to extend the Diebold–Yilmaz network model for measuring spillover effects. Our empirical results demonstrate both intra‐ and inter‐group tail risk connectedness among commodity futures, highlighting variations in such connectedness during crisis periods. Additionally, we find the tail risk spillover between commodity spot and futures markets and identify dominant sources of risk transmission through our probabilistic analysis.

Scalable and Non-Destructive Analysis of Battery Degradation and Performance

Electrochemical processes occurring during battery operation are highly complex. Thermodynamic, kinetic and transport-based phenomena all play a significant role in the dynamic evolution of the time-based electrochemical response of any battery system. Researchers have long sought to quantify these various interconnected phenomena, but to-date elucidating the role these mechanisms play in the performance of battery systems has been challenging or impossible. To aid researchers in uncovering the mechanistic behavior of their systems, we have developed a novel testing protocol and corresponding data analysis method that is scalable and non-destructive (SAND). This protocol and analysis can be applied to any battery system, in any form factor, at any point in the battery life cycle; including R&D, manufacturing, and second life battery screening to name a few.The testing protocol is based on a series of galvanostatic current pulses at a variety of currents and/or times. By utilizing the natural differences in time-constant of the various electrochemical phenomena inside a battery, this technique can probe each mechanism to glean novel insight using standard battery cycling equipment. Specifically, the insights this technique can provide include: the electrochemical potential of each phase during lithiation and delithiation quantification of electrode kinetics at various states-of-charge (including exchange current density estimation from the Butler-Volmer model)quantitative estimation of transport-based polarization losses from both the electrodes and the electrolyte. This analysis provides an un-parallelled level of mechanistic insight into the inner workings of any battery, at any point, spanning small-scale R&D cells to large format cells in mass production.To demonstrate the capabilities of this technique this presentation will focus on the analysis of multiple cells (same model) from a Tier 1 supplier containing a lithium transition metal oxide cathode material cycled at various temperatures. These results have led to an extensive set of conclusions. For brevity a few of these conclusions are: The initial exchange current density of these cells is calculated to be 25.5 A/m2. The H2→H3 phase transition during charging is the least efficient phase, exhibiting the largest power loss during chargingThe inefficiencies in the H2→H3 phase transition are dominated by solid-state lithium atom diffusion within the electrodes. At low current densities the overpotential associated with transport is the dominant source of losses, while at higher currents kinetic overpotentials become the dominant source. In summary, we have developed a novel characterization technique requiring only standard battery cycling equipment that can be easily and quickly performed by researchers around the world. Whether on small-scale coin cells or large-format pouch cells, the analysis from this technique will give the battery community insight into the thermodynamic, kinetic, and transport properties of their system. Moreover, this technique can be applied in a variety of contexts related to battery development, including understanding degradation mechanisms, performing root-cause analysis of manufacturing defects, or providing more accurate parameters for computational modeling.

Long Time Dynamics for Platinum Surface Area Loss in PEM Fuel Cells

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells may emerge as a dominant clean energy source for heavy duty transport vehicles. Amongst other considerations, the lifetime performance of the fuel cell cathode catalyst layer is a key component of their future viability and a focus in the development of many proposed membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs). Typical targets of the lifetime of a PEMFC stack are on the order of thousands of hours of operation. However, running degradation tests spanning those long timescales is often impractical; and consequently, extensive work has been done developing and implementing accelerated stress tests (AST's) in order to screen proposed cathode catalyst materials for fuel cells.Much value is obtained by accurate and robust lifetime prediction models which are able bridge the gap between degradation from AST's in differential cells, and degradation of the catalyst layer in a fuel cell stack under realistic operating conditions. In other words, by parameterizing a model on short-time, subscale ASTs and extrapolating to a stack after tens of thousands of hours of operation. Commonly in such models, the electrochemically active surface area (ECSA) of platinum is used as the primary state-of-health parameter and predicted using either data-driven models or physics-based models. On one hand, data-driven models may be well suited to utilize large sets of stack data, but offer weaker extrapolation potential, conversely fitting physics-based models on global measurements of stack data is rarely a well-conditioned inverse problem.In this talk we present a scaling law on the long-time behavior of the ECSA obtained from analysis of governing physics equations from the literature. It is assumed that the primary loss mechanism is the coarsening of platinum particles, and the chief technique used is the method of averaging, which allows for the separation of two timescales: the short timescale of platinum oxide formation and dissolution, and the longer timescale over which the particle size distribution changes and a performance loss can be detected. The physics-derived asymptote for the ECSA evolution is then applied to several experiments and found to be in good agreement, allowing for a simple, streamlined lifetime prediction method for PEM fuel cells.

2319 Deficits comprising multi-dimensional frailty indices based on routine data: sub-analysis of a scoping review

Abstract Introduction The frailty index (FI) is a frailty assessment tool calculated as the proportion of the number of deficits, or ‘things that individuals have wrong with them’, to the total number of variables in the index. Routine health and administrative databases are valuable sources of deficits to automatically calculate FIs. There is large heterogeneity in the deficits used in FIs. This sub-analysis of a scoping review on routine data-based FIs aimed to describe and map the deficits used in multi-dimensional FIs. Methods Seven databases were searched to find literature published between 2013 and 2023. The main inclusion criterion was multi-dimensional FIs constructed from routinely collected data. Multi-dimensional FIs should have deficits in at least two of the following categories: ‘symptoms/signs’, ‘laboratory values’, ‘disease classification’, ‘disabilities’, and ‘other’. Results Of the 7526 publications screened, 57 distinct FIs were identified from 56 included studies. Most FIs were developed in the USA (n = 15) and in hospital settings (n = 19). The most dominant data source of deficits to calculate the FIs was hospital records (n = 21). Twenty-five FIs were developed for specific conditions and populations, for example, cancer, HIV, dementia, organ transplant recipients, and veterans. The median number of deficits used in the FIs was 36 (range = 5–72). Almost all the FIs (n = 56) had at least one deficit in the ‘symptoms/signs’ category, followed by ‘disease classification’ (n = 55) and ‘disabilities’ (n = 50). Approximately two-thirds of all the deficits were ‘symptoms/signs’ and ‘disease classifications’. Conclusion These findings highlight the reactive approach to frailty assessment, as most of these FIs were calculated from hospital data and used symptoms/signs and diseases as deficits. Given the heterogenous manifestations and long-term impacts of frailty, using a more proactive approach that leverages non-clinical routine data is warranted to prevent frailty development and progression.

Water-soluble organic compounds (WSOC) from atmospheric aerosols in Bou-Ismail (Algeria).

In this contribution, we report the study of nuclear resonance magnetic spectroscopy techniques (1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, and 2D-NMR) efficiency in the characterisation of the functional composition of water-soluble organic compounds (WSOC) from atmospheric aerosols. The chosen site was our scientific and technical center of research (CRAPC) situated in Algerian Bou-Ismail city. where the concentrations of PM10 were found to be between 15.66 and 142.19µg.m-3. As results, 1H-NMR analysis showed the coexistence of biological material and emissions from urban and biomass burning. The dominant source was identified by quantitative integration of each 1H NMR spectral region. By using the HSQC technique, many peaks are revealed in biogenic samples including biomass burning. On the other hand, the identification of the source of various organic compounds and their functional composition is possible through specific NMR spectra, which can also be used to adjust the surrounding organic aerosol sources.

Source contributions to two super dust storms over Northern China in March 2021 and the impact of soil moisture

Two extremely devastating super dust storms (SDS) hit Mongolia and Northern China in March 2021, causing many deaths and substantial economic damage. Accurate forecasting of dust storms is of great importance for avoiding or mitigating their effects. One of the most critical factors affecting dust emissions is soil moisture, but its value in desert exhibits significant uncertainty. In this study, model experiments were conducted to simulate dust emissions using four soil moisture datasets. The results were compared with observations to assess the effects of soil moisture on the dust emission strength. The Integrated Source Apportionment Method (ISAM) was used to track the dust sources and quantify the contribution from each source region to the dust load over the North China Plain (NCP), Korea peninsula, and western Japan. The results show large differences in the dust load depending on the soil moisture datasets used. The high soil moisture in the NCEP dataset results in substantial underestimation of the dust emission flux and PM10 concentration. Despite a minor overestimation of PM10 concentrations in many Northern China cities, the ERA5 dataset yields the best simulation performance. During the two SDS events, about 7.5 Mt dust was released from the deserts in Mongolia and 2.8 Mt from the deserts in China. Source apportionment indicates that the Mongolian Gobi Desert is the dominant source of PM10 in the NCP, Korea peninsula, and western Japan, accounting for 60 %–80 %, while Inner Mongolia contributed 10 %–20 %.

Soil-sediment connectivity through Bayesian source tracking in an urban naturalised waterway via microbial and isotopic markers

Riverine sediments are important habitats for microbial activity in naturalised waterways to provide potential ecosystem services that improve stormwater quality. Yet, little is known about the sources of these sediment microbes, and the factors shaping them. This study investigated the dominant source of sediments in a tropical naturalised urban waterway, using two Bayesian methods for microbial and isotopic 13C/15N markers concurrently. Additionally, key factors shaping microbial communities from the surrounding landscape were evaluated. A comprehensive two-year field survey identified source land covers of interest based on topology and soil context. Among these land covers, riverbanks were the dominant source of sediments contribution for both edaphic and microbial components. The physico-chemical environment explains most of the variation in sediment communities compared to inter-location distances and microbial source contribution. As microbes provide ecosystem services important for rewilding waterways, management strategies that establish diverse sediment microbial communities are encouraged. Since riverbanks play a disproportionately important role in material contribution to sediment beds, management practices aimed at controlling soil erosion from riverbanks can improve overall functioning of waterway systems.

Kaon mixing beyond the standard model with physical masses

We present nonperturbative results for beyond the standard model kaon mixing matrix elements in the isospin symmetric limit (mu=md) of QCD, including a complete estimate of all dominant sources of systematic error. Our results are obtained from numerical simulations of lattice QCD with Nf=2+1 flavors of dynamical domain wall fermions. For the first time, these quantities are simulated directly at the physical pion mass mπ∼139 MeV for two different lattice spacings. We include data at three lattice spacings in the range a=0.11–0.07 fm and with pion masses ranging from the physical value up to 450 MeV. Compared to our earlier work, we have added both direct calculations at physical quark masses and a third lattice spacing making the removal of discretization effects significantly more precise and eliminating the need for any significant mass extrapolation beyond the range of simulated data. We renormalize the lattice operators nonperturbatively using RI-SMOM off-shell schemes. These schemes eliminate the need to model and subtract nonperturbative pion poles that arises in the RI-MOM scheme and, since the calculations are performed with domain wall fermions, the unphysical mixing between chirality sectors is suppressed. Our results for the bag parameters in the MS¯ scheme at 3 GeV are BK≡B1=0.5240(17)(54), B2=0.4794(25)(35), B3=0.746(13)(17), B4=0.897(02)(10) and B5=0.6882(78)(94), where the first error is from lattice uncertainties and the second is the uncertainty due to the perturbative matching to MS¯. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

New methods and simulations for cosmogenic induced spallation removal in Super-Kamiokande-IV

Radioactivity induced by cosmic muon spallation is a dominant source of backgrounds for O(10 MeV) neutrino interactions in water Cherenkov detectors. In particular, it is crucial to reduce backgrounds to measure the solar neutrino spectrum and find neutrino interactions from distant supernovae. In this paper we introduce new techniques to locate muon-induced hadronic showers and efficiently reject spallation backgrounds. Applying these techniques to the solar neutrino analysis with an exposure of 2790×22.5 kton·day increases the signal efficiency by 12.6%, approximately corresponding to an additional year of detector running. Furthermore, we present the first spallation simulation at Super-Kamiokande, where we model hadronic interactions using . The agreement between the isotope yields and shower pattern in this simulation and in the data gives confidence in the accuracy of this simulation, and thus opens the door to use it to optimize muon spallation removal in new data with gadolinium-enhanced neutron capture detection. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Urban sources of methane characterised by long-term eddy covariance observations in central Europe

Multiyear eddy covariance measurements of methane and carbon dioxide were performed in Innsbruck, Austria, a mid-sized European city in the Alps. Annual mean methane and carbon dioxide fluxes were on the order of 21.6 nmol/m2/s and 11.7 μmol/m2/s respectively. Methane fluxes increased significantly with decreasing temperature and showed a negligible weekend to weekday effect. Accompanying non-methane volatile organic compound (NMVOC) measurements provided additional constraints on urban methane sources during an intensive 6-week campaign in 2021. Positive matrix factorization analysis identified a unique and dominant methane source. Contributions from biomass burning and vehicle emissions were found to be small. No evidence was found for a large unknown biogenic source. A second intensive campaign in 2023 revealed that the measured ethane to methane enhancement in turbulent plumes showed a typical ratio of 5.2 ± 0.6%, close to the unburned ratio of natural gas (5%) in Austria. The analysis suggests that urban methane fluxes are likely to be dominated by end-user releases rather than natural gas leaks in the pipeline system. Long-term eddy flux observations also allowed identifying the existence of urban super-emitters, which brought area weighted methane fluxes up to 39 nmol/m2/s in 2022. On average, the 100 y global warming potential of methane emitted by natural gas combustion activities is 6% relative to the total urban CO2 flux, and ∼12% relative to CO2 emissions from the residential, commercial and public sectors in Innsbruck.

Revisiting the statistical equilibrium of H- in stellar atmospheres

The negative hydrogen ion is, almost without exception, treated in local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) in the modelling of F, G, and K stars, where it is the dominant opacity source in the visual spectral region. This assumption rests in practice on a study from the 1960s. Since that work, knowledge of relevant atomic processes and theoretical calculations of stellar atmospheres and their spectra have advanced significantly, but this question has not been reexamined. We present calculations based on a slightly modified analytical model that includes H and together with modern atomic data and a grid of 1D LTE theoretical stellar atmosphere models with stellar parameters ranging from T$_ eff = 4000$ to 7000 K, $ g = 1$ to 5 cm/s$^2$, and Fe/H $=-3$ to 0. We find direct non-LTE effects on populations in spectrum-forming regions, continua, and spectral lines of about 1--2<!PCT!> in stars with higher T$_ eff $ and/or lower $ g$. Effects in models for solar parameters are smaller by a factor of 10, about 0.1--0.2<!PCT!>, and are practically absent in models with lower T$_ eff $ and/or higher $ g$. These departures from LTE found in our calculations originate from the radiative recombination of electrons with hydrogen to form exceeding photodetachment, that is, overrecombination. Modern atomic data are not a source of significant differences compared to the previous work, although detailed data for processes on resolved with vibrational and rotational states provide a more complete and complex picture of the role of in the equilibrium of In the context of modern studies of stellar spectra at the percent level, our results suggest that this question requires further attention, including a more extensive reaction network, and indirect effects due to non-LTE electron populations.

Ionized gas in quiescent galaxies: Temperature measurement and constraint on the ionization source

In non-star-forming, passively evolving galaxies, regions with emission lines dominated by low-ionization species are classified as low-ionization emission regions (LIERs). The ionization mechanism behind such regions has long been a mystery. Active galactic nuclei (AGNs), which were once believed to be the source, have been found not to be the dominant mechanism, especially in regions distant from the galaxy nuclei. The remaining candidates, photoionization by post-asymptotic giant branch (pAGB) stars and interstellar shocks can only be distinguished with in-depth analysis. As the temperature predictions of these two models differ, temperature measurements can provide strong constraints on this puzzle. We selected a sample of 2795 quiescent red-sequence galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey. We divided the sample spectra into three groups based on the flux ratio, and utilized stacking techniques to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the observed spectra. We determined the temperature of and through their temperature-sensitive emission line ratios. Subsequently, we compared the measured temperatures with predictions from different models. The results demonstrate consistency with the interstellar shock model with pre-shock density n = 1 $ and solar metallicity, thus supporting shocks as the dominant ionization source of LIERs. Additionally, we also find that the interstellar dust extinction value measured through the Balmer decrement appears to be larger than that implied by the forbidden line ratios of low-ionization lines.

Characteristics of phosphorus transformation from vivianite mediated by sulphide

The release of phosphorus (P) from anaerobic sediments becomes the dominant source of P loading with effective control of external P pollution. As a crucial component responsible for binding P, vivianite (Fe3(PO4)2·8H2O) in sediment inevitably impacts the P level and transformation. The release of P from vivianite mediated by sulphide was investigated using simulated overlying water-sediment and chemical reaction systems. The percentage of redox-stable P in the sediments increased with vivianite input in the overlying water-sediment system. Increasing P concentrations in both the overlying water and interstitial water occurred before day 10, accompanied by a decreasing percentage of redox-sensitive P in the sediments driven by sulphide. The continuous release of P from vivianite clarifies the influence of sulphide on promoting vivianite dissolution in a chemical reaction system with vivianite and sulphide solution. Additionally, Mössbauer spectrum and nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS) images based on the chemical reaction with 57Fe isotope labelling demonstrated the presence of initial vivianite, newly produced vivianite, and FeS2.

Characterizing the Average Interstellar Medium Conditions of Galaxies at z ∼ 5.6–9 with Ultraviolet and Optical Nebular Lines

Ultraviolet (UV; rest-frame ∼1200–2000 Å) spectra provide a wealth of diagnostics to characterize fundamental galaxy properties, such as their chemical enrichment, the nature of their stellar populations, and their amount of Lyman-continuum (LyC) radiation. In this work, we leverage publicly released JWST data to construct the rest-frame UV-to-optical composite spectrum of a sample of 63 galaxies at 5.6 < z < 9, spanning a wavelength range from 1500 to 5200 Å. Based on the composite spectrum, we derive an average dust attenuation E(B−V)gas=0.10−0.11+0.10 from Hβ/Hγ, an electron density ne=570−290+510 cm−3 from the [O ii] doublet ratio, an electron temperature Te=16700−1500+1500 K from the [O iii] λ4363/[O iii] λ5007 ratio, and an ionization parameter log(U)=−2.15−0.03+0.03 from the [O iii]/[O ii] ratio. Using a direct T e method, we calculate an oxygen abundance 12+log(O/H)=7.67±0.08 and a carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) abundance ratio log(C/O)=−0.86−0.10+0.13 . This C/O ratio is smaller than compared to z = 0 and z = 2–4 star-forming galaxies, albeit with moderate significance. This indicates the reionization-era galaxies might be undergoing a rapid buildup of stellar mass with high specific star formation rates. A UV diagnostic based on the ratios of C iii] λ λ1907, 1909/He ii λ1640 versus O iii] λ1666/He ii λ1640 suggests that the star formation is the dominant source of ionization, similar to the local extreme dwarf galaxies and z ∼ 2–4 He ii–detected galaxies. The [O iii]/[O ii] and C iv/C iii] ratios of the composite spectrum are marginally larger than the criteria used to select galaxies as LyC leakers, suggesting that some of the galaxies in our sample are strong contributors to the reionizing radiation.

Exploring the Relationship between Dispute Resolution and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Study on the Impact of Communication Climate

Ineffective communication is a dominant source of instability and significant worker dissatisfaction in the manufacturing industry, including the readymade clothing sector. Workers’ dissatisfaction at the workplace creates labor unrest. Consequently, productivity may be significantly affected by labor unrest, which is an inevitable component of any industrial operation. A harmonious work environment, free from conflicts among employees, should be a focus for every successful organization. This research suggests that the communication climate be implemented as a resolution technique for workplace disputes. Data was collected through structured questionnaire surveys and random sampling in this quantitative research. Data was obtained from the readymade garment factories in Bangladesh. One hundred twenty employees participated in the survey. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the data. According to the research, the primary cause of poor business performance at the workplace in the sector is due to inadequate communication. Additionally, the investigation assessed the industry's employees' perspectives regarding the advantages of communication climate in dispute resolution. This study finds a positive correlation between dispute resolution techniques and the communication climate. Pluralist theory served as the theoretical foundation for the investigation in order to substantiate the notion that it provides resources such as knowledge, constructive criticism, and opportunities for growth of the sector.

The Absolute Age of NGC 3201 Derived from Detached Eclipsing Binaries and the Hess Diagram

We estimate the absolute age of the globular cluster NGC 3201 using 10,000 sets of theoretical isochrones constructed through Monte Carlo simulation using the Dartmouth Stellar Evolution Program. These isochrones take into consideration the uncertainty introduced by the choice of stellar evolution parameters. We fit isochrones with three detached eclipsing binaries and obtained an age independent of distance. We also fit isochrones with differential reddening corrected Hubble Space Telescope photometry data utilizing two different Hess diagram-based fitting methods. Results from three different methods analyzing two different types of data agree to within 1σ, and we find the absolute age of NGC 3201 = 11.85 ± 0.74 Gyr. We also perform a variable importance analysis to study the uncertainty contribution from individual parameters, and we find the distance is the dominant source of uncertainty in photometry-based analysis, while total metallicity, helium abundance, α-element abundance, mixing length, and treatment of helium diffusion are an important source of uncertainties for all three methods.