BACKGROUND The almond tree (Prunus amygdalus Batsch) is an important nut tree grown in subtropical regions that produces nutrient-rich nuts. However, a paucity of genomic information and DNA markers has restricted the development of modern breeding technologies for almond trees. RESULTS In this study, almonds were sequenced with Illumina paired-end sequencing technology to obtain transcriptom...

In this paper we consider the problem of localizing inputs in swing dynamic models of large power system networks in the form of forced oscillations with unknown amplitude and frequency. Such harmonic oscillations commonly result from internal failures of control actuators in synchronous machines, and are particularly dangerous because their frequency often lies in the range of the inter-area o...

Harmonic resonance is one of an important aspect being considered in a large network such as a wind power plant (WPP). This paper analyses several factors that affect resonance characteristic in a WPP and possible mitigation measures. The first part of the paper provides an analysis of resonances in WPP. Two methods of identifying resonances are performed which are a common impedance scan metho...

Persons with schizophrenia experience subjective sensory anomalies and objective deficits on assessment of sensory function. Such deficits could be produced by abnormal signaling in the sensory pathways and sensory cortex or later stage disturbances in cognitive processing of such inputs. Steady state responses (SSRs) provide a noninvasive method to test the integrity of sensory pathways and os...

We study a population of spiking neurons which are subject to independent noise processes and a strong common time-dependent input. We show that the response of output spikes to independent noise shapes information transmission of such populations even when information transmission properties of single neurons are left unchanged. In particular, we consider two Poisson models in which independen...

The genetic structure of the “Badda” common bean cultivated at Polizzi Generosa, a village of Sicily (Palermo, Italy), was investigated using biochemical and molecular markers. Seed storage protein analysis by using SDS-PAGE, confirmed the attribution to the Andean gene pool. Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) (or microsatellite) molecular markers provided useful information on genetic variation and...

This paper presents the design and performance analysis of a detector based on suprathreshold stochastic resonance (SSR) for the detection of deterministic signals in heavy-tailed non-Gaussian noise. The detector consists of a matched filter preceded by an SSR system which acts as a preprocessor. The SSR system is composed of an array of 2-level quantizers with independent and identically distr...

Contingency is necessary to mitigate and control risk associated with construction projects. Successful contingency estimation and risk mitigation strategies can help project managers to effectively control cost and schedule. Some practitioners mitigate risk by transferring it to another party with less effort and minimum cost. However, this may lead to undesirable results such as; useless depl...