Playground injuries are a major public health problem. Laboratory studies have recommended sand, pearock, synthetic materials, or wood chips as protective surfaces beneath equipment, and epidemiological studies have confirmed that hard surfaces are dangerous. However, some questions remain about grass. To compare the protection oVered by grass and sand, public and residential playgrounds need t...

The grass family Poaceae includes annual species cultivated as major grain crops and perennial species cultivated as forage or turf grasses. Heat stress is a primary factor limiting growth and productivity of cool-season grass species and is becoming a more significant problem in the context of global warming. Plants have developed various mechanisms in heat-stress adaptation, including changes...

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t C 3 and C 4 grasses differ greatly in their responses to environmental controls and in...

Four allergenic proteins of Bahia (BA) grass pollen with estimated molecular weights of 45, 33, 31 and 28 kD were previously detected. Although all four proteins were reactive with BA grass allergic patient sera, the 33kD component was previously verified as a major allergen. The investigators report here for the first time, the similarities between the group I 33 kD allergen of BA grass, Pas n...

This experiment aimed to evaluate the ruminal degradability in situ of the dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and acid detergent fiber (ADF) of Guinea grass silages. The experimental design was completely randomized with six treatments and six repetitions: Guinea grass silage, Guinea grass silage inoculated with 10% wheat bran, Guinea grass silage inoculated with...

OBJECTIVE To study an array of household individual and dietary risk factors for neurolathyrism. METHOD Case-control study using recent cases in a district highly affected by the recent neurolathyrism epidemic in Ethiopia: 108 households with cases and 104 households with no cases; 170 neurolathyrism cases, 370 intra-family controls and 170 community controls frequency matched for age and sex...

BACKGROUND In allergic individuals, onset of symptoms is related to atmospheric pollen grain counts and aeroallergen concentrations. However, this relationship is not always clear. OBJECTIVES To analyze the correlation between grass pollen grain and aeroallergen concentrations in Ciudad Real, Spain, during the year 2004 and establish their association with symptoms in patients with allergic a...

Invasive grass weeds reduce farm productivity, threaten biodiversity, and increase weed control costs. Identification of invasive grasses from native grasses has generally relied on the morphological examination of grass floral material. DNA barcoding may provide an alternative means to identify co-occurring native and invasive grasses, particularly during early growth stages when floral charac...

Worldwide more than 200 million individuals are allergic to group 1 grass pollen allergens. We have used the major timothy grass pollen allergen Phl p 1, which cross-reacts with most grass-, corn-, and monocot-derived group 1 allergens to develop a generally applicable strategy for the production of hypoallergenic allergy vaccines. On the basis of the experimentally determined B cell epitopes o...

The enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation of reed canary grass, harvested in the spring or autumn, and barley straw were studied. Steam pretreated materials were efficiently hydrolysed by commercial enzymes with a dosage of 10-20FPU/g d.m. Reed canary grass harvested in the spring was hydrolysed more efficiently than the autumn-harvested reed canary grass. Additional β-glucosidase improved the ...