The narrow genetics of most crops is a fundamental vulnerability to food security. This makes wild crop relatives a strategic resource of genetic diversity that can be used for crop improvement and ...adaptation to new agricultural challenges. Here, we uncover the contribution of one wild species accession,
GKP 10017, to the peanut crop (
) that was initiated by complex hybridizations in the 1960s and propagated by international seed exchange. However, until this study, the global scale of the dispersal of genetic contributions from this wild accession had been obscured by the multiple germplasm transfers, breeding cycles, and unrecorded genetic mixing between lineages that had occurred over the years. By genetic analysis and pedigree research, we identified
-enhanced, disease-resistant cultivars in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. These cultivars provide widespread improved food security and environmental and economic benefits. This study emphasizes the importance of wild species and collaborative networks of international expertise for crop improvement. However, it also highlights the consequences of the implementation of a patchwork of restrictive national laws and sea changes in attitudes regarding germplasm that followed in the wake of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Today, the botanical collections and multiple seed exchanges which enable benefits such as those revealed by this study are drastically reduced. The research reported here underscores the vital importance of ready access to germplasm in ensuring long-term world food security.
The INFN Tier-1 datacentre provides computing resources to several HEP and Astrophysics experiments. These are organized in Virtual Organizations submitting jobs to our computing facilities through ...Computing Elements, acting as Grid interfaces to the Local Resource Manager. We are phasing-out our current LRMS (IBM/Platform LSF 9.1.3) and CEs (CREAM) set to adopt HTCondor as a replacement for LSF and HTCondor-CE in place of CREAM. A small instance has been set up to practice with the cluster management and evaluate the feasibility of our migration plans to a new LRMS and CE set. A second cluster instance has been setup to work on production. A number of management tools have been adapted or rewritten in order to integrate the new system with the existing infrastructure. Two different accounting solution for the HTCondor-CE have been implemented, and the more reliable one have been adopted. A python tool has been written to disentangle the management of HTCondor machines from our puppet instance, and to enable a quicker configuration of the cluster nodes. The monitoring tools tied to the old system are being adapted to also work on the new one. Finally, the most relevant setup steps have been documented in a public wiki page and a support mailing has been created to help other INFN sites willing to migrate their LRMS and CE to HTCondor. This document reports about our experience with HTCondor-CE on top of HTCondor and the integration of this system into our infrastructure.
One of the challenges a scientific computing center has to face is to keep delivering well consolidated computational frameworks (i.e. the batch computing farm), while conforming to modern computing ...paradigms. The aim is to ease system administration at all levels (from hardware to applications) and to provide a smooth end-user experience. Within the INDIGO- DataCloud project, we adopt two different approaches to implement a PaaS-level, on-demand Batch Farm Service based on HTCondor and Mesos. In the first approach, described in this paper, the various HTCondor daemons are packaged inside pre-configured Docker images and deployed as Long Running Services through Marathon, profiting from its health checks and failover capabilities. In the second approach, we are going to implement an ad-hoc HTCondor framework for Mesos. Container-to-container communication and isolation have been addressed exploring a solution based on overlay networks (based on the Calico Project). Finally, we have studied the possibility to deploy an HTCondor cluster that spans over different sites, exploiting the Condor Connection Broker component, that allows communication across a private network boundary or firewall as in case of multi-site deployments. In this paper, we are going to describe and motivate our implementation choices and to show the results of the first tests performed.
The potential offered by the cloud paradigm is often limited by technical issues, rules and regulations. In particular, the activities related to the design and deployment of the Infrastructure as a ...Service (IaaS) cloud layer can be difficult to apply and time-consuming for the infrastructure maintainers. In this paper the research activity, carried out during the Open City Platform (OCP) research project 1, aimed at designing and developing an automatic tool for cloud-based IaaS deployment is presented. Open City Platform is an industrial research project funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR), started in 2014. It intends to research, develop and test new technological solutions open, interoperable and usable on-demand in the field of Cloud Computing, along with new sustainable organizational models that can be deployed for and adopted by the Public Administrations (PA). The presented work and the related outcomes are aimed at simplifying the deployment and maintenance of a complete IaaS cloud-based infrastructure.
The computing infrastructures serving the LHC experiments have been designed to cope at most with the average amount of data recorded. The usage peaks, as already observed in Run-I, may however ...originate large backlogs, thus delaying the completion of the data reconstruction and ultimately the data availability for physics analysis. In order to cope with the production peaks, the LHC experiments are exploring the opportunity to access Cloud resources provided by external partners or commercial providers. In this work we present the proof of concept of the elastic extension of a local analysis facility, specifically the Bologna Tier-3 Grid site, for the LHC experiments hosted at the site, on an external OpenStack infrastructure. We focus on the Cloud Bursting of the Grid site using DynFarm, a newly designed tool that allows the dynamic registration of new worker nodes to LSF. In this approach, the dynamically added worker nodes instantiated on an OpenStack infrastructure are transparently accessed by the LHC Grid tools and at the same time they serve as an extension of the farm for the local usage.
In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of insecticides sprayed by contact as well as seeds treatment for controlling the burrower bug Cyrtomenus mirabilis (Perti, 1830) (Hemiptera: Cydnidae) ...under laboratory conditions. In the first experiment, the insecticides were sprayed onto the insects (direct contact). Insect mortality evaluation started 24h after insecticide application and repeated every two days up to 20 days. In the second experiment, peanut seeds were treated with insecticides. The mortality of insects was evaluated at 10, 15, and 20 days after installation. The mixture of fipronil and alpha-cypermethrin in direct contact was the most efficient treatment to control nymphs and adults of C. mirabilis. Regarding the seed treatment, fipronil was the most efficient for controlling adults of C. mirabilis while for nymphs, all insecticides were highly effective.
After the successful LHC data taking in Run-I and in view of the future runs, the LHC experiments are facing new challenges in the design and operation of the computing facilities. The computing ...infrastructure for Run-II is dimensioned to cope at most with the average amount of data recorded. The usage peaks, as already observed in Run-I, may however originate large backlogs, thus delaying the completion of the data reconstruction and ultimately the data availability for physics analysis. In order to cope with the production peaks, CMS - along the lines followed by other LHC experiments - is exploring the opportunity to access Cloud resources provided by external partners or commercial providers. Specific use cases have already been explored and successfully exploited during Long Shutdown 1 (LS1) and the first part of Run 2. In this work we present the proof of concept of the elastic extension of a CMS site, specifically the Bologna Tier-3, on an external OpenStack infrastructure. We focus on the "Cloud Bursting" of a CMS Grid site using a newly designed LSF configuration that allows the dynamic registration of new worker nodes to LSF. In this approach, the dynamically added worker nodes instantiated on the OpenStack infrastructure are transparently accessed by the LHC Grid tools and at the same time they serve as an extension of the farm for the local usage. The amount of resources allocated thus can be elastically modeled to cope up with the needs of CMS experiment and local users. Moreover, a direct access integration of OpenStack resources to the CMS workload management system is explored. In this paper we present this approach, we report on the performances of the on-demand allocated resources, and we discuss the lessons learned and the next steps.
This study aimed to determine the levels of fumonisins produced by Fusarium verticillioides and FUM gene expression on Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) and non-Bt maize, post harvest, during different ...periods of incubation. Transgenic hybrids 30F35 YG, 2B710 Hx and their isogenic (30F35 and 2B710) were collected from the field and a subset of 30 samples selected for the experiments. Maize samples were sterilized by gamma radiation at a dose of 20 kGy. Samples were then inoculated with F. verticillioides and analyzed under controlled conditions of temperature and relative humidity for fumonisin B1 and B2 (FB1 and FB2) production and FUM1, FUM3, FUM6, FUM7, FUM8, FUM13, FUM14, FUM15, and FUM19 expression. 2B710 Hx and 30F35 YG kernel samples were virtually intact when compared to the non-Bt hybrids that came from the field. Statistical analysis showed that FB1 production was significantly lower in 30F35 YG and 2B710 Hx than in the 30F35 and 2B710 hybrids (P < 0.05). However, there was no statistical difference for FB2 production (P > 0.05). The kernel injuries observed in the non-Bt samples have possibly facilitated F. verticillioides penetration and promoted FB1 production under controlled conditions. FUM genes were expressed by F. verticillioides in all of the samples. However, there was indication of lower expression of a few FUM genes in the Bt hybrids; and a weak association between FB1 production and the relative expression of some of the FUM genes were observed in the 30F35 YG hybrid.
The primary gene pool of the cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea L., allotetraploid AABB) is very narrow for some important characteristics, such as resistance to pests and diseases. However, the ...Arachis wild diploid species, particularly those from the section Arachis, still have these characteristics. To improve peanut crops, genes from the wild species can be introgressed by backcrossing the hybrids with A. hypogaea. When diploid species whose genomes are similar to those of the cultivated peanut are crossed, sterile hybrids result. Artificially doubling the number of chromosomes of these hybrids results in fertile synthetic polyploids. The objectives of this study were: 1) to obtain progenies by crossing amphidiploids with the cultivated peanut, and 2) to characterize these two groups of materials (amphidiploids and progenies) so that they may be efficiently conserved and used. Using morphological, molecular, and pollen viability descriptors we evaluated one cultivar of A. hypogaea (IAC 503), eight synthetic amphidiploids, and the progenies resulting from four distinct combinations of crossing between IAC 503 and four amphidiploids.
Fusarium verticillioides
is one of the main pathogens of maize, causing ear and stalk rots. This fungus is also able to produce high levels of fumonisins, which have been linked to various illnesses ...in humans and animals. Previous studies have shown that maize hybrids genetically modified with the
cry
genes from the bacterium
Bacillus thuringiensis
(
Bt
) presented lower incidence of
F. verticillioides
and fumonisin levels, presumably through the reduction of insects, which could act as vectors of fungi. The aim of this study was to assess the incidence of
F. verticillioides
and the concentration of fumonisins in
Bt
and isogenic non-
Bt
hybrids (2B710Hx, 30F35YG, 2B710, and 30F35, respectively). The samples of 2B710Hx and 30F35YG presented lower
F. verticillioides
frequency than 2B710 and 30F35 samples. However, there was no statistical difference between fumonisin contamination when
Bt
and non-
Bt
samples were compared (
P
> 0.05). The results suggest that other environmental parameters could possibly trigger fumonisin production during plant development in the field; consequently, other management strategies should be applied to aid controlling fumonisin contamination in maize.
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