Powdery mildew [Podosphaera xanthii (Castagne) Braun & Shishkoff (syn. Sphaerotheca fuliginea auct. p.p.)] is now a common disease on watermelon [Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai] in the United States. In this study, the entire available U.S. Plant Introduction collection of Citrullus Schrad. ex Eckl. & Zeyh. species was evaluated for resistance to P. xanthii race 1W. The collection consists of four Citrullus species and one Praecitrullus Pangalo species [C. lanatus var. citroides (L.H. Bailey) Mansf., C. colocynthis (L.) Schrad., C. rehmii De Winter, and P. fistulosus (Stocks) Pangalo]. Wild-type accessions tended to be more resistant more often than the cultivated species, C. lanatus var. lanatus. None were immune, eight of the 1573 accessions exhibited high levels of resistance, and another 86 demonstrated intermediate resistance. Stem and leaf disease severity were weakly correlated (r 2 = 0.64, P = 0.001). The majority of accessions having resistance were collected in Zimbabwe. Resistance was found in four species.

Endoscopic dilation with an achalasia balloon has proved to be safe and simple to perform, and allowed us to obtain good short-term and long-term clinical results. This type of dilation may be considered the first-line therapeutic approach for symptomatic benign colonic anastomotic strictures.

We consider quantum circuits composed of Clifford and T gates. In this context the T gate has a special status since it confers universal computation when added to the (classically simulable) Clifford gates. However it can be very expensive to implement fault-tolerantly. We therefore view this gate as a resource which should be used only when necessary. Given an n-qubit unitary U we are interested in computing a circuit that implements it using the minimum possible number of T gates (called the T -count of U ). A related task is to decide if the T -count of U is less than or equal to m; we consider this problem as a function of N = 2 n and m. We provide a classical algorithm which solves it using time and space both upper bounded as O(N m poly(m, N )). We implemented our algorithm and used it to show that any Clifford+T circuit for the Toffoli or the Fredkin gate requires at least 7 T gates. This implies that the known 7 T gate circuits for these gates are T -optimal. We also provide a simple expression for the T -count of single-qubit unitaries.

Capsicum fruits contain a newly discovered phytochemical called capsinoids. Because little is known about the quantities of these compounds in both sweet and pungent pepper fruits, a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was developed to identify and quantify the capsinoids (naturally present E-capsiate and dihydrocapsiate) utilizing fruit obtained from a variety of Capsicum spp. in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Capsicum germplasm collection. Capsinoids were extracted with acetonitrile, filtered, and analyzed using an HPLC system equipped with a C(18) monolithic column, gradient pump, and diode array detector. The elution solvents were acetonitrile and water (60:40) with an isocratic flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. Forty-nine samples representing distinct morphotypes of four cultivated species ( C. annuum var. annuum, C. annuum var. glabriusculum, C. baccatum , C. chinense , and C. frutescens ) contained detectable levels (11-369 microg/g) of E-capsiate quantified at a wavelength of 280 nm. Nine of the E-capsiate-containing samples also had dihydrocapsiate (18-86 micro/g). Gas chromatography with a mass spectrometry detector (GC-MS) confirmed the presence of these compounds in the Capsicum spp.

Carotenoids in edible portions of plants can provide health bene®ts to humans. How growing conditions affect levels of carotenoids in pepper fruits as they mature is not well known. Five cvs of bell pepper (Bell Captain, Melody, North Star, Ranger, Red Beauty) and ®ve cvs of pungent-type peppers (Anaheim, Ancho, Cayenne, Pimento, Red Cherry) were grown in a glasshouse and in the ®eld. Fruits were harvested at the green, turning (50% green) and mature red stages and analysed for levels of the carotenoids b-cryptoxanthin, a-carotene, b-carotene, capsanthin, lutein and zeaxanthin and totals of these carotenoids. Levels of provitamin A: retinol equivalents (RE) were derived from levels of b-cryptoxanthin, a-carotene and b-carotene. Levels of most carotenoids and RE were signi®cantly higher in glasshouse-grown plants, and most were higher in fruits at the red stage. Fruits of Ancho type had the most b-cryptoxanthin, a-carotene, b-carotene, total carotenoids and RE, while fruits of Red Cherry type had the most capsanthin and zeaxanthin, and fruits of Bell Captain had the most lutein. Interactions of the main effects variables, ie location of production (®eld vs glasshouse), stage of development and cultivar, indicated differences in patterns of carotenoid levels and RE. The data indicated that growing conditions in¯uenced carotenoid levels. The more consistent and protected conditions in the glasshouse may have caused carotenoid levels to be increased, especially at the red stage.