489 research outputs found
Availability of hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) as leguminous green manure crops for organic rice in reclaimed saline land
Hairy vetch (Vicia villosa) is playing an important role to improve soil physical properties and soil fertility for the supply of crop nutrients and this crop is also used as a representative legumes green manure for the production of organic agricultural food. In this study we evaluated the availability of hairy vetch in reclaimed organic rice cultivation. The response to increasing salinity was analyzed by means of the germination rate and seedling growth of hairy vetch. Results showed that seed germination of hairy vetch decreased insignificantly up to concentration of 0.6% NaCl. However, shoot and root growth of hairy vetch showed significant reduction at salinity concentrations higher than 0.1% NaCl level. In these results we were considered that hairy vetch can be use under concentration of 0.1% salinity as green manure for reclaimed saline agriculture
The Origin of Star Formation in Early-type Galaxies Inferred from Spatially Resolved Spectroscopy
We investigate the origin of star formation activity in early-type galaxies
with current star formation using spatially resolved spectroscopic data from
the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
(SDSS). We first identify star-forming early-type galaxies from the SDSS
sample, which are morphologically early-type but show current star formation
activity in their optical spectra. We then construct comparison samples with
different combinations of star formation activity and morphology, which include
star-forming late-type galaxies, quiescent early-type galaxies and quiescent
late-type galaxies. Our analysis of the optical spectra reveals that the
star-forming early-type galaxies have two distinctive episodes of star
formation, which is similar to late-type galaxies but different from quiescent
early-type galaxies with a single star formation episode. Star-forming
early-type galaxies have properties in common with star-forming late-type
galaxies, which include stellar population, gas and dust content, mass and
environment. However, the physical properties of star-forming early-type
galaxies derived from spatially resolved spectroscopy differ from those of
star-forming late-type galaxies in the sense that the gas in star-forming
early-type galaxies is more concentrated than their stars, and is often
kinematically misaligned with stars. The age gradient of star-forming
early-type galaxies also differs from those of star-forming late-type galaxies.
Our findings suggest that the current star formation in star-forming early-type
galaxies has an external origin including galaxy mergers or accretion gas from
the cosmic web.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap
Polarity engineering in polycrystalline ZnO by inversion boundaries
Two distinctive polarity-engineered microstructures were obtained in polycrystalline ZnO ceramics by inducing two different types of inversion boundaries (IBs) inside individual grains to examine the effect of the different polarities on the varistor performances. The presence of head-to-head IBs induced by the addition of Sb and tail-to-tail IBs by doping Ti was directly confirmed by the characteristic geometry of the chemical etch pits. It was proposed that a consequent polarity on the grain boundary planes, which are affected by the presence of head-to-head IBs is crucial in exhibiting the superior performance of ZnO varistors.open2
The C-terminal region of Bfl-1 sensitizes non-small cell lung cancer to gemcitabine-induced apoptosis by suppressing NF-κB activity and down-regulating Bfl-1
Gemcitabine is used to treat several cancers including lung cancer. However, tumor cells often escape gemcitabine-induced cell death via various mechanisms, which include modulating bcl-2 family members and NF-κB activation. We previously reported that the C-terminal region of Bfl-1 fused with GFP (BC) is sufficient to induce apoptosis in 293T cells. In the present study, we investigated the anti-tumor effect of combined BC gene therapy and gemcitabine chemotherapy in vitro and in vivo using non-small cell lung cancer cell lines and a xenograft model. Cell lines were resistant to low dose gemcitabine (4-40 ng/ml), which induced NF-κB activation and concomitant up-regulation of Bfl-1 (an NF-κB-regulated anti-apoptotic protein). BC induced the apoptosis of A549 and H157 cells with caspase-3 activation. Furthermore, co-treatment with BC and low dose gemcitabine synergistically and efficiently induced mitochondria-mediated apoptosis in these cells. When administered alone or with low dose gemcitabine, BC suppressed NF-κB activity, inhibited the nuclear translocation of p65/relA, and down-regulated Bfl-1 expression. Furthermore, direct suppression of Bfl-1 by RNA interference sensitized cells to gemcitabine-induced cell death, suggesting that Bfl-1 importantly regulates lung cancer cell sensitivity to gemcitabine. BC and gemcitabine co-treatment also showed a strong anti-tumor effect in a nude mouse/A549 xenograft model. These results suggest that lung cancer cells become resistant to gemcitabine via NF-κB activation and the subsequent overexpression of Bfl-1, and that BC, which has both pro-apoptotic and NF-κB inhibitory effects, could be harnessed as a gene therapy to complement gemcitabine chemotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer
Breakdown of the interlayer coherence in twisted bilayer graphene
Coherent motion of the electrons in the Bloch states is one of the
fundamental concepts of the charge conduction in solid state physics. In
layered materials, however, such a condition often breaks down for the
interlayer conduction, when the interlayer coupling is significantly reduced by
e.g. large interlayer separation. We report that complete suppression of
coherent conduction is realized even in an atomic length scale of layer
separation in twisted bilayer graphene. The interlayer resistivity of twisted
bilayer graphene is much higher than the c-axis resistivity of Bernal-stacked
graphite, and exhibits strong dependence on temperature as well as on external
electric fields. These results suggest that the graphene layers are
significantly decoupled by rotation and incoherent conduction is a main
transport channel between the layers of twisted bilayer graphene.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Depression and suicide risk prediction models using blood-derived multi-omics data
More than 300 million people worldwide experience depression; annually, ~800,000 people die by suicide. Unfortunately, conventional interview-based diagnosis is insufficient to accurately predict a psychiatric status. We developed machine learning models to predict depression and suicide risk using blood methylome and transcriptome data from 56 suicide attempters (SAs), 39 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), and 87 healthy controls. Our random forest classifiers showed accuracies of 92.6% in distinguishing SAs from MDD patients, 87.3% in distinguishing MDD patients from controls, and 86.7% in distinguishing SAs from controls. We also developed regression models for predicting psychiatric scales with R2 values of 0.961 and 0.943 for Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression???17 and Scale for Suicide Ideation, respectively. Multi-omics data were used to construct psychiatric status prediction models for improved mental health treatment
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