NO signaling functions in the biotic and abiotic stress responses

In the last 1990s, NO became an increasingly popular target of investigation in plants. As in mammals, NO fulfils a broad spectrum of signalling functions in pathophysiological processes in plants. Here we summarize studies published in recent years that provide novel insights into the signalling functions of NO produced by plant cells exposed to abiotic stresses and biotic stress (pathogen-derived elicitors). Particularly, we report that NO emerges as a key messenger governing the overall control of Ca2+ homeostasis. Although the precise signalling functions of NO are poorly understood, its capacity to modulate Ca2+ homeostasis provides an extraordinary and remarkable effective way of conveying information

Linking objective and subjective modeling in engineering design through arc-elastic dominance

Engineering design in mechanics is a complex activity taking into account both objective modeling processes derived from physical analysis and designers’ subjective reasoning. This paper introduces arc-elastic dominance as a suitable concept for ranking design solutions according to a combination of objective and subjective models. Objective models lead to the aggregation of information derived from physics, economics or eco-environmental analysis into a performance indicator. Subjective models result in a confidence indicator for the solutions’ feasibility. Arc-elastic dominant design solutions achieve an optimal compromise between gain in performance and degradation in confidence. Due to the definition of arc-elasticity, this compromise value is expressive and easy for designers to interpret despite the difference in the nature of the objective and subjective models. From the investigation of arc-elasticity mathematical properties, a filtering algorithm of Pareto-efficient solutions is proposed and illustrated through a design knowledge modeling framework. This framework notably takes into account Harrington’s desirability functions and Derringer’s aggregation method. It is carried out through the re-design of a geothermal air conditioning system

Transcriptomic Exploration of the Vanessa cardui Immune System

Vanessa cardui, a polyphagous Nymphalid butterfly known as the painted lady, is an ideal species for understanding ecological interactions influencing immunity, but to date has few molecular resources available to examine the underlying physiological processes driving the regulatory mechanisms of these dynamics. Rapid technological advancements in sequencing technology have decreased sequencing costs to the point of feasibility for studying the molecular basis of ecological models such as V. cardui. To examine gene expression after infection with two unique pathogens, we acquired commercially available V. cardui, infected larvae in the lab with either Escherichia coli or Junonia coenia Densovirus (JcDNV), then sequenced the transcriptome to establish an immune profile for infected larvae and controls. Gene ontology (GO) and differential expression (DE) analyses pointed to an over-representation of genes associated with developmental and energy utilization pathways with no under-representation noted for any pathways after bacterial infection. For viral infection, there was also an over-representation of genes associated with metabolic and energy usage pathways and an under-representation of genes associated with pathways involved in regulatory processes and gene expression. When comparing viral and bacterial infections, there was an over-representation of genes associated with responses to biotic stimulus, defense responses, biosynthetic responses, and movement of cellular components, with an under-representation of genes associated with cellular processes and metabolic processes. Closer investigation revealed preexisting viral populations circulating in the commercially acquires specimens, potentially confounding results based on the proposed research design. However, the tools created from this investigation still hold value for further investigation into the immune response of V. cardui by providing another valuable transcriptomic resource that can be combined with the few existing, non-immune related, resources; making future investigations into any and all molecular functions more powerful and informative. In summary, this transcriptomic investigation pioneers efforts to bring powerful molecular biology tools to address ecological questions of caterpillar immunity

Factorization and Resummation for Massive Quark Effects in Exclusive Drell-Yan

Exclusive differential spectra in color-singlet processes at hadron colliders are benchmark observables that have been studied to high precision in theory and experiment. We present an effective-theory framework utilizing soft-collinear effective theory to incorporate massive (bottom) quark effects into resummed differential distributions, accounting for both heavy-quark initiated primary contributions to the hard scattering process as well as secondary effects from gluons splitting into heavy-quark pairs. To be specific, we focus on the Drell-Yan process and consider the vector-boson transverse momentum, $q_T$, and beam thrust, $\mathcal T$, as examples of exclusive observables. The theoretical description depends on the hierarchy between the hard, mass, and the $q_T$ (or $\mathcal T$) scales, ranging from the decoupling limit $q_T \ll m$ to the massless limit $m \ll q_T$. The phenomenologically relevant intermediate regime $m \sim q_T$ requires in particular quark-mass dependent beam and soft functions. We calculate all ingredients for the description of primary and secondary mass effects required at NNLL$'$ resummation order (combining NNLL evolution with NNLO boundary conditions) for $q_T$ and $\mathcal T$ in all relevant hierarchies. For the $q_T$ distribution the rapidity divergences are different from the massless case and we discuss features of the resulting rapidity evolution. Our results will allow for a detailed investigation of quark-mass effects in the ratio of $W$ and $Z$ boson spectra at small $q_T$, which is important for the precision measurement of the $W$-boson mass at the LHC.Comment: 42 pages + appendices, 21 figures; v2: journal versio

Informational Mode of the Brain Operation and Consciousness as an Informational Related System

Introduction: the objective of the investigation is to analyse the informational operating-mode of the brain and to extract conclusions on the structure of the informational system of the human body and consciousness. Analysis: the mechanisms and processes of the transmission of information in the body both by electrical and non-electrical ways are analysed in order to unify the informational concepts and to identify the specific essential requirements supporting the life. It is shown that the electrical transmission can be described by typical YES/NO (all or nothing) binary units as defined by the information science, while the inter and intra cell communication, including within the synaptic junction, by mechanisms of embodiment/disembodiment of information. The virtual received or operated information can be integrated in the cells as matter-related information, with a maximum level of integration as genetically codified info. Therefore, in terms of information, the human appears as a reactive system changing information with the environment and between inner informational subsystems which are: the centre of acquisition and storing of information (acquired data), the centre of decision and command (decision), the info-emotional system (emotions), the maintenance informational system (matter absorption/desorption/distribution), the genetic transmission system (reproduction) and info-genetic generator (genetically assisted body evolution). The dedicated areas and components of the brain are correlated with such systems and their functions are specified. Result: the corresponding cognitive centres projected into consciousness are defined and described according to their specific functions. The cognitive centres, suggestively named to appropriately include their main characteristics are detected at the conscious level respectively as: memory, decisional operation (attitude), emotional state, power/energy status and health, associativity and offspring formation, inherited predispositions, skills and mentality. The near-death and religious experiences can be explained by an Info-Connection pole. Conclusion: consciousness could be fully described and understood in informational terms

Motor Impairments of Fluoxetine Administration in Betta Splendens

The serotonergic neural pathway is highly involved in arousal, learning, attentional, and memory functions. The selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) Fluoxetine functions as a 5HT antagonist on this pathway, leading so many implications on behavioral and neurological function. While evidence from the greater literature has shown significant evidence that Fluoxetine decreases motoric activity in Siamese fighting fish (Betta Splendens) the behavioral mechanism of Fluoxetine on motoric function is still unknown. Fluoxetine may impair the motoric function in subjects through the secondary effect of decreased dopamine transmission in the motor cortex following increased serotonin synthesis in addition to attentional sedation. Additionally, the decrease in motoric behavior may be a byproduct of inhibited motivational processes. In order to examine the experimental question, the movements of 38 Betta Splendens were recorded and analyzed in their home tanks as a supplementary study to an experiment analyzing the effects of Fluoxetine on aggressive responding. Motor behavior recording consisted of measuring grid line-crossings between experimental and control subjects. Results from the experiment indicated that Fluoxetine administration decreases overall motoric behavior and total distance travelled in subjects. These data allow for further investigation into how motor versus motivational processes may be affected by Fluoxetine to produce these results. Results from this study can be projected into a greater understanding of how Fluoxetine and 5HT affects neural motoric behavior processes

Drosophila Short stop as a paradigm for the role and regulation of spectraplakins

Spectraplakins are evolutionarily well conserved cytoskeletal linker molecules that are true members of three protein families: plakins, spectrins and Gas2-like proteins. Spectraplakin genes encode at least 7 characteristic functional domains which are combined in a modular fashion into multiple isoforms, and which are responsible for an enormous breadth of cellular functions. These functions are related to the regulation of actin, microtubules, intermediate filaments, intracellular organelles, cell adhesions and signalling processes during the development and maintenance of a wide variety of tissues. To gain a deeper understanding of this enormous functional diversity, invertebrate genetic model organisms, such as the fruit fly Drosophila, can be used to develop concepts and mechanistic paradigms that can inform the investigation in higher animals or humans. Here we provide a comprehensive overview of our current knowledge of the Drosophila spectraplakin Short stop (Shot). We describe its functional domains and isoforms and compare them with those of the mammalian spectraplakins dystonin and MACF1. We then summarise its roles during the development and maintenance of the nervous system, epithelia, oocytes and muscles, taking care to compare and contrast mechanistic insights across these functions in the fly, but especially also with related functions of dystonin and MACF1 in mostly mammalian contexts. We hope that this review will improve the wider appreciation of how work on Drosophila Shot can be used as an efficient strategy to promote the fundamental concepts and mechanisms that underpin spectraplakin functions, with important implications for biomedical research into human disease

Critical success criteria for B2B E-commerce systems in Chinese medical supply chain.

The paper presents an exploratory investigation to determine and prioritise the critical success criteria, which can measure and guide the successful application and performance improvement of business to business e-commerce system (BBECS) in a medical supply chain's selling and buying functions, in the context of global business expansion. The research reveals that the buying and the selling functions have different prioritisations on the majority of the determined critical success measuring criteria. These criteria are categorised into three Critical Success Measuring Criteria Groups, for the selling and the buying functions, respectively, guiding medical supply chain members in harnessing the full advantage of a BBECS. For the selling function, the top critical success measuring criteria are as follows: integrating information searching/transmission and application processes, ensuring the reliability and timeliness of technical support, ensuring recognition and acceptance of e-commerce processes, displaying the organisation's business focus and product/service provisions online, securing a large scale/amount of business transactions, adjusting production outputs and inventory levels and having more registered users than competitors do. The top critical success measuring criteria for the buying function are as follows: securing the establishment of business relationships between businesses, displaying the measures ensuring mutual trust and cooperation online, ensuring employees' recognition of the benefit of e-commerce in increasing revenue, ensuring the contribution to the development and realisation of corporate strategy, achieving cost reduction for the organisation, making the purchase of famous brand products available/doable, securing a large scale/amount of business transactions, and ensuring the attainability of products/services at a lower price

Use of ontology in identifying missing artefact links

The techniques of requirement traceability have evolved over recent years. However, as much as they have contributed to the software engineering field, significant ambiguity remains in many software engineering processes. This paper reports on an investigation of requirement traceability artefacts, stakeholders, and SDLC development models. Data were collected to gather evidence of artefacts and their properties from previous studies. The aim was to find the missing link between artefacts and their relationship to one another, the stakeholders, and SDLC models. This paper undertakes the first phase of the main research project, which aims to develop a framework for guiding software developers to actively manage traceability. After inquiring into and examining previous research on this topic, the links between artefacts and their functions were identified. The analysis resulted in the development of a new model for requirement traceability, defined in the form of an ontology portraying the contributively relations between software artefacts using common properties with the aid of Protégé Software. This study thus provides an important insight into the future of the requirement artefacts relation, and thereby lays an important foundation towards increasing our understanding of their potential and limitations

Development of an image analysis system to produce a standardised assessment of print quality

A method has been developed using an image analysis system that simulates human print quality perception. Previous work in the area of print quality assessment has only produced methods that measure individual print quality variables, or assess small parts of an image. The image analysis system developed in this investigation is different from the previous work because it analyses the combined effects of different variables using neural network technology. In addition, measurements from an entire image can be obtained and the system can assess images irrespective of their shape. The image analysis system hardware consists of a monochrome CCD camera, a Matrox image acquisition board and a 200 MHz Pentium computer. A data pre-processing program was developed using Visual Basic version 5 to process the image data from the camera. The processed data was fed into a neural network so that empirical models of print quality could be formulated. The neural network code originated from the Matlab neural network toolbox. Backpropagation and radial basis neural network functions were used in the investigation. The hardware and software of the image analysis system were tested for non-impact printing techniques. Images of a square, a circle and text characters with dimensions of 1 cm or less were used as test images for the image analysis system. It was established that it was possible to identify the different printing processes that produced the simple shapes and text characters using the image analysis system. This was achieved by training the neural network using pre-processed image data. This produced multi-dimensional mathematical models that were used to classify the different printing processes. The classification of the different printing processes involved the objective measurement of print quality variables. Different printing processes can produce print that differs in print quality when assessed by observers. Therefore the successful classification of the printing processes demonstrated that the image analysis system could, in some cases, simulate human print quality perception. To consolidate on the preceding printing process identification result, a simulation of print quality perception was made. A neural network was trained using observer assessments of a simple pictorial image of a face. These face images were produced using a variety of different non-impact printing techniques. The neural network model was used to predict the outcomes of a further set of assessments of face images by the same observer. The accuracy of the predictions was 23 out of 24 for both the backpropagation and radial basis function neural network functions used in the test. The investigation also produced two possible practical applications for the system. Firstly, it was shown that the system has the potential to be used as a machine that can objectively assess the print quality from photocopiers. Secondly, it was demonstrated that the system might be used for forensic work, since it can identify different printing processes