Unlocking Plum Genetic Potential: Where Are We At?

Plums are a large group of closely related stone fruit species and hybrids of worldwide economic importance and diffusion. This review deals with the main aspects concerning plum agrobiodiversity and its relationship with current and potential contributions offered by breeding in enhancing plum varieties. The most recent breeding achievements are revised according to updated information proceeding from relevant scientific reports and official inventories of plum genetic resources. A special emphasis has been given to the potential sources of genetic traits of interest for breeding programs as well as to the need for efficient and coordinated efforts aimed at efficaciously preserving the rich and underexploited extant plum agrobiodiversity. The specific objective of this review was to: (i) analyze and possibly evaluate the degree of biodiversity existing in the cultivated plum germplasm, (ii) examine the set of traits of prominent agronomic and pomological interest currently targeted by the breeders, and (iii) determine how and to what extent this germplasm was appropriately exploited in breeding programs or could represent concrete prospects for the future

The RIKEN integrated database of mammals

The RIKEN integrated database of mammals (http://scinets.org/db/mammal) is the official undertaking to integrate its mammalian databases produced from multiple large-scale programs that have been promoted by the institute. The database integrates not only RIKEN’s original databases, such as FANTOM, the ENU mutagenesis program, the RIKEN Cerebellar Development Transcriptome Database and the Bioresource Database, but also imported data from public databases, such as Ensembl, MGI and biomedical ontologies. Our integrated database has been implemented on the infrastructure of publication medium for databases, termed SciNetS/SciNeS, or the Scientists’ Networking System, where the data and metadata are structured as a semantic web and are downloadable in various standardized formats. The top-level ontology-based implementation of mammal-related data directly integrates the representative knowledge and individual data records in existing databases to ensure advanced cross-database searches and reduced unevenness of the data management operations. Through the development of this database, we propose a novel methodology for the development of standardized comprehensive management of heterogeneous data sets in multiple databases to improve the sustainability, accessibility, utility and publicity of the data of biomedical information

An Exploratory Case Study of a Quality Assurance Process at an Ontario University

Currently, quality assurance is a widespread global practice in higher education. This exploratory case study at one Ontario university uses a Foucauldian-informed post-structuralist discourse analysis to interrogate the definition of ‘quality’ as it relates to quality assurance. More specifically, this study hopes to raise an awareness that what constitutes quality is taken for granted in quality assurance practices for universities. From an examination of resource documents and interviews with faculty administrators (n=12), the key findings of this study expose an over-arching neoliberal discursive framing of quality and quality assurance. The marketization of higher education leads to an over-emphasis on procedural compliance and a propensity to quantify educational experiences. There was an incongruence between the current approach to quality assurance and education. This research argues that an economic lens borrowed from the business sector is problematic because it assumes principles used in manufacturing a material product can be applied to something as intangible and transformative as education. This research calls on educational leaders to critically reflect on underlying assumptions to expose the power struggles embedded in our quality assurance discourses in order to better understand how dominant ideology obscures other perspectives. An understanding of how quality can be defined from different perspectives disrupts the assumption that a neoliberal economic lens is the only way to view academic quality. Those engaged in administering quality assurance are urged to challenge dominant neoliberal premises and consider alternatives that apply an ethical lens to higher education

How to Increase Cultural Understanding. Police Perspectives: Building Trust in a Diverse Nation, no. 1

Recognizing the vital importance of trust to community cooperation, public safety, and national security, the Vera Institute worked with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) to research and write this three-part series, which provides practical, field-informed guidance for creating positive, productive relations with all members of our multiracial, multi-ethnic American population.To engage with their communities, law enforcement must understand their needs and concerns. This guide explores the history of law enforcement's relations with African Americans and offers strategies for overcoming past mistakes, building trusting relationships, and using mediation and other means for increasing dialogue and reducing tension after contentious incidents

Dynamic Arterial Spin Labeling Measurements of Physiological Parameters - Permeability and Oxygenation

Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL) is an MR imaging technique which can measure the brain perfusion locally without contrast agent. The inflowing blood is labeled by inverting the magnetization of the water molecules. During the blood flow through the vascular tree and the capillary bed, the signal can be acquired at different inflow times. Thereby, the signal decays with T1. An aspect which has not yet been investigated is the dynamics of further MR parameters during the inflow. In the present work, the dynamics of the parameters T2 and T2’ of the perfusion signal are investigated. The employed MRI sequences have been developed and are presented in this thesis: a 3D-GRASE readout with variable echo time for T2 quantification, and a spin/gradient double echo double spiral 3D-GRASE readout for T2’ estimation. Further, a model has been developed which describes the behavior of the perfusion signal which includes permeability, depending on the echo time. With the acquired data it has been possible to directly derive an estimate for the local water permeability of the capillary wall. The T2’ data allows an estimation of dynamical changes of oxygenation and local apparent venous volume in the direct vicinity of the inflowing blood water spins. The double echo spiral sequence in conjunction with ASL can in principle acquire perfusion and oxygenation simultaneously and is therefore predestined for functional imaging applications. Both techniques allow deep insights in basic local perfusion mechanisms

Prunus

The book of “Prunus” contains chapters on breeding, germplasm, fruit tree physiology, and production of Prunus species, written by authors from different parts of the world. Prunus is one of the most important fruit genera widely spread according to the various climatic and soil conditions. This wide adaptability of the Prunus genus gives an opportunity for it to be grown in many parts of the world. In modern taxonomy, subgenera of Prunus such as Amygdalus, Cerasus, Laurocerasus, Lithocerasus, Padus and Prunus include many species among which Prunus persica L., Prunus domestica L., Prunus armeniaca L., Prunus avium L. are the main ones. Briefly, this book is on Prunus species, which is one of the main fruit and nursery plants grown in the world

An integrated programming environment for pseudo-code development, IPE-PC

An Integrated Programming Environment, IPE-PC, that supports pseudo-code development has been designed and implemented. This environment is based on a Pascal-like language which is designed according to the requirements of a language-based environment. The nucleus of IPE-PC is a language-based editor which represents programs as graphs internally. The same representation is used in every mode of the environment (i.e., editing, compilation, execution, debugging and translation). The system provides facilities to take advantage of both top-down and bottom-up programming. Stepwise refinement has been supported by providing comment structures that can be transformed into procedures. Bottom-up programming is supported because it is possible to create and save program segments which can be inserted to the programs at the appropriate points --Abstract, page ii

Developing Summarizing Skills in 4th Grade Students: Intervention Programme Effects

The aim of our study was to determine whether summarizing skills could be developed in 4th grade primary school students. We designed a 5 -month intervention programme as an experimental study, in which teachers trained students in the experimental group in their ability to summarize, which is one of the important strategies that enhance reading comprehension. 190 students in 4th grade from 8 primary schools in Slovenia participated in the study. We evaluated students’ general reading competency, their metacognitive knowledge about reading and their ability to make summaries of two short and one longer expository text (pretest, posttest and follow-up test). The general reading competency explained the most variance in summarizing at pretest and posttest by experimental and control group of students. In the follow-up test, the summarizing from posttest was the strongest predictor in both groups and in the experimental group also the metacognitive knowledge about reading. The results showed that teachers can develop summarizing skills in students by systematically training them to use these skills, but the training effects decrease if the learning environment does not encourage students to use these skills

Brucella microti: the genome sequence of an emerging pathogen

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Using a combination of pyrosequencing and conventional Sanger sequencing, the complete genome sequence of the recently described novel <it>Brucella </it>species, <it>Brucella microti</it>, was determined. <it>B. microti </it>is a member of the genus <it>Brucella </it>within the <it>Alphaproteobacteria</it>, which consists of medically important highly pathogenic facultative intracellular bacteria. In contrast to all other <it>Brucella </it>species, <it>B. microti </it>is a fast growing and biochemically very active microorganism with a phenotype more similar to that of <it>Ochrobactrum</it>, a facultative human pathogen. The atypical phenotype of <it>B. microti </it>prompted us to look for genomic differences compared to other <it>Brucella </it>species and to look for similarities with <it>Ochrobactrum</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The genome is composed of two circular chromosomes of 2,117,050 and 1,220,319 base pairs. Unexpectedly, we found that the genome sequence of <it>B. microti </it>is almost identical to that of <it>Brucella suis </it>1330 with an overall sequence identity of 99.84% in aligned regions. The most significant structural difference between the two genomes is a bacteriophage-related 11,742 base pairs insert only present in <it>B. microti</it>. However, this insert is unlikely to have any phenotypical consequence. Only four protein coding genes are shared between <it>B. microti </it>and <it>Ochrobactrum anthropi </it>but impaired in other sequenced <it>Brucella</it>. The most noticeable difference between <it>B. microti </it>and other <it>Brucella </it>species was found in the sequence of the 23S ribosomal RNA gene. This unusual variation could have pleiotropic effects and explain the fast growth of <it>B. microti</it>.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Contrary to expectations from the phenotypic analysis, the genome sequence of <it>B. microti </it>is highly similar to that of known <it>Brucella </it>species, and is remotely related to the one of <it>O. anthropi</it>. How the few differences in gene content between <it>B. microti </it>and <it>B. suis </it>1330 could result in vastly different phenotypes remains to be elucidated. This unexpected finding will complicate the task of identifying virulence determinants in the <it>Brucella </it>genus. The genome sequence of <it>B. microti </it>will serve as a model for differential expression analysis and complementation studies. Our results also raise some concerns about the importance given to phenotypical traits in the definition of bacterial species.</p