Indirect Immunofluorescence Assay in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Determining the protein localization is essential to elucidate its in vivo function. Fluorescence-tagged proteins are widely used for it, but it is sometimes difficult to express tagged proteins in Chlamydomonas. Alternatively, indirect immunofluorescence assay is also one of the widely used methods and many reports determining the localization of Chlamydomonas proteins using this method are published. Here, we introduce a protocol of indirect immunofluorescence assay adapted from our papers reporting LCIB (CO₂-recycling factor in the vicinity of pyrenoid; Yamano et al., 2010), LCI1 (plasma membrane-localized inorganic carbon transporter; Ohnishi et al., 2010), HLA3 (plasma membrane-localized ABC-type bicarbonate transporter; Yamano et al., 2015), and LCIA (chloroplast envelope anion channel; Yamano et al., 2015) in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The protocol described here could be useful for observing the protein of interest in other algae cells

Vasopressinergic modulation of stress responses in the central amygdala of the Roman high-avoidance and low-avoidance rat

The central nucleus of the amygdala (CEA) is selectively involved in the passive component of the behavioral (immobility) and the accompanying parasympathetic response during conditioned, stressful environmental challenges. Vasopressinergic mechanisms in the brain seem to play a role in these stress responses. The effects of the neuropeptides arginine-8-vasopressin (AVP) and oxytocin (OXT) on modulating CEA activity during conditioned stress of inescapable footshock were studied in male Roman high-avoidance (RHA/Verh) and low-avoidance (RLA/Verh) rats, psychogenetically selected on the basis of shuttle-box acquisition behavior. In RLA/Verh rats, the cardiac and behavioral responses to the conditioned emotional stressor were bradycardia and immobility, suggesting an important role for the CEA in these rats. The RHA/Verh rats, however, failed to show any change in heart rate or immobility in response to a conditioned stress situation. The low dose of AVP (20 pg) in the CEA of conscious RLA/Verh rats caused an enhancement of the stress-induced bradycardiac and immobility response. However, the high dose of AVP (2 ng) and OXT (200 pg) attenuated the bradycardiac and immobility responses in the RLA/Verh rats. Infusion of AVP and OXT in the RHA/Verh rats failed to induce any change in heart rate nr immobility. Binding studies revealed that the AVP receptor selectively binds AVP with high affinity. In contrast, the OXT receptor recognizes both AVP and OXT with a similar (but lower) affinity. This suggests that the behavioral and autonomic responses of the high dose of AVP may be caused by OXT receptor stimulation. In conclusion, on the basis of the present results one may hypothesize that CEA differences in AVP and OXT innervation and/or receptor densities may contribute to the differences in coping strategy found in these animals.

Persistence in a Random Bond Ising Model of Socio-Econo Dynamics

We study the persistence phenomenon in a socio-econo dynamics model using computer simulations at a finite temperature on hypercubic lattices in dimensions up to 5. The model includes a ` social\rq local field which contains the magnetization at time $t$. The nearest neighbour quenched interactions are drawn from a binary distribution which is a function of the bond concentration, $p$. The decay of the persistence probability in the model depends on both the spatial dimension and $p$. We find no evidence of ` blocking\rq in this model. We also discuss the implications of our results for possible applications in the social and economic fields. It is suggested that the absence, or otherwise, of blocking could be used as a criterion to decide on the validity of a given model in different scenarios.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Classical no-cloning theorem under Liouville dynamics by non-Csisz\'ar f-divergence

The Csisz\'ar f-divergence, which is a class of information distances, is known to offer a useful tool for analysing the classical counterpart of the cloning operations that are quantum mechanically impossible for the factorized and marginality classical probability distributions under Liouville dynamics. We show that a class of information distances that does not belong to this divergence class also allows for the formulation of a classical analogue of the quantum no-cloning theorem. We address a family of nonlinear Liouville-like equations, and generic distances, to obtain constraints on the corresponding functional forms, associated with the formulation of classical analogue of the no-cloning principle.Comment: 6 pages, revised, published versio

Increasing Kenya's Agricultural Competitiveness: Farm Level Issues

The objective of this paper is to address the farm level issues that affect the production costs and so the competitiveness of domestic food and commercial production. It compares domestic production prices of key food commodities with the equivalent parity prices to assess the extent to which the domestic prices for maize, wheat, and sugar, and export and domestic crops are competitive. This paper identifies and assesses the factors that influence domestic production costs. It also identifies strategies that could increase food and export crops’ productivity, by that reducing production costs and encourage competitiveness of the domestic production.Food Security, Food Policy, Kenya, Maize, Wheat, Sugar, Marketing, Q18,

Nonadditive measure and quantum entanglement in a class of mixed states of N^n-system

Through the generalization of Khinchin's classical axiomatic foundation, a basis is developed for nonadditive information theory. The classical nonadditive conditional entropy indexed by the positive parameter q is introduced and then translated into quantum information. This quantity is nonnegative for classically correlated states but can take negative values for entangled mixed states. This property is used to study quantum entanglement in the parametrized Werner-Popescu-like state of an N^n-system, that is, an n-partite N-level system. It is shown how the strongest limitation on validity of local realism (i.e., separability of the state) can be obtained in a novel manner

On the robust thermodynamical structures against arbitrary entropy form and energy mean value

We discuss that the thermodynamical Legendre transform structure can be retained not only for the arbitrary entropic form but also for the arbitrary form of the energy constraints by following the discussion of Plastino and Plastino. The thermodynamic relation between the expectation values and the conjugate Lagrange multipliers are seen to be universal. Furthermore, Gibbs' fundamental equation is shown to be unaffected by the choice of the entropy and the definition of the mean values due to the robustness of the Legendre transform structure.Comment: 4 pages, no figures, svjour.sty, to be published in Euro.Phys.J.