Higgs decay to dark matter in low energy SUSY: is it detectable at the LHC ?

Due to the limited statistics so far accumulated in the Higgs boson search at the LHC, the Higgs boson property has not yet been tightly constrained and it is still allowed for the Higgs boson to decay invisibly to dark matter with a sizable branching ratio. In this work, we examine the Higgs decay to neutralino dark matter in low energy SUSY by considering three different models: the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard models (NMSSM) and the nearly minimal supersymmetric standard model (nMSSM). Under current experimental constraints at 2-sigma level (including the muon g-2 and the dark matter relic density), we scan over the parameter space of each model. Then in the allowed parameter space we calculate the branching ratio of the SM-like Higgs decay to neutralino dark matter and examine its observability at the LHC by considering three production channels: the weak boson fusion VV->h, the associated production with a Z-boson pp->hZ+X or a pair of top quarks pp->htt_bar+X. We find that in the MSSM such a decay is far below the detectable level; while in both the NMSSM and nMSSM the decay branching ratio can be large enough to be observable at the LHC.Comment: Version in JHE

A framework for measuring global Malmquist–Luenberger productivity index with CO2 emissions on Chinese manufacturing industries

China has achieved significant progress in terms of economic and social developments since implementation of reform and open policy in 1978. However, the rapid speed of economic growth in China has also resulted in high energy consumption and serious environmental problems, which hindering the sustainability of China's economic growth. This paper provides a framework for measuring eco-efficiency with CO2 emissions in Chinese manufacturing industries. We introduce a global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index (GMLPI) that can handle undesirable factors within Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). This study suggested after regulations imposed by the Chinese government, in the last stage of the analysis, i.e. during 2011–2012, the contemporaneous frontier shifts towards the global technology frontier in the direction of more desirable outputs and less undesirable outputs, i.e. producing less CO2 emissions, but the GMLPI drops slightly. This is an indication that the Chinese government needs to implement more policy regulations in order to maintain productivity index while reducing CO2 emissions

Pseudomonas aeruginosa 4-Amino-4-Deoxychorismate Lyase: Spatial Conservation of an Active Site Tyrosine and Classification of Two Types of Enzyme

4-Amino-4-deoxychorismate lyase (PabC) catalyzes the formation of 4-aminobenzoate, and release of pyruvate, during folate biosynthesis. This is an essential activity for the growth of Gram-negative bacteria, including important pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa. A high-resolution (1.75 Å) crystal structure of PabC from P. aeruginosa has been determined, and sequence-structure comparisons with orthologous structures are reported. Residues around the pyridoxal 5′-phosphate cofactor are highly conserved adding support to aspects of a mechanism generic for enzymes carrying that cofactor. However, we suggest that PabC can be classified into two groups depending upon whether an active site and structurally conserved tyrosine is provided from the polypeptide that mainly forms an active site or from the partner subunit in the dimeric assembly. We considered that the conserved tyrosine might indicate a direct role in catalysis: that of providing a proton to reduce the olefin moiety of substrate as pyruvate is released. A threonine had previously been suggested to fulfill such a role prior to our observation of the structurally conserved tyrosine. We have been unable to elucidate an experimentally determined structure of PabC in complex with ligands to inform on mechanism and substrate specificity. Therefore we constructed a computational model of the catalytic intermediate docked into the enzyme active site. The model suggests that the conserved tyrosine helps to create a hydrophobic wall on one side of the active site that provides important interactions to bind the catalytic intermediate. However, this residue does not appear to participate in interactions with the C atom that undergoes an sp2 to sp3 conversion as pyruvate is produced. The model and our comparisons rather support the hypothesis that an active site threonine hydroxyl contributes a proton used in the reduction of the substrate methylene to pyruvate methyl in the final stage of the mechanism

Precision restoration: a necessary approach to foster forest recovery in the 21st century

We thank S. Tabik, E. Guirado, and Garnata Drone SL for fruitful debates about the application of remote sensing and artificial intelligence in restoration. E. McKeown looked over the English version of the manuscript. Original drawings were made by J. D. Guerrero. This work was supported by projects RESISTE (P18-RT-1927) from the Consejeria de Economia, Conocimiento, y Universidad from the Junta de Andalucia, and AVA201601.19 (NUTERA-DE I), DETECTOR (A-RNM-256-UGR18), and AVA2019.004 (NUTERA-DE II), cofinanced (80%) by the FEDER Program. F.M.-R. acknowledges the support of the Agreement 4580 between OTRI-UGR and the city council of La Zubia. We thank an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments that improved the manuscript.Forest restoration is currently a primary objective in environmental management policies at a global scale, to the extent that impressive initiatives and commitments have been launched to plant billions of trees. However, resources are limited and the success of any restoration effort should be maximized. Thus, restoration programs should seek to guarantee that what is planted today will become an adult tree in the future, a simple fact that, however, usually receives little attention. Here, we advocate for the need to focus restoration efforts on an individual plant level to increase establishment success while reducing negative side effects by using an approach that we term “precision forest restoration” (PFR). The objective of PFR will be to ensure that planted seedlings or sowed seeds will become adult trees with the appropriate landscape configuration to create functional and self-regulating forest ecosystems while reducing the negative impacts of traditional massive reforestation actions. PFR can take advantage of ecological knowledge together with technologies and methodologies from the landscape scale to the individual- plant scale, and from the more traditional, low-tech approaches to the latest high-tech ones. PFR may be more expensive at the level of individual plants, but will be more cost-effective in the long term if it allows for the creation of resilient forests able to providemultiple ecosystemservices. PFR was not feasible a few years ago due to the high cost and low precision of the available technologies, but it is currently an alternative that might reformulate a wide spectrum of ecosystem restoration activities.Junta de Andalucia P18-RT-1927European Commission AVA201601.19 A-RNM-256-UGR18 AVA2019.004OTRI-UGR 4580city council of La Zubia 458

De Novo Analysis of Transcriptome Dynamics in the Migratory Locust during the Development of Phase Traits

Locusts exhibit remarkable density-dependent phenotype (phase) changes from the solitary to the gregarious, making them one of the most destructive agricultural pests. This phenotype polyphenism arises from a single genome and diverse transcriptomes in different conditions. Here we report a de novo transcriptome for the migratory locust and a comprehensive, representative core gene set. We carried out assembly of 21.5 Gb Illumina reads, generated 72,977 transcripts with N50 2,275 bp and identified 11,490 locust protein-coding genes. Comparative genomics analysis with eight other sequenced insects was carried out to indentify the genomic divergence between hemimetabolous and holometabolous insects for the first time and 18 genes relevant to development was found. We further utilized the quantitative feature of RNA-seq to measure and compare gene expression among libraries. We first discovered how divergence in gene expression between two phases progresses as locusts develop and identified 242 transcripts as candidates for phase marker genes. Together with the detailed analysis of deep sequencing data of the 4th instar, we discovered a phase-dependent divergence of biological investment in the molecular level. Solitary locusts have higher activity in biosynthetic pathways while gregarious locusts show higher activity in environmental interaction, in which genes and pathways associated with regulation of neurotransmitter activities, such as neurotransmitter receptors, synthetase, transporters, and GPCR signaling pathways, are strongly involved. Our study, as the largest de novo transcriptome to date, with optimization of sequencing and assembly strategy, can further facilitate the application of de novo transcriptome. The locust transcriptome enriches genetic resources for hemimetabolous insects and our understanding of the origin of insect metamorphosis. Most importantly, we identified genes and pathways that might be involved in locust development and phase change, and may thus benefit pest management

Laparoscopic correction of perforated peptic ulcer: first choice? A review of literature

Background Perforated peptic ulcer (PPU), despite antiulcer medication and Helicobacter eradication, is still the most common indication for emergency gastric surgery associated with high morbidity and mortality. Outcome might be improved by performing this procedure laparoscopically, but there is no consensus on whether the benefits of laparoscopic closure of perforated peptic ulcer outweigh the disadvantages such as prolonged surgery time and greater expense. Methods An electronic literature search was done by using PubMed and EMBASE databases. Relevant papers written between January 1989 and May 2009 were selected and scored according to Effective Public Health Practice Project guidelines. Results Data were extracted from 56 papers, as summarized in Tables 1-7. The overall conversion rate for laparoscopic correction of perforated peptic ulcer was 12.4%, with main reason for conversion being the diameter of perforation. Patients presenting with PPU were predominantly men (79%), with an average age of 48 years. Onethird had a history of peptic ulcer disease, and one-fifth took nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Only 7% presented with shock at admission. There seems to be no consensus on the perfect setup for surgery and/or operating technique. In the laparoscopic groups, operating time was significant longer and incidence of recurrent leakage at the repair site was higher. Nonetheless there was significant less postoperative pain, lower morbidity, less mortality, and shorter hospital stay. Conclusion There are good arguments that laparoscopic correction of PPU should be first treatment of choice. A Boey score of 3, age over 70 years, and symptoms persisting longer than 24 h are associated with higher morbidity and mortality and should be considered contraindications for laparoscopic intervention

A high-resolution linkage map for comparative genome analysis and QTL fine mapping in Asian seabass, Lates calcarifer

10.1186/1471-2164-12-174BMC Genomics12-BGME

Author Correction: Comprehensive molecular characterization of mitochondrial genomes in human cancers

Correction to: Nature Genetics, published online 05 February 2020. In the published version of this paper, the members of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium were listed in the Supplementary Information; however, these members should have been included in the main paper. The original Article has been corrected to include the members and affiliations of the PCAWG Consortium in the main paper; the corrections have been made to the HTML version of the Article but not the PDF version. Additional corrections to affiliations have been made to the PDF and HTML versions of the original Article for consistency of information between the PCAWG list and the main paper

Emerging technologies for the production of renewable liquid transport fuels from biomass sources enriched in plant cell walls

Plant cell walls are composed predominantly of cellulose, a range of non-cellulosic polysaccharides and lignin. The walls account for a large proportion not only of crop residues such as wheat straw and sugarcane bagasse, but also of residues of the timber industry and specialist grasses and other plants being grown specifically for biofuel production. The polysaccharide components of plant cell walls have long been recognized as an extraordinarily large source of fermentable sugars that might be used for the production of bioethanol and other renewable liquid transport fuels. Estimates place annual plant cellulose production from captured light energy in the order of hundreds of billions of tons. Lignin is synthesized in the same order of magnitude and, as a very large polymer of phenylpropanoid residues, lignin is also an abundant, high energy macromolecule. However, one of the major functions of these cell wall constituents in plants is to provide the extreme tensile and compressive strengths that enable plants to resist the forces of gravity and a broad range of other mechanical forces. Over millions of years these wall constituents have evolved under natural selection to generate extremely tough and resilient biomaterials. The rapid degradation of these tough cell wall composites to fermentable sugars is therefore a difficult task and has significantly slowed the development of a viable lignocellulose-based biofuels industry. However, good progress has been made in overcoming this so-called recalcitrance of lignocellulosic feedstocks for the biofuels industry, through modifications to the lignocellulose itself, innovative pre-treatments of the biomass, improved enzymes and the development of superior yeasts and other microorganisms for the fermentation process. Nevertheless, it has been argued that bioethanol might not be the best or only biofuel that can be generated from lignocellulosic biomass sources and that hydrocarbons with intrinsically higher energy densities might be produced using emerging and continuous flow systems that are capable of converting a broad range of plant and other biomasses to bio-oils through so-called 'agnostic' technologies such as hydrothermal liquefaction. Continued attention to regulatory frameworks and ongoing government support will be required for the next phase of development of internationally viable biofuels industries.Hwei-Ting Tan, Kendall R. Corbin and Geoffrey B. Finche