Use of Multiple Displacement Amplification as Pre-polymerase Chain Reaction (Pre-PCR) to amplify genomic DNA of siphonapterids preserved for long periods in scientific collections

The recently developed Multiple Displacement Amplification technique (MDA) allows for the production of a large quantity of high quality genomic DNA from low amounts of the original DNA. The goal of this study was to evaluate the performance of the MDA technique to amplify genomic DNA of siphonapterids that have been stored for long periods in 70% ethanol at room temperature. We subjected each DNA sample to two different methodologies: (1) amplification of mitochondrial 16S sequences without MDA; (2) amplification of 16S after MDA. All the samples obtained from these procedures were then sequenced. Only 4 samples (15.4%) subjected to method 1 showed amplification. In contrast, the application of MDA (method 2) improved the performance substantially, with 24 samples (92.3%) showing amplification, with significant difference. Interestingly, one of the samples successfully amplified with this method was originally collected in 1909. All of the sequenced samples displayed satisfactory results in quality evaluations (Phred ≥ 20) and good similarities, as identified with the BLASTn tool. Our results demonstrate that the use of MDA may be an effective tool in molecular studies involving specimens of fleas that have traditionally been considered inadequately preserved for such purposes

Nonlinear Schrodinger equation with chaotic, random, and nonperiodic nonlinearity

In this paper we deal with a nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation with chaotic, random, and nonperiodic cubic nonlinearity. Our goal is to study the soliton evolution, with the strength of the nonlinearity perturbed in the space and time coordinates and to check its robustness under these conditions. Comparing with a real system, the perturbation can be related to, e.g., impurities in crystalline structures, or coupling to a thermal reservoir which, on the average, enhances the nonlinearity. We also discuss the relevance of such random perturbations to the dynamics of Bose-Einstein Condensates and their collective excitations and transport.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Avaliação do efeito de veranico na produção de matéria seca de milho e sorgo.

O presente trabalho teve como principal objetivo a influencia de veranicos nas fases inicial e reprodutiva na producao de materia seca de milho e sorgo. O ensaio foi instalado em um latossolo Vermelho-Escuro,distrofico, fase cerrado, durante os anos agricolas de 1982 a 1985. No primeiro ano aplicou-se 3,7 toneladas de calcario dolomitico e fez-se uma adubacao de correcao baseada em analises do solo. As cultivares de milho utilizadas foram BR 126 e CMSXS 201 Xe, as de sorgo, BR 505 e BR 601. Em cada ano agricola estes hibridos foram plantados em 4 diferentes epocas (8, 15 e 25 de outubro e 5 de novembro), com e sem irrigacao suplementar. O delineamento experimental utilizado foi blocos casualizados com 5 repeticoes. Quantificou-se a materia seca correspondente a parte aerea das plantas colhidas quando os graos encontravam-se na fase de grao macio. Embora os resultados tenham mostrado tanto para o milho como para o sorgo, que as producoes entre anos, nao diferiram significativamente, houve um aumento medio da producao das culturas irrigadas sobre as nao irrigadas de 12 a 27% para o milho e cerca de 36% para o sorgo. Estas diferencas podem ser atribuidas a ocorrencia de veranico durante o ciclo das culturas. A producao de milho foi superior a do sorgo, principalmente quando foi utilizada irrigacao suplementar Embora a ocorrencia de veranico na fase inicial de crescimento tenha influenciado na producao de ambas as culturas, o sorgo demonstrou-se mais sensivel ao deficit de agua ate 20 a 25 dias

Sfp1 and Rtg3 reciprocally modulate carbon source-conditional stress adaptation in the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans

Acknowledgements We thank Aaron Mitchell, Dominique Sanglard and Suzanne Noble for their generosity in providing mutant collections, and Linghuo Jiang for generously providing strains. We also thank Susan Budge for her support and excellent technical assistance. We also thank the qPCR Facility in the Institute of Medical Sciences, and particularly Fiona Saunders for her great advice and help. SLK was supported by a PhD scholarship from the University of Aberdeen. AJPB was supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Research Council (BB/F00513X/1; BB/K017365/1), by the European Research Council (STRIFE Advanced Grant; ERC-2009-AdG-249793), and by the UK Medical Research Council (MR/M026663/1). AJPB and CAM were also supported by the Wellcome Trust (088858; 097377), and by the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology and the University of Aberdeen (MR/N006364/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Teleportation of entangled states without Bell-state measurement

In a recent paper [Phys. Rev. A 70, 025803 (2004)] we presented a scheme to teleport an entanglement of zero- and one-photon states from a bimodal cavity to another one, with 100% success probability. Here, inspired on recent results in the literature, we have modified our previous proposal to teleport the same entangled state without using Bell-state measurements. For comparison, the time spent, the fidelity, and the success probability for this teleportation are considered.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, published in Phys. Rev. A 72, 045802 (2005

Are martial arts and combat sports a school for life? Relationships between sport attitudes and quality of life (intermediate results)

[EN] Quality of Life (QoL) is an indicator of health status and represents a multidimensional..