Investigation of growth responses in saprophytic fungi to charred biomass

We present the results of a study testing the response of two saprophytic white-rot fungi species, Pleurotus pulmonarius and Coriolus versicolor, to charred biomass (charcoal) as a growth substrate. We used a combination of optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, elemental abundance measurements, and isotope ratio mass spectrometry (<sup>13</sup>C and <sup>15</sup>N) to investigate fungal colonisation of control and incubated samples of Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) wood, and charcoal from the same species produced at 300 °C and 400 °C. Both species of fungi colonise the surface and interior of wood and charcoals over time periods of less than 70 days; however, distinctly different growth forms are evident between the exterior and interior of the charcoal substrate, with hyphal penetration concentrated along lines of structural weakness. Although the fungi were able to degrade and metabolise the pine wood, charcoal does not form a readily available source of fungal nutrients at least for these species under the conditions used in this study

Observational constraint on generalized Chaplygin gas model

We investigate observational constraints on the generalized Chaplygin gas (GCG) model as the unification of dark matter and dark energy from the latest observational data: the Union SNe Ia data, the observational Hubble data, the SDSS baryon acoustic peak and the five-year WMAP shift parameter. It is obtained that the best fit values of the GCG model parameters with their confidence level are $A_{s}=0.73^{+0.06}_{-0.06}$ ($1\sigma$) $^{+0.09}_{-0.09}$ $(2\sigma)$, $\alpha=-0.09^{+0.15}_{-0.12}$ ($1\sigma$) $^{+0.26}_{-0.19}$ $(2\sigma)$. Furthermore in this model, we can see that the evolution of equation of state (EOS) for dark energy is similar to quiessence, and its current best-fit value is $w_{0de}=-0.96$ with the $1\sigma$ confidence level $-0.91\geq w_{0de}\geq-1.00$.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Broad-spectrum in vitro activity of macrophage infectivity potentiator inhibitors against Gram-negative bacteria and Leishmania major

Background The macrophage infectivity potentiator (Mip) protein, which belongs to the immunophilin superfamily, is a peptidyl-prolyl cis/trans isomerase (PPIase) enzyme. Mip has been shown to be important for virulence in a wide range of pathogenic microorganisms. It has previously been demonstrated that small-molecule compounds designed to target Mip from the Gram-negative bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei bind at the site of enzymatic activity of the protein, inhibiting the in vitro activity of Mip. Objectives In this study, co-crystallography experiments with recombinant B. pseudomallei Mip (BpMip) protein and Mip inhibitors, biochemical analysis and computational modelling were used to predict the efficacy of lead compounds for broad-spectrum activity against other pathogens. Methods Binding activity of three lead compounds targeting BpMip was verified using surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy. The determination of crystal structures of BpMip in complex with these compounds, together with molecular modelling and in vitro assays, was used to determine whether the compounds have broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against pathogens. Results Of the three lead small-molecule compounds, two were effective in inhibiting the PPIase activity of Mip proteins from Neisseria meningitidis, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Leishmania major. The compounds also reduced the intracellular burden of these pathogens using in vitro cell infection assays. Conclusions These results indicate that Mip is a novel antivirulence target that can be inhibited using small-molecule compounds that prove to be promising broad-spectrum drug candidates in vitro. Further optimization of compounds is required for in vivo evaluation and future clinical applications

Professionalism, Golf Coaching and a Master of Science Degree: A commentary

As a point of reference I congratulate Simon Jenkins on tackling the issue of professionalism in coaching. As he points out coaching is not a profession, but this does not mean that coaching would not benefit from going through a professionalization process. As things stand I find that the stimulus article unpacks some critically important issues of professionalism, broadly within the context of golf coaching. However, I am not sure enough is made of understanding what professional (golf) coaching actually is nor how the development of a professional golf coach can be facilitated by a Master of Science Degree (M.Sc.). I will focus my commentary on these two issues

Three-Dimensional Mapping of the Dark Matter

We study the prospects for three-dimensional mapping of the dark matter to high redshift through the shearing of faint galaxies images at multiple distances by gravitational lensing. Such maps could provide invaluable information on the nature of the dark energy and dark matter. While in principle well-posed, mapping by direct inversion introduces exceedingly large, but usefully correlated noise into the reconstruction. By carefully propagating the noise covariance, we show that lensing contains substantial information, both direct and statistical, on the large-scale radial evolution of the density field. This information can be efficiently distilled into low-order signal-to-noise eigenmodes which may be used to compress the data by over an order of magnitude. Such compression will be useful for the statistical analysis of future large data sets. The reconstructed map also contains useful information on the localization of individual massive dark matter halos, and hence the dark energy from halo number counts, but its extraction depends strongly on prior assumptions. We outline a procedure for maximum entropy and point-source regularization of the maps that can identify alternate reconstructions.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PR

Lensing Reconstruction with CMB Temperature and Polarization

Weak gravitational lensing by intervening large-scale structure induces a distinct signature in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) that can be used to reconstruct the weak-lensing displacement map. Estimators for individual Fourier modes of this map can be combined to produce an estimator for the lensing-potenial power spectrum. The naive estimator for this quantity will be biased upwards by the uncertainty associated with reconstructing individual modes; we present an iterative scheme for removing this bias. The variance and covariance of the lensing-potenial power spectrum estimator are calculated and evaluated numerically in a $\Lambda$CDM universe for Planck and future polarization-sensitive CMB experiments.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR

A First Search for coincident Gravitational Waves and High Energy Neutrinos using LIGO, Virgo and ANTARES data from 2007

We present the results of the first search for gravitational wave bursts associated with high energy neutrinos. Together, these messengers could reveal new, hidden sources that are not observed by conventional photon astronomy, particularly at high energy. Our search uses neutrinos detected by the underwater neutrino telescope ANTARES in its 5 line configuration during the period January - September 2007, which coincided with the fifth and first science runs of LIGO and Virgo, respectively. The LIGO-Virgo data were analysed for candidate gravitational-wave signals coincident in time and direction with the neutrino events. No significant coincident events were observed. We place limits on the density of joint high energy neutrino - gravitational wave emission events in the local universe, and compare them with densities of merger and core-collapse events.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, science summary page at http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S5LV_ANTARES/index.php. Public access area to figures, tables at https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=p120000

A theoretical framework and research agenda for studying team attributions in sport

The attributions made for group outcomes have attracted a great deal of interest in recent years. In this article we bring together much of the current research on attribution theory in sport and outline a new conceptual framework and research agenda for investigating the attributions of team members. The proposed framework draws on multiple conceptual approaches including models of attribution, group dynamics and stress responses to provide a detailed hypothetical description of athletes' physiological, cognitive and affective responses to group competition. In describing this model we outline important antecedents of team attributions before hypothesising how attributions can impact hormonal and cardiovascular responses of athletes, together with cognitive (goals, choices, expectations), affective (self-esteem, emotions), and behavioural (approach-avoidance actions) responses of groups and group members. We conclude by outlining important methodological considerations and implications for structured context specific attribution-based interventions

Lineage‐based functional types: characterising functional diversity to enhance the representation of ecological behaviour in Land Surface Models

Process‐based vegetation models attempt to represent the wide range of trait variation in biomes by grouping ecologically similar species into plant functional types (PFTs). This approach has been successful in representing many aspects of plant physiology and biophysics but struggles to capture biogeographic history and ecological dynamics that determine biome boundaries and plant distributions. Grass‐dominated ecosystems are broadly distributed across all vegetated continents and harbour large functional diversity, yet most Land Surface Models (LSMs) summarise grasses into two generic PFTs based primarily on differences between temperate C3 grasses and (sub)tropical C4 grasses. Incorporation of species‐level trait variation is an active area of research to enhance the ecological realism of PFTs, which form the basis for vegetation processes and dynamics in LSMs. Using reported measurements, we developed grass functional trait values (physiological, structural, biochemical, anatomical, phenological, and disturbance‐related) of dominant lineages to improve LSM representations. Our method is fundamentally different from previous efforts, as it uses phylogenetic relatedness to create lineage‐based functional types (LFTs), situated between species‐level trait data and PFT‐level abstractions, thus providing a realistic representation of functional diversity and opening the door to the development of new vegetation models

Dark Synergy: Gravitational Lensing and the CMB

Power spectra and cross-correlation measurements from the weak gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the cosmic shearing of faint galaxies images will help shed light on quantities hidden from the CMB temperature anisotropies: the dark energy, the end of the dark ages, and the inflationary gravitational wave amplitude. Even with modest surveys, both types of lensing power spectra break CMB degeneracies and they can ultimately improve constraints on the dark energy equation of state w by over an order of magnitude. In its cross correlation with the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, CMB lensing offers a unique opportunity for a more direct detection of the dark energy and enables study of its clustering properties. By obtaining source redshifts and cross-correlations with CMB lensing, cosmic shear surveys provide tomographic handles on the evolution of clustering correspondingly better precision on the dark energy equation of state and density. Both can indirectly provide detections of the reionization optical depth and modest improvements in gravitational wave constraints which we compare to more direct constraints. Conversely, polarization B-mode contamination from CMB lensing, like any other residual foreground, darkens the prospects for ultra-high precision on gravitational waves through CMB polarization requiring large areas of sky for statistical subtraction. To evaluate these effects we provide fitting formula for the evolution and transfer function of the Newtonian gravitational potential.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures submitted to PR