Conserved defense responses between maize and sorghum to Exserohilum turcicum.

BACKGROUND:Exserohilum turcicum is an important pathogen of both sorghum and maize, causing sorghum leaf blight and northern corn leaf blight. Because the same pathogen can infect and cause major losses for two of the most important grain crops, it is an ideal pathosystem to study plant-pathogen evolution and investigate shared resistance mechanisms between the two plant species. To identify sorghum genes involved in the E. turcicum response, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS). RESULTS:Using the sorghum conversion panel evaluated across three environments, we identified a total of 216 significant markers. Based on physical linkage with the significant markers, we detected a total of 113 unique candidate genes, some with known roles in plant defense. Also, we compared maize genes known to play a role in resistance to E. turcicum with the association mapping results and found evidence of genes conferring resistance in both crops, providing evidence of shared resistance between maize and sorghum. CONCLUSIONS:Using a genetics approach, we identified shared genetic regions conferring resistance to E. turcicum in both maize and sorghum. We identified several promising candidate genes for resistance to leaf blight in sorghum, including genes related to R-gene mediated resistance. We present significant advancements in the understanding of host resistance to E. turcicum, which is crucial to reduce losses due to this important pathogen

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Underground mining of aggregates. Main report

This report examines the economic feasibility of underground mining for crushed rock aggregates in the UK, but particularly in the London, South East and East of England regions (the South East area of England). These regions import substantial volumes of crushed rock, primarily from the East Midlands and South West regions, requiring relatively long transport distances to market for this bulk commodity. A key part of the research was to determine whether or not aggregate could be produced and delivered to a local market from an underground aggregates operation at a cost comparable with that for production and transport of the commodity from traditional surface quarries located further afield. In essence the investigation asked – could the reduced transport costs compensate for the higher production costs underground so that underground crushed rock aggregates producers can compete with the established Leicestershire and Somerset surface quarries exporting to the South East? Work Programme The research effort involved establishing and verifying cost models for aggregates production, stone processing (sizing and sorting), haulage of product to market, environmental impact mitigation, health and safety, decommissioning and restoration. Another major element of the work was the re-examination of the BGS exploratory borehole and geophysical databases to identify potential areas of crushed rock aggregates resource at depth in the South East area of England. Land use pressure is typically higher in this area of England than elsewhere so another major part of the research was the identification of potential concurrent uses of land around the surface facilities of underground aggregates mines. The value, development costs for specific developments and determination of yields expected, from these uses were estimated. These were also used to investigate potential economic benefits associated with after uses of remediated surface land above potential underground aggregates mines and also for the new underground space that would be created. Key technical issues such as subsidence within relatively heavily populated areas of the South East area of England were also addressed. Economic Results The discounted cost of aggregate delivered at a discount rate of 10% was the metric used to appraise the options. This is the price of aggregate that leads to a zero net present value of project cash flows realised over the aggregates project life. The results show that the discounted costs of aggregate delivered to a local South East area of England market from an underground mine producing 3.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of crushed rock aggregates, are in the range of £13.03 per tonne to £13.93 per tonne for the top six prospect locations. These are greater than the corresponding cost for a “reference” quarry in Leicestershire producing 3.5 MTPA (£10.95 per tonne), but lower than a “reference” quarry in Leicestershire producing 1.25 MTPA (£16.48 per tonne). These figures indicate that underground crushed rock aggregate mines located within the South East area of England may be able to compete for a share in the overall market by replacing / displacing aggregate imported from the quarries in Leicestershire and Somerset producing around or less than 1.25 MTPA. The surprise in these figures is not really that the more remote surface quarry has a lower discounted cost of aggregate delivered, but that the values for the quarry and underground mine are so close. The capital intensity for the development of underground aggregates mines was found to be higher than that required for surface quarries of comparable scale, by a factor ranging from 1.33 to 1.65 and thus may represent a disincentive for aggregates operators. Carbon Emissions The total carbon emissions of the ‘reference’ 3.5 MTPA quarry in Leicestershire were estimated at 9.28 kg CO2/tonne aggregate delivered and this is to be compared with carbon emissions for the 150 metre deep underground mines serving the local market which were estimated at 9.31 kg CO2/tonne delivered for a Bletchley prospect using an adit to access the sub-surface and 14.25 kg CO2/tonne delivered for a prospect based on the Chitty bore hole using a shaft. Depth of the mine is a key factor in determination of the relative carbon emissions from each of the underground mining operations considered as electricity consumption for ventilation, pumping and winding is proportional to depth. Recommendations The current research generated seven principal recommendations which are discussed in detail in the concluding section of the report. These are: Appraise policy incentives for underground aggregates mining. Conduct an industry-wide consultation on findings from the current research. Obtain public and stakeholder opinion on new uses for underground space. Conduct research to reducing the energy intensity of mine services. Develop a deep level aggregates-specific drilling campaign. Investigate underground aggregates mines developed from existing surface quarries. Investigate underground aggregates as co-products of industrial minerals mining

Novel Bayesian Networks for Genomic Prediction of Developmental Traits in Biomass Sorghum.

The ability to connect genetic information between traits over time allow Bayesian networks to offer a powerful probabilistic framework to construct genomic prediction models. In this study, we phenotyped a diversity panel of 869 biomass sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) lines, which had been genotyped with 100,435 SNP markers, for plant height (PH) with biweekly measurements from 30 to 120 days after planting (DAP) and for end-of-season dry biomass yield (DBY) in four environments. We evaluated five genomic prediction models: Bayesian network (BN), Pleiotropic Bayesian network (PBN), Dynamic Bayesian network (DBN), multi-trait GBLUP (MTr-GBLUP), and multi-time GBLUP (MTi-GBLUP) models. In fivefold cross-validation, prediction accuracies ranged from 0.46 (PBN) to 0.49 (MTr-GBLUP) for DBY and from 0.47 (DBN, DAP120) to 0.75 (MTi-GBLUP, DAP60) for PH. Forward-chaining cross-validation further improved prediction accuracies of the DBN, MTi-GBLUP and MTr-GBLUP models for PH (training slice: 30-45 DAP) by 36.4-52.4% relative to the BN and PBN models. Coincidence indices (target: biomass, secondary: PH) and a coincidence index based on lines (PH time series) showed that the ranking of lines by PH changed minimally after 45 DAP. These results suggest a two-level indirect selection method for PH at harvest (first-level target trait) and DBY (second-level target trait) could be conducted earlier in the season based on ranking of lines by PH at 45 DAP (secondary trait). With the advance of high-throughput phenotyping technologies, our proposed two-level indirect selection framework could be valuable for enhancing genetic gain per unit of time when selecting on developmental traits

Consultants in the Classroom: Pilot Study Assessing Multidisciplinary Center Collaboration

Communication center clients come in various forms. Many centers work with individuals and groups while some work with entire classrooms, departments, or colleges. Very few centers both partner with other campus consulting services and interact with large units. While a considerable amount of literature focuses on one-on-one consultations and some work focuses on collaboration between similar centers (McCall, Ellis, & Murphy, 2017), little, if any, research deals with these unique partnerships and how they collaborate to serve groups. This article examines how one communication center partnered with two other campus consulting services to create a purposeful and collaborative relationship with three sections of a communication course for an entire semester each. The goal of this work is to test effectiveness value of communication and similar consultants in the classroom, and to understand if one approach to consultant inclusion in the classroom is more empowering than another. To accomplish these goals, three groups, or classes, of students were used. The control group excluded all consultant participation. One experimental group had consultants embedded themselves into each class meeting. The other experimental group had consultants provide service-specific workshops during select class meetings. The collaborative partnership for this study included speaking, writing, and research center consultants and pre-and post-semester scales were used to compare empowerment levels and subject knowledge values between groups. Results suggest the workshop group produces higher empowerment and learning levels than other groups

Searching for Gravitational Waves from Binary Inspirals with LIGO

We describe the current status of the search for gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binary systems in LIGO data. We review the result from the first scientific run of LIGO (S1). We present the goals of the search of data taken in the second scientific run (S2) and describe the differences between the methods used in S1 and S2.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. Published in proceedings of the 8th Gravitational Wave Data Analysis Workshop, Milwaukee, WI, USA, 17-20 December 200

Rocaglates induce gain-of-function alterations to eIF4A and eIF4F

Rocaglates are a diverse family of biologically active molecules that have gained tremendous interest in recent years due to their promising activities in pre-clinical cancer studies. As a result, this family of compounds has been significantly expanded through the development of efficient synthetic schemes. However, it is unknown whether all of the members of the rocaglate family act through similar mechanisms of action. Here, we present a comprehensive study comparing the biological activities of >200 rocaglates to better understand how the presence of different chemical entities influences their biological activities. Through this, we find that most rocaglates preferentially repress the translation of mRNAs containing purine-rich 5' leaders, but certain rocaglates lack this bias in translation repression. We also uncover an aspect of rocaglate mechanism of action in which the pool of translationally active eIF4F is diminished due to the sequestration of the complex onto RNA.P50 GM067041 - NIGMS NIH HHS; R24 GM111625 - NIGMS NIH HHS; R35 GM118173 - NIGMS NIH HHSPublished versio