Rational design of biosafe crop resistance to a range of nematodes using RNA interference

Double stranded RNA (dsRNA) molecules targeting two genes have been identified that suppress economically important parasitic nematode species of banana. Proteasomal Alpha Subunit 4 (pas-4) and Actin-4 (act-4) were identified from a survey of sequence databases and cloned sequences for genes conserved across four pests of banana, Radopholus similis, Pratylenchus coffeae, Meloidogyne incognita and Helicotylenchus multicinctus. These four species were targeted with dsRNAs containing exact 21 nucleotide matches to the conserved regions. Potential off-target effects were limited by comparison to Caenorhabditis, Drosophila, rat, rice and Arabidopsis genomes. In vitro act-4 dsRNA treatment of R. similis suppressed target gene expression by 2.3 fold, nematode locomotion by 66 ± 4% and nematode multiplication on carrot discs by 49 ± 5%. The best transgenic carrot hairy root lines expressing act-4 or pas-4 dsRNA reduced transcript message abundance of target genes in R. similis by 7.9 fold and 4 fold and nematode multiplication by 94 ± 2% and 69 ± 3%, respectively. The same act-4 and pas-4 lines reduced P. coffeae target transcripts by 1.7 and 2 fold and multiplication by 50 ± 6% and 73 ± 8%. Multiplication of M. incognita on the pas-4 lines was reduced by 97 ± 1% and 99 ± 1% while target transcript abundance was suppressed 4.9 and 5.6 fold. There was no detectable RNAi effect on non-target nematodes exposed to dsRNAs targeting parasitic nematodes. This work defines a framework for development of a range of non-protein defences to provide broad resistance to pests and pathogens of crops

Journey to well-being:On the role of culture and place in Japanese spiritual tourism

In the past, research on tourist well-being has often employed a culturally universalist understanding of well-being, which ignores culturally specific aspects of well-being. To move towards a more nuanced concept of tourist well-being, we propose to consider (1) local conceptualizations of well-being, (2) place-bound well-being mechanisms, and (3) collective aspects of well-being. We do so based on our recent research on domestic tourism to Japanese sacred sites. We utilise our analyses of managerial well-being communications to explore the role of three different local well-being discourses (shiawase, koufuku, ikigai). Additionally, we present initial impressions from semi-structured interviews with domestic tourists at two sacred heritage sites in Kyoto, Japan, to illustrate the role places play in the well-being of individuals and their social circle. Based on our discussions, we look at what our conceptualization of well-being would mean for the field of tourism studies

Expression and trans-specific polymorphism of self-incompatibility RNases in Coffea (Rubiaceae)

Self-incompatibility (SI) is widespread in the angiosperms, but identifying the biochemical components of SI mechanisms has proven to be difficult in most lineages. Coffea (coffee; Rubiaceae) is a genus of old-world tropical understory trees in which the vast majority of diploid species utilize a mechanism of gametophytic self-incompatibility (GSI). The S-RNase GSI system was one of the first SI mechanisms to be biochemically characterized, and likely represents the ancestral Eudicot condition as evidenced by its functional characterization in both asterid (Solanaceae, Plantaginaceae) and rosid (Rosaceae) lineages. The S-RNase GSI mechanism employs the activity of class III RNase T2 proteins to terminate the growth of "self" pollen tubes. Here, we investigate the mechanism of Coffea GSI and specifically examine the potential for homology to S-RNase GSI by sequencing class III RNase T2 genes in populations of 14 African and Madagascan Coffea species and the closely related self-compatible species Psilanthus ebracteolatus. Phylogenetic analyses of these sequences aligned to a diverse sample of plant RNase T2 genes show that the Coffea genome contains at least three class III RNase T2 genes. Patterns of tissue-specific gene expression identify one of these RNase T2 genes as the putative Coffea S-RNase gene. We show that populations of SI Coffea are remarkably polymorphic for putative S-RNase alleles, and exhibit a persistent pattern of trans-specific polymorphism characteristic of all S-RNase genes previously isolated from GSI Eudicot lineages. We thus conclude that Coffea GSI is most likely homologous to the classic Eudicot S-RNase system, which was retained since the divergence of the Rubiaceae lineage from an ancient SI Eudicot ancestor, nearly 90 million years ago.United States National Science Foundation [0849186]; Society of Systematic Biologists; American Society of Plant Taxonomists; Duke University Graduate Schoolinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Online approximations for wind-field models

We study online approximations to Gaussian process models for spatially distributed systems. We apply our method to the prediction of wind fields over the ocean surface from scatterometer data. Our approach combines a sequential update of a Gaussian approximation to the posterior with a sparse representation that allows to treat problems with a large number of observations

Tourism metagovernance and the role of the state:Insights from post-blast Beirut

This paper examines the institutionalised interests and values that underpin tourism governance (i.e., tourism metagovernance), to explain why certain governance arrangements appear and how they function. We examined the redevelopment of Beirut's tourism-dependent Mar Mikhael and Gemmayze neighbourhoods in the aftermath of the 2020 port blast. The chaotic post-disaster setting reflected and amplified the ineffectiveness of the already existing, strongly intertwined, metagovernance of urban development and urban tourism in Beirut. The state's absence resulted in enhanced community vulnerability, uncoordinated donor-led disaster responses, and limited strategic rebuilding of tourism and cultural activities. Even when the state as a key governance intermediary is absent, its relational and institutional roles affect tourism metagovernance and, therefore, influence the resilience of tourism governance and development.<br/

Tourism metagovernance and the role of the state:Insights from post-blast Beirut

This paper examines the institutionalised interests and values that underpin tourism governance (i.e., tourism metagovernance), to explain why certain governance arrangements appear and how they function. We examined the redevelopment of Beirut's tourism-dependent Mar Mikhael and Gemmayze neighbourhoods in the aftermath of the 2020 port blast. The chaotic post-disaster setting reflected and amplified the ineffectiveness of the already existing, strongly intertwined, metagovernance of urban development and urban tourism in Beirut. The state's absence resulted in enhanced community vulnerability, uncoordinated donor-led disaster responses, and limited strategic rebuilding of tourism and cultural activities. Even when the state as a key governance intermediary is absent, its relational and institutional roles affect tourism metagovernance and, therefore, influence the resilience of tourism governance and development.<br/

Calibration of Traffic Simulation Models using SPSA

Εθνικό Μετσόβιο Πολυτεχνείο--Μεταπτυχιακή Εργασία. Διεπιστημονικό-Διατμηματικό Πρόγραμμα Μεταπτυχιακών Σπουδών (Δ.Π.Μ.Σ.) “Γεωπληροφορική

Scientific user requirements for a herbarium data portal

The digitization of herbaria and their online access will greatly facilitate access to plant collections around the world. This will improve the efficiency of taxonomy and help reduce inequalities between scientists. The Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium, is currently digitizing 1.2 million specimens including label data. In this paper we describe the user requirements analysis conducted for a new herbarium web portal. The aim was to identify the required functionality, but also to assist in the prioritization of software development and data acquisition. The Garden conducted the analysis in cooperation with Clockwork, the digital engagement agency of Ordina. Using a series of interactive interviews, potential users were consulted from universities, research institutions, science-policy initiatives and the Botanic Garden Meise. Although digital herbarium data have many potential stakeholders, we focused on the needs of taxonomists, ecologists and historians, who are currently the primary users of the Meise herbarium data portal. The three categories of user have similar needs, all wanted as much specimen data as possible, and for those data, to be interlinked with other digital resources within and outside the Garden. Many users wanted an interactive system that they could comment on, or correct online, particularly if such corrections and annotations could be used to rank the reliability of data. Many requirements depend on the quality of the digitized data associated with each specimen. The essential data fields are the taxonomic name; geographic location; country; collection date; collector name and collection number. Also all researchers valued linkage between biodiversity literature and specimens. Nevertheless, to verify digitized data the researchers still want access to high quality images, even if fully transcribed label information is provided. The only major point of disagreement is the level of access users should have and what they should be allowed to do with the data and images. Not all of the user requirements are feasible given the current technical and regulatory landscape, however, the potential of these suggestions is discussed. Currently, there is no off-the-shelf solution to satisfy all these user requirements, but the intention of this paper is to guide other herbaria who are prioritising their investment in digitization and online web functionalit

Tornado: Automatic Generation of Probing-Secure Masked Bitsliced Implementations

International audienceCryptographic implementations deployed in real world devices often aim at (provable) security against the powerful class of side-channel attacks while keeping reasonable performances. Last year at Asiacrypt, a new formal verification tool named tightPROVE was put forward to exactly determine whether a masked implementation is secure in the well-deployed probing security model for any given security order t. Also recently, a compiler named Usuba was proposed to automatically generate bitsliced implementations of cryptographic primitives.This paper goes one step further in the security and performances achievements with a new automatic tool named Tornado. In a nutshell, from the high-level description of a cryptographic primitive, Tornado produces a functionally equivalent bitsliced masked implementation at any desired order proven secure in the probing model, but additionally in the so-called register probing model which much better fits the reality of software implementations. This framework is obtained by the integration of Usuba with tightPROVE+, which extends tightPROVE with the ability to verify the security of implementations in the register probing model and to fix them with inserting refresh gadgets at carefully chosen locations accordingly.We demonstrate Tornado on the lightweight cryptographic primitives selected to the second round of the NIST competition and which somehow claimed to be masking friendly. It advantageously displays performances of the resulting masked implementations for several masking orders and prove their security in the register probing model