Compounds Exuded by \u3cem\u3ePhaseolus vulgaris\u3c/em\u3e That Induce a Modification of \u3cem\u3eRhizobium etli\u3c/em\u3e Lipopolysaccharide

Exudates released from germinating seeds and roots of a black-seeded bean (Phaseolus vulgaris cv. Midnight Black Turtle Soup) induce an antigenic change in the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of Rhizobium etli CE3. By spectroscopic analyses and chromatographic comparisons with derived standards, the chemical structures of the aglycone portions of the major inducing molecules from seed exudate were deduced, and they were identified as delphinidin, cyanidin, petunidin, and malvidin. These anthocyanidins were present in seed exudate mainly as glycosides, the chief inducer being delphinidin 3-glucoside. Also present were 3-glucosides of petunidin and malvidin and glycosides of cyanidin and delphinidin. Seed exudate from a bean variety deficient in anthocyanins did not induce the LPS conversion. The ability of root exudate to induce an antigenic change in the LPS was due to compounds other than anthocyanins

Berkeley Freshwomen Look at Women\u27s Studies

It changed my life! students in women\u27s studies courses often say. Indeed, some surveys suggest that the feminist consciousness developed in such courses is not reversible, that it leads students to a new perception of their lives. But what are the attitudes of students who have not yet been exposed to women\u27s studies (WS) courses? Do they know what WS is about? Do they think that knowledge of the past and present lives of women in the United States and other cultures will be pertinent to their personal and professional plans? Or do they reject WS as an inappropriate field of study at an academic institution or as a fad? In Fall, 1979, I posed these and other questions to a randomly-selected group of 54 female first year students (average age of 18) at the University of California, Berkeley. I also asked them about their personal goals, their perceptions of the present situation of American women, and their opinions about the activities of the women\u27s movement. (The complete report on which this article is based is available from the Women\u27s Studies Program, University of California, Berkeley; a summary is forthcoming in Women\u27s Studies International Quarterly.

Rapid biodiversity assessment of arthropods for monitoring average local species richness and related ecosystem services

Rapid biodiversity assessment (RBA) is proposed as an affordable indicator for monitoring local species richness of arthropods and sustainability of related ecosystem services. The indicator is based on strictly standardised sampling procedures and the identification of parataxonomic units (morphospecies) instead of species identification. The collection of arthropods was optimized with regard to trap types, time and length of collecting period, selection of four out of seven weekly samples, and choice of counted taxa and trophic guilds. By measuring arthropod activity, RBA is an indicator for functional diversity. Over a period of 8years, average yearly numbers of morphospecies were assessed in Switzerland in 15 agricultural habitats, 15 managed forests, and in 12 unmanaged habitats ranging from protected lowland wetlands to Alpine meadows. The yearly RBA-trend in unmanaged habitats is used for assessing the influence of climate and weather on biodiversity, and as a reference for measuring the relative influences of recent management changes in agriculture and forestry. The average number of morphospecies per sampling station per year depends on temperature, and was only marginally significantly increasing over time in agriculture, but not in forestry or unmanaged areas. Three RBA indices considered to be relevant for maintaining ecosystem services were calculated from the average number of morphospecies per location per year: (1) indicator for ecological resilience and sustainability (all morphospecies); (2) indicator for pollinator diversity (taxa with a majority of pollinators) and (3) indicator for biocontrol diversity (ratio between carnivore and herbivore guilds

Singing from the Grave: DNA from a 180 Year Old Type Specimen Confirms the Identity of Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens)

Copyright: © 2015 Price et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The attached file is the published version of the article

Anatomy of the regional differences in the eye of the mantis Ciulfina

In the compound eye of Ciulfina (Mantidae) there are large regional differences in interommatidial angle as measured optically from the pseudo-pupil. Notably there is an acute zone which looks backwards as well as one looking forwards. There are correlated regional differences in the dimensions of the ommatidia. The following anatomical features which influence the optical performance have been measured in different parts of the eye The facet diameter is greater where the interommatidial angle is smaller. This could influence resolving power, but calculation shows that facet size does not exert a dominant effect on the visual fields of the receptors. The rhabdom tip diameter, which theoretically has a strong influence on the size of visual fields, is narrower in eye regions where the interommatidial angle is smaller. The cone length, from which the focal length can be estimated, is greater where the interommatidial angle is smaller. Estimation of the amount of light reaching the rhabdom suggests that different parts of the eye have similar sensitivity to a point source of light, but differ by a factor of at least 10 in sensitivity to an extended source. There is anatomical evidence that in the acute zone the sensitivity has been sacrificed for the sake of resolution. Maps of the theoretical minimum fields of the photoreceptors, plotted in their positions on the eye in angular coordinates, suggest that there are too few ommatidia for the eye as a whole to reconstruct all the visual detail that the individual receptors can resolve. The conclusion from (3) and (4), together with some behavioural evidence, suggests that the eye structure must make possible the resolution of small movements of contrasting edges and of small dark contrasting objects but there is less emphasis on the total reconstruction of fine patterns because the interommatidial angle is greater than the estimate of the acceptance angle

Genetic Locus Required for Antigenic Maturation of \u3cem\u3eRhizobium etli\u3c/em\u3e CE3 Lipopolysaccharide

Rhizobium etli modifies lipopolysaccharide (LPS) structure in response to environmental signals, such as low pH and anthocyanins. These LPS modifications result in the loss of reactivity with certain monoclonal antibodies. The same antibodies fail to recognize previously isolated R. etli mutant strain CE367, even in the absence of such environmental cues. Chemical analysis of the LPS in strain CE367 demonstrated that it lacked the terminal sugar of the wild-type O antigen, 2,3,4-tri-O-methylfucose. A 3-kb stretch of DNA, designated as lpe3, restored wild-type antigenicity when transferred into CE367. From the sequence of this DNA, five open reading frames were postulated. Site-directed mutagenesis and complementation analysis suggested that the genes were organized in at least two transcriptional units, both of which were required for the production of LPS reactive with the diagnostic antibodies. Growth in anthocyanins or at low pH did not alter the specific expression of gusA from the transposon insertion of mutant CE367, nor did the presence of multiple copies of lpe3 situated behind a strong, constitutive promoter prevent epitope changes induced by these environmental cues. Mutations of the lpe genes did not prevent normal nodule development on Phaseolus vulgaris and had very little effect on the occupation of nodules in competition with the wild-type strain

Hotspots and richness pattern of grasshopper species in cultural landscapes

The success of the hotspot approach for biodiversity conservation depends on the spatial scale and the indicator species used. In this study, we investigated grasshopper species richness in Switzerland at a 1ha resolution including a total of 111 species. We compared the representativeness of common and of endangered grasshopper species for the overall grasshopper species richness and we assessed the efficiency of the hotspot approach for grasshopper conservation. The pattern of overall grasshopper species richness was well represented by both the number of common and the number of endangered grasshopper species. For evaluating the efficiency of different hotspot approaches for conservation, we compared hotspots of common species, hotspots of endangered species (rarity hotspots), and hotspots of all grasshopper species (richness hotspots). Among these hotspot types, richness hotspots not only featured most common grasshopper species, but they even contained more endangered species than the rarity hotspots. The combination of rarity hotspots and hotspots of common species featured more species than the other combinations of hotspot types. However, the gain of combining two hotspot types compared to the single-hotspot approach was low (max. 3 species). About 24% of the species were not contained in any of the hotspots. These grasshopper species require species-specific action plans. As rarity hotspots were located in areas that are rather strongly affected by landscape change, species richness in rarity hotspots may decrease in the future. We conclude that, for grasshoppers, the hotspot approach on the 1ha scale can be an effective way to conserve a high proportion of species richnes

Extended theoretical and experimental studies of the calcium looping process for carbon dioxide capture

The world is at a critical juncture in its efforts to combat climate change. Since the first Conference of the Parties (COP) in 1995, greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions have risen by more than one-quarter and the atmospheric concentration of these gases has increased steadily to 435 parts per million carbon-dioxide equivalent (ppm CO2-eq) in 2012 [1]. The international commitment to keep the increase in long-term average temperatures below two degrees Centigrade, compared to pre-industrial levels, requires substantial and sustained reductions in global emissions. Given the dominant role that fossil fuels continue to play in primary energy consumption followed by the continuously increasing global energy demand, the deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS) is imperative [1]. The individual component technologies required for CO2 capture, transport and storage are generally well-understood and, in some cases, technologically mature. The largest challenge for CCS deployment is the integration of component technologies into large-scale (demonstration) projects. In this direction simulation and modeling works allow a cost effective investigation of the feasibility and the applicability of the prototype technology as well as its development and optimization. In addition, complete process approach allows determination of the impact that integration of the CO2 capture plant imposes on the power plant. However, a reliable assessment of the process performance requires the process models to be validated with experimental data. In this work, one of the major CCS technologies, the calcium looping process is realized, investigated and evaluated at a 10 kWth dual fluidized bed (DFB) continuously operating facility at the University of Stuttgart. The performance of the process in terms of CO2 capture in the carbonator and sorbent calcination in the regenerator is studied. Natural limestones were used. The process was realised in presence of water vapor in both carbonator and regenerator reactor. The calcination took place in high CO2 concentration representative of the oxy-fuel combustion in the regenerator. Synthetic flue gas was used while both reactors were electrically heated with supplementary CH4 combustion in the regenerator when necessary. The Ca flow circulating between the reactors as well as the Ca mass in the reactors were varied. The regenerator and the carbonator temperatures were varied. The sorbent CO2 capture ability was studied through thermogravimetric analysis of the samples taken during experimentation. Attrition phenomena were studied by measuring the particle size distribution and weighting the material collected from the cyclones of the DFB facility. The experimentation was successfully performed with reliable data and the trends observed are in good agreement with previous works. It was shown that CO2 capture efficiencies of more than 90% can be achieved at conditions closer to the industrial ones. The CO2 capture efficiency was improving by increasing bed inventory and looping ratio. The sorbent calcination degree is a decreasing function of the carbonate content of the incoming solid flow and an increasing function of the particle residence time and reactor temperature. In presence of water vapor, CO2 capture efficiencies of more than 90% and complete sorbent calcination were achieved for looping ratios of around 8. The temperatures were for the regenerator not more than 1193K and for the carbonator around 903K. The sorbent carbonation conversion was retained at about 0.2 molCaCO3/molCaO, constant for many hours of operation. The material loss was measured to be around 4.5%wt/h based on the total system inventory while the mean particle size of the sorbent decreased to around 400 µm and remained constant for many hours of operation. Simplified semi-empirical models were successfully implemented in the experimental results. Kinetic and attrition constants were calculated and a good agreement between the predicted and the actual data is shown. Design parameter of active space time was found to be 30s for the carbonator and 0.11h for the regenerator with efficiencies of more than 90% in both reactors

El diseño expresivo de la ciudad

En la ciudad de Córdoba, en su área central y algunos sectores específicos, existen manifestaciones de contenido mayormente artístico que denominaremos el “diseño expresivo”. Por ejemplo, proyectos como el “Puentes” que son de insignia estatal vienen atravesando diferentes gestiones municipales y provinciales. Con el tiempo, las percepciones sociales de los murales fueron cambiando y ganando adeptos, situación que se dio en conjunto con una profesionalización de los artistas, con mayor organización de las intervenciones, incluso con organizaciones de muralistas para tratar de equilibrar el mercado estableciendo referencias de cotización, etc. Se fue ampliando el lugar disponible para expresiones de este tipo, en tamaño y en importancia, y la aceptación pública fue siempre positiva. Esto demuestra que la percepción del espacio va cambiando, el arte en este caso viene a cumplir una función que aporta una posibilidad de percepción distinta de los espacios, una percepción singular. Las manifestaciones que proliferan por la ciudad tienen diversas formas y denominaciones, como pueden ser: arte urbano, Street art, grafiti, publicidad, marketing de fachada de negocios, etc. He aquí el primer inconveniente que se da para caracterizar estos conjuntos de expresiones. La utilización del término “arte” es muy amplia y susceptible de múltiples interpretaciones no necesariamente aplicables a los elementos urbanos que se observarán en este estudio. Es por esto que buscamos delimitar una terminología propia que contenga significativamente aquello que queremos estudiar. El término elegido para este trabajo es: el diseño expresivo.Fil: Duelli, Federico. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Diseño; Argentina.Fil: Basualdo, José Luis. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Diseño; Argentina