Names of Bacidia s. l. in current use for foliicolous lichens — an annotated nomenclatural study

Abstract The checklist contains 135 names in current use for taxa of former Bacidia s. l. and 99 synonyms or invalid names. Place of description or new combination, basionym, synonyms, type, distribution is given for species. Type species, substrate, number of foliicolous species, systematic position, distribution is given for genera. Data are edited similarly with the online checklist on foliicolous lichens last updated by Lücking and his co-authors in 2000. The list contains the following 7 new combinations: Bacidina cinnamomea (Kremp.) Farkas, Bacidina clauzadei (Sérus. et Lambinon) Farkas, Brasilicia foliicola (Vězda) Farkas, Brasilicia ituriensis (Vězda) Farkas, Brasilicia olivaceorufa (Vain.) Farkas, Brasilicia subsimilis (Vězda) Farkas, Szczawinskia permira (Vězda) Farkas. The genus Bacidia De Not. is excluded from the checklist of foliicolous lichens, as all of its former foliicolous species are now belonging to other genera. Current names are in the following 12 genera: Bacidina, Badimia, Badimiella, Baflavia, Bapalmuia, Barubria, Brasilicia, Eugeniella, Fellhanera, Fellhaneropsis, Scoliciosporum and Szczawinskia

Foliicolous lichen collections on Mount Kanga, Tanzania (East Africa)

Abstract The Tanzanian Mt Kanga was at first visited by Tamás Pócs in 1987 when he collected foliicolous lichens in lowland rainforest between 800 and 900 m elevation and in submontane rainforest between 900 and 1,250 m. Later, in 1989 he returned there with participants of the Nguru Mts expedition, when the author collected further lichens including foliicolous ones in three different forest types (dry evergreen and semi-evergreen forest at 600–800 m, submontane rainforest at 850–1,200 m and rocky forest at 1,200–1,300 m). Altogether 37 species became known from the area. The comparison of collections revealed that submontane rainforests (including rocky forests) are the richest of the studied forest types in foliicolous lichens. Mt Kanga is characterised by rare species like Calopadia editae discovered by Antonín Vězda in material from Mt Kanga, described and validated in 2011 by Chaves and Lücking based on materials from Mt Kanga and Costa Rica. The new combination Brasilicia dimerelloides (Vězda) Farkas is introduced. The palaeotropical Fouragea viridistellata (Sérus., Lücking et Sparrius) Ertz et Frisch described in 2008 is reported here as new for Tanzania

Use of conductimetric technique for data capture in predictive microbiology

Conductimetry as an alternative data capture method for following microbial growth has a great potential as a research tool of predictive microbiology. In spite of this fact there is only a limited number of applications using conductimetric data for model generation. In this study the growth of single strains of Listeria monocytogenes and Lactococcus lactis was tested in 5 media using a RABITinstrument. The goal of the work was to find selective growth media for Listeria and Lactococcus, respectively, in order to study their interaction in mixed-culture using the conductimetric technique. Whitley Anaerobic broth, Whitley Impedance broth and modified Whitely Impedance broth (Whitley Impedance broth + Chloramphenicol 7 mg l Ś1) were not suitable for following selectively the growth of Lactococcus lactis or Listeria monocytogenes in a mixed culture of the two bacteria. BiMedia 630 A for Lactococcus lactis and Bimedia 403 A for Listeria monocytogenes satisfied the demands raised by conductance measurement. Linear correlations were established between the graphically estimated TTD values of the conductance curves and the logarithmic numbers of colony forming units (CFU). The correlations were very strong in each case (determination coefficients (R 2) of the linear regression were higher than 0.98 at both medium-strain combinations). However, in BiMedia 630 Listeria monocytogenes was capable of slow growth, therefore, this medium would be feasible for studying microbial interactions if only low concentrations of Listeria (less than 10 6 CFU ml Ś1) were present in the mixed culture

Unanticipated differences between α- and γ-diaminobutyric acid-linked hairpin polyamide-alkylator conjugates

Hairpin polyamide–chlorambucil conjugates containing an {alpha}-diaminobutyric acid ({alpha}-DABA) turn moiety are compared to their constitutional isomers containing the well-characterized {gamma}-DABA turn. Although the DNA-binding properties of unconjugated polyamides are similar, the {alpha}-DABA conjugates display increased alkylation specificity and decreased rate of reaction. Treatment of a human colon carcinoma cell line with {alpha}-DABA versus {gamma}-DABA hairpin conjugates shows only slight differences in toxicities while producing similar effects on cell morphology and G2/M stage cell cycle arrest. However, striking differences in animal toxicity between the two classes are observed. Although mice treated with an {alpha}-DABA hairpin polyamide do not differ significantly from control mice, the analogous {gamma}-DABA hairpin is lethal. This dramatic difference from a subtle structural change would not have been predicted

Extremes of randomly scaled Gumbel risks

We investigate the product Y1Y2 of two independent positive risks Y1 and Y2. If Y1 has distribution in the Gumbel max-domain of attraction with some auxiliary function which is regularly varying at infinity and Y2 is bounded, then we show that Y1Y2 has also distribution in the Gumbel max-domain of attraction. If both Y1,Y2 have log-Weibullian or Weibullian tail behaviour, we prove that Y1Y2 has log-Weibullian or Weibullian asymptotic tail behaviour, respectively. We present here three theoretical applications concerned with a) the limit of point-wise maxima of randomly scaled Gaussian processes, b) extremes of Gaussian processes over random intervals, and c) the tail of supremum of iterated processes