1,763 research outputs found
The importance of international exchanges of plant genetic resources for national crop improvement in Costa Rica
One of the main considerations underlying the establishment of the International Treaty on
Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and its Multilateral System of Access and
Benefit Sharing is the recognition of countries’ high interdependence on the genetic resources
of the crops and forages which they depend upon for their food security. A continued
appreciation of how countries have benefited from facilitated exchange of germplasm in the
past and are likely to continue doing so in the future is needed, in order to move forward the
implementation of the Multilateral System and creating a truly global pool of genetic
resources for countries’ agricultural development and adaptation to climate change. Using
Costa Rica as a case and rice and bean as key crops, the paper presents a picture of the
dynamics of their genetic resources, both inside and outside of the country, over past years
and into the future. It illustrates the extent to which Costa Rica is dependent upon germplasm
from other countries for its food security, and how, in a complementary manner, other
countries rely upon germplasm from Costa Rica. It is hoped that the information presented
here may encourage and facilitate the implementation of the International Treaty and its
Multilateral System in the country
Multitasking associative networks
We introduce a bipartite, diluted and frustrated, network as a sparse
restricted Boltzman machine and we show its thermodynamical equivalence to an
associative working memory able to retrieve multiple patterns in parallel
without falling into spurious states typical of classical neural networks. We
focus on systems processing in parallel a finite (up to logarithmic growth in
the volume) amount of patterns, mirroring the low-level storage of standard
Amit-Gutfreund-Sompolinsky theory. Results obtained trough statistical
mechanics, signal-to-noise technique and Monte Carlo simulations are overall in
perfect agreement and carry interesting biological insights. Indeed, these
associative networks pave new perspectives in the understanding of multitasking
features expressed by complex systems, e.g. neural and immune networks.Comment: to appear on Phys.Rev.Let
Strong Reduction of the Field-Dependent Microwave Surface Resistance in YBCO with BaZrO_3 Inclusions
We present measurements of the magnetic field dependent microwave surface
resistance in laser-ablated YBaCuO films on SrTiO
substrates. BaZrO crystallites were included in the films using composite
targets containing BaZrO inclusions with mean grain size smaller than 1
m. X-ray diffraction showed single epitaxial relationship between
BaZrO and YBaCuO. The effective surface resistance was
measured at 47.7 GHz for 6090 K and 00.8 T. The magnetic
field had a very different effect on pristine YBaCuO and
YBaCuO/BaZrO, while for 0 only a reduction of
in the YBaCuO/BaZrO film was observed,
consistent with dc measurements. At low enough , in moderate fields
YBaCuO/BaZrO exhibited an intrinsic thin film
resistance lower than the pure film. The results clearly indicate that
BaZrO inclusions determine a strong reduction of the field-dependent
surface resistance. From the analysis of the data in the framework of simple
models for the microwave surface impedance in the mixed state we argue that
BaZrO inclusions determine very steep pinning potentials.Comment: LaTeX, 6 pages, 4 figures, uses jpconf.cls and jpconf11.clo class
files, talk given at EUCAS 2007, submitted to J. Phys.: Conf. Serie
An automated fluorescence videomicroscopy assay for the detection of mitotic catastrophe
Mitotic catastrophe can be defined as a cell death mode that occurs during or shortly after a prolonged/aberrant mitosis, and can show apoptotic or necrotic features. However, conventional procedures for the detection of apoptosis or necrosis, including biochemical bulk assays and cytofluorometric techniques, cannot discriminate among pre-mitotic, mitotic and post-mitotic death, and hence are inappropriate to monitor mitotic catastrophe. To address this issue, we generated isogenic human colon carcinoma cell lines that differ in ploidy and p53 status, yet express similar amounts of fluorescent biosensors that allow for the visualization of chromatin (histone H2B coupled to green fluorescent protein (GFP)) and centrosomes (centrin coupled to the Discosoma striata red fluorescent protein (DsRed)). By combining high-resolution fluorescence videomicroscopy and automated image analysis, we established protocols and settings for the simultaneous assessment of ploidy, mitosis, centrosome number and cell death (which in our model system occurs mainly by apoptosis). Time-lapse videomicroscopy showed that this approach can be used for the high-throughput detection of mitotic catastrophe induced by three mechanistically distinct anti-mitotic agents (dimethylenastron (DIMEN), nocodazole (NDZ) and paclitaxel (PTX)), and – in this context – revealed an important role of p53 in the control of centrosome number
Parallel processing in immune networks
In this work we adopt a statistical mechanics approach to investigate basic,
systemic features exhibited by adaptive immune systems. The lymphocyte network
made by B-cells and T-cells is modeled by a bipartite spin-glass, where,
following biological prescriptions, links connecting B-cells and T-cells are
sparse. Interestingly, the dilution performed on links is shown to make the
system able to orchestrate parallel strategies to fight several pathogens at
the same time; this multitasking capability constitutes a remarkable, key
property of immune systems as multiple antigens are always present within the
host. We also define the stochastic process ruling the temporal evolution of
lymphocyte activity, and show its relaxation toward an equilibrium measure
allowing statistical mechanics investigations. Analytical results are compared
with Monte Carlo simulations and signal-to-noise outcomes showing overall
excellent agreement. Finally, within our model, a rationale for the
experimentally well-evidenced correlation between lymphocytosis and
autoimmunity is achieved; this sheds further light on the systemic features
exhibited by immune networks.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures; to appear in Phys. Rev.
Analogue neural networks on correlated random graphs
We consider a generalization of the Hopfield model, where the entries of
patterns are Gaussian and diluted. We focus on the high-storage regime and we
investigate analytically the topological properties of the emergent network, as
well as the thermodynamic properties of the model. We find that, by properly
tuning the dilution in the pattern entries, the network can recover different
topological regimes characterized by peculiar scalings of the average
coordination number with respect to the system size. The structure is also
shown to exhibit a large degree of cliquishness, even when very sparse.
Moreover, we obtain explicitly the replica symmetric free energy and the
self-consistency equations for the overlaps (order parameters of the theory),
which turn out to be classical weighted sums of 'sub-overlaps' defined on all
possible sub-graphs. Finally, a study of criticality is performed through a
small-overlap expansion of the self-consistencies and through a whole
fluctuation theory developed for their rescaled correlations: Both approaches
show that the net effect of dilution in pattern entries is to rescale the
critical noise level at which ergodicity breaks down.Comment: 34 pages, 3 figure
The Way of Water: ALMA resolves H2O emission lines in a strongly lensed dusty star-forming galaxy at z 3.1
We report ALMA high-resolution observations of water emission lines
), ,
, in the strongly lensed galaxy
HATLASJ113526.2-01460 at redshift z 3.1. From the lensing-reconstructed
maps of water emission and line profiles, we infer the general physical
properties of the ISM in the molecular clouds where the lines arise. We find
that the water vapor lines , are mainly excited by FIR pumping from dust radiation in a
warm and dense environment, with dust temperatures ranging from 70 K to K, as suggested by the line ratios. The
line instead, is excited by a complex interplay between FIR pumping and
collisional excitation in the dense core of the star-forming region. This
scenario is also supported by the detection of the medium-level excitation of
CO resulting in the line emission CO (J=8-7). Thanks to the unprecedented high
resolution offered by the combination of ALMA capabilities and gravitational
lensing, we discern the different phases of the ISM and locate the hot
molecular clouds into a physical scale of 500 pc. We discuss the
possibility of J1135 hosting an AGN in its accretion phase. Finally, we
determine the relation between the water emission lines and the total IR
luminosity of J1135, as well as the SFR as a function of water emission
intensities, comparing the outcomes to local and high- galactic samples from
the literature.Comment: 23 pages, 13 figures, to be published in Astrophysical Journa
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