High throughput transcriptome analysis of coffee reveals prehaustorial resistance in response to Hemileia vastatrix infection.

Coffee rust disease, caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, is one of the major diseases in coffee throughout the world. The use of resistant cultivars is considered to be the most effective control strategy for this disease. To identify candidate genes related to different mechanism defense in coffee, we present a time-course comparative gene expression profile of Caturra (susceptible) and Híbrido de Timor (HdT, resistant) in response to H. vastatrix race XXXIII infection. The main objectives were to obtain a global overview of transcriptome in both interaction, compatible and incompatible, and, specially, analyze up-regulated HdT specific genes with inducible resistant and defense signaling pathways. Using both Coffea canephora as a reference genome and de novo assembly, we obtained 43,159 transcripts. At early infection events (12 and 24 h after infection), HdT responded to the attack of H. vastatrix with a larger number of up-regulated genes than Caturra, which was related to prehaustorial resistance. The genes found in HdT at early hours were involved in receptor-like kinases, response ion fluxes, production of reactive oxygen species, protein phosphorylation, ethylene biosynthesis and callose deposition. We selected 13 up-regulated HdTexclusive genes to validate by real-time qPCR, which most of them confirmed their higher expression in HdT than in Caturra at early stage of infection. These genes have the potential to assist the development of new coffee rust control strategies. Collectively, our results provide understanding of expression profiles in coffee?H. vastatrix interaction over a time course in susceptible and resistant coffee plants

Non-destructive assessment of quality traits in apples and pears using near infrared spectroscopy and chemometrics.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of a hand-held NIR spectrometer for non-destructive quality analysis of apples and pears produced in the Brazilian Semi-arid region. NIR spectra were acquired with a portable spectrometer in the wavelength range of 750–1065 nm and reference analyses of dry matter content (DMC) and soluble solids content (SSC) were measured weekly during 10 weeks of storage at 0.5 °C. Spectra were pre-processed with standard normal variate and used to develop DMC and SSC models using partial least squares re- gression with full cross-validation. The models were validated using data not included in the calibration. Satisfactory prediction results were obtained for SSC in apples (R² = 0.58) and pears (R² = 0.55), and for DMC in apples (R² = 0.55) and pears (R² = 0.65). All prediction models showed a relative root mean square error of prediction lower than 8%. These findings indicate that the NIR spectrometer is a promising tool to be used for a rapid and non-destructive determination of internal quality traits in apples and pears

Portable VIS-NIR spectrometer for non-destructive determination of quality traits in apples and pears.

The objective of this study was to assess the performance of a handheld VIS-NIR spectrometer for non-destructively quality analysis of apples and pears produced in the Brazilian Semi-arid region

Programa de mejoramiento genetico de la raza girolando - Sumário de toros - Resultado de la prueba de progenie - Julio 2014.

La historia existosa que la raza Girolando viene delineando al largo de su crecimiento se inicia con el registro oficial de la raza en 1996, por el Ministério da Agricultura en Brasil, viene siendo fuertemente impulsada por las iniciativas de mejoramiento genético realizadas por la Girolando y la Embrapa Ganado de Leche, tales como, la Prueba de Progenie, inicia-da en 1997, y Programa de Mejoramiento Genético de la Raza Girolando, que comenzó en 2007. El trabajo en conjunto con las dos instituciones en prol de la raza Girolando, para la pro-ducción de este sumario, involuncra el empeño, a cada año, de un equipo alrededor de una centena de profesionales de diversas áreas del sector productivo y campos de la ciencia, cuyo trabajo se inicia en el registro de los datos en campo; prospección, organización y ad-ministración de los rebaños colaboradores por la asociación, tratamiento, armanezamento y análisis de datos, bien como, la efectiva producción del presente documento, que, como resultado de este extenso trabajo, sintetiza diversas informaciones de grande valía para ganaderos, en general, y para toda la comunidad involuncrada. El documento Sumario de Toros/Resultados de la Prueba de Progenie, en el corriente año, alcanzó la edición de número nueve y, a cada nueva edición, presente herramientas y res-cursos innovadores para profesionales y/o criadores, tal como, informaciones a respecto de marcadores moleculares, el Sistema de Evaluación Linear Girolando (SALG) y la evalución genética para edad al primer parto. Sin embargo, para que todo este trabajo se revierta en beneficio efectivo para la raza Gi-rolando, es importante que criadores, ganaderos y profesionales del área utilicen, cada vez más, estos resultados como uma primordial fuente de informaciones en los procesos deci-sorios para la mejoría de sus rebaños.bitstream/item/111883/1/DOC-172-Girolando-Esp-Completo.pd

Initial results of NEXT-DEMO, a large-scale prototype of the NEXT-100 experiment

NEXT-DEMO is a large scale prototype and demonstrator of the NEXT-100 High Pressure Xenon Gas TPC, which will search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of Xe-136 using 100-150 kg of enriched xenon gas. The apparatus was built to prove the expected performance of NEXT-100, namely, energy resolution better than 1% FWHM at 2.5 MeV and event topological reconstruction. In this paper we describe the operation and initial results of the detector. A resolution of 1.7% FWHM at 511 keV (0.77% FWHM at 2.5 MeV) is obtained in the full fiducial volume of the detector. A topological analysis shows that electrons are identified by the characteristic blob energy deposit associated to the Bragg peak in 98.5% of the cases, with a rate of misidentification (two blobs) of 0.14%

Ionization and scintillation response of high-pressure xenon gas to alpha particles

High-pressure xenon gas is an attractive detection medium for a variety of applications in fundamental and applied physics. In this paper we study the ionization and scintillation detection properties of xenon gas at 10 bar pressure. For this purpose, we use a source of alpha particles in the NEXT-DEMO time projection chamber, the large scale prototype of the NEXT-100 neutrinoless double beta decay experiment, in three different drift electric field configurations. We measure the ionization electron drift velocity and longitudinal diffusion, and compare our results to expectations based on available electron scattering cross sections on pure xenon. In addition, two types of measurements addressing the connection between the ionization and scintillation yields are performed. On the one hand we observe, for the first time in xenon gas, large event-by-event correlated fluctuations between the ionization and scintillation signals, similar to that already observed in liquid xenon. On the other hand, we study the field dependence of the average scintillation and ionization yields. Both types of measurements may shed light on the mechanism of electron-ion recombination in xenon gas for highly-ionizing particles. Finally, by comparing the response of alpha particles and electrons in NEXT-DEMO, we find no evidence for quenching of the primary scintillation light produced by alpha particles in the xenon gas

Near-intrinsic energy resolution for 30-662 keV gamma rays in a high pressure xenon electroluminescent TPC

We present the design, data and results from the NEXT prototype for Double Beta and Dark Matter (NEXT-DBDM) detector, a high-pressure gaseous natural xenon electroluminescent time projection chamber (TPC) that was built at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It is a prototype of the planned NEXT-100 136Xe neutrino-less double beta decay (0νββ) experiment with the main objectives of demonstrating near-intrinsic energy resolution at energies up to 662 keV and of optimizing the NEXT-100 detector design and operating parameters. Energy resolutions of ∼1% FWHM for 662 keV gamma rays were obtained at 10 and 15 atm and ∼5% FWHM for 30 keV fluorescence xenon X-rays. These results demonstrate that 0.5% FWHM resolutions for the 2,459 keV hypothetical neutrino-less double beta decay peak are realizable. This energy resolution is a factor 7 to 20 better than that of the current leading 0νββ experiments using liquid xenon and thus represents a significant advancement. We present also first results from a track imaging system consisting of 64 silicon photo-multipliers recently installed in NEXT-DBDM that, along with the excellent energy resolution, demonstrates the key functionalities required for the NEXT-100 0νββ search