An Ontology for Submarine Feature Representation on Charts

A landform is a subjective individuation of a part of a terrain. Landform recognition is a difficult task because its definition usually relies on a qualitative and fuzzy description. Achieving automatic recognition of landforms requires a formal definition of the landforms properties and their modelling. In the maritime domain, the International Hydrographic Organisation published a standard terminology of undersea feature names which formalises a set of definition mainly for naming and communication purpose. This terminology is here used as a starting point for the definition of an ontology of undersea features and their automatic classification from a terrain model. First, an ontology of undersea features is built. The ontology is composed of an application domain ontology describing the main properties and relationships between features and a representation ontology deals with representation on a chart where features are portrayed by soundings and isobaths. A database model was generated from the ontology. Geometrical properties describing the feature shape are computed from soundings and isobaths and are used for feature classification. An example of automatic classification on a nautical chart is presented and results and on-going research are discussed

Kinetic energy driven superconductivity in doped cuprates

Within the t-J model, the mechanism of superconductivity in doped cuprates is studied based on the partial charge-spin separation fermion-spin theory. It is shown that dressed holons interact occurring directly through the kinetic energy by exchanging dressed spinon excitations, leading to a net attractive force between dressed holons, then the electron Cooper pairs originating from the dressed holon pairing state are due to the charge-spin recombination, and their condensation reveals the superconducting ground-state. The electron superconducting transition temperature is determined by the dressed holon pair transition temperature, and is proportional to the concentration of doped holes in the underdoped regime. With the common form of the electron Cooper pair, we also show that there is a coexistence of the electron Cooper pair and antiferromagnetic short-range correlation, and hence the antiferromagnetic short-range fluctuation can persist into the superconducting state. Our results are qualitatively consistent with experiments.Comment: 6 pages, Revtex, two figures are included, corrected typo

Methods for increasing nitrile biotransformation into amides using Mesorhizobium sp

Nitriles are potential soil pollutants from industrial wastewater. There has been increased demand for an efficient process for the nitrile degradation process. Nitrile hydratase (NHase) has been extensively used in the production of acrylamide and treatment of organocyanide-contaminated industrial effluents. The NHase of Mesorhizobium sp., isolated from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) activated sludge from fiber manufacturing wastewater treatment systems was studied in the whole bacterial cells. Different chemicals were added to observe the variation in the percentage of acrylonitrile converted into acrylamide. The result indicated that cobalt ions were the NHase cofactor and could increase the NHase activity. The addition of propionaldehyde, or butyraldehyde, could enhance the acrylonitrile conversion rate. Therefore, acrylamide could be accumulated effectively and the percentage of acrylonitrile converted into acrylamide increased. Propionaldehyde was the most effective NHase activator. The percentage of acrylonitrile converted into acrylamide was nearly 100% at 3.8 h when propionaldehyde was added at about 207.4 mg/l. The addition of benzaldehyde was unable to increase the percentage of acrylonitrile converted into acrylamide. EDTA and acrylamide showed no effect on NHase activity. However, 0.1 mg/l of Ag(2)SO(4) would slightly inhibit NHase activity, producing an acrylonitrile conversion rate of 492.9 mg/l with 54.9% converted at 29.1 h. The ability of the acrylonitrile biotransformation was completely inhibited if the Ag(2)SO(4) concentration was above 0.5 mg/l

Anomalous c-axis charge dynamics in copper oxide materials

Within the t-J model, the c-axis charge dynamics of the copper oxide materials in the underdoped and optimally doped regimes is studied by considering the incoherent interlayer hopping. It is shown that the c-axis charge dynamics is mainly governed by the scattering from the in-plane fluctuation. In the optimally doped regime, the c-axis resistivity is a linear in temperatures, and shows the metallic-like behavior for all temperatures, while the c-axis resistivity in the underdoped regime is characterized by a crossover from the high temperature metallic-like behavior to the low temperature semiconducting-like behavior, which are consistent with experiments and numerical simulations.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, Three figures are adde

Laser-induced crystalline optical waveguide on glass fibre

We report for the first time the fabrication of a novel glass ribbon fibre with laser-induced single (or quasi-single) crystalline (La,Yb)BGeO5 optical waveguide

Superconducting gap in the presence of bilayer splitting in underdoped Bi(Pb)2212

The clearly resolved bilayer splitting in ARPES spectra of the underdoped Pb-Bi2212 compound rises the question of how the bonding and antibonding sheets of the Fermi surface are gapped in the superconducting state. Here we compare the superconducting gaps for both split components and show that within the experimental uncertainties they are identical. By tuning the relative intensity of the bonding and antibonding bands using different excitation conditions we determine the precise {\bf k}-dependence of the leading edge gap. Significant deviations from the simple cos($k_{x}$)-cos($k_{y}$) gap function for the studied doping level are detected.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures (revtex4

What can we learn from a measurement of sin(2 beta + gamma)?

The constraints on the value of the CKM phase gamma that may be achieved by prospective measurements of sin(2 beta) and sin(2 beta + gamma) are discussed. Significant constraints require quite small errors, and may depend on assumptions about strong phases. The measurement of sin(2 beta + gamma) combined with other experiments could provide valuable limits on new physics in Bd-Bdbar mixing.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, RevTex 4, uses amsmath and graphic

Identification of QTLs associated with oil content and mapping FAD2 genes and their relative contribution to oil quality in peanut (Arachis hypogaeaL.)

Background Peanut is one of the major source for human consumption worldwide and its seed contain approximately 50% oil. Improvement of oil content and quality traits (high oleic and low linoleic acid) in peanut could be accelerated by exploiting linked markers through molecular breeding. The objective of this study was to identify QTLs associated with oil content, and estimate relative contribution of FAD2 genes (ahFAD2A and ahFAD2B) to oil quality traits in two recombinant inbred line (RIL) populations. Results Improved genetic linkage maps were developed for S-population (SunOleic 97R × NC94022) with 206 (1780.6 cM) and T-population (Tifrunner × GT-C20) with 378 (2487.4 cM) marker loci. A total of 6 and 9 QTLs controlling oil content were identified in the S- and T-population, respectively. The contribution of each QTL towards oil content variation ranged from 3.07 to 10.23% in the S-population and from 3.93 to 14.07% in the T-population. The mapping positions for ahFAD2A (A sub-genome) and ahFAD2B (B sub-genome) genes were assigned on a09 and b09 linkage groups. The ahFAD2B gene (26.54%, 25.59% and 41.02% PVE) had higher phenotypic effect on oleic acid (C18:1), linoleic acid (C18:2), and oleic/linoleic acid ratio (O/L ratio) than ahFAD2A gene (8.08%, 6.86% and 3.78% PVE). The FAD2 genes had no effect on oil content. This study identified a total of 78 main-effect QTLs (M-QTLs) with up to 42.33% phenotypic variation (PVE) and 10 epistatic QTLs (E-QTLs) up to 3.31% PVE for oil content and quality traits. Conclusions A total of 78 main-effect QTLs (M-QTLs) and 10 E-QTLs have been detected for oil content and oil quality traits. One major QTL (more than 10% PVE) was identified in both the populations for oil content with source alleles from NC94022 and GT-C20 parental genotypes. FAD2 genes showed high effect for oleic acid (C18:1), linoleic acid (C18:2), and O/L ratio while no effect on total oil content. The information on phenotypic effect of FAD2 genes for oleic acid, linoleic acid and O/L ratio, and oil content will be applied in breeding selection

An angle-resolved photoemission spectral function analysis of the electron doped cuprate Nd_1.85Ce_0.15CuO_4

Using methods made possible by recent advances in photoemission technology, we perform an indepth line-shape analysis of the angle-resolved photoemission spectra of the electron doped (n-type) cuprate superconductor Nd_1.85Ce_0.15CuO_4. Unlike for the p-type materials, we only observe weak mass renormalizations near 50-70 meV. This may be indicative of smaller electron-phonon coupling or due to the masking effects of other interactions that make the electron-phonon coupling harder to detect. This latter scenario may suggest limitations of the spectral function analysis in extracting electronic self-energies when some of the interactions are highly momentum dependent.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Nucleocapsid Protein as Early Diagnostic Marker for SARS

Serum samples from 317 patients with patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) were tested for the nucleocapsid (N) protein of SARS-associated coronavirus, with sensitivities of 94% and 78% for the first 5 days and 6–10 days after onset, respectively. The specificity was 99.9%. N protein can be used as an early diagnostic maker for SARS