Deep sequencing of the Mexican avocado transcriptome, an ancient angiosperm with a high content of fatty acids

Background: Avocado (Persea americana) is an economically important tropical fruit considered to be a good source of fatty acids. Despite its importance, the molecular and cellular characterization of biochemical and developmental processes in avocado is limited due to the lack of transcriptome and genomic information. Results: The transcriptomes of seeds, roots, stems, leaves, aerial buds and flowers were determined using different sequencing platforms. Additionally, the transcriptomes of three different stages of fruit ripening (pre-climacteric, climacteric and post-climacteric) were also analyzed. The analysis of the RNAseqatlas presented here reveals strong differences in gene expression patterns between different organs, especially between root and flower, but also reveals similarities among the gene expression patterns in other organs, such as stem, leaves and aerial buds (vegetative organs) or seed and fruit (storage organs). Important regulators, functional categories, and differentially expressed genes involved in avocado fruit ripening were identified. Additionally, to demonstrate the utility of the avocado gene expression atlas, we investigated the expression patterns of genes implicated in fatty acid metabolism and fruit ripening. Conclusions: A description of transcriptomic changes occurring during fruit ripening was obtained in Mexican avocado, contributing to a dynamic view of the expression patterns of genes involved in fatty acid biosynthesis and the fruit ripening process

Japanese career progress: an empirical examination

This article investigates managerial career progress in a major Japanese multinational corporation over a 23-year period. We contrast our one-stage model of career progress, in which early career experiences can predict long-term career progress, with the well-accepted two-stage model of career progress, in which performance at the end of the first stage determines long-term career progress. In addition, we compare the predictions of our early screening model with those of the tournament model. Our early screening model is as good as or better than the other models in isolation or combination. Overall, we provide preliminary evidence that career progress in Japanese organizations during the high growth period of the 1970s and 1980s was perhaps more complex than shown by the two-stage career progress model that has enjoyed widespread acceptance. Journal of International Business Studies (2006) 37, 148–161. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400175

Distributed Dynamic Spectrum Access in Multichannel Random Access Networks with Selfish Users

Dynamic spectrum allocation schemes enable users to share spectrum resources by exploiting the variations in spectrum demand over time and space. Performing dynamic spectrum allocation centrally can be prohibitively complex. Therefore distributed schemes in which users can access the available channels independently may be preferable to centralized allocation. However, in distributed dynamic spectrum access, the lack of central coordination makes it difficult to utilize the system resources efficiently. Furthermore, if some or all of the users decide to deviate selfishly from the commonly agreed access procedure, this may have a decisive effect on system performance. In this paper we investigate the effect of incomplete information and selfish behavior on system performance in wireless access systems. We extend previous work by studying a distributed multichannel wireless random access system. Using a game-theoretic approach, we analyze the behavior of users in the selfish system and derive the transmission strategies at the Nash equilibrium. Our results show that lack of information leads to substantial degredation in performance of cooperative systems. We also show that there is a large incentive for selfish behavior in such cooperative systems. Selfish behavior of all users, however, causes further performance degradation, particularly in high load settings.QC 20111208. © 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. QC 20111207</p