Genetic mapping of natural variation in potassium concentrations in shoots of Arabidopsis thaliana

Naturally-occurring variation in K+ concentrations between plant genotypes is potentially exploitable in a number of ways, including altering the relationship between K+ accumulation and growth, enhancing salinity resistance, or improving forage quality. However, achieving these requires greater insight into the genetic basis of the variation in tissue K+ concentrations. To this end, K+ concentrations were measured in the shoots of 70 Arabidopsis thaliana accessions and a Cape Verdi Island/Landsberg erecta recombinant inbred line (RIL) population. The shoot K+ concentrations expressed on the basis of fresh matter (KFM) or dry matter (KDM) were both broadly and normally distributed as was the shoot dry matter content per unit fresh weight (DMC). Using the data from the RILs, four quantitative trait loci (QTL) were identified for KFM and three for KDM. These were located on chromosomes 2, 3, 4, and 5. Two of the QTLs for KFM overlapped with those for KDM. None of these QTLs overlapped with those for fresh weight or dry weight, but the QTL for KDM located on chromosome 3 overlapped with one for DMC. In silico analysis was used to identify known or putative K+ and cation transporter genes whose loci overlapped with the QTLs. In most cases, multiple genes were identified and the possible role of their gene products in determining shoot K+ concentrations is discussed.Hisatomi Harada and Roger A. Leig

Pigmented coating resists thermal shock

Coating pigment composed of zinc oxide and potassium silicate resists the effects of thermal shock and long exposure to direct sunlight

Heavy-light meson in anisotropic lattice QCD

We examine whether the $O(a)$ improved quark action on anisotropic lattices can be used as a framework for the heavy quark, which enables precision computation of matrix elements of heavy-light mesons. To this end, it is crucial to verify that a mass independent and nonperturbative tuning of the parameters is possible. As a first step, we observe the dispersion relation of heavy-light mesons on a quenched lattice using the action which is nonperturbatively tuned only for the leading terms. On a lattice with the spatial cutoff $a_\sigma^{-1} \simeq$ 1.6 GeV and the anisotropy $\xi=4$, the relativity relation holds within 2% accuracy in the quark mass region $a_\sigma m_Q \leq 1.2$ with the bare anisotropy parameter tuned for the massless quark. We also apply the action to a calculation of heavy-light decay constants in the charm quark mass region.Comment: Lattice2002(heavyquark), 3 pages, 2 figure

Study of Light Scalar Meson Structure in D1D_1 decay

We study the quark structure of the sigma meson through the decay of $D_1(2430)$ meson by constructing an effective Lagrangian for charmed mesons interacting with light mesons based on the chiral symmetry and heavy quark symmetry. Within the linear realization of the chiral symmetry, we include the P-wave charmed mesons ($D_1(2430)$, $D_0(2400)$) as the chiral partners of ($D^\ast$, $D$), and the light scalar mesons as the chiral partner of the pseudoscalar mesons. In the light meson sector, both the $q\bar{q}$ and $qq\bar{q}\bar{q}$ states are incorporated respecting their different U(1)$_A$ transformation properties. We predict the $D_1 \to D\pi\pi$ decay width with two pions in the $I=0,\,l=0$ channel, which can be tested in the future experiment. We find that the width increases with the percentage of the $q\bar{q}$ content in the sigma meson.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, Contribution to KMI Inauguration Conference "Quest for the Origin of Particles and the Universe" (KMIIN), 24-26 Nov. 2011, KMI, Nagoya Universit

Plasma-sprayed self-lubricating coatings

One of the most important criterion for acceptable commercial application of a multiple phase composition is uniformity and reproducibility. This means that the performance characteristics of the coat - e.g., its lubricating properties, bond strength to the substrate, and thermal properties - can be readily predicted to give a desired performance. The improvement of uniformity and reproducibility of the coats, the oxidation behavior at three temperature ranges, the effect of bond coat and the effect of preheat treatment as measured by adhesive strength tests, coating examination procedures, and physical property measurements were studied. The following modifications improved the uniformity and reproducibility: (1) changes and closer control in the particle size range of the raw materials used, (2) increasing the binder content from 3.2% to 4.1% (dried weight), and (3) analytical processing procedures using step by step checking to assure consistency

A Parametric Study of the Acoustic Mechanism for Core-Collapse Supernovae

We investigate the criterion for the acoustic mechanism to work successfully in core-collapse supernovae. The acoustic mechanism is an alternative to the neutrino-heating mechanism. It was proposed by Burrows et al., who claimed that acoustic waves emitted by $g$-mode oscillations in proto-neutron stars (PNS) energize a stalled shock wave and eventually induce an explosion. Previous works mainly studied to which extent the $g$-modes are excited in the PNS. In this paper, on the other hand, we investigate how strong the acoustic wave needs to be if it were to revive a stalled shock wave. By adding the acoustic power as a new axis, we draw a critical surface, an extension of the critical curve commonly employed in the context of neutrino heating. We perform both 1D and 2D parametrized simulations, in which we inject acoustic waves from the inner boundary. In order to quantify the power of acoustic waves, we use the extended Myers theory to take neutrino reactions into proper account. We find for the 1D simulations that rather large acoustic powers are required to relaunch the shock wave, since the additional heating provided by the secondary shocks developed from acoustic waves is partially canceled by the neutrino cooling that is also enhanced. In 2D, the required acoustic powers are consistent with those of Burrows et al. Our results seem to imply, however, that it is the sum of neutrino heating and acoustic powers that matters for shock revival.Comment: 20 pages, 19 figures, accepted by Ap

Nontriviality of Gauge-Higgs-Yukawa System and Renormalizability of Gauged NJL Model

In the leading order of a modified 1/Nc expansion, we show that a class of gauge-Higgs-Yukawa systems in four dimensions give non-trivial and well-defined theories in the continuum limit. The renormalized Yukawa coupling y and the quartic scalar coupling \lambda have to lie on a certain line in the (y,\lambda) plane and the line terminates at an upper bound. The gauged Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model in the limit of its ultraviolet cutoff going to infinity, is shown to become equivalent to the gauge-Higgs-Yukawa system with the coupling constants just on that terminating point. This proves the renormalizability of the gauged NJL model in four dimensions. The effective potential for the gauged NJL model is calculated by using renormalization group technique and confirmed to be consistent with the previous result by Kondo, Tanabashi and Yamawaki obtained by the ladder Schwinger-Dyson equation.Comment: 32 pages, LaTeX, 3 Postscript Figures are included as uuencoded files (need `epsf.tex'), KUNS-1278, HE(TH) 94/10 / NIIG-DP-94-2. (Several corrections in the introduction and references.

Scaling Behavior in Soliton Models

In the framework of chiral soliton models we study the behavior of static nucleon properties under rescaling of the parameters describing the effective meson theory. In particular we investigate the question of whether the Brown--Rho scaling laws are general features of such models. When going beyond the simple Skyrme model we find that restrictive constraints need to be imposed on the mesonic parameters in order to maintain these scaling laws. Furthermore, in the case when vector mesons are included in the model it turns out that the isoscalar form factor no longer scales according to these laws. Finally we note that, in addition to the exact scaling laws of the model, one may construct approximate {\it local scaling laws}, which depend of the particular choice of Lagrangian parameters.Comment: 10 pages Latex, figures added using epsfi