534 research outputs found
Reptile Adenoviruses in cattle?
This paper describes a hypothesis on the origin of the members of the recently established adenovirus genus, Atadenovirus, invading cattle, sheep, deer, duck and poultry. Comparison of the phylogenetic trees of adenoviruses and their hosts suggests a very ancient but common origin for the atadenoviruses. The surprisingly large difference between these virus types and other adenoviruses infecting the same host can be easily understood by assuming their separate evolution in different hosts (e.g., in reptiles versus a coevolution with mammals and birds, respectively) followed by a later host switch
The mutualistic fungus Piriformospora indica protects barley roots from a loss of antioxidant capacity caused by the necrotrophic pathogen Fusarium culmorum
Fusarium culmorum causes root rot in barley (Hordeum vulgare), resulting in severely reduced plant growth and yield. Pretreatment of roots with chlamydospores of the mutualistic root-colonizing basidiomycete Piriformospora indica (Agaricomycotina) prevented necrotization of root tissues and plant growth retardation commonly associated with Fusarium root rot. Quantification of Fusarium infections with a real-time PCR assay revealed a correlation between root rot symptoms and the relative amount of fungal DNA. Fusarium-infected roots showed reduced levels of ascorbate and glutathione (GSH), along with reduced activities of antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), glutathione reductase (GR), dehydroascorbate reductase (DHAR), and monodehydroascorbate reductase (MDHAR). Consistent with this, Fusarium-infected roots showed elevated levels of lipid hydroperoxides and decreased ratios of reduced to oxidized forms of ascorbate and glutathione. In clear contrast, roots treated with P. indica prior to inoculation with F. culmorum showed levels of ascorbate and GSH that were similar to controls. Likewise, lipid peroxidation and the overall reduction in antioxidant enzyme activities were largely attenuated by P. indica in roots challenged by F. culmorum. These results suggest that P. indica protects roots from necrotrophic pathogens at least partly, through activating the plant’s antioxidant capacity
3D Reconstruction for Partial Data Electrical Impedance Tomography Using a Sparsity Prior
In electrical impedance tomography the electrical conductivity inside a
physical body is computed from electro-static boundary measurements. The focus
of this paper is to extend recent result for the 2D problem to 3D. Prior
information about the sparsity and spatial distribution of the conductivity is
used to improve reconstructions for the partial data problem with Cauchy data
measured only on a subset of the boundary. A sparsity prior is enforced using
the norm in the penalty term of a Tikhonov functional, and spatial
prior information is incorporated by applying a spatially distributed
regularization parameter. The optimization problem is solved numerically using
a generalized conditional gradient method with soft thresholding. Numerical
examples show the effectiveness of the suggested method even for the partial
data problem with measurements affected by noise.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:1405.655
Realtime calibration of the A4 electromagnetic lead fluoride calorimeter
Sufficient energy resolution is the key issue for the calorimetry in particle
and nuclear physics. The calorimeter of the A4 parity violation experiment at
MAMI is a segmented calorimeter where the energy of an event is determined by
summing the signals of neighbouring channels. In this case the precise matching
of the individual modules is crucial to obtain a good energy resolution. We
have developped a calibration procedure for our total absorbing electromagnetic
calorimeter which consists of 1022 lead fluoride (PbF_2) crystals. This
procedure reconstructs the the single-module contributions to the events by
solving a linear system of equations, involving the inversion of a 1022 x
1022-matrix. The system has shown its functionality at beam energies between
300 and 1500 MeV and represents a new and fast method to keep the calorimeter
permanently in a well-calibrated state
DNA sequence of a small, unidentified plasmid isolated from a Haemophilus somnus strain: Short communication
One of the plasmids present in a Haemophilus somnus strain isolated from nasal discharge of a cattle with respiratory disease was purified and cloned for DNA sequencing. The plasmid was found to be 1065 base pairs long with 39.2% G+C content, and showed no homology to any DNA sequenced so far. It has no capacity to code any protein longer than 43 residues. It is not clear yet if this plasmid codes Haemophilus somnus specific factors
Characterisation of the fiber gene and partial sequence of the early region 4 of bovine adenovirus 2: Short communication
The full sequence of the fiber gene and partial sequence of the putative 17 kD protein gene of bovine adenovirus-2 (BAdV-2) were determined. The size of the fiber gene of BAdV-2 proved to be 561 amino acids, of which the amino acids 37 to 385 form a typical shaft domain of 22 repetitive motifs. On the complementary strand, a gene homologous to the 17 kD protein coded in the E4 region of several human adenoviruses was found. The sequence analysis seems to confirm the presence of an intron in the sequenced part of the E4 region
Evidence for Strange Quark Contributions to the Nucleon's Form Factors at = 0.108 (GeV/c)
We report on a measurement of the parity violating asymmetry in the elastic
scattering of polarized electrons off unpolarized protons with the A4 apparatus
at MAMI in Mainz at a four momentum transfer value of = \Qsquare
(GeV/c) and at a forward electron scattering angle of 30. The measured asymmetry is = (\Aphys
\Deltastat \Deltasyst) 10. The
expectation from the Standard Model assuming no strangeness contribution to the
vector current is A = (\Azero \DeltaAzero) 10. We
have improved the statistical accuracy by a factor of 3 as compared to our
previous measurements at a higher . We have extracted the strangeness
contribution to the electromagnetic form factors from our data to be +
\FakGMs = \GEsGMs \DeltaGEsGMs at = \Qsquare (GeV/c).
As in our previous measurement at higher momentum transfer for + 0.230
, we again find the value for + \FakGMs to be positive,
this time at an improved significance level of 2 .Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Measurement of the Transverse Beam Spin Asymmetry in Elastic Electron Proton Scattering and the Inelastic Contribution to the Imaginary Part of the Two-Photon Exchange Amplitude
We report on a measurement of the asymmetry in the scattering of transversely
polarized electrons off unpolarized protons, A, at two Q values of
\qsquaredaveragedlow (GeV/c) and \qsquaredaveragedhighII (GeV/c) and a
scattering angle of . The measured transverse
asymmetries are A(Q = \qsquaredaveragedlow (GeV/c)) =
(\experimentalasymmetry alulowcorr \statisticalerrorlow
\combinedsyspolerrorlowalucor) 10 and
A(Q = \qsquaredaveragedhighII (GeV/c)) = (\experimentalasymme
tryaluhighcorr \statisticalerrorhigh
\combinedsyspolerrorhighalucor) 10. The first
errors denotes the statistical error and the second the systematic
uncertainties. A arises from the imaginary part of the two-photon
exchange amplitude and is zero in the one-photon exchange approximation. From
comparison with theoretical estimates of A we conclude that
N-intermediate states give a substantial contribution to the imaginary
part of the two-photon amplitude. The contribution from the ground state proton
to the imaginary part of the two-photon exchange can be neglected. There is no
obvious reason why this should be different for the real part of the two-photon
amplitude, which enters into the radiative corrections for the Rosenbluth
separation measurements of the electric form factor of the proton.Comment: 4 figures, submitted to PRL on Oct.
Measurement of Strange Quark Contributions to the Nucleon's Form Factors at Q^2=0.230 (GeV/c)^2
We report on a measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry in the
scattering of longitudinally polarized electrons on unpolarized protons at a
of 0.230 (GeV/c)^2 and a scattering angle of \theta_e = 30^o - 40^o.
Using a large acceptance fast PbF_2 calorimeter with a solid angle of
\Delta\Omega = 0.62 sr the A4 experiment is the first parity violation
experiment to count individual scattering events. The measured asymmetry is
A_{phys} =(-5.44 +- 0.54_{stat} +- 0.27_{\rm sys}) 10^{-6}. The Standard Model
expectation assuming no strangeness contributions to the vector form factors is
. The difference is a direct measurement of the
strangeness contribution to the vector form factors of the proton. The
extracted value is G^s_E + 0.225 G^s_M = 0.039 +- 0.034 or F^s_1 + 0.130 F^s_2
= 0.032 +- 0.028.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Letters on Dec 11, 200
Cold hardening protects cereals from oxidative stress and necrotrophic fungal pathogenesis
The effects of cold hardening of cereals on their
cross-tolerance to treatments leading to oxidative stress
were investigated. Long-term exposure to low non-freezing
temperatures provided partial protection to wheat and
barley plants from the damage caused by paraquat and
hydrogen peroxide treatments. It also conferred resistance
in two barley cultivars to the necrotic symptoms and
growth of the fungal phytopathogen
Pyrenophora
teres
f.
teres
. Pathogen-induced oxidative burst was also reduced
in cold hardened plants. The possible roles of host-derived
redox factors and other signaling components in the
observed forms of cereal cross-tolerance are discussed
- …