Effect of film-forming polymers on control of lily leaf blight caused by Botrytis elliptica

The effectiveness of film-forming polyelectrolytes for the control of lily leaf blight caused by Botrytis elliptica was evaluated using laboratory a leaf disk assay, greenhouse tests and field trials. Among the six polyelectrolytes, 400 ppm FO4240SH, FO4490SH and FO4550SH reduced the disease severity of lily leaf blight in leaf-disk tests. Both FO4240SH and FO4490SH also suppressed sporulation of the pathogen on leaf disks. In greenhouse tests, the number and size of lesions on leaves of Lilium oriental hybrid cv. Star Gazer were markedly reduced by FO4490SH and FO4550SH. Field trials showed that the effectiveness of FO4490SH was similar or better than that of procymidone on the reduction of lily leaf blight disease severity. The polymers had no harmful effects on the lily plants. The cationic polyelectrolytes FO4240SH, FO4490SH and FO4550SH reduced the percentage of conidial germination, inhibited germ-tube growth, and also suppressed the esterase production by germ tubes of B. elliptica. All the above evidence indicates that the disease control achieved with polyelectrolytes is due, at least in part, to the reduction of esterase secretion by B. elliptica

SimSearch: A new variant of dynamic programming based on distance series for optimal and near-optimal similarity discovery in biological sequences

http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/%7Eley/db/conf/iwpacbb/iwpacbb2008.htmlIn this paper, we propose SimSearch, an algorithm implementing a new variant of dynamic programming based on distance series for optimal and near-optimal similarity discovery in biological sequences. The initial phase of SimSearch is devoted to fulfil the binary similarity matrices by signalling the distances between occurrences of the same symbol. The scoring scheme is further applied, when analysed the maximal extension of the pattern. Employing bit parallelism to analyse the global similarity matrix’s upper triangle, the new methodology searches the sequence(s) for all the exact and approximate patterns in regular or reverse order. The algorithm accepts parameterization to work with greater seeds for near-optimal results. Performance tests show significant efficiency improvement over traditional optimal methods based on dynamic programming. Comparing the new algorithm’s efficiency against heuristic based methods, equalizing the required sensitivity, the proposed algorithm remains acceptable.This work has been partially supported by PRODEP

Glyphosate, Other Herbicides, And Transformation Products In Midwestern Streams, 2002

The use of glyphosate has increased rapidly, and there is limited understanding of its environmental fate. The objective of this study was to document the occurrence of glyphosate and the transformation product aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) in Midwestern streams and to compare their occurrence with that of more commonly measured herbicides such as acetochlor, atrazine, and metolachlor. Water samples were collected at sites on 51 streams in nine Midwestern states in 2002 during three runoff events: after the application of pre-emergence herbicides, after the application of post-emergence herbicides, and during harvest season. All samples were analyzed for glyphosate and 20 other herbicides using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry or high performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. The frequency of glyphosate and AMPA detection, range of concentrations in runoff samples, and ratios of AMPA to glyphosate concentrations did not vary throughout the growing season as substantially as for other herbicides like atrazine, probably because of different seasonal use patterns. Glyphosate was detected at or above 0.1 μg/l in 35 percent of pre-emergence, 40 percent of post-emergence, and 31 percent of harvest season samples, with a maximum concentration of 8.7 μg/l. AMPA was detected at or above 0.1 μg/l in 53 percent of pre-emergence, 83 percent of post-emergence, and 73 percent of harvest season samples, with a maximum concentration of 3.6 μg/l. Glyphosate was not detected at a concentration at or above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum contamination level (MCL) of 700 μg/l in any sample. Atrazine was detected at or above 0.1 μg/l in 94 percent of pre-emergence, 96 percent of postemergence, and 57 percent of harvest season samples, with a maximum concentration of 55 μg/l. Atrazine was detected at or above its MCL (3 μg/l) in 57 percent of pre-emergence and 33 percent of postemergence samples

Measurement of the branching ratio of the decay D^0 -> \pi^-\mu^+\nu relative to D^0 -> K^-\mu^+\nu

We present a new measurement of the branching ratio of the Cabibbo suppressed decay D^0\to \pi^-\mu^+\nu relative to the Cabibbo favored decay D^0\to K^-\mu^+\nu and an improved measurement of the ratio |\frac{f_+^{\pi}(0)}{f_+^{K}(0)}|. Our results are 0.074 \pm 0.008 \pm 0.007 for the branching ratio and 0.85 \pm 0.04 \pm 0.04 \pm 0.01 for the form factor ratio, respectively.Comment: 13pages, 3 figure

Search for a strongly decaying neutral charmed pentaquark

We present a search for a charmed pentaquark decaying strongly to $D^{(*)-}p$. Finding no evidence for such a state, we set limits on the cross section times branching ratio relative to $D^{*-}$ and $D^-$ under particular assumptions about the production mechanism.Comment: To be published in Physics Letters

Variation in The Vitamin D Receptor Gene is Associated With Multiple Sclerosis in an Australian Population

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) resulting in accumulating neurological disability. The disorder is more prevalent at higher latitudes. To investigate VDR gene variation using three intragenic restriction fragment length polymorphisms (Apa I, Taq I and Fok I) in an Australian MS case-control population, one hundred and four Australian MS patients were studied with patients classified clinically as Relapsing Remitting MS (RR-MS), Secondary Progressive MS (SP-MS) or Primary Progressive MS (PP-MS). Also, 104 age-, sex-, and ethnicity-matched controls were investigated as a comparative group. Our results show a significant difference of genotype distribution frequency between the case and control groups for the functional exon 9 VDR marker Taq I (p_Gen = 0.016) and interestingly, a stronger difference for the allelic frequency (p_All = 0.0072). The Apa I alleles were also found to be associated with MS (p_All = 0.04) but genotype frequencies were not significantly different from controls (p_Gen = 0.1). The Taq and Apa variants are in very strong and significant linkage disequilibrium (D' = 0.96, P < 0.0001). The genotypic associations are strongest for the progressive forms of MS (SP-MS and PP-MS). Our results support a role for the VDR gene increasing

Multidimensional quantum solitons with nondegenerate parametric interactions: Photonic and Bose-Einstein condensate environments

We consider the quantum theory of three fields interacting via parametric and repulsive quartic couplings. This can be applied to treat photonic chi((2)) and chi((3)) interactions, and interactions in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates or quantum Fermi gases, describing coherent molecule formation together with a-wave scattering. The simplest two-particle quantum solitons or bound-state solutions of the idealized Hamiltonian, without a momentum cutoff, are obtained exactly. They have a pointlike structure in two and three dimensions-even though the corresponding classical theory is nonsingular. We show that the solutions can be regularized with a momentum cutoff. The parametric quantum solitons have much more realistic length scales and binding energies than chi((3)) quantum solitons, and the resulting effects could potentially be experimentally tested in highly nonlinear optical parametric media or interacting matter-wave systems. N-particle quantum solitons and the ground state energy are analyzed using a variational approach. Applications to atomic/molecular Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC's) are given, where we predict the possibility of forming coupled BEC solitons in three space dimensions, and analyze superchemistry dynamics

Finite-time destruction of entanglement and non-locality by environmental influences

Entanglement and non-locality are non-classical global characteristics of quantum states important to the foundations of quantum mechanics. Recent investigations have shown that environmental noise, even when it is entirely local in influence, can destroy both of these properties in finite time despite giving rise to full quantum state decoherence only in the infinite time limit. These investigations, which have been carried out in a range of theoretical and experimental situations, are reviewed here.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, review article to appear in Foundations of Physic

Measurement of Natural Widths of Sigma-c-0 and Sigma-c-++ Baryons

In this paper we present a measurement of the natural widths of $\Sigma_c^0$ and $\Sigma_c^{++}$. Using data from the FOCUS experiment, we find $\Gamma(\Sigma_c^0) = 1.55 +0.41/-0.37 \pm 0.38$ MeV/c^2 and $\Gamma(\Sigma_c^0) = 2.05 +0.41/-0.38 \pm 0.38$ MeV/c^2. The first errors are statistical, the second systematic. These results are obtained with a sample of 913 $\Sigma_c^0 \to \Lambda_c^+ \pi^-$ decays and 1110 $\Sigma_c^++ \to \Lambda_c^+ \pi^+$ decays. These results are compared with recent theoretical predictions. PACS numbers: 14.20.Lq 13.30EgComment: Submitted to Physics Letters