Regulation of UVR8 photoreceptor dimer/monomer photo-equilibrium in Arabidopsis plants grown under photoperiodic conditions

The UV RESISTANCE LOCUS 8 (UVR8) photoreceptor specifically mediates photomorphogenic responses to UV-B. Photoreception induces dissociation of dimeric UVR8 into monomers to initiate responses. However, the regulation of dimer/monomer status in plants growing under photoperiodic conditions has not been examined. Here we show that UVR8 establishes a dimer/monomer photo-equilibrium in plants growing in diurnal photoperiods in both controlled environments and natural daylight. The photo-equilibrium is determined by the relative rates of photoreception and dark-reversion to the dimer. Experiments with mutants in REPRESSOR OF UV-B PHOTOMORPHOGENESIS 1 (RUP1) and RUP2 show that these proteins are crucial in regulating the photo-equilibrium because they promote reversion to the dimer. In plants growing in daylight, the UVR8 photo-equilibrium is most strongly correlated with low ambient fluence rates of UV-B (up to 1.5 µmol m−2 s−1), rather than higher fluence rates or the amount of photosynthetically active radiation. In addition, the rate of reversion of monomer to dimer is reduced at lower temperatures, promoting an increase in the relative level of monomer at approximately 8–10 °C. Thus, UVR8 does not behave like a simple UV-B switch under photoperiodic growth conditions but establishes a dimer/monomer photo-equilibrium that is regulated by UV-B and also influenced by temperature

On the Disambiguation of Weighted Automata

We present a disambiguation algorithm for weighted automata. The algorithm admits two main stages: a pre-disambiguation stage followed by a transition removal stage. We give a detailed description of the algorithm and the proof of its correctness. The algorithm is not applicable to all weighted automata but we prove sufficient conditions for its applicability in the case of the tropical semiring by introducing the *weak twins property*. In particular, the algorithm can be used with all acyclic weighted automata, relevant to applications. While disambiguation can sometimes be achieved using determinization, our disambiguation algorithm in some cases can return a result that is exponentially smaller than any equivalent deterministic automaton. We also present some empirical evidence of the space benefits of disambiguation over determinization in speech recognition and machine translation applications

Heat kernel Coefficients and Divergencies of the Casimir Energy for the Dispersive Sphere

The first heat kernel coefficients are calculated for a dispersive ball whose permittivity at high frequency differs from unity by inverse powers of the frequency. The corresponding divergent part of the vacuum energy of the electromagnetic field is given and ultraviolet divergencies are seen to be present. Also in a model where the number of atoms is fixed the pressure exhibits infinities. As a consequence, the ground-state energy for a dispersive dielectric ball cannot be interpreted easily.Comment: 8 pages, Contribution to the 5th Workshop on Quantum Field Theory under the Influence of External Conditions, Leipzig, Germany, 10-14 Sep 200

Simplified Vacuum Energy Expressions for Radial Backgrounds and Domain Walls

We extend our previous results of simplified expressions for functional determinants for radial Schr\"odinger operators to the computation of vacuum energy, or mass corrections, for static but spatially radial backgrounds, and for domain wall configurations. Our method is based on the zeta function approach to the Gel'fand-Yaglom theorem, suitably extended to higher dimensional systems on separable manifolds. We find new expressions that are easy to implement numerically, for both zero and nonzero temperature.Comment: 30 page

Smeared heat-kernel coefficients on the ball and generalized cone

We consider smeared zeta functions and heat-kernel coefficients on the bounded, generalized cone in arbitrary dimensions. The specific case of a ball is analysed in detail and used to restrict the form of the heat-kernel coefficients $A_n$ on smooth manifolds with boundary. Supplemented by conformal transformation techniques, it is used to provide an effective scheme for the calculation of the $A_n$. As an application, the complete $A_{5/2}$ coefficient is given.Comment: 23 pages, JyTe

Functional determinants for radial operators

We derive simple new expressions, in various dimensions, for the functional determinant of a radially separable partial differential operator, thereby generalizing the one-dimensional result of Gel'fand and Yaglom to higher dimensions. We use the zeta function formalism, and the results agree with what one would obtain using the angular momentum cutoff method based on radial WKB. The final expression is numerically equal to an alternative expression derived in a Feynman diagrammatic approach, but is considerably simpler.Comment: 21 pages, uses axodraw.st

A generic test for the similarity of spatial data

Two spatial data sets are considered to be similar if they originate from the same stochastic process in terms of their spatial structure. Many tests have been developed over recent years to test the similarity of certain types of spatial data, such as spatial point patterns, geostatistical data and images. This research proposes a generic spatial similarity test able to handle various types of spatial data, for example images (modelled spatially), point patterns, marked point patterns, geostatistical data and lattice patterns. A simulation study is done in order to test the method for each spatial data set. After the simulation study, it was concluded that the proposed spatial similarity test is not sensitive to the user-defined resolution of the pixel image representation. From the simulation study, the proposed spatial similarity test performs well on lattice data, some of the unmarked point patterns and the marked point patterns with discrete marks. We illustrate this test on property prices in the City of Cape Town and the City of Johannesburg, South Africa

Learning to like or dislike by association: no need for contingency awareness

One way to learn to like or dislike a neutral target stimulus is through associations with positive or negative context stimuli. The present research investigates whether people need to be aware of the association between a target and a context stimulus (i.e., contingency aware) in order for associative learning of likes and dislikes to occur. We predicted that awareness of the association between context and target is necessary when target novelty is low, but not when target novelty is high. We conducted two experiments in which we varied target novelty and measured contingency awareness using a picture-bound recognition task. This allowed us to separately investigate evaluative conditioning for “contingency awareness” and “contingency unawareness” context-target pairs. The results show, as predicted, that awareness of the association between context and target is needed for low-novelty targets but not needed for high-novelty targets

Spectral determinants and zeta functions of Schr\"odinger operators on metric graphs

A derivation of the spectral determinant of the Schr\"odinger operator on a metric graph is presented where the local matching conditions at the vertices are of the general form classified according to the scheme of Kostrykin and Schrader. To formulate the spectral determinant we first derive the spectral zeta function of the Schr\"odinger operator using an appropriate secular equation. The result obtained for the spectral determinant is along the lines of the recent conjecture.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure