From Mendel’s discovery on pea to today’s plant genetics and breeding

In 2015, we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the presentation of the seminal work of Gregor Johann Mendel. While Darwin’s theory of evolution was based on differential survival and differential reproductive success, Mendel’s theory of heredity relies on equality and stability throughout all stages of the life cycle. Darwin’s concepts were continuous variation and “soft” heredity; Mendel espoused discontinuous variation and “hard” heredity. Thus, the combination of Mendelian genetics with Darwin’s theory of natural selection was the process that resulted in the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology. Although biology, genetics, and genomics have been revolutionized in recent years, modern genetics will forever rely on simple principles founded on pea breeding using seven single gene characters. Purposeful use of mutants to study gene function is one of the essential tools of modern genetics. Today, over 100 plant species genomes have been sequenced. Mapping populations and their use in segregation of molecular markers and marker–trait association to map and isolate genes, were developed on the basis of Mendel's work. Genome-wide or genomic selection is a recent approach for the development of improved breeding lines. The analysis of complex traits has been enhanced by high-throughput phenotyping and developments in statistical and modeling methods for the analysis of phenotypic data. Introgression of novel alleles from landraces and wild relatives widens genetic diversity and improves traits; transgenic methodologies allow for the introduction of novel genes from diverse sources, and gene editing approaches offer possibilities to manipulate gene in a precise manner

Carleman estimate for ultrahyperbolic operators and improved interior control for wave equations

In this article, we present a novel Carleman estimate for ultrahyperbolic operators, in $\mathbb{R}^m_t \times \mathbb{R}^n_x$. Then, we use a special case of this estimate to obtain improved observability results for wave equations with time-dependent lower order terms. The key improvements are: (1) we obtain smaller observation regions compared to standard Carleman estimate results, and (2) we also prove observability when the observation point lies inside the domain. Finally, as a corollary of the observability result, we obtain improved interior controllability for the wave equation.Comment: 47 pages, moved contents of the appendix into the main sectio

Pre-Operational Validation of Air Quality Forecasting Model SILAM for India

A pre-operational validation of the System for Integrated Modeling of Atmospheric Composition (SILAM) model for Indian application has been presented in this paper. The model configuration has been adjusted according to the atmospheric and emissive conditions of India. India is one of the most desired regions for Air Quality (AQ) research around the globe. The region is composed of different atmospheric and man-made pollution activities. The weather system of India is favorable for the deposition of particulate pollutants in the Indo-Gangetic plains; the northern part of the country. Stubble burning and lower planetary boundary layer height are significant factors that deteriorate the AQ of Delhi-NCR in post-monsoon and winter seasons. India Meteorological Department (IMD) is continuously monitoring the AQ of Delhi-NCR along with central pollution control board and state pollution control committees with stationary ambient air quality monitoring stations. This joint effort of all the agencies relies upon Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP); an initiative by the Government of India (GOI) for pollution control in the Delhi-NCR region. An accurate AQ forecasting system is needed for GOI to implement a decision support system in order to make citizens aware of their surroundings for outdoor activities. We have successfully deployed Indian application of SILAM model in collaboration with Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) in Environment Monitoring and Research Center, IMD. One month observations of coarse and fine mode particulate matter (PM 10 and PM 2.5) over Delhi have been compared with SILAM forecast f or December 2020. The modeled and observed values are reasonably correlated in general and model has successfully captured the pollution events throughout the time period. It is found that PM 10 forecasts over Delhi are fairly overestimated and PM 2.5 forecasts are slightly overestimated with a positive correlation of 0.7. Further research in surface emissions and extreme pollution events is needed to make the predictions more accurate

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Thiazolopyridine ureas as novel antitubercular agents acting through inhibition of DNA gyrase B

A pharmacophore-based search led to the identification of thiazolopyridine ureas as a novel scaffold with antitubercular activity acting through inhibition of DNA Gyrase B (GyrB) ATPase. Evaluation of the binding mode of thiazolopyridines in a Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) GyrB homology model prompted exploration of the side chains at the thiazolopyridine ring C-5 position to access the ribose/solvent pocket. Potent compounds with GyrB IC <sub>50</sub> < 1 nM and Mtb MIC < 0.1 muM were obtained with certain combinations of side chains at the C-5 position and heterocycles at the C-6 position of the thiazolopyridine core. Substitutions at C-5 also enabled optimization of the physicochemical properties. Representative compounds were cocrystallized with Streptococcus pneumoniae (Spn) ParE; these confirmed the binding modes predicted by the homology model. The target link to GyrB was confirmed by genetic mapping of the mutations conferring resistance to thiazolopyridine ureas. The compounds are bactericidal in vitro and efficacious in vivo in an acute murine model of tuberculosis. 2013 American Chemical Societ