Characterization of a wheat HSP70 gene and its expression in response to stripe rust infection and abiotic stresses

Members of the family of 70-kD heat shock proteins (HSP70 s) play various stress-protective roles in plants. In this study, a wheat HSP70 gene was isolated from a suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) cDNA library of wheat leaves infected by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici. The gene, that was designated as TaHSC70, was predicted to encode a protein of 690 amino acids, with a molecular mass of 73.54 KDa and a pI of 5.01. Further analysis revealed the presence of a conserved signature that is characteristic for HSP70s and phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that TaHSC70 is a homolog of chloroplast HSP70s. TaHSC70 mRNA was present in leaves of both green and etiolated wheat seedlings and in stems and roots. The transcript level in roots was approximately threefold less than in leaves but light–dark treatment did not charge TaHSC70 expression. Following heat shock of wheat seedlings at 40°C, TaHSC70 expression increased in leaves of etiolated seedlings but remained stable at the same level in green seedlings. In addition, TaHSC70 was differentially expressed during an incompatible and compatible interaction with wheat-stripe rust, and there was a transient increase in expression upon treatment with methyl jasmonate (MeJA) treatment. Salicylic acid (SA), ethylene (ET) and abscisic acid (ABA) treatments had no influence on TaHSC70 expression. These results suggest that TaHSC70 plays a role in stress-related responses, and in defense responses elicited by infection with stripe rust fungus and does so via a JA-dependent signal transduction pathway

Broadband NIR-emitting Te cluster-doped glass for smart light source towards night-vision and NIR spectroscopy applications

Broadband near-infrared (NIR)-emitting materials are crucial components of the next generation of smart NIR light sources based on blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Here, we report a Te cluster-doped borate glass, which exhibits ultra-broadband emission around 980 nm with a full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 306 nm under blue light excitation. We propose adjustments of glass chemistry and processing condition as a means for topo-chemical tailoring of the NIR photoemission characteristics in such materials. Through implementing strongly reducing conditions during glass melting, Te clusters with broad NIR photoluminescence can be generated and stabilized once the melt is vitrified to the glassy state. Tunability of the NIR emission peak over the wavelength range of 904 to 1026 nm is possible in this way, allowing for fine adjustments of spectral properties relative to the stretching vibrations of common chemical bonds, for example, in water, proteins, and fats. This potentially enables high sensitivity in NIR spectroscopy. We further demonstrate potential application of glass-converted LEDs in night vision.</p

Effective Functional Form of Regge Trajectories

We present theoretical arguments and strong phenomenological evidence that hadronic Regge trajectories are essentially nonlinear and can be well approximated, for phenomenological purposes, by a specific square-root form.Comment: 29 pages, LaTeX. Published versio

Annular flow of viscoelastic fluids: Analytical and numerical solutions

This work provides analytical and numerical solutions for the linear, quadratic and exponential Phan–Thien–Tanner (PTT) viscoelastic models, for axial and helical annular fully-developed flows under no slip and slip boundary conditions, the latter given by the linear and nonlinear Navier slip laws. The rheology of the three PTT model functions is discussed together with the influence of the slip velocity upon the flow velocity and stress fields. For the linear PTT model, full analytical solutions for the inverse problem (unknown velocity) are devised for the linear Navier slip law and two different slip exponents. For the linear PTT model with other values of the slip exponent and for the quadratic PTT model, the polynomial equation for the radial location (β) of the null shear stress must be solved numerically. For both models, the solution of the direct problem is given by an iterative procedure involving three nonlinear equations, one for β, other for the pressure gradient and another for the torque per unit length. For the exponential PTT model we devise a numerical procedure that can easily compute the numerical solution of the pure axial flow problemCOMPETE, FEDER and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through projects PEst-C/CTM/LA0025/2013 (Strategic Project – LA 25 – 2013-2014), PTDC/EQU-FTT/113811/2009 and PTDC/EME-MFE/113988/2009. LLF and AMA would also like to thank FCT for financial support through the scholarships SFRH/BD/37586/2007 and SFRH/BPD/75436/2010, respectively

The CP violating phase \delta_{13} and the quark mixing angles \theta_{13}, \theta_{23} and \theta_{12} from flavour permutational symmetry breaking

The phase equivalence of the theoretical mixing matrix ${\bf V}^{th}$ derived from the breaking of the flavour permutational symmetry and the standard parametrization ${\bf V}^{PDG}$ advocated by the Particle Data Group is explicitly exhibited. From here, we derive exact explicit expressions for the three mixing angles $\theta_{12}$, $\theta_{13}$, $\theta_{23}$, and the CP violating phase $\delta_{13}$ in terms of the quark mass ratios $(m_{u}/m_{t}, m_{c}/m_{t}, m_{d}/m_{b}, m_{s}/m_{b})$ and the parameters $Z^{*1/2}$ and $\Phi^*$ characterizing the preferred symmetry breaking pattern. The computed values for the CP violating phase and the mixing angles are: $\delta^*_{13}=75^\circ$, $\sin\theta^*_{12}=0.221$, $\sin\theta^*_{13}=0.0034$, and $\sin\theta^*_{23}=0.040$, which coincide almost exactly with the central values of the experimentally determined quantities.Comment: 25 pages, we added an estimation of a reasonable range of values for the quark mass ratios and the corresponding quark mixing matrix elements. Accepted in Phys. Rev. D, 01 April 200

Centrality Dependence of the High p_T Charged Hadron Suppression in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV

PHENIX has measured the centrality dependence of charged hadron p_T spectra from central Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=130 GeV. The truncated mean p_T decreases with centrality for p_T > 2 GeV/c, indicating an apparent reduction of the contribution from hard scattering to high p_T hadron production. For central collisions the yield at high p_T is shown to be suppressed compared to binary nucleon-nucleon collision scaling of p+p data. This suppression is monotonically increasing with centrality, but most of the change occurs below 30% centrality, i.e. for collisions with less than about 140 participating nucleons. The observed p_T and centrality dependence is consistent with the particle production predicted by models including hard scattering and subsequent energy loss of the scattered partons in the dense matter created in the collisions.Comment: 7 pages text, LaTeX, 6 figures, 2 tables, 307 authors, resubmitted to Phys. Lett. B. Revised to address referee concerns. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/phenix/WWW/run/phenix/papers.htm

Formation of dense partonic matter in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC: Experimental evaluation by the PHENIX collaboration

Extensive experimental data from high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions were recorded using the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The comprehensive set of measurements from the first three years of RHIC operation includes charged particle multiplicities, transverse energy, yield ratios and spectra of identified hadrons in a wide range of transverse momenta (p_T), elliptic flow, two-particle correlations, non-statistical fluctuations, and suppression of particle production at high p_T. The results are examined with an emphasis on implications for the formation of a new state of dense matter. We find that the state of matter created at RHIC cannot be described in terms of ordinary color neutral hadrons.Comment: 510 authors, 127 pages text, 56 figures, 1 tables, LaTeX. Submitted to Nuclear Physics A as a regular article; v3 has minor changes in response to referee comments. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm

The PHENIX Experiment at RHIC

The physics emphases of the PHENIX collaboration and the design and current status of the PHENIX detector are discussed. The plan of the collaboration for making the most effective use of the available luminosity in the first years of RHIC operation is also presented.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Further details of the PHENIX physics program available at http://www.rhic.bnl.gov/phenix