Forensic DNA profiling of tropical timber species in Peninsular Malaysia.

Illegal logging poses a significant threat to the sustainability of tropical forest ecosystems. By using Neobalanocarpus heimii (Dipterocarpaceae) as an example, the study assessed the feasibility of using short tandem repeats (STRs) as a tool to identify the source of illegally logged timber. Thirty natural populations of N. heimii were profiled using 12 STRs to develop the DNA profiling databases. As the cluster analysis divided the 30 populations into three genetic clusters, corresponding to three subregions within Peninsular Malaysia. The DNA databases were characterised at the levels of population, subregion and Peninsular Malaysia. Independence tests within and among loci were violated in all the databases due to significant levels of population differentiation and inbreeding. Thus, the effects of population substructure and inbreeding should be incorporated into the calculation of random match probability. The random match probabilities estimated using subpopulation and subpopulation-cum-inbreeding models were biased in favour of the defendant, whereas the random match probabilities estimated using product rule were biased in favour of the prosecutor. The conservativeness tests showed that the subregion and Peninsular Malaysia databases were conservative, and these databases should be able to provide legal evidence for court proceedings against illegal loggers in Peninsular Malaysia

Highly variable STR markers of Neobalanocarpus heimii (Dipterocarpaceae) for forensic DNA profiling

Neobalanocarpus heimii, locally known as chengal, is an important timber species in Peninsular Malaysia. Owing to the high demand for its valuable timber, N. heimii is subjected to illegal logging and this species may become endangered in the near future. The present study was designed to identify a set of highly polymorphic short tandem repeat (STR) markers for timber tracking of N. heimii. An extensive evaluation of 51 STRs developed for Dipterocarpaceae managed to identify 12 STR loci (Nhe004, Nhe005, Nhe011, Nhe015, Nhe018, Hbi161, Sle392, Sle605, Slu044a, Shc03, Shc04 and Shc07), which showed specific amplification, high polymorphism, single-locus mode of inheritance, absence of null alleles and absence of mononucleotide repeat motifs in N. heimii. These loci can be readily used to establish a linkage between the evidentiary sample and the source, thus providing a useful set of markers for individual identification in N. heimii

Estimation of outcrossing rates in Koompassia malaccensts from an open-pollinated population in Peninsular Malaysia using microsatellite markers

Koompassia malaccensis (Leguminosae), locally known as kempas, is an important tropical timber species in South-East Asia. Although studies have shown that most tropical tree species are predominantly outcrossing, there is no empirical support for this species prior to this study, with regard to its mating system. Information on its reproductive biology is also scanty. We report the estimation of the outcrossing rates of K. malaccensis using microsatellite markers, based on a fruiting season at the Semangkok Forest Reserve, Selangor. Microsatellite analysis was performed for an average of 46 seeds each from nine adult K. malaccensis trees, using four polymorphic microsatellite loci (Kma050, Kma067, Kma147 and Kma180). Single and multilocus population outcrossing estimates (ts and tm respectively) were determined using the software MLTR version 3.0. Results showed that this timber species was predominantly outcrossing (tm = 0.890). Biparental mating (tm – ts) was very low, only 0.026, suggesting low tendency of mating between relatives. Outcrossing estimates obtained for individual mother trees were in the range of 0.637 to 0.994. The relatively lower outcrossing rates exhibited by a few progeny arrays indicated that K. malaccensis was not completely self-incompatible

Adhesion enhancement for electroless plating on mold compound for EMI shielding with industrial test compliance

In the manufacturing process, metal capping for EMI shielding is done during the integrated circuit (IC) assembly process, which hinders the attempt of reducing the size of electronic device and also incurs higher cost of assembly. Therefore direct deposition of metal on IC mold compound is desirable. Conventional metal plating techniques, however fail tape test. This paper studies the condition of plating metal directly onto surface of mold compound with the enhancement of novel non-etching adhesion promoter CovaBond MRTM. By plating direct onto mold compound, the shielding capping task can be done in array form before the die saw process in IC manufacturing (before IC assembly), which reduce the thickness and dimension of chip and improves design flexibility of circuit board as well as reduce the manufacturing cost. The industrial test results in this paper have proven the performance of the enhanced metal plating technique

Are patterns of fine-scale spatial genetic structure consistent between sites within tropical tree species?

JRS was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) (http://www.snf.ch/en/Pages/default.aspx) grant number PDFMP3_132479 / 1 awarded to JG. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A comparative study on time-cost trade-off approaches within critical path method

In this study we present two approaches of time-cost trade-off to complete the project within T (the shortest possible duration to complete the project at least cost within the maximum available budget). The aim of this study is to discuss a comparison between the approach of Crashing Critical Activities (CCA) and the approach of Stretching Noncritical Activities (SNA) to illustrate the gauge of which approach should be used to complete the project within T in the least number of steps. Based on the five projects of varying levels and difficulties we can observe the obvious difference between the number of steps required to complete each project within T by CCA and the number of steps required to complete each project within T by SNA, i.e., SNA could complete the project in the least number of steps than CCA

A linear programming approach to maximize savings by stretching noncritical activities.

In this research, some concepts of linear programming and critical path method are reviewed to describe recent modeling structures that have been of great value in analyzing project time-cost trade-offs problems. This paper mainly provides a framework for the approach of stretching noncritical activities to complete the project in shortest possible duration at least cost within available maximum budgeting. This is achieved by crashing all activities simultaneously in the project network then using Linear Programming (LP) technique to build a model to maximize the savings that will yield from stretching noncritical activities. The noncritical activities can be stretched to their normal time until all slack in the different noncritical paths network is used up. The resultant savings from using of linear programming model must be subtracted from the initial cost of crashing all activities to obtain the final cost of project

A genetic algorithm with fuzzy crossover operator and probability

The performance of a genetic algorithm is dependent on the genetic operators, in general, and on the type of crossover operator, in particular. The population diversity is usually used as the performance measure for the premature convergence. In this paper, a fuzzy genetic algorithm is proposed for solving binary encoded combinatorial optimization problems. A new crossover operator and probability selection technique is proposed based on the population diversity using a fuzzy logic controller. The measurement of the population diversity is based on the genotype and phenotype properties. In this fuzzy inference system, the selection of the crossover operator and its probability are controlled by a set of fuzzy rules derived from the fuzzy logic controller. Extensive computational experiments are conducted on the proposed algorithm, and the results are compared with some crossover operators commonly used for solving multidimensional 0/1 knapsack problems published in the literature. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm is effective in finding better quality solutions

PVN-LOT-414-C-005

UnlabelledEngineering microbial hosts for the production of fungible fuels requires mitigation of limitations posed on the production capacity. One such limitation arises from the inherent toxicity of solvent-like biofuel compounds to production strains, such as Escherichia coli. Here we show the importance of host engineering for the production of short-chain alcohols by studying the overexpression of genes upregulated in response to exogenous isopentenol. Using systems biology data, we selected 40 genes that were upregulated following isopentenol exposure and subsequently overexpressed them in E. coli. Overexpression of several of these candidates improved tolerance to exogenously added isopentenol. Genes conferring isopentenol tolerance phenotypes belonged to diverse functional groups, such as oxidative stress response (soxS, fpr, and nrdH), general stress response (metR, yqhD, and gidB), heat shock-related response (ibpA), and transport (mdlB). To determine if these genes could also improve isopentenol production, we coexpressed the tolerance-enhancing genes individually with an isopentenol production pathway. Our data show that expression of 6 of the 8 candidates improved the production of isopentenol in E. coli, with the methionine biosynthesis regulator MetR improving the titer for isopentenol production by 55%. Additionally, expression of MdlB, an ABC transporter, facilitated a 12% improvement in isopentenol production. To our knowledge, MdlB is the first example of a transporter that can be used to improve production of a short-chain alcohol and provides a valuable new avenue for host engineering in biogasoline production.ImportanceThe use of microbial host platforms for the production of bulk commodities, such as chemicals and fuels, is now a focus of many biotechnology efforts. Many of these compounds are inherently toxic to the host microbe, which in turn places a limit on production despite efforts to optimize the bioconversion pathways. In order to achieve economically viable production levels, it is also necessary to engineer production strains with improved tolerance to these compounds. We demonstrate that microbial tolerance engineering using transcriptomics data can also identify targets that improve production. Our results include an exporter and a methionine biosynthesis regulator that improve isopentenol production, providing a starting point to further engineer the host for biogasoline production