Redox-dependent gating of VDAC by mitoNEET.

MitoNEET is an outer mitochondrial membrane protein essential for sensing and regulation of iron and reactive oxygen species (ROS) homeostasis. It is a key player in multiple human maladies including diabetes, cancer, neurodegeneration, and Parkinson's diseases. In healthy cells, mitoNEET receives its clusters from the mitochondrion and transfers them to acceptor proteins in a process that could be altered by drugs or during illness. Here, we report that mitoNEET regulates the outer-mitochondrial membrane (OMM) protein voltage-dependent anion channel 1 (VDAC1). VDAC1 is a crucial player in the cross talk between the mitochondria and the cytosol. VDAC proteins function to regulate metabolites, ions, ROS, and fatty acid transport, as well as function as a "governator" sentry for the transport of metabolites and ions between the cytosol and the mitochondria. We find that the redox-sensitive [2Fe-2S] cluster protein mitoNEET gates VDAC1 when mitoNEET is oxidized. Addition of the VDAC inhibitor 4,4'-diisothiocyanatostilbene-2,2'-disulfonate (DIDS) prevents both mitoNEET binding in vitro and mitoNEET-dependent mitochondrial iron accumulation in situ. We find that the DIDS inhibitor does not alter the redox state of MitoNEET. Taken together, our data indicate that mitoNEET regulates VDAC in a redox-dependent manner in cells, closing the pore and likely disrupting VDAC's flow of metabolites

Climate smart agriculture (CSA)

Climate change fundamentally shifts the agricultural development agenda. Changing temperature and precipitation, sea level rise, and the rising frequency of extreme climate events will significantly reduce global food production in this century unless action is taken. Major investments, private and public, will be needed.! Adapting agriculture to climate change is necessary to achieve food security, and agricultural mitigation can also reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and slow climate change itself. There are many drivers of change affecting agricultural sectors around the world, including population growth, changes in consumer demand and market integration. Climate Smart Agriculture is an integrated approach to achieve food security in the face of climate change, while also mitigating climate change and contribute to other development goals

A Queueing Theoretic Approach to Decoupling Inventory

This paper investigates the performance of different hybrid push-pull systems with a decoupling inventory at the semi-finished products and reordering thresholds. Raw materials are ‘pushed’ into the semi-finished product inventory and customers ‘pull’ products by placing orders. Furthermore, production of semi-finished products starts when the inventory goes below a certain level, referred to as the threshold value and stops when the inventory attains stock capacity. As performance of the decoupling stock is critical to the overall cost and performance of manufacturing systems, this paper introduces a Markovian model for hybrid push-pull systems. In particular, we focus on a queueing model with two buffers, thereby accounting for both the decoupling stock as well as for possible backlog of orders. By means of numerical examples, we assess the impact of different reordering policies, irregular order arrivals, the set-up time distribution and the order processing time distribution on the performance of hybrid push-pull systems

Climate-smart agriculture practices for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions

Agricultural lands make up approximately 37% of the global land surface, and agriculture is a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Those GHGs are responsible for the majority of the anthropogenic globalwarming effect.Agricultural GHG emissions are associated with agricultural soil management (e.g. tillage), use of both synthetic and organic fertilisers, livestock management, burning of fossil fuel for agricultural operations, and burning of agricultural residues and land use change. When natural ecosystems such as grasslands are converted to agricultural production, 20-40% of the soil organic carbon (SOC) is lost over time, following cultivation.We thus need to develop management practices that can maintain or even increase SOC storage in and reduce GHG emissions from agricultural ecosystems. We need to design systematic approaches and agricultural strategies that can ensure sustainable food production under predicted climate change scenarios, approaches that are being called climate-smart agriculture (CSA). Climate-smart agricultural management practices, including conservation tillage, use of cover crops and biochar application to agricultural fields, and strategic application of synthetic and organic fertilisers have been considered a way to reduce GHG emission from agriculture. Agricultural management practices can be improved to decreasing disturbance to the soil by decreasing the frequency and extent of cultivation as a way to minimise soil C loss and/or to increase soil C storage. Fertiliser nitrogen (N) use efficiency can be improved to reduce fertilizer N application and N loss. Management measures can also be taken to minimise agricultural biomass burning. This chapter reviews the current literature on CSA practices that are available to reduce GHG emissions and increase soil C sequestration and develops a guideline on best management practices to reduce GHG emissions, increase C sequestration, and enhance crop productivity in agricultural production systems

Towards Understanding the Origin of Cosmic-Ray Electrons

Precision results on cosmic-ray electrons are presented in the energy range from 0.5 GeV to 1.4 TeV based on 28.1 x 10(6) electrons collected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station. In the entire energy range the electron and positron spectra have distinctly different magnitudes and energy dependences. The electron flux exhibits a significant excess starting from 42.1(-5.2)(+5.4) GeV compared to the lower energy trends, but the nature of this excess is different from the positron flux excess above 25.2 +/- 1.8 GeV. Contrary to the positron flux, which has an exponential energy cutoff of 810(-180)(+310) GeV, at the 5 sigma level the electron flux does not have an energy cutoff below 1.9 TeV. In the entire energy range the electron flux is well described by the sum of two power law components. The different behavior of the cosmic-ray electrons and positrons measured by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is clear evidence that most high energy electrons originate from different sources than high energy positrons