Ractopamine-induced changes in sarcoplasmic proteome profile of post-rigor pork semimembranosus muscle

Ractopamine is a beta-adrenergic agonist that increases leanness and carcass weight in finishing pigs. Our previous study observed that dietary ractopamine increased the abundance of several glycolytic enzymes in the sarcoplasmic proteome of post-rigor pork longissimus thoracis muscle. Pork semimembranosus is an economically important muscle and demonstrates differences in biochemistry compared with longissimus thoracis. Nonetheless, the effects of ractopamine on sarcoplasmic proteome of semimembranosus have not been evaluated yet. Therefore, this study examined the influence of ractopamine on sarcoplasmic proteome of post-rigor pork semimembranosus. Analyses of sarcoplasmic proteome of semimembranosus muscles from control (CON; diet without ractopamine) and ractopamine-fed (RAC; 7.4 mg/kg for 14 days followed by 10.0 mg/kg for 14 days) barrows revealed that haemoglobin subunit beta, alpha-crystallin B, and titin fragments were over-abundant in CON. In contrast, myosin light chain 1/3 and tripartite motif-containing protein 72 were over-abundant in RAC. The low abundance of haemoglobin subunit beta and alpha crystallin B in RAC could be attributed to fibre type shift (from oxidative to glycolytic) in response to ractopamine. The over-abundance of MLC 1/3 and tripartite motif-containing protein 72 in RAC could be due to the increased myofibrillar protein synthesis and muscle mass in ractopamine-fed pigs. Dietary ractopamine decreased the abundance of sarcoplasmic proteins involved in oxygen transport and chaperone activity, but increased the abundance of proteins involved in muscle contraction and plasma membrane repair in pork semimembranosus muscle.Keywords: Pork, ractopamine, sarcoplasmic proteome, semimembranosu

Utility of Daily 3 m Planet Fusion Surface Reflectance Data for Tillage Practice Mapping with Deep Learning

Tillage practices alter soil surface structure that can be potentially captured by satellite images with both high spatial and temporal resolution. This study explored tillage practice mapping using the daily Planet Fusion surface reflectance (PF-SR) gap-free 3 m data generated by fusing PlanetScope with Landsat-8, Sentinel-2 and MODIS surface reflectance data. The study area is a 220 × 220 km2 agricultural area in South Dakota, USA, and the study used 3285 PF-SR images from September 1, 2020 to August 31, 2021. The PF-SR images for the surveyed 433 fields were sliced into 10,747 training (70%) and evaluation (30%) non-overlapping time series patches. The training and evaluation patches were from different fields for evaluation data independence. The performance of four deep learning models (i.e., 2D convolutional neural networks (CNN), 3D CNN, CNN-Long short-term memory (LSTM), and attention CNN-LSTM) in tillage practice mapping, as well as their sensitivity to different spatial (i.e., 3 m, 24 m, and 96 m) and temporal resolutions (16-day, 8-day, 4-day, 2-day and 1-day) were examined. Classification accuracy continuously increased with increases in both temporal and spatial resolutions. The optimal models (3D CNN and attention CNN-LSTM) achieved ~77% accuracy using 2-day or daily 3 m resolution data as opposed to ~72% accuracy using 16-day 3 m resolution data or daily 24 m resolution data. This study also analyzed the feature importance of different acquisition dates for the two optimal models. The 3D CNN model feature importances were found to agree well with the tillage practice time. High feature importance was associated with observations during the fall and spring tillage period (i.e., fresh tillage signals) whereas the crop peak growing period (i.e., tillage signals weathered and confounded by dense canopy) was characterized by a relatively low feature importance. The work provides valuable insights into the utility of deep learning for tillage mapping and change event time identification based on high resolution imagery

Supranutritional supplementation of vitamin E influences mitochondrial proteome profile of post-mortem longissimus lumborum from feedlot heifers

Supplementation of vitamin E improves beef colour stability by minimizing lipid oxidation-induced myoglobin oxidation. Mitochondria affect myoglobin redox stability, and dietary vitamin E influences mitochondrial functionality in skeletal muscles. Nonetheless, the influence of vitamin E on the mitochondrial proteome of beef skeletal muscles has yet to be  investigated. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the effect of dietary vitamin E on mitochondrial proteome of post-mortem beef longissimus lumborum (LL) muscle. Beef LL muscle samples (24 hours post-mortem) were obtained from the carcasses of nine (n = 9) vitamin E-fed (VITE) (1000 IU vitamin E for 89 days) and nine (n = 9) control (CONT) (diet without supplemental vitamin E) heifers. The mitochondrial proteome was analysed using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry, and nine differentially abundant spots were identified. All the differentially abundant spots were over-abundant in CONT, and the proteins were electron transport chain enzymes (NADH dehydrogenase iron-sulphur protein 8, NADH dehydrogenase flavoprotein 2, and cytochrome c oxidase subunit 5B), metabolic enzymes (succinate-CoA ligase (ADP-forming) subunit beta; dihydrolipoyllysine-residue succinyltransferase component of 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase complex; pyruvate dehydrogenase protein X component), and enzymes involved in ATP regeneration (creatine kinase S-type). The low abundance of these proteins in VITE may decrease mitochondrial activity, resulting in low oxidative activity. These findings suggest that the strong antioxidant activity of vitamin E leads to less expression of mitochondrial oxidative enzymes in beef skeletal muscles.Keywords: Beef colour, lipid oxidation, mitochondrial enzyme

Nodal domains of Maass forms I

This paper deals with some questions that have received a lot of attention since they were raised by Hejhal and Rackner in their 1992 numerical computations of Maass forms. We establish sharp upper and lower bounds for the $L^2$-restrictions of these forms to certain curves on the modular surface. These results, together with the Lindelof Hypothesis and known subconvex $L^\infty$-bounds are applied to prove that locally the number of nodal domains of such a form goes to infinity with its eigenvalue.Comment: To appear in GAF

Scaling Behavior of Anomalous Hall Effect and Longitudinal Nonlinear Response in High-Tc Superconductors

Based on existing theoretical model and by considering our longitudinal nonlinear response function, we derive a nonliear equation in which the mixed state Hall resistivity can be expressed as an analytical function of magnetic field, temperature and applied current. This equation enables one to compare quantitatively the experimental data with theoretical model. We also find some new scaling relations of the temperature and field dependency of Hall resistivity. The comparison between our theoretical curves and experimental data shows a fair agreement.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV

A search for a Higgs boson decaying into two photons is described. The analysis is performed using a dataset recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 inverse femtobarns. Limits are set on the cross section of the standard model Higgs boson decaying to two photons. The expected exclusion limit at 95% confidence level is between 1.4 and 2.4 times the standard model cross section in the mass range between 110 and 150 GeV. The analysis of the data excludes, at 95% confidence level, the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in the mass range 128 to 132 GeV. The largest excess of events above the expected standard model background is observed for a Higgs boson mass hypothesis of 124 GeV with a local significance of 3.1 sigma. The global significance of observing an excess with a local significance greater than 3.1 sigma anywhere in the search range 110-150 GeV is estimated to be 1.8 sigma. More data are required to ascertain the origin of this excess.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

Measurement of the Lambda(b) cross section and the anti-Lambda(b) to Lambda(b) ratio with Lambda(b) to J/Psi Lambda decays in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The Lambda(b) differential production cross section and the cross section ratio anti-Lambda(b)/Lambda(b) are measured as functions of transverse momentum pt(Lambda(b)) and rapidity abs(y(Lambda(b))) in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The measurements are based on Lambda(b) decays reconstructed in the exclusive final state J/Psi Lambda, with the subsequent decays J/Psi to an opposite-sign muon pair and Lambda to proton pion, using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.9 inverse femtobarns. The product of the cross section times the branching ratio for Lambda(b) to J/Psi Lambda versus pt(Lambda(b)) falls faster than that of b mesons. The measured value of the cross section times the branching ratio for pt(Lambda(b)) > 10 GeV and abs(y(Lambda(b))) < 2.0 is 1.06 +/- 0.06 +/- 0.12 nb, and the integrated cross section ratio for anti-Lambda(b)/Lambda(b) is 1.02 +/- 0.07 +/- 0.09, where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

Search for new physics in events with opposite-sign leptons, jets, and missing transverse energy in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search is presented for physics beyond the standard model (BSM) in final states with a pair of opposite-sign isolated leptons accompanied by jets and missing transverse energy. The search uses LHC data recorded at a center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the CMS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 5 inverse femtobarns. Two complementary search strategies are employed. The first probes models with a specific dilepton production mechanism that leads to a characteristic kinematic edge in the dilepton mass distribution. The second strategy probes models of dilepton production with heavy, colored objects that decay to final states including invisible particles, leading to very large hadronic activity and missing transverse energy. No evidence for an event yield in excess of the standard model expectations is found. Upper limits on the BSM contributions to the signal regions are deduced from the results, which are used to exclude a region of the parameter space of the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model. Additional information related to detector efficiencies and response is provided to allow testing specific models of BSM physics not considered in this paper.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of isolated photon production in pp and PbPb collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 2.76 TeV

Isolated photon production is measured in proton-proton and lead-lead collisions at nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energies of 2.76 TeV in the pseudorapidity range |eta|<1.44 and transverse energies ET between 20 and 80 GeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. The measured ET spectra are found to be in good agreement with next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD predictions. The ratio of PbPb to pp isolated photon ET-differential yields, scaled by the number of incoherent nucleon-nucleon collisions, is consistent with unity for all PbPb reaction centralities.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters