Stomatal parameters in nine species of Corchorus (Tiliaceae)

Stomatal parameters namely stomatal size variation including aperture size (area), frequency of distribution, and conductance were studied in nine species (cultivated- C. capsularis L.- JRC 321, C. olitorius L. – JRO 524; wild - C. aestuans L. – WCIJ 088, C. fascicularis Lam. – WCIJ 150, C. pseudocapsularis L.- CIM 036, C. pseudoolitorius I. and Z. – OIN 507, C. tridens L.- WCIJ 149, C. trilocularis L.- KBA 222 and C. urticaefolius W. and A.- WCIJ 070- the species were grown under uniform agro-climatic condition) of Jute in an attempt to screen drought tolerant species and genotypes demonstrating enhanced photosynthetic efficiency. Stomata of jute species are paracytic, amphistomatic and anisostomatic. Results indicated that C. aestuans, C. urticaefolius, C. trilocularis and C. pseudoolitorius were drought tolerant; while C. pseudoolitorius and C. fascicularis were apparently with enhanced photosynthetic efficiency. The desirable traits in wild germplasm may be used for efficient breeding and crop improvement.Keywords: Jute species, drought tolerance, photosynthetic efficiency, efficient breedin

Probiotics and human health: Synoptic review.

The development of probiotic, functional foods aims to "kill two birds with one stone," which is accomplished by providing a microbial stimulus to the host immune system by means of beneficial live microorganism cultures that are characteristic of the healthy, human gut microflora. Several probiotic preparations seem to have promise in prevention or treatment of various conditions. Probiotic bacteria reinforce the different lines of gut defense, which are immune exclusion, immune elimination, and immune regulation. They stimulate non-specific host resistance to microbial pathogens, thereby aiding in pathogen eradication. Best documented clinical application of probiotics is in the treatment of acute diarrhea. In humans, documented effects were reported for the alleviation of intestinal inflammation, normalization of gut mucosal dysfunction, and down-regulation of hypersensitivity reactions. The efficacy of probiotics in acute enteric infections and post-antibiotic syndromes is now established and there is emerging evidence for a role in alleviation of necrotizing enterocolitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and some forms of inflammatory bowel disease. Probiotics are gaining importance because of their innumerable benefits, e.g. treating lactose intolerance, hypercholesterol problem, cardiac diseases and managing cardiac problems like atherosclerosis and arteriosclerosis.However, adequate information by which the consumer and health professional can judge the efficacy and safety of retailed probiotics is lacking. Probiotic products have not been subjected to large-scale trials of efficacy that are used in the pharmaceutical industry. Without these trials and subsequent approval by fastidious regulatory agencies such as the FDA (USA), probiotics continue to languish in the self-care health market.However, the future is bright; enhanced understanding of the molecular details of host’s microflora flora interactions within the gut promises to yield new therapeutic targets and the potential to move from "bugs to drugs". With the current focus on disease prevention and the quest for optimal health at all ages, the probiotics market potential is enormous. Health professionals are in an ideal position to help and guide their clients toward appropriate prophylactic and therapeutic uses of probiotics that deliver the desired beneficial health effects

Ultra-fast scalable estimation of single-cell differentiation potency from scRNA-Seq data

Motivation: An important task in the analysis of single-cell RNA-Seq data is the estimation of differentiation potency, as this can help identify stem-or-multipotent cells in non-temporal studies or in tissues where differentiation hierarchies are not well established. A key challenge in the estimation of single-cell potency is the need for a fast and accurate algorithm, scalable to large scRNA-Seq studies profiling millions of cells. Results: Here, we present a single-cell potency measure, called Correlation of Connectome and Transcriptome (CCAT), which can return accurate single-cell potency estimates of a million cells in minutes, a 100-fold improvement over current state-of-the-art methods. We benchmark CCAT against 8 other single-cell potency models and across 28 scRNA-Seq studies, encompassing over 2 million cells, demonstrating comparable accuracy than the current state-of-the-art, at a significantly reduced computational cost, and with increased robustness to dropouts

Evolution of ZnS Nanoparticles via Facile CTAB Aqueous Micellar Solution Route: A Study on Controlling Parameters

Synthesis of semiconductor nanoparticles with new photophysical properties is an area of special interest. Here, we report synthesis of ZnS nanoparticles in aqueous micellar solution of Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). The size of ZnS nanodispersions in aqueous micellar solution has been calculated using UV-vis spectroscopy, XRD, SAXS, and TEM measurements. The nanoparticles are found to be polydispersed in the size range 6–15 nm. Surface passivation by surfactant molecules has been studied using FTIR and fluorescence spectroscopy. The nanoparticles have been better stabilized using CTAB concentration above 1 mM. Furthermore, room temperature absorption and fluorescence emission of powdered ZnS nanoparticles after redispersion in water have also been investigated and compared with that in aqueous micellar solution. Time-dependent absorption behavior reveals that the formation of ZnS nanoparticles depends on CTAB concentration and was complete within 25 min

X-ray emission from the Sombrero galaxy: discrete sources

We present a study of discrete X-ray sources in and around the bulge-dominated, massive Sa galaxy, Sombrero (M104), based on new and archival Chandra observations with a total exposure of ~200 ks. With a detection limit of L_X = 1E37 erg/s and a field of view covering a galactocentric radius of ~30 kpc (11.5 arcminute), 383 sources are detected. Cross-correlation with Spitler et al.'s catalogue of Sombrero globular clusters (GCs) identified from HST/ACS observations reveals 41 X-rays sources in GCs, presumably low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). We quantify the differential luminosity functions (LFs) for both the detected GC and field LMXBs, whose power-low indices (~1.1 for the GC-LF and ~1.6 for field-LF) are consistent with previous studies for elliptical galaxies. With precise sky positions of the GCs without a detected X-ray source, we further quantify, through a fluctuation analysis, the GC LF at fainter luminosities down to 1E35 erg/s. The derived index rules out a faint-end slope flatter than 1.1 at a 2 sigma significance, contrary to recent findings in several elliptical galaxies and the bulge of M31. On the other hand, the 2-6 keV unresolved emission places a tight constraint on the field LF, implying a flattened index of ~1.0 below 1E37 erg/s. We also detect 101 sources in the halo of Sombrero. The presence of these sources cannot be interpreted as galactic LMXBs whose spatial distribution empirically follows the starlight. Their number is also higher than the expected number of cosmic AGNs (52+/-11 [1 sigma]) whose surface density is constrained by deep X-ray surveys. We suggest that either the cosmic X-ray background is unusually high in the direction of Sombrero, or a distinct population of X-ray sources is present in the halo of Sombrero.Comment: 11 figures, 5 tables, ApJ in pres

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for new physics with same-sign isolated dilepton events with jets and missing transverse energy

A search for new physics is performed in events with two same-sign isolated leptons, hadronic jets, and missing transverse energy in the final state. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.98 inverse femtobarns produced in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. This constitutes a factor of 140 increase in integrated luminosity over previously published results. The observed yields agree with the standard model predictions and thus no evidence for new physics is found. The observations are used to set upper limits on possible new physics contributions and to constrain supersymmetric models. To facilitate the interpretation of the data in a broader range of new physics scenarios, information on the event selection, detector response, and efficiencies is provided.Comment: Published in Physical Review Letter

Compressed representation of a partially defined integer function over multiple arguments

In OLAP (OnLine Analitical Processing) data are analysed in an n-dimensional cube. The cube may be represented as a partially defined function over n arguments. Considering that often the function is not defined everywhere, we ask: is there a known way of representing the function or the points in which it is defined, in a more compact manner than the trivial one