Secretory Phospholipases A2 in Plants

Secreted phospholipases (sPLA2s) in plants are a growing group of enzymes that catalyze the hydrolysis of sn-2 glycerophospholipids to lysophospholipids and free fatty acids. Until today, around only 20 sPLA2s were reported from plants. This review discusses the newly acquired information on plant sPLA2s including molecular, biochemical, catalytic, and functional aspects. The comparative analysis also includes phylogenetic, evolutionary, and tridimensional structure. The observations with emphasis in Glycine max sPLA2 are compared with the available data reported for all plants sPLA2s and with those described for animals (mainly from pancreatic juice and venoms sources).Fil: Mariani, Maria Elisa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas y Tecnológicas. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas y Tecnológicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Departamento de Química. Cátedra de Química Biológica; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Cs.agropecuarias. Departamento de Fundamentación Biológica. Cátedra de Química Organica; ArgentinaFil: Fidelio, Gerardo Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Química Biológica de Córdoba. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Centro de Investigaciones en Química Biológica de Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Departamento de Química Biológica; Argentin

Improved γ\gamma/hadron separation for the detection of faint gamma-ray sources using boosted decision trees

Imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes record an enormous number of cosmic-ray background events. Suppressing these background events while retaining $\gamma$-rays is key to achieving good sensitivity to faint $\gamma$-ray sources. The differentiation between signal and background events can be accomplished using machine learning algorithms, which are already used in various fields of physics. Multivariate analyses combine several variables into a single variable that indicates the degree to which an event is $\gamma$-ray-like or cosmic-ray-like. In this paper we will focus on the use of boosted decision trees for $\gamma$/hadron separation. We apply the method to data from the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS), and demonstrate an improved sensitivity compared to the VERITAS standard analysis.Comment: accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physic

On a notion of speciality of linear systems in P^n

Given a linear system in P^n with assigned multiple general points we compute the cohomology groups of its strict transforms via the blow-up of its linear base locus. This leads us to give a new definition of expected dimension of a linear system, which takes into account the contribution of the linear base locus, and thus to introduce the notion of linear speciality. We investigate such a notion giving sufficient conditions for a linear system to be linearly non-special for arbitrary number of points, and necessary conditions for small numbers of points.Comment: 26 pages. Minor changes, Definition 3.2 slightly extended. Accepted for publication in Transactions of AM

Vibrational signatures of gaseous Meisenheimer complexes bonded at carbon and nitrogen

Anionic adducts of 1,3,5-trinitrobenzene (TNB) with deprotonated pyrrolidine (Pyr), imidazole (Im), acetone (Ac) and acetylacetone (Acac) have been delivered into the gas phase by electrospray ionization.The so-formed ions, TNB-Nu−(Nu = Pyr, Im, Ac, Acac), have been interrogated by IRMPD spectroscopy inthe fingerprint range. DFT calculations at B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level have been performed for a survey of candidate structures. All adducts conform to anionic sigma-complexes (Meisenheimer complexes). The symmetric stretching modes of the nitro groups yield a dominant vibrational signature at 1200–1250 cm−1,the red-shift with respect to the degenerate frequency of 1367 cm−1 in neutral TNB reflecting the extent of negative charge delocalization. The enol complexes TNB-Ac− and TNB-Acac− are largely representedby C-bonded species

Phase space description of the dynamics due to the coupled effect of the planetary oblateness and the solar radiation pressure perturbations

The aim of this work is to provide an analytical model to characterize the equilibrium points and the phase space associated with the singly-averaged dynamics caused by the planetary oblateness coupled with the solar radiation pressure perturbations. A two-dimensional differential system is derived by considering the classical theory, supported by the existence of an integral of motion comprising semi-major axis, eccentricity and inclination. Under the single resonance hypothesis, the analytical expressions for the equilibrium points in the eccentricity-resonant angle space are provided, together with the corresponding linear stability. The Hamiltonian formulation is also given. The model is applied considering, as example, the Earth as major oblate body, and a simple tool to visualize the structure of the phase space is presented. Finally, some considerations on the possible use and development of the proposed model are drawn