658 research outputs found
Comparison of Nitrate Contents for Reed Canarygrass and Orchardgrass in Large Amounts of Compound Fertilization
Reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea L.) could be an ideal candidate for manure application. We compared its growth, crude protein (CP) and nitrate N (NO3-N) content to that of orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) on different levels of nitrogen fertilization (3,10,15 and 20g N m-2, applied from May 15 to September 15 after each monthly cutting. The dry weight (DW) of reed canarygrass increased significantly with increasing amounts of N nitrogen on July, August and September. However, orchardgrass only showed a significant increase in yield on September. The concentration of CP of reed canarygrass was significantly lower than that of orchardgrass with 3 g N m-2 on June, July, August and 10 g N m-2 on August. In contrast to this, CP of reed canarygrass was significantly higher than that of orchardgrass with 15 g N m-2 on July and 20 g N m-2 on July and August. NO3-N content of reed canarygrass was significantly lower than that of orchardgrass with 3 g N m-2 and 10 g N m-2 on June, July and August. We had high NO3-N (\u3e 0.15% N as NO3-N was considered unsafe) with 15 g N m-2 and 20 g N m-2 in both forage species and with 10 g N m-2 in orchardgrass. Our results indicate that reed canarygrass accumulates less NO3-N than orchardgrass with applications of 3 g N m-2 and 10 g N m-2 per cutting
Nonstructural Carbohydrate Reserves of Temperate Perennial Grasses in Autumn Early Growth
The objective of this study was to determine levels of nonstructural carbohydrate reserves of four temperate perennial grasses: Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.), Timothy (Phleum pratense L.), Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.), and Reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea L.) in their early growth stages during the cool autumn temperatures in northern Japan. At the time of sampling, all grasses were in their vegetative stage, and Reed canarygrass was not forming rhizomes. Fructosan concentration in reed canarygrass roots (8.04%) was 22 times that of the leaf blade (0.36%) and twice that of the stem (3.40%); the concentration in reed canarygrass root was the highest of the four grasses. Timothy stored fructosan in the root at a significantly higher concentration (1.65%) than did the orchardgrass (0.58%) and perennial ryegrass (0.83%). The concentration of fructosan in the timothy was the highest in the stem, the lowest in the leaf blade and intermediate in the root. On the other hand, orchardgrass and perennial ryegrass stored the highest amount of fructosan in the stem, the lowest amount in the root, and an intermediate amount in the leaf blade. In addition, the root dry weight and the ratio of the root dry weight to the total dry weight were significantly higher in reed canarygrass than in the other three grasses. Timothy was in second place surpassing orchardgrass and perennial ryegrass. We considered that winter survival is the highest in reed canarygrass and second highest in timothy over orchard grass and perennial ryegrass
Analysis of interdiffusion between SmFeAsO0.92F0.08 and metals for ex situ fabrication of superconducting wire
We demonstrate the fabrication of superconducting SmFeAsO1-xFx (Sm-1111)
wires by using the ex-situ powder-in-tube technique. Sm-1111 powder and a
binder composed of SmF3, samarium arsenide, and iron arsenide were used to
synthesize the superconducting core. Although the F content of Sm-1111 is
reduced in the process of ex-situ fabrication, the binder compensates by
sufficiently supplementing the F content, thereby preventing a decrease in the
superconducting transition temperature and a shrinking of the superconducting
volume fraction. Thus, in the superconducting Sm-1111 wire with the binder, the
transport critical current density reaches the highest value of ~4000 A/cm2 at
4.2 K
Wet and dry deposition of mineral dust particles in Japan: factors related to temporal variation and spatial distribution
Recent ground networks and satellite remote-sensing observations have
provided useful data related to spatial and vertical distributions of
mineral dust particles in the atmosphere. However, measurements of temporal
variations and spatial distributions of mineral dust deposition fluxes are
limited in terms of their duration, location, and processes of deposition.
To ascertain temporal variations and spatial distributions of mineral dust
deposition using wet and dry processes, weekly deposition samples were
obtained at Sapporo, Toyama, Nagoya, Tottori, Fukuoka, and Cape Hedo
(Okinawa) in Japan during October 2008–December 2010 using automatic wet
and dry separating samplers. Mineral dust weights in water-insoluble residue
were estimated from Fe contents measured using an X-ray fluorescence
analyser. Wet and dry deposition fluxes of mineral dusts were both high in
spring and low in summer, showing similar seasonal variations to frequency
of aeolian dust events (Kosa) in Japan. For wet deposition, highest and lowest
annual dust fluxes were found at Toyama (9.6 g m<sup>−2</sup> yr<sup>−1</sup>) and at
Cape Hedo (1.7 g m<sup>−2</sup> yr<sup>−1</sup>) as average values in 2009 and 2010.
Higher wet deposition fluxes were observed at Toyama and Tottori, where
frequent precipitation (> 60% days per month) was observed
during dusty seasons. For dry deposition among Toyama, Tottori, Fukuoka, and
Cape Hedo, the highest and lowest annual dust fluxes were found respectively
at Fukuoka (5.2 g m<sup>−2</sup> yr<sup>−1</sup>) and at
Cape Hedo (2.0 g m<sup>−2</sup> yr<sup>−1</sup>)
as average values in 2009 and 2010. The average ratio of wet and
dry deposition fluxes was the highest at Toyama (3.3) and the lowest at Hedo
(0.82), showing a larger contribution of the dry process at western sites,
probably because of the distance from desert source regions and because of
the effectiveness of the wet process in the dusty season.
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Size distributions of refractory dust particles were obtained using
four-stage filtration: > 20, > 10, > 5, and > 1 μm diameter. Weight fractions of the sum of
> 20 μm and 10–20 μm (giant fraction) were
higher than 50% for most of the event samples. Irrespective of the
deposition type, the giant dust fractions generally decreased with increasing
distance from the source area, suggesting the selective depletion of larger
giant particles during atmospheric transport. Based on temporal variations of
PM<sub>c</sub> (2.5 < <i>D</i> < 10 μm),
ground-based lidar, backward air trajectories, and vertical profiles of
potential temperatures, transport processes of dust particles are discussed
for events with high-deposition and low-deposition flux with high
PM<sub>c</sub>. Low dry dust depositions with high PM<sub>c</sub>
concentrations were observed under stronger (5 K km<sup>−1</sup>) stratification
of potential temperature with thinner and lower (< 2 km)
dust distributions because the PM<sub>c</sub> fraction of dust particles
only survived after depletion of giant dust particles by rapid gravitational
settling at the time they reach Japan. In contrast, transport through a
thicker (> 2 km) dust layer with weak vertical gradient of
potential temperature carry more giant dust particles to Japan. Because giant
dust particles are an important mass fraction of dust accumulation,
especially in the North Pacific, which is known as a high-nutrient,
low-chlorophyll (HNLC) region, the transport height and fraction of giant
dust particles are important factors for studying dust budgets in the
atmosphere and their role in biogeochemical cycles
CANGAROO-III Observation of TeV Gamma Rays from the vicinity of PSR B1 706-44
Observation by the CANGAROO-III stereoscopic system of the Imaging Cherenkov
Telescope has detected extended emission of TeV gamma rays in the vicinity of
the pulsar PSR B170644. The strength of the signal observed as
gamma-ray-like events varies when we apply different ways of emulating
background events. The reason for such uncertainties is argued in relevance to
gamma-rays embedded in the "off-source data", that is, unknown sources and
diffuse emission in the Galactic plane, namely, the existence of a complex
structure of TeV gamma-ray emission around PSR B170644.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, to be published in Ap
Defining Developmental Potency and Cell Lineage Trajectories by Expression Profiling of Differentiating Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells
Biologists rely on morphology, function and specific markers to define the differentiation status of cells. Transcript profiling has expanded the repertoire of these markers by providing the snapshot of cellular status that reflects the activity of all genes. However, such data have been used only to assess relative similarities and differences of these cells. Here we show that principal component analysis of global gene expression profiles map cells in multidimensional transcript profile space and the positions of differentiating cells progress in a stepwise manner along trajectories starting from undifferentiated embryonic stem (ES) cells located in the apex. We present three ‘cell lineage trajectories’, which represent the differentiation of ES cells into the first three lineages in mammalian development: primitive endoderm, trophoblast and primitive ectoderm/neural ectoderm. The positions of the cells along these trajectories seem to reflect the developmental potency of cells and can be used as a scale for the potential of cells. Indeed, we show that embryonic germ cells and induced pluripotent cells are mapped near the origin of the trajectories, whereas mouse embryo fibroblast and fibroblast cell lines are mapped near the far end of the trajectories. We suggest that this method can be used as the non-operational semi-quantitative definition of cell differentiation status and developmental potency. Furthermore, the global expression profiles of cell lineages provide a framework for the future study of in vitro and in vivo cell differentiation
Modulation of intracellular ROS levels by TIGAR controls autophagy
The p53-inducible TIGAR protein functions as a fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase, promoting the pentose phosphate pathway and helping to lower intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS functions in the regulation of many cellular responses, including autophagy—a response to stress conditions such as nutrient starvation and metabolic stress. In this study, we show that TIGAR can modulate ROS in response to nutrient starvation or metabolic stress, and functions to inhibit autophagy. The ability of TIGAR to limit autophagy correlates strongly with the suppression of ROS, with no clear effects on the mTOR pathway, and is p53 independent. The induction of autophagy in response to loss of TIGAR can function to moderate apoptotic response by restraining ROS levels. These results reveal a complex interplay in the regulation of ROS, autophagy and apoptosis in response to TIGAR expression, and shows that proteins similar to TIGAR that regulate glycolysis can have a profound effect on the autophagic response through ROS regulation
MRLocus: Identifying causal genes mediating a trait through Bayesian estimation of allelic heterogeneity
Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) studies are used to understand the regulatory function of non-coding genome-wide association study (GWAS) risk loci, but colocalization alone does not demonstrate a causal relationship of gene expression affecting a trait. Evidence for mediation, that perturbation of gene expression in a given tissue or developmental context will induce a change in the downstream GWAS trait, can be provided by two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR). Here, we introduce a new statistical method, MRLocus, for Bayesian estimation of the gene-to-trait effect from eQTL and GWAS summary data for loci with evidence of allelic heterogeneity, that is, containing multiple causal variants. MRLocus makes use of a colocalization step applied to each nearly-LD-independent eQTL, followed by an MR analysis step across eQTLs. Additionally, our method involves estimation of the extent of allelic heterogeneity through a dispersion parameter, indicating variable mediation effects from each individual eQTL on the downstream trait. Our method is evaluated against other state-of-the-art methods for estimation of the gene-to-trait mediation effect, using an existing simulation framework. In simulation, MRLocus often has the highest accuracy among competing methods, and in each case provides more accurate estimation of uncertainty as assessed through interval coverage. MRLocus is then applied to five candidate causal genes for mediation of particular GWAS traits, where gene-to-trait effects are concordant with those previously reported. We find that MRLocus’s estimation of the causal effect across eQTLs within a locus provides useful information for determining how perturbation of gene expression or individual regulatory elements will affect downstream traits. The MRLocus method is implemented as an R package available at https://mikelove.github.io/ mrlocus
CANGAROO-III observation of TeV gamma rays from the unidentified gamma-ray source HESS J1614-518
We report the detection, with the CANGAROO-III imaging atmospheric Cherenkov
telescope array, of a very high energy gamma-ray signal from the unidentified
gamma-ray source HESS J1614-518, which was discovered in the H.E.S.S. Galactic
plane survey. Diffuse gamma-ray emission was detected above 760 GeV at the 8.9
sigma level during an effective exposure of 54 hr from 2008 May to August. The
spectrum can be represented by a power-law:
8.2+-2.2_{stat}+-2.5_{sys}x10^{-12}x (E/1TeV)^{-Gamma} cm^{-2} s^{-1} TeV^{-1}
with a photon index Gamma of 2.4+-0.3_{stat}+-0.2_{sys}, which is compatible
with that of the H.E.S.S. observations. By combining our result with
multi-wavelength data, we discuss the possible counterparts for HESS J1614-518
and consider radiation mechanisms based on hadronic and leptonic processes for
a supernova remnant, stellar winds from massive stars, and a pulsar wind
nebula. Although a leptonic origin from a pulsar wind nebula driven by an
unknown pulsar remains possible, hadronic-origin emission from an unknown
supernova remnant is preferred.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
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