Identifying plant cell wall remnants in detritus of a subtropical wetland with fluorescence labeling

Sediment accretion in wetlands represents a significant carbon burial pathway. While litter studies can quantify the loss rates of plant leaf material, those studies do not provide insight into the specific cell wall polymers being retained or lost within the detrital matrix. The Everglades ecosystem has been dramatically altered due to anthropogenic eutrophication and hydrologic modifications. The results are changes in macrophyte species composition and sediment accretion- and loss- rates. To improve ecological conditions, active management strategies are re-establishing open water slough environments. A question remains about the persistence of new- and old- plant cell wall material in sediments because of active management. In this pilot project we utilized immuno-fluorescence labeling with lectins applied to plant leaf material and detrital flocculent collected from created open and control plots in the Everglades to observe the presence, absence, and overlap of specific cell wall polymers between macrophytes and detrital flocculent in increasingly recalcitrant materials that would most likely contribute to peat accumulation. The persistence and loss of specific polymers between treatment and control plots provided insight into the differing levels of recalcitrance amongst plant cell walls and their relative potential as a carbon sink. This study provides a novel method for testing for the presence and persistence of specific cell wall polymers in detritus to gain a better understanding of plant material persistence in wetland ecosystems

Microtubules gate tau condensation to spatially regulate microtubule functions.

Tau is an abundant microtubule-associated protein in neurons. Tau aggregation into insoluble fibrils is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia1, yet the physiological state of tau molecules within cells remains unclear. Using single-molecule imaging, we directly observe that the microtubule lattice regulates reversible tau self-association, leading to localized, dynamic condensation of tau molecules on the microtubule surface. Tau condensates form selectively permissible barriers, spatially regulating the activity of microtubule-severing enzymes and the movement of molecular motors through their boundaries. We propose that reversible self-association of tau molecules, gated by the microtubule lattice, is an important mechanism of the biological functions of tau, and that oligomerization of tau is a common property shared between the physiological and disease-associated forms of the molecule

Frightening Small Children and Disconcerting Grown-ups: Concurrency in the Linux Kernel

Concurrency in the Linux kernel can be a contentious topic. The Linux kernel mailing list features numerous discussions related to consistency models, including those of the more than 30 CPU architectures supported by the kernel and that of the kernel itself. How are Linux programs supposed to behave? Do they behave correctly on exotic hardware? A formal model can help address such questions. Better yet, an executable model allows programmers to experiment with the model to develop their intuition. Thus we offer a model written in the cat language, making it not only formal, but also executable by the herd simulator. We tested our model against hardware and refined it in consultation with maintainers. Finally, we formalised the fundamental law of the Read-Copy-Update synchronisation mechanism, and proved that one of its implementations satisfies this law

Multi-Element Airfoil System

A multi-element airfoil system includes an airfoil element having a leading edge region and a skin element coupled to the airfoil element. A slat deployment system is coupled to the slat and the skin element, and is capable of deploying and retracting the slat and the skin element. The skin element substantially fills the lateral gap formed between the slat and the airfoil element when the slat is deployed. The system further includes an uncoupling device and a sensor to remove the skin element from the gap based on a critical angle-of-attack of the airfoil element. The system can alternatively comprise a trailing edge flap, where a skin element substantially fills the lateral gap between the flap and the trailing edge region of the airfoil element. In each case, the skin element fills a gap between the airfoil element and the deployed flap or slat to reduce airframe noise

Tau repeat regions contain conserved histidine residues that modulate microtubule-binding in response to changes in pH.

Tau, a member of the MAP2/tau family of microtubule-associated proteins, stabilizes and organizes axonal microtubules in healthy neurons. In neurodegenerative tauopathies, tau dissociates from microtubules and forms neurotoxic extracellular aggregates. MAP2/tau family proteins are characterized by three to five conserved, intrinsically disordered repeat regions that mediate electrostatic interactions with the microtubule surface. Here, we used molecular dynamics, microtubule-binding experiments, and live-cell microscopy, revealing that highly-conserved histidine residues near the C terminus of each microtubule-binding repeat are pH sensors that can modulate tau-microtubule interaction strength within the physiological intracellular pH range. We observed that at low pH (<7.5), these histidines are positively charged and interact with phenylalanine residues in a hydrophobic cleft between adjacent tubulin dimers. At higher pH (>7.5), tau deprotonation decreased binding to microtubules both in vitro and in cells. Electrostatic and hydrophobic characteristics of histidine were both required for tau-microtubule binding, as substitutions with constitutively and positively charged nonaromatic lysine or uncharged alanine greatly reduced or abolished tau-microtubule binding. Consistent with these findings, tau-microtubule binding was reduced in a cancer cell model with increased intracellular pH but was rapidly restored by decreasing the pH to normal levels. These results add detailed insights into the intracellular regulation of tau activity that may be relevant in both normal and pathological conditions

Status of SuperSpec: A Broadband, On-Chip Millimeter-Wave Spectrometer

SuperSpec is a novel on-chip spectrometer we are developing for multi-object, moderate resolution (R = 100 - 500), large bandwidth (~1.65:1) submillimeter and millimeter survey spectroscopy of high-redshift galaxies. The spectrometer employs a filter bank architecture, and consists of a series of half-wave resonators formed by lithographically-patterned superconducting transmission lines. The signal power admitted by each resonator is detected by a lumped element titanium nitride (TiN) kinetic inductance detector (KID) operating at 100-200 MHz. We have tested a new prototype device that is more sensitive than previous devices, and easier to fabricate. We present a characterization of a representative R=282 channel at f = 236 GHz, including measurements of the spectrometer detection efficiency, the detector responsivity over a large range of optical loading, and the full system optical efficiency. We outline future improvements to the current system that we expect will enable construction of a photon-noise-limited R=100 filter bank, appropriate for a line intensity mapping experiment targeting the [CII] 158 micron transition during the Epoch of ReionizationComment: 16 pages, 10 figures, Proceedings of the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2014 Conference, Vol 9153, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy VI

Double-shell tank space analysis of Hanford Site operating scenarios

Several operating cases were evaluated to determine the Hanford Site activities that can be supported given two 242-A Evaporator operating assumption: (1) the evaporator does not restart and (2) the evaporator does not restart until December 1990. These cases included variation in production facility operation and Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order (Tri-Party Agreement) commitments. The cases that evaluated the no evaporator restart'' operating assumptions determined that even the minimal double-shell tank waste generating activities cannot be supported. For the minimal waste generation rate, double-shell tank space would be depleted by December 1991. The cases that evaluated the evaporator restart would support all production mission with the exception of the plutonium-uranium extraction (PUREX) processing. A delay in the evaporator restart and/or increased waste generation could significantly impact the above conclusions. Actions to reduce waste generation rates, minimize stored volumes in the double-shell tanks, and optimize use of double-shell tanks must be pursued. 1 ref., 8 figs