Effect of short-term temperature treatment to clusters on anthocyanin and abscisic acid content in the peel of 'Aki Queen' grape

The effect of short-term low and high temperature treatment to clusters before and after the onset of color development on anthocyanin and abscisic acid (ABA) content in the peel of 'Aki Queen' (Vitis labruscana L.), a tetraploid grape cultivar with red peel was investigated. Grape clusters were exposed to different temperature conditions, either from the beginning of the berry softening to the onset of color development, 47 to 56 days after full bloom (DAFB), or from the onset of color development onwards for 10 days, 56 to 66 DAFB. Low-temperature (2-5 °C lower than control) treatments in both, 47 to 56 DAFB and 56 to 66 DAFB had the tendency to increase anthocyanin concentration and the concentration in the peel was higher than that in the control. The difference in the ABA content after low and high temperature treatment in the 47 to 56 DAFB suggests that temperature from the beginning of berry softening to the onset of color development might affect the ABA content of the peel. On the other hand, treatment from the onset of color development onwards for 10 days might affect the anthocyanin concentration, but the effect on ABA content is relatively low. These results suggest that temperature-dependent accumulation of anthocyanin during maturation correlate with ABA content at the onset of color development in 'Aki Queen' grape.

Identification of Maize Silicon Influx Transporters

Maize (Zea mays L.) shows a high accumulation of silicon (Si), but transporters involved in the uptake and distribution have not been identified. In the present study, we isolated two genes (ZmLsi1 and ZmLsi6), which are homologous to rice influx Si transporter OsLsi1. Heterologous expression in Xenopus laevis oocytes showed that both ZmLsi1 and ZmLsi6 are permeable to silicic acid. ZmLsi1 was mainly expressed in the roots. By contrast, ZmLsi6 was expressed more in the leaf sheaths and blades. Different from OsLsi1, the expression level of both ZmLsi1 and ZmLsi6 was unaffected by Si supply. Immunostaining showed that ZmLsi1 was localized on the plasma membrane of the distal side of root epidermal and hypodermal cells in the seminal and crown roots, and also in cortex cells in lateral roots. In the shoots, ZmLsi6 was found in the xylem parenchyma cells that are adjacent to the vessels in both leaf sheaths and leaf blades. ZmLsi6 in the leaf sheaths and blades also exhibited polar localization on the side facing towards the vessel. Taken together, it can be concluded that ZmLsi1 is an influx transporter of Si, which is responsible for the transport of Si from the external solution to the root cells and that ZmLsi6 mainly functions as a Si transporter for xylem unloading

Direction Finding Estimators of Cyclostationary Signals in Array Processing for Microwave Power Transmission

A solar power satellite is paid attention to as a clean, inexhaustible large- scale base-load power supply. The following technology related to beam control is used: A pilot signal is sent from the power receiving site and after direction of arrival estimation the beam is directed back to the earth by same direction. A novel direction-finding algorithm based on linear prediction technique for exploiting cyclostationary statistical information (spatial and temporal) is explored. Many modulated communication signals exhibit a cyclostationarity (or periodic correlation) property, corresponding to the underlying periodicity arising from carrier frequencies or baud rates. The problem was solved by using both cyclic second-order statistics and cyclic higher-order statistics. By evaluating the corresponding cyclic statistics of the received data at certain cycle frequencies, we can extract the cyclic correlations of only signals with the same cycle frequency and null out the cyclic correlations of stationary additive noise and all other co-channel interferences with different cycle frequencies. Thus, the signal detection capability can be significantly improved. The proposed algorithms employ cyclic higher-order statistics of the array output and suppress additive Gaussian noise of unknown spectral content, even when the noise shares common cycle frequencies with the non-Gaussian signals of interest. The proposed method completely exploits temporal information (multiple lag ), and also can correctly estimate direction of arrival of desired signals by suppressing undesired signals. Our approach was generalized over direction of arrival estimation of cyclostationary coherent signals. In this paper, we propose a new approach for exploiting cyclostationarity that seems to be more advanced in comparison with the other existing direction finding algorithms

A retrotransposon-inserted VvmybA1a allele has been spread among cultivars of Vitis vinifera but not North American or East Asian Vitis species

Research Note

VvmybA1 genotype determines grape skin color

Research Not

Electronic inhomogeneity in EuO: Possibility of magnetic polaron states

We have observed the spatial inhomogeneity of the electronic structure of a single-crystalline electron-doped EuO thin film with ferromagnetic ordering by employing infrared magneto-optical imaging with synchrotron radiation. The uniform paramagnetic electronic structure changes to a uniform ferromagnetic structure via an inhomogeneous state with decreasing temperature and increasing magnetic field slightly above the ordering temperature. One possibility of the origin of the inhomogeneity is the appearance of magnetic polaron states.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Screening for resistance to ripe rot caused by Colletotrichum acutatum in grape germplasm

We screened 235 Vitis and six Muscadinia grapevine cultivars and selections conserved at the National Institute of Fruit Tree Science in Japan for resistance to grape ripe rot, caused by Colletotrichum acutatum Simmonds ex Simmonds. This fungus is insensitive to fungicides such as benomyl, diethofencarb, and iminoctadine-triacetate. We evaluated the disease resistance of nearly ripe berries from each cultivar and selection by artificial inoculation with C. acutatum. Analysis of variance of 20 cultivars and selections indicated that the genotype had a significant effect but that the year had no significant effect on the percentage of diseased berries. Genetic variance explained 85 % of total variance. Each cultivar or selection was classified into one of the following four classes based on its level of resistance to ripe rot: 50 highly resistant (≤ 20 % affected), 37 resistant (21- 40 %), 48 susceptible (41- 60 %), and 106 highly susceptible (≥ 61 %). Of the highly resistant cultivars and selections, we consider a diploid named 676-64 to be promising material for ripe rot resistant table grape breeding.

Future strategic plan analysis for integrating distributed renewable generation to smart grid through wireless sensor network: Malaysia prospect

AbstractIntegration of Distributed Renewable Generation (DRG) to the future Smart Grid (SG) is one of the important considerations that is highly prioritized in the SG development roadmap by most of the countries including Malaysia. The plausible way of this integration is the enhancement of information and bidirectional communication infrastructure for energy monitoring and controlling facilities. However, urgency of data delivery through maintaining critical time condition is not crucial in these facilities. In this paper, we have surveyed state-of-the-art protocols for different Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) with the aim of realizing communication infrastructure for DRG in Malaysia. Based on the analytical results from surveys, data communication for DRG should be efficient, flexible, reliable, cost effective, and secured. To meet this achievement, IEEE802.15.4 supported ZigBee PRO protocol together with sensors and embedded system is shown as Wireless Sensor (WS) for DRG bidirectional network with prospect of attaining data monitoring facilities. The prospect towards utilizing ZigBee PRO protocol can be a cost effective option for full integration of intelligent DRG and small scale Building-Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV)/Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) under SG roadmap (Phase4: 2016–2017) conducted by Malaysia national utility company, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). Moreover, we have provided a direction to utilize the effectiveness of ZigBee-WS network with the existing optical communication backbone for data importing from the end DRG site to the TNB control center. A comparative study is carried out among developing countries on recent trends of SG progress which reveals that some common projects like smart metering and DRG integration are on priority

Comparative Analysis of Non-thermal Emissions and Study of Electron Transport in a Solar Flare

We study the non-thermal emissions in a solar flare occurring on 2003 May 29 by using RHESSI hard X-ray (HXR) and Nobeyama microwave observations. This flare shows several typical behaviors of the HXR and microwave emissions: time delay of microwave peaks relative to HXR peaks, loop-top microwave and footpoint HXR sources, and a harder electron energy distribution inferred from the microwave spectrum than from the HXR spectrum. In addition, we found that the time profile of the spectral index of the higher-energy (\gsim 100 keV) HXRs is similar to that of the microwaves, and is delayed from that of the lower-energy (\lsim 100 keV) HXRs. We interpret these observations in terms of an electron transport model called {\TPP}. We numerically solved the spatially-homogeneous {\FP} equation to determine electron evolution in energy and pitch-angle space. By comparing the behaviors of the HXR and microwave emissions predicted by the model with the observations, we discuss the pitch-angle distribution of the electrons injected into the flare site. We found that the observed spectral variations can qualitatively be explained if the injected electrons have a pitch-angle distribution concentrated perpendicular to the magnetic field lines rather than isotropic distribution.Comment: 32 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa

Nature of the insulating phases in the half-filled ionic Hubbard model

We investigate the ground-state phase diagram of the one-dimensional "ionic" Hubbard model with an alternating periodic potential at half-filling by numerical diagonalization of finite systems with the Lanczos and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) methods. We identify an insulator-insulator phase transition from a band to a correlated insulator with simultaneous charge and bond-charge order. The transition point is characterized by the vanishing of the optical excitation gap while simultaneously the charge and spin gaps remain finite and equal. Indications for a possible second transition into a Mott-insulator phase are discussed.Comment: final for