Alterations in Wheat Pollen Lipidome during High Day and Night Temperature Stress

Understanding the adaptive changes in wheat pollen lipidome under high temperature (HT) stress is critical to improving seed set and developing HT tolerant wheat varieties. We measured 89 pollen lipid species under optimum and high day and/or night temperatures using electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry in wheat plants. The pollen lipidome had a distinct composition compared to that of leaves. Unlike in leaves, 34:3 and 36:6 species dominated the composition of extraplastidic phospholipids in pollen under optimum and HT conditions. The most HT-responsive lipids were extraplastidic phospholipids, PC, PE, PI, PA, and PS. The unsaturation levels of the extraplastidic phospholipids decreased through the decreases in the levels of 18:3 and increases in the levels of 16:0, 18:0, 18:1, and 18:2 acyl chains. PC and PE were negatively correlated. Higher PC:PE at HT indicated possible PE-to-PC conversion, lower PE formation, or increased PE degradation, relative to PC. Correlation analysis revealed lipids experiencing coordinated metabolism under HT and confirmed the HT-responsiveness of extraplastidic phospholipids. Comparison of the present results on wheat pollen with results of our previous research on wheat leaves suggests that similar lipid changes contribute to HT adaptation in both leaves and pollen, though the lipidomes have inherently distinct compositions

Time Delay Estimation Performance in a Scattering Medium

The effects of a scattering medium on the performance of time delay estimation are considered. The medium is assumed to exhibit angular scattering, causing angular (as well as delay) dispersion and hence loss of signal coherence across the array aperture. Both the variance (via the Cramer-Rao bound) and the bias introduced in the time-delay estimates are studied. The results have been converted to bearing and range error standard deviation and bias. It is found from these studies that there is an optimum range of values for the separation distance between the sensors in the design of an array for time delay estimation, for range and bearing measurements

Some Restriction Coefficients for the Trivial and Sign Representations

We use character polynomials to obtain a positive combinatorial interpretation of the multiplicity of the sign representation in irreducible polynomial representations of $GL_n(\mathbb{C})$ indexed by two-column and hook partitions. Our method also yields a positive combinatorial interpretation for the multiplicity of the trivial representation of $S_n$ in an irreducible polynomial representation indexed by a hook partition.Comment: 15 pages, comments welcome

Role of atmospheric stability over the Arabian Sea and the unprecedented failure of monsoon 2002

The anomalous behaviour of the monsoon 2002 has been studied. We have made an attempt to combine satellite and other data sources to characterize the thermal stratification over the Arabian Sea during different phases of monsoon 2002. Using NOAA-ATOVSderived atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles, we have calculated a daily stability index (SI) over the entire Indian region and surrounding oceans. The time series of SI clearly brings out the three major significant epochs of monsoon 2002. The relatively dry atmosphere west of 65° E, signifying lack of convection and an unstable atmosphere over the southeast Arabian Sea with west-to-east gradients in water vapour, SI and cloud liquid water content are noted. The unfavourable stratification during July over the entire Arabian Sea has been investigated in detail. The dominant modes of instability oscillations have been seen to be ~ 30 days both over the western and eastern Arabian Sea, while for the high-frequency modes preference was seen over the eastern part. Using the analysed fields of the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, the relative contributions of advective and subsidence components in the maintenance of stratification have been investigated. The latter has been found to have played a more dominant role in the deficit monsoon 200

Variability of root traits in spring wheat germplasm

Citation: Narayanan S, Mohan A, Gill KS, Prasad PVV (2014) Variability of Root Traits in Spring Wheat Germplasm. PLoS ONE 9(6): e100317. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100317Root traits influence the amount of water and nutrient absorption, and are important for maintaining crop yield under drought conditions. The objectives of this research were to characterize variability of root traits among spring wheat genotypes and determine whether root traits are related to shoot traits (plant height, tiller number per plant, shoot dry weight, and coleoptile length), regions of origin, and market classes. Plants were grown in 150-cm columns for 61 days in a greenhouse under optimal growth conditions. Rooting depth, root dry weight, root: shoot ratio, and shoot traits were determined for 297 genotypes of the germplasm, Cultivated Wheat Collection (CWC). The remaining root traits such as total root length and surface area were measured for a subset of 30 genotypes selected based on rooting depth. Significant genetic variability was observed for root traits among spring wheat genotypes in CWC germplasm or its subset. Genotypes Sonora and Currawa were ranked high, and genotype Vandal was ranked low for most root traits. A positive relationship (R2≥0.35) was found between root and shoot dry weights within the CWC germplasm and between total root surface area and tiller number; total root surface area and shoot dry weight; and total root length and coleoptile length within the subset. No correlations were found between plant height and most root traits within the CWC germplasm or its subset. Region of origin had significant impact on rooting depth in the CWC germplasm. Wheat genotypes collected from Australia, Mediterranean, and west Asia had greater rooting depth than those from south Asia, Latin America, Mexico, and Canada. Soft wheat had greater rooting depth than hard wheat in the CWC germplasm. The genetic variability identified in this research for root traits can be exploited to improve drought tolerance and/or resource capture in wheat

Preliminary evidence that acute stress moderates basal testosterone's association with retaliatory behavior

A contribution to a special issue on Hormones and Human Competition. Testosterone is theorized to increase retaliation after social provocation. However, empirical evidence in support of these theories is mixed. The present research investigated whether acute stress causally suppresses testosterone's association with retaliation. We also explored sex differences in behavioral responses to acute stress. Thirty-nine participants (51.28% male) were randomly assigned to a high- or low-stress condition. Then participants engaged in 20 one-shot rounds of the ultimatum game, which was used to assess retaliatory behavioral responses to unfair treatment. Participants provided two saliva samples to measure testosterone and cortisol concentrations - one sample before the stress manipulation, and the second after the ultimatum game (20 minutes post-stressor). Results revealed a positive association between basal t estosterone and retaliation in the low-stress condition, but not in the high-stress condition. Further, cortisol concentrations increased in the high- compared to the low-stress condition, and these cortisol changes moderated the association between basal testosterone and retaliation. The associations between basal testosterone and retaliation under varying levels of stress were similar in men and women. However, there was a sex difference in behavioral responses to the stress manipulation that was independent of testosterone. In women, the high-stress condition reduced retaliation compared to the low-stress condition, whereas in men the opposite pattern emerged. Collectively, this study (i) provides preliminary evidence that experimentally manipulated stress blocks basal testosterone's association with retaliation, and (ii) reveals a sex difference in retaliation under varying levels of stress. Discussion focuses on mechanisms, limitations, and the need for follow-up studies with larger sample sizes

Estimation of annual risk of tuberculosis infection among children irrespective of BCG scar in the south zone of India

Objective: To estimate the proportion infected and compute Annual Risk of Tuberculosis Infection (ARTI) among children irrespective of BCG scar and compare with that among children without BCG scar. Methodology: Tuberculin survey was conducted in south zone of India as a part of the nation-wide survey to estimate the ARTI in different parts of the country and ARTI was computed among children without BCG scar excluding children with BCG scar. In this exercise, the tuberculin test results of children with BCG scar and irrespective of BCG scar were considered for analysis and the results were compared. Results: The prevalence of infection and ARTI estimated among children irrespective of BCG scar aged 1-9 years were 5.7% and 1.0% (95% C.I: 0.8-1.3) respectively. The corresponding figures among unvaccinated children were 5.9% and 1.0% (95% C.I: 0.7-1.4) respectively. The ARTI among children irrespective of BCG scar were similar to that among unvaccinated children. Conclusion: Estimation of proportion of children infected and computation of ARTI using mirror-image technique could be undertaken among children irrespective of BCG scar among children aged either from 1-9 years or 5-9 years

Free Form Medical Visual Question Answering in Radiology

Visual Question Answering (VQA) in the medical domain presents a unique, interdisciplinary challenge, combining fields such as Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, and Knowledge Representation. Despite its importance, research in medical VQA has been scant, only gaining momentum since 2018. Addressing this gap, our research delves into the effective representation of radiology images and the joint learning of multimodal representations, surpassing existing methods. We innovatively augment the SLAKE dataset, enabling our model to respond to a more diverse array of questions, not limited to the immediate content of radiology or pathology images. Our model achieves a top-1 accuracy of 79.55\% with a less complex architecture, demonstrating comparable performance to current state-of-the-art models. This research not only advances medical VQA but also opens avenues for practical applications in diagnostic settings.Comment: 6 pages and 4 figure