A fully automatable enzymatic method for DNA extraction from plant tissues

BACKGROUND: DNA extraction from plant tissues, unlike DNA isolation from mammalian tissues, remains difficult due to the presence of a rigid cell wall around the plant cells. Currently used methods inevitably require a laborious mechanical grinding step, necessary to disrupt the cell wall for the release of DNA. RESULTS: Using a cocktail of different carbohydrases, a method was developed that enables a complete digestion of the plant cell walls and subsequent DNA release. Optimized conditions for the digestion reaction minimize DNA shearing and digestion, and maximize DNA release from the plant cell. The method gave good results in 125 of the 156 tested species. CONCLUSION: In combination with conventional DNA isolation techniques, the new enzymatic method allows to obtain high-yield, high-molecular weight DNA, which can be used for many applications, including genome characterization by AFLP, RAPD and SSR. Automation of the protocol (from leaf disks to DNA) is possible with existing workstations

TRANSFORMATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION: SEARCH FOR OPTIMAL REGULATORY MECHANISMS TO ACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Contextualization: The changes taking place in the world in the technological, geopolitical, and intercultural spheres and beyond affect the development of higher education. The transformation of higher education in the modern context of post-industrial society determines the development of Russian higher education in the coming years.Objective: The objective of the study is to determine the optimal mechanisms for regulating the transformation of higher education to achieve sustainable social development.Methods: To achieve the study goal, the authors use qualitative research methods, including an expert survey with the measurement of the consistency degree of expert opinions and mathematical processing of the results using the Kendall concordance coefficient (W).Results: The study identifies the main elements of the state regulation system of the higher education transformation and directions for improving the effectiveness of state regulation of transformation in the field of higher education. The legal, economic, organizational, motivational, and social mechanisms are identified to analyze the system of regulation and transformation of higher education. The article concludes that the central idea of determining the optimal mechanisms of state regulation of the higher education transformation to achieve sustainable social development is to narrow the function of the direct state influence on the field of education, which will maximize the potential of universities

Hygienical Evaluation of LED Lighting Systems

The article outlines experimental investigations of LED lighting hygienic efficiency. A comprehensive methodology for psychophysiologic and hygienic assessment of the LED lighting equipment which (the methodology) was elaborated by the authors was used in the course of the experiments. The experiments were carried out by means of a designed experimental research facility ensuring variation of luminescent (basic) and LED lighting. There were selected the indicators of the visual organ state which are the most optimal and complying with the investigational tasks. The article describes the most significant results of the experimental investigations. A practical relevance of the received experimental material at time of designing lighting systems based on the LED lighting sources was demonstrated

The transmission of pottery technology among prehistoric European hunter-gatherers

Human history has been shaped by global dispersals of technologies, although understanding of what enabled these processes is limited. Here, we explore the behavioural mechanisms that led to the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherer communities in Europe during the mid-Holocene. Through radiocarbon dating, we propose this dispersal occurred at a far faster rate than previously thought. Chemical characterization of organic residues shows that European hunter-gatherer pottery had a function structured around regional culinary practices rather than environmental factors. Analysis of the forms, decoration and technological choices suggests that knowledge of pottery spread through a process of cultural transmission. We demonstrate a correlation between the physical properties of pots and how they were used, reflecting social traditions inherited by successive generations of hunter-gatherers. Taken together the evidence supports kinship-driven, super-regional communication networks that existed long before other major innovations such as agriculture, writing, urbanism or metallurgy

ON THE SPECIFICITY OF RHYTHMICAL ORGANIZATION OF MODERN NEWS READER’S SPEECH (ON THE MATERIAL OF TV NEWS PROGRAMS)

This paper studies the peculiar properties of rhythmic organization, which includes the description of rhythmic devices and their percentage, basic principles of their arrangement. The study defines reading of pre-written text as a main characteristic of news reader's speech. We used tapes of the popular TV news programs which were broadcasted by the main Russian channels in 2000 as a material for this research. The study describes rhythmic devices of different language levels. Quantitative analysis helped to make the conclusion about the predominance of super-segmental devices in news reader's speech of 2000. For example, lexical rhythmic devices amount to 6 %, syntactic rhythmic devices amount to 8 % and the number of super-segmental rhythmic devices reaches 86 %. This article characterizes the main principles of super-segmental rhythmic devices arrangement, such as symmetry and proportion. Structural dependence exists in rhythmic organization of news reader's speech. The feature of structural dependence consists in regular reproduction of rhythmic devices in the initial and final parts of information announcement and partial reproduction – in the central part. Semantic, expressive, arranging and composition functions are the basic functions of the rhythm in news reader's speech; moreover, the semantic function which helps to mark certain words important in terms of information, dominates in news reader's speech of 2000. We noticed the dominance of using high degree rhythmically arranged information announcements, which are characterized by using different language level rhythmic devices in more than 50 % of syntagmas of sounding text. Consequently, rhythmic organization of news reader's speech reflects displacing of argumentative way of verbal influence by the suggestive way of verbal influence as a current trend in modern communicatio

Análisis del desarrollo tecnológico en la aplicación de enzimas en la industria textil

El presente estudio de vigilancia tecnológica sobre las temáticas asociadas a la aplicación industrial de las enzimas, específicamente en el sector textil, busca establecer el desarrollo científico y tecnológico que ha tenido lugar en este sector a partir del año 1998. Para ello, se emplearon herramientas de software para la captura, preparación y análisis de información procedente de artículos científicos y patentes, así como la experiencia acumulada en investigaciones previas de características similares, a partir de la cual se estructuró la metodología de trabajo. Se identificaron las principales áreas de aplicación industrial, así como las dinámicas investigativas y de desarrollo industrial de los procesos enzimáticos en el tratamiento de textiles, estableciendo indicadores de actividad e indicadores relacionales que permitieron la generación de mapas tecnológicos y la identificación de clusters temáticos

Restoration and research of the archaeological fabric from burial of the bulgarian woman of the Golden Horde period (the end of the XIV century)

The results of technological research of silk fabrics from the noble-born woman grave from Bolgar, which was made in the period of the Golden Horde are represented in the article. The burial has been found in the ruins of the mausoleum, which is dated from the end of the XIV century. The deviation from the Islamic traditions is regarded as peculiarity of this burial. There were found clothes from silk, which was decorated by golden threads and the temple rings. The object of study is a well-preserved complex headdress, which includes several textile layers, such kinds of the silk products of various kinds: shawls, scarves, veilings. That sort of headdress has analogues in ethnographic materials in Central Asia. Microscopy has been used to determine the species composition of the fabrics: there were considered the structure of textile weaves, technology for manufacturing threads, in polychrome fabrics - colour selection of the threads. The samples of medieval fabrics, such as lance, taffeta, summit and others have been identified. During the restoration of the veiling the method of stabilizing the object has been used, which combines the strengthening of the gold threads and plasticization of the archaeological fabrics. Golden embroidery pattern has been also recovered. The enhanced diversity indicates on developed trading system with various sources of imports - from China, Central Asia, Egypt

Effective Zearalenone Degradation in Model Solutions and Infected Wheat Grain Using a Novel Heterologous Lactonohydrolase Secreted by Recombinant Penicillium canescens

This paper reports the first results on obtaining an enzyme preparation that might be promising for the simultaneous decontamination of plant feeds contaminated with a polyketide fusariotoxin, zearalenone (ZEN), and enhancing the availability of their nutritional components. A novel ZEN-specific lactonohydrolase (ZHD) was expressed in a Penicillium canescens strain PCA-10 that was developed previously as a producer of different hydrolytic enzymes for feed biorefinery. The recombinant ZHD secreted by transformed fungal clones into culture liquid was shown to remove the toxin from model solutions, and was able to decontaminate wheat grain artificially infected with a zearalenone-producing Fusarium culmorum. The dynamics of ZEN degradation depending on the temperature and pH of the incubation media was investigated, and the optimal values of these parameters (pH 8.5, 30 °C) for the ZHD-containing enzyme preparation (PR-ZHD) were determined. Under these conditions, the 3 h co-incubation of ZEN and PR-ZHD resulted in a complete removal of the toxin from the model solutions, while the PR-ZHD addition (8 mg/g of dried grain) to flour samples prepared from the infected ZEN-polluted grain (about 16 µg/g) completely decontaminated the samples after an overnight exposure