Part agent that proposes maintenance actions for a part considering its life cycle

Part of: Seliger, Günther (Ed.): Innovative solutions : proceedings / 11th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, Berlin, Germany, 23rd - 25th September, 2013. - Berlin: Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin, 2013. - ISBN 978-3-7983-2609-5 (online). - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:83-opus4-40276. - pp. 235–240.The transition from a consumption-oriented society to a reuse-based society is needed for the effective use of resources and environmental protection. However, it is difficult for a user to make appropriate decisions for maintenance of his/her parts because of the wide range of choices of action and the huge amount of information required. To support the user's decision and to promote the reuse of parts, we have developed a part agent system that manages information about individual parts throughout their life cycle. A part agent is a network agent that contains the information of its corresponding part and follows the movement of the part via the network throughout its life cycle. This paper describes a new mechanism of a part agent that proposes appropriate maintenance actions for the corresponding part by estimating its expected value, cost, and environmental load based on the predicted information about its life cycle

Comparative analysis of expression of histone H2a genes in mouse

BACKGROUND: At least 18 replication-dependent histone H2a genes are distributed in 3 Hist gene clusters on different chromosomes of the mouse genome. In this analysis we designed specific PCR primers for each histone H2a transcript and studied the expression levels and patterns using quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR). In addition, we compared histone H3 K9 acetylation levels in the promoter regions of H2a genes by ChIP (chromatin immunoprecipitation) – quantitative PCR (qPCR) analysis. RESULTS: RT-PCR analysis indicated that all 20 histone H2a genes assessed in this study are expressed. The replication-dependent histone H2a genes have different expression levels but similar expression patterns. Among the 20 histone H2a genes, the expression-level of H2afz, a replication-independent gene, was highest, and that of Hist1h2aa, a replication-dependent gene, was lowest. Among 18 replication-dependent H2a genes, the expression level of Hist3h2a was highest. The ChIP-qPCR analysis showed that histone H3 K9 acetylation levels in promoter regions of both H2afz and Hist3h2a are clearly higher than that in the promoter region of Hist1h2aa. The H3 K9 acetylation level in the promoter of Hist1h2aa is similar to that in the γ-satellite region. CONCLUSION: These results strongly suggest that histone H3 K9 acetylation plays a role in the expression of histone genes

Genetic analysis of Myanmar Vigna species in responses to salt stress at the seedling stage

Twelve (12) Vigna genotypes were investigated for the evaluation of their tolerance levels in responses to four concentrations of NaCl (0, 75, 150 and 225 mM) at seedling stage. In the investigation, salt stress inhibited almost all the growth parameters as well as relative water content;  however, the degree of reduction was highly dependent on different genotypes and salinity levels. Generally, the control plants showed higher degree of all measured parameters than those of salt stress plants. Analysis of the heredity parameters based on the 12 investigated genotypes showed different genotypic variance of the salt tolerance index (STI) values. Salinity stress induced two new bands between 45 and 22 kDa, respectively, in salt tolerant genotypes. Furthermore, band intensity of the salt treated genotypes was higher than the control plants. Ward’s clustering technique was clearly divided into two clusters, A and B, according to their levels of salt tolerance. Considering their STI values of growth parameters, two genotypes V7 and V4 were identified as salt tolerant, whereas, V2, V6, V9, V8, V11 and V1 were recognized as salinity susceptible genotypes. These results suggest that, the genetically diverseaccessions resistant to salt stresses within the Vigna genotypes can be of considerable practical value for studying the mechanism of salt tolerance and for the provision of genetic resources for salinity breeding program.Key words: Cluster analysis, heritability, salt tolerance, SDS-PAGE, Vigna