Why are Chloris gayana leaves shorter in salt-affected plants? Analyses in the elongation zone

Reduced hydraulic conductance calculated from growth data was suggested to be the main reason for reduced leaf expansion in salt-stressed Chloris gayana (Rhodes grass). In this work, xylem vessel cross-sections and wall enzyme activities were analysed to re-examine the effects of salinity on leaf growth in this species. Maximal segmental growth rates were 20% lower and the growth zone was 23% shorter in leaves from salinized plants than in controls; however, growth rates between 0 mm and 15 mm from the ligule were similar in both types of leaves. Xylem cross-sectional areas in this region were about 65% smaller in leaves of salinized plants, suggesting that hydraulic restrictions in the leaves of salinized plants were much higher than overall growth reductions. Extractable xyloglucan endotransglucosylase activity in this zone was twice as high in leaves of salinized plants as in leaves of controls. Nevertheless, the activity of the extracted enzyme was not affected by up to 1 M NaCl added to the reaction medium. Therefore, increased xyloglucan endotransglucosylase activity under salinity may be due to a promotion of transcription of XTH (xyloglucan endotransglucosylase/hydrolases) genes and/or translation of preformed transcripts. These results suggest that, as in drought stress, increased activity of cell wall enzymes associated with wall loosening may contribute to the maintenance of growth under saline conditions despite hydraulic restrictions.Instituto de Fisiología y Recursos Genéticos VegetalesFil: Ortega, Leandro Ismael. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Fisiología y Recursos Genéticos Vegetales (ex IFFIVE); ArgentinaFil: Fry, Stephen C. University of Edinburgh. Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences. The Edinburgh Cell Wall Group; Gran BretañaFil: Taleisnik, Edith. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Fisiología y Recursos Genéticos Vegetales (ex IFFIVE); Argentina

Discriminating dynamical from additive noise in the Van der Pol oscillator

We address the distinction between dynamical and additive noise in time series analysis by making a joint evaluation of both the statistical continuity of the series and the statistical differentiability of the reconstructed measure. Low levels of the latter and high levels of the former indicate the presence of dynamical noise only, while low values of the two are observed as soon as additive noise contaminates the signal. The method is presented through the example of the Van der Pol oscillator, but is expected to be of general validity for continuous-time systems.Comment: 12 pages (Elsevier LaTeX class), 4 EPS figures, submitted to Physica D (4 july 2001

Unveiling the circumstellar environment towards a massive young stellar object

As a continuation of a previous work, in which we found strong evidence of massive molecular outflows towards a massive star forming site, we present a new study of this region based on very high angular resolution observations with the aim of discovering the outflow driven mechanism. Using near-IR data acquired with Gemini-NIRI at the broad H- and Ks-bands, we study a region of 22" x 22" around the UCHII region G045.47+0.05, a massive star forming site at the distance of about 8 kpc. To image the source with the highest spatial resolution possible we employed the adaptative optic system ALTAIR, achieving an angular resolution of about 0.15". We discovered a cone-like shape nebula with an opening angle of about 90 degree extending eastwards the IR source 2MASS J19142564+1109283, a very likely MYSO. This morphology suggests a cavity that was cleared in the circumstellar material and its emission may arise from scattered continuum light, warm dust, and likely emission lines from shock-excited gas. The nebula, presenting arc-like features, is connected with the IR source through a jet-like structure, which is aligned with the blue shifted CO outflow found in a previous study. The near-IR structure lies ~3" north of the radio continuum emission, revealing that it is not spatially coincident with the UCHII region. The observed morphology and structure of the near-IR nebula strongly suggest the presence of a precessing jet. In this study we have resolved the circumstellar ambient (in scale of a thousand A.U.) of a distant MYSO, indeed one of the farthest cases.Comment: Accepted in A&A Letters (October 2013

Axioms for consensus functions on the n-cube

An elementary general result is proved that allows for simple characterizations of well-known location/consensus functions (median, mean and center) on the n-cube. In addition, alternate new characterizations are given for the median and anti-median functions on the n-cube.Comment: 12 page

Monotone Iterations for Nonlinear Equations with Application to Gauss-seidel Methods

Monotone iterations for nonlinear equations with application to Gauss-Seidel method

On a class of approximate iterative processes

Investigation into approximating a solution of fixed point equation