SELECTION FOR YIELD AT TWO FERTILIZER LEVELS IN SMALL-SEEDED COMMON BEAN

Selection for seed yield (visual in the F2, visual and pl:t yield from the F3 to F5, and yield tests in F6) was carried out in two crosses of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in high and low soil fertility environments at ClAT-Quilichao, Colombia. Parents were small-seeded and tolerant to low soil phosphorus, possessed indeterminate bush growth habit, and belonged to lowland tropical gene pools of Middle America. The mean yield of selected lines from low (LFS) and high (HFS) soil fertility environments was significantly higher than the mean of the parents in both crosses when tested in high fertility (HF) but not in low fertility (LF). The highest yielding LFS and HFS lines from A 286 x (G 5059 x A 80) and the LFS line from A 286 x ICA Pijao outyielded the best check cultivar, Carioca, in HF. No line yielded significantly more than A 286, the best parent used in both crosses. The mean effect of fertilizer levels on selection for seed yield was nonsignificant. Lines selected under two environments showed similar but average response and high stability of performance under variable environments. Low soil fertility accelerated maturity and reduced 100-seed weight and seed yield\u2

SELECTION FOR YIELD AT TWO FERTILIZER LEVELS IN SMALL-SEEDED COMMON BEAN

Selection for seed yield (visual in the F2, visual and pl:t yield from the F3 to F5, and yield tests in F6) was carried out in two crosses of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in high and low soil fertility environments at ClAT-Quilichao, Colombia. Parents were small-seeded and tolerant to low soil phosphorus, possessed indeterminate bush growth habit, and belonged to lowland tropical gene pools of Middle America. The mean yield of selected lines from low (LFS) and high (HFS) soil fertility environments was significantly higher than the mean of the parents in both crosses when tested in high fertility (HF) but not in low fertility (LF). The highest yielding LFS and HFS lines from A 286 x (G 5059 x A 80) and the LFS line from A 286 x ICA Pijao outyielded the best check cultivar, Carioca, in HF. No line yielded significantly more than A 286, the best parent used in both crosses. The mean effect of fertilizer levels on selection for seed yield was nonsignificant. Lines selected under two environments showed similar but average response and high stability of performance under variable environments. Low soil fertility accelerated maturity and reduced 100-seed weight and seed yield\u2

SELECTION FOR YIELD AT TWO FERTILIZER LEVELS IN SMALL-SEEDED COMMON BEAN

Selection for seed yield (visual in the F2, visual and pl:t yield from the F3 to F5, and yield tests in F6) was carried out in two crosses of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in high and low soil fertility environments at ClAT-Quilichao, Colombia. Parents were small-seeded and tolerant to low soil phosphorus, possessed indeterminate bush growth habit, and belonged to lowland tropical gene pools of Middle America. The mean yield of selected lines from low (LFS) and high (HFS) soil fertility environments was significantly higher than the mean of the parents in both crosses when tested in high fertility (HF) but not in low fertility (LF). The highest yielding LFS and HFS lines from A 286 x (G 5059 x A 80) and the LFS line from A 286 x ICA Pijao outyielded the best check cultivar, Carioca, in HF. No line yielded significantly more than A 286, the best parent used in both crosses. The mean effect of fertilizer levels on selection for seed yield was nonsignificant. Lines selected under two environments showed similar but average response and high stability of performance under variable environments. Low soil fertility accelerated maturity and reduced 100-seed weight and seed yield\u2

T35: a small automatic telescope for long-term observing campaigns

The T35 is a small telescope (14") equipped with a large format CCD camera installed in the Sierra Nevada Observatory (SNO) in Southern Spain. This telescope will be a useful tool for the detecting and studying pulsating stars, particularly, in open clusters. In this paper, we describe the automation process of the T35 and show also some images taken with the new instrumentation.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in the special issue "Robotic Astronomy" of Advances of Astronom

IRAS06562-0337, the Iron-clad Nebula: a young star embedded in a molecular cloud

Wetensch. publicatieFaculteit der Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappe

Cu nanoparticle-loaded nanovesicles with antibiofilm properties. Part i: Synthesis of new hybrid nanostructures

Copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) stabilized by quaternary ammonium salts are well known as antimicrobial agents. The aim of this work was to study the feasibility of the inclusion of CuNPs in nanovesicular systems. Liposomes are nanovesicles (NVs) made with phospholipids and are traditionally used as delivery vehicles because phospholipids favor cellular uptake. Their capacity for hydrophilic/hydrophobic balance and carrier capacity could be advantageous to prepare novel hybrid nanostructures based on metal NPs (Me-NPs). In this work, NVs were loaded with CuNPs, which have been reported to have a biofilm inhibition effect. These hybrid materials could improve the effect of conventional antibacterial agents. CuNPs were electro-synthesized by the sacrificial anode electrolysis technique in organic media and characterized in terms of morphology through transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The NVs were prepared by the thin film hydration method in aqueous media, using phosphatidylcholine (PC) and cholesterol as a membrane stabilizer. The nanohybrid systems were purified to remove non-encapsulated NPs. The size distribution, morphology and stability of the NV systems were studied. Different quaternary ammonium salts in vesicular systems made of PC were tested as stabilizing surfactants for the synthesis and inclusion of CuNPs. The entrapment of charged metal NPs was demonstrated. NPs attached preferably to the membrane, probably due to the attraction of their hydrophobic shell to the phospholipid bilayers. The high affinity between benzyl-dimethyl-hexadecyl-ammonium chloride (BDHAC) and PC allowed us to obtain stable hybrid NVs c.a. 700 nm in diameter. The stability of liposomes increased with NP loading, suggesting a charge-stabilization effect in a novel antibiofilm nanohybrid material

A novel AhR ligand, 2AI, protects the retina from environmental stress.

Various retinal degenerative diseases including dry and neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD), retinitis pigmentosa, and diabetic retinopathy are associated with the degeneration of the retinal pigmented epithelial (RPE) layer of the retina. This consequently results in the death of rod and cone photoreceptors that they support, structurally and functionally leading to legal or complete blindness. Therefore, developing therapeutic strategies to preserve cellular homeostasis in the RPE would be a favorable asset in the clinic. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a conserved, environmental ligand-dependent, per ARNT-sim (PAS) domain containing bHLH transcription factor that mediates adaptive response to stress via its downstream transcriptional targets. Using in silico, in vitro and in vivo assays, we identified 2,2'-aminophenyl indole (2AI) as a potent synthetic ligand of AhR that protects RPE cells in vitro from lipid peroxidation cytotoxicity mediated by 4-hydroxynonenal (4HNE) as well as the retina in vivo from light-damage. Additionally, metabolic characterization of this molecule by LC-MS suggests that 2AI alters the lipid metabolism of RPE cells, enhancing the intracellular levels of palmitoleic acid. Finally, we show that, as a downstream effector of 2AI-mediated AhR activation, palmitoleic acid protects RPE cells from 4HNE-mediated stress, and light mediated retinal degeneration in mice

Acute fasting before conception affects metabolic and endocrine status without impacting follicle and oocyte development and embryo gene expression in the rabbit.

Food deprivation affects female reproduction. The goal of the present study was to elucidate in the rabbit model the effects of acute energy restriction on ovarian function (follicle development, atresia rate and in vitro oocyte maturation) and embryonic development and gene expression of some candidate genes. Serum metabolic parameters (non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), triglycerides, glucose, insulin and leptin concentrations) and endocrine markers (oestradiol-17β and progesterone concentrations) were also studied. A control group of nulliparous does fed ad libitum and a 72-h fasted group were used. At the end of the nutritional treatment, the ovaries of half of the animals were retrieved while the other animals were re-fed and artificially inseminated to recover embryos at 84 h after insemination, during the luteal phase. At the end of fasting, increased serum NEFA and decreased leptin concentrations were observed in the fasted group, but no differences appeared in serum steroid concentrations, follicle population and atresia rate or nuclear and cytoplasmic oocyte maturation. In the luteal phase, insulin concentrations increased notably in the fasted group. The number of recovered embryos per female and the speed of embryo development were reduced in the food-deprived group. Acute fasting altered both metabolic and endocrine markers and embryo development, but follicle and oocyte development and embryo gene expression were not affected

An Iterated Greedy Algorithm for Improving the Generation of Synthetic Patterns in Imbalanced Learning

Real-world classification datasets often present a skewed distribution of patterns, where one or more classes are under-represented with respect to the rest. One of the most successful approaches for alleviating this problem is the generation of synthetic minority samples by convex combination of available ones. Within this framework, adaptive synthetic (ADASYN) sampling is a relatively new method which imposes weights on minority examples according to their learning complexity, in such a way that difficult examples are more prone to be oversampled. This paper proposes an improvement of the ADASYN method, where the learning complexity of these patterns is also used to decide which sample of the neighbourhood is selected. Moreover, to avoid suboptimal results when performing the random convex combination, this paper explores the application of an iterative greedy algorithm which refines the synthetic patterns by repeatedly replacing a part of them. For the experiments, six binary datasets and four over-sampling methods are considered. The results show that the new version of ADASYN leads to more robust results and that the application of the iterative greedy metaheuristic significantly improves the quality of the generated patterns, presenting a positive effect on the final classification model