Genetic Interaction between Arabidopsis Qpm3.1 Locus and Bacterial Effector Gene hopW1-1 Underlies Natural Variation in Quantitative Disease Resistance to Pseudomonas Infection

Wide quantitative variation in plant disease resistance across Arabidopsis wild populations has been documented and the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. To investigate the genetic and molecular basis of this variation, Arabidopsis recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from Aa-0 × Col-0 and Gie-0 × Col-0 crosses were constructed and used for inoculation with Pseudomonas syringae pathovars maculicola ES4326 (ES4326) and tomato DC3000 (DC3000). Bacterial growth assays revealed continuous distribution across the large differences between the most and the least susceptible lines in the RILs. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping analyses identified a number of QTLs underpinning the variance in disease resistance, among which Qpm3.1, a major QTL on chromosome III from both Aa-0 and Gie-0 accessions, preferentially restricted the growth of ES4326. A genetic screen for the ES4326 gene selectively leading to bacterial growth inhibition on accession Aa-0 uncovered the effector gene hopW1-1. Further QTL analysis of disease in RILs inoculated with DC3000 carrying hopW1-1 showed that the genetic interaction between Qpm3.1 and hopW1-1 determined Arabidopsis resistance to bacterial infection. These findings illustrate the complexity of Arabidopsis-Pseudomonas interaction and highlight the importance of pathogen effectors in delineating genetic architectures of quantitative variation in plant disease resistance

High speed self-testing quantum random number generation without detection loophole

Quantum mechanics provides means of generating genuine randomness that is impossible with deterministic classical processes. Remarkably, the unpredictability of randomness can be certified in a self-testing manner that is independent of implementation devices. Here, we present an experimental demonstration of self-testing quantum random number generation based on an detection-loophole free Bell test with entangled photons. In the randomness analysis, without the assumption of independent identical distribution, we consider the worst case scenario that the adversary launches the most powerful attacks against quantum adversary. After considering statistical fluctuations and applying an 80 Gb $\times$ 45.6 Mb Toeplitz matrix hashing, we achieve a final random bit rate of 114 bits/s, with a failure probability less than $10^{-5}$. Such self-testing random number generators mark a critical step towards realistic applications in cryptography and fundamental physics tests.Comment: 34 pages, 10 figure

Heat fluxes under the ceiling induced by wall fires with various burner aspect ratios in a channel

A detailed experimental investigation of wall fires in a channel was conducted to study the heat fluxes under the ceiling. Various burner aspect ratios and fire heat release rates were employed to simulate different wall fire scenarios. The effect of source-ceiling height was also examined. The results show that the distribution of heat flux under the ceiling from fires on rectangular burners was significantly influenced by the burner aspect ratio. As the burner aspect ratio increased, the heat flux under the ceiling at a given position perpendicular to the side wall increased. It was found that the existing heat flux correlation developed for a square burner could not capture such influence as it did not include the burner aspect ratio. A new predictive model based on the equivalent burner diameter concept was proposed incorporating the burner aspect ratio and was shown to predict well the heat flux for all the cases with different heat release rates, burner aspect ratios and source-ceiling heights. The model was also validated against available data in the literature which were not used in its derivation. Further analysis was also conducted for the temperature contours constructed from the temperature measurements under the ceiling

Deficiency in NDH-cyclic electron transport retards heat acclimation of photosynthesis in tobacco over day and night shift

In order to cope with the impact of global warming and frequent extreme weather, thermal acclimation ability is particularly important for plant development and growth, but the mechanism behind is still not fully understood. To investigate the role of NADH dehydrogenase-like complex (NDH) mediated cyclic electron flow (CEF) contributing to heat acclimation, wild type (WT) tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and its NDH-B or NDH-C, J, K subunits deficient mutants (ΔB or ΔCJK) were grown at 25/20°C before being shifted to a moderate heat stress environment (35/30°C). The photosynthetic performance of WT and ndh mutants could all eventually acclimate to the increased temperature, but the acclimation process of ndh mutants took longer. Transcriptome profiles revealed that ΔB mutant exhibited distinct photosynthetic-response patterns and stress-response genes compared to WT. Metabolite analysis suggested over-accumulated reducing power and production of more reactive oxygen species in ΔB mutant, which were likely associated with the non-parallel recovery of CO2 assimilation and light reactions shown in ΔB mutant during heat acclimation. Notably, in the warm night periods that could happen in the field, NDH pathway may link to the re-balance of excess reducing power accumulated during daytime. Thus, understanding the diurnal cycle contribution of NDH-mediated CEF for thermal acclimation is expected to facilitate efforts toward enhanced crop fitness and survival under future climates

Effect of dispersion on indistinguishability between single-photon wave-packets

With propagating through a dispersive medium, the temporal-spectral profile of laser pulses should be inevitably modified. Although such dispersion effect has been well studied in classical optics, its effect on a single-photon wave-packet, i.e., the matter wave of a single-photon, has not yet been entirely revealed. In this paper, we investigate the effect of dispersion on indistinguishability of single-photon wave-packets through the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference. By dispersively manipulating two indistinguishable single-photon wave-packets before interfering with each other, we observe that the difference of the second-order dispersion between two optical paths of the HOM interferometer can be mapped to the interference curve, indicating that (1) with the same amount of dispersion effect in both paths, the HOM interference curve must be only determined by the intrinsic indistinguishability between the wave-packets, i.e., dispersion cancellation due to the indistinguishability between Feynman paths; (2) unbalanced dispersion effect in two paths cannot be cancelled and will broaden the interference curve thus providing a way to measure the second-order dispersion coefficient. Our results suggest a more comprehensive understanding of the single-photon wave-packet and pave ways to explore further applications of the HOM interference