A plant thiolase involved in benzoic acid biosynthesis and volatile benzenoid production

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75036/1/TPJ_3953_sm_FigS3.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75036/2/TPJ_3953_sm_figS1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75036/3/TPJ_3953_sm_FigS4.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75036/4/j.1365-313X.2009.03953.x.pd

The evolution of total energy inputs in the New Zealand dairy industry

In 1998, Wells (2001) conducted a national study of the total energy inputs of New Zealand dairy farms. The study demonstrated the superiority in energy efficiency of New Zealand dairy production compared to that of European farms. Over the past decade, New Zealand’s dairy industry has transformed. With the growth of the industry in nontraditional regions, as well as a significant increases in irrigation, nitrogenous fertilisers, and supplementary feeds, there has been a substantial growth in milk production driven by an increasingly commodified export market. While the industry has experienced significant changes in the past 10 years, these changes have not yet been reflected in research. As a consequence, the impacts of these developments on the energy requirements of milk production are not yet fully documented. This study addresses that gap in data. This study is the first comprehensive, national assessment of energy requirements of New Zealand dairy farms since 1998. In this study, the total energy inputs of 135 New Zealand farms were calculated to determine their energy intensity and efficiency. Results were compared with energy input records from 1978 and 1998. Results of this study suggest that, in comparison with historical data, dairy farm energy intensity has significantly increased in all regions of New Zealand; energy efficiency has worsened in all but one geographical region. Despite this, New Zealand dairy farms are still more energy efficient than those of other major international competitors, which suggests the competitive advantage still remains. This research identifies the key drivers of changes to energy inputs, and offers recommendations for reducing the energy consumption of dairy production, to safeguard against energy vulnerability, and to reduce the environmental impacts of the dairy industry

Changes in the electrophoretic pattern of glucosidases during apple seeds stratification

The technique of localization of glucosidases on disc electropherograms, based on reduction of 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride by enzymatically liberated sugar is described. The changes in electrophoretic patterns of amygdaline, phloridzin and p-nitrophenyl-β-glucoside hydrolysing glucosidases during apple seed stratification were studied. The changes were correlated with earlier described changes in endogenous apple seed amygdaline and phloridzin contents

Identification and analysis of the Arabidopsis thaliana BSH gene, a member of the SNF5 gene family.

The multiprotein complexes involved in active dis-ruption of chromatin structure, homologous to yeast SWI/SNF complex, have been described for human and Drosophila cells. In all SWI/SNF-class complexes characterised so far, one of the key components is the SNF5-type protein. Here we describe the isolation of a plant (Arabidopsis thaliana ) cDNA encoding a 27 kDa protein which we named BSH, with high homology to yeast SNF5p and its human (INI1) and Drosophila (SNR1) counterparts as well as to other putative SNF5-type proteins from Caenorhabditis elegans, fish and yeast. With 240 amino acids, the Arabidopsis BSH is the smallest SNF5-type protein so far identified. When expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the gene for BSH partially complements the snf5 mutation. BSH is, however, unable to activate transcription in yeast when tethered to DNA. The gene for BSH occurs in single copy in the Arabidopsis genome and is ubiquitously expressed in the plant. Analysis of the whole cell and nuclear protein extracts with antibodies against recombinant BSH indicates that the protein is localised in nuclei. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants with markedly decreased physiological level of the BSH mRNA, resulting from the expression of antisense messenger, are viable but exhibit a distinctive phenotype characterised by bushy growth and flowers that are unable to produce seeds

Co-inoculation with two non-infectious cDNA copies of potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) leads to the appearance of novel fully infectious variants.

Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) is one of the smallest (about 360 nt) infectious plant agents. It is composed of a single-stranded circular non-coding RNA molecule. In the course of previous passage experiments with two intermediate PSTVd variants I2 and I4, three non-infectious clones (I2-50, I4-37 and I4 VI-17) were found. When inoculated separately as cDNAs on tomato "Rutgers" test plants these variants did not induce any visible disease symptoms and did not produce progeny. The presence of such non-infectious variants raises several questions about their origin and biology and to answer them, mixed co-infections with cDNA copies of two non-infectious variants (I2-50, I4-37) were performed. PSTVd infection was observed in seven out of 30 inoculated plants. The progeny isolated from three separate plants contained novel variants, together with the parental I2 and I4 sequences. It is conceivable that the appearance of repaired PSTVd molecules, clearly capable of cell-to-cell movement leading to the systemic infection, results from recombination events. An analysis of the recombinant molecules and comparison with databases identified the specific sites responsible for the restricted infectivity of the I2-50 and I4-37 PSTVd variants. In parallel experiments in which (+) strand PSTVd infectious transcripts were used, no recombinants were observed, and the original I2-50 and I4-37 non-infectious sequences were not detected in the progeny

Transforming practice: Student perceptions of blended academic writing learning

'Blended learning' (BL) has been touted as an effective methodology for delivering content in the digital age. However, BL and online learning have at times been confused. This has led to dumping of content online and expecting learners to complete tasks in their own time with little or no instruction. True BL involves a fine balance between the online and face to face environments. This seminar provides an update to an ongoing project which seeks to transform the teaching of academic writing in an intensive pre-sessional EAP programme. Traditionally, teaching of this subject has been reliant on face-to-face delivery. However, for learners to make significant gains in a short period of time, there are significant practice and feedback requirements. In the past, this led to significant demands on the time of instructors to provide feedback during out-of-class time. This BL project sought to extend practice and feedback opportunities to a Moodle-based university website, which would also provide instructors with access to more focused feedback on learner issues. This BL project employs a transformative practice cycle (Kalantzis & Cope, 2005) to enable leaners to progressively become more aware of problems in their own writing. Learners have access to a range of topics, pitched at three different levels. Currently, the available tasks focus on raising awareness of structure, coherence and cohesion. In this seminar, attendees will lean about the project so far, get an update on significant changes, and hear about challenges faced in terms of implementation. In addition, the authors will provide data on student perceptions of the online component of the teaching of academic writing