Genetic variation and quantitative trait loci associated with developmental stability and the environmental correlation between traits in maize

11 páginas, 4 figuras, 5 tablas.There is limited experimental information about the genetic basis of micro-environmental variance (VE) (developmental stability) and environmental correlations. This study, by using a population of maize recombinant inbred lines (RIL) and simple sequence repeat (SSR) polymorphic markers, aims at the following: firstly, to quantify the genetic component of the VE or developmental stability for four traits in maize and the environmental correlation between these traits, and secondly, to identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that influence these quantities. We found that, when estimating variances and correlations and testing their homogeneity, estimates and tests are needed that are not highly dependent on normality assumptions. There was significant variation among the RILs in VE and in the environmental correlation for some of the traits, implying genetic heterogeneity in the VE and environmental correlations. The genetic coefficient of variation of the environmental variance (GCVVE) was estimated to be 20%, which is lower than estimates obtained for other species. A few genomic regions involved in the stability of one trait or two traits were detected, and these did not have an important influence on the mean of the trait. One region that could be associated with the environmental correlations between traits was also detected.The National Plan for Research and Development of Spain (project code AGL2006-13140) is acknowledged for financial support. B. Ordas acknowledges a contract from the Spanish National Research Council (I3P Program).Peer reviewe

Eficacia de las medidas de protección y vulneración de los derechos de la mujer en la fiscalía penal de Chimbote, 2019

La presente investigación tuvo como finalidad determinar la relación que existe entre la eficacia de las medidas de protección y la vulneración de los derechos de la mujer de la Fiscalía Penal de Chimbote, 2019. Se realizó un estudio no experimental, transversal, correlacional. La población estuvo compuesta por 50 Fiscales Penales de la ciudad de Chimbote, considerando solo aquellos fiscales penales que cumplieron con los criterios de inclusión, como pertenecer a la fiscalía de Chimbote y los que completaron de forma correcta los instrumentos, se les aplicó los cuestionarios sobre las medidas de protección y sobre los derechos de la mujer. Se halló que, el (86 %) de los fiscales arrojaron como resultado que la eficacia de las medidas de protección se ubica en un nivel bajo y el (14 %) se ubica en un nivel medio. Así mismo el (94%) de fiscales arrojaron como resultado que el nivel de vulneración de los derechos de la mujer es alto, y el (6%) se ubica en un nivel medio. Así también se halló una correlación negativa y altamente significativa (r=- 0.943) entre las medidas de protección y la vulneración de los derechos de la mujer en la fiscalía penal de Chimbote; denotando que, a menor eficacia de las medidas de protección, mayor es la vulneración de los derechos de la mujer. Del mismo modo se halló una correlación negativa y significativa (r= -0.791) entre la medida de protección por prohibición de la comunicación y la vulneración de los derechos de la mujer. Así mismo se encontró una correlación positiva y significativa (r= 0.836) entre la medida de protección de suspensión temporal de visitas y la vulneración de los derechos de la mujer. Por último, se encontró una correlación negativa y significativa (r= -0.927) entre la medida de protección de retiro del agresor del domicilio y la vulneración de los derechos de la mujer.Tesi

Genomewide high-density SNP linkage analysis of non-BRCA1/2 breast cancer families identifies various candidate regions and has greater power than microsatellite studies

Background: The recent development of new high-throughput technologies for SNP genotyping has opened the possibility of taking a genome-wide linkage approach to the search for new candidate genes involved in heredity diseases. The two major breast cancer susceptibility genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 are involved in 30% of hereditary breast cancer cases, but the discovery of additional breast cancer predisposition genes for the non-BRCA1/2 breast cancer families has so far been unsuccessful. Results: In order to evaluate the power improvement provided by using SNP markers in a real situation, we have performed a whole genome screen of 19 non-BRCA1/2 breast cancer families using 4720 genomewide SNPs with Illumina technology (Illumina's Linkage III Panel), with an average distance of 615 Kb/SNP. We identified six regions on chromosomes 2, 3, 4, 7, 11 and 14 as candidates to contain genes involved in breast cancer susceptibility, and additional fine mapping genotyping using microsatellite markers around linkage peaks confirmed five of them, excluding the region on chromosome 3. These results were consistent in analyses that excluded SNPs in high linkage disequilibrium. The results were compared with those obtained previously using a 10 cM microsatellite scan (STR-GWS) and we found lower or not significant linkage signals with STR-GWS data compared to SNP data in all cases. Conclusion: Our results show the power increase that SNPs can supply in linkage studies

Can the Solar Wind be Driven by Magnetic Reconnection in the Sun's Magnetic Carpet?

The physical processes that heat the solar corona and accelerate the solar wind remain unknown after many years of study. Some have suggested that the wind is driven by waves and turbulence in open magnetic flux tubes, and others have suggested that plasma is injected into the open tubes by magnetic reconnection with closed loops. In order to test the latter idea, we developed Monte Carlo simulations of the photospheric "magnetic carpet" and extrapolated the time-varying coronal field. These models were constructed for a range of different magnetic flux imbalance ratios. Completely balanced models represent quiet regions on the Sun and source regions of slow solar wind streams. Highly imbalanced models represent coronal holes and source regions of fast wind streams. The models agree with observed emergence rates, surface flux densities, and number distributions of magnetic elements. Despite having no imposed supergranular motions, a realistic network of magnetic "funnels" appeared spontaneously. We computed the rate at which closed field lines open up (i.e., recycling times for open flux), and we estimated the energy flux released in reconnection events involving the opening up of closed flux tubes. For quiet regions and mixed-polarity coronal holes, these energy fluxes were found to be much lower than required to accelerate the solar wind. For the most imbalanced coronal holes, the energy fluxes may be large enough to power the solar wind, but the recycling times are far longer than the time it takes the solar wind to accelerate into the low corona. Thus, it is unlikely that either the slow or fast solar wind is driven by reconnection and loop-opening processes in the magnetic carpet.Comment: 25 pages (emulateapj style), 13 figures, ApJ, in pres

Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and Herpes Simplex Type 1 Infection during Adalimumab Therapy for Crohn's Disease

Stevens–Johnson syndrome (SJS) is a severe mucocutaneous adverse drug reaction with a relatively high mortality rate. SJS is described during herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1) infection and, rarely, even during adalimumab therapy. We report the case of a patient with Crohn’s disease who developed SJS during an HSV1 infection and a contemporaneous anti-TNFα therapy with adalimumab. Remission was achieved with suspension of adalimumab and high doses of intravenous steroids and antivirals. Patients with HSV1 infection and on adalimumab therapy have a combined risk of SJS and should be monitored closely

Characterization of Laptop Fires in Spacecraft

An accidental fire involving the Lithium-Ion (Li-ion) battery in a laptop computer is one of the most likely fire scenarios on-board a spacecraft. These fires can occur from a defect in the battery that worsens with time, over-charging the battery and leading to failure or accidental damage caused by thermal runaway. While this is a relatively likely fire scenario, very little is known about the how a laptop computer fire would impact a sealed spacecraft. The heat release would likely cause a pressure rise, possibly exceeding the pressure limit of the vehicle and causing a relief valve to open. The combustion products from the fire could pose a short-term and long-term health hazard to the crew and the fire itself could cause injury to the crew and damage to the spacecraft. Despite the hazard posed by a laptop fire, there is little quantitative data on the fire size, heat release and toxic product formation. This paper presents the results of initial attempts to quantify the fire resulting from a failed laptop fire tested at the NASA White Sands Test Facility (WSTF). The data from the testing is useful to attempt to determine the fire size and characteristics such as maximum heat release rate, total heat release, maximum temperatures and fire duration are determined. Using existing models and correlations for fires, the measured fire characteristics are extrapolated to laptop fires on a vehicle the approximate size of the Orion spacecraft

Evolution of the Population of Very Strong MgII Absorbers

We present a study of the evolution of several classes of MgII absorbers, and their corresponding FeII absorption, over a large fraction of cosmic history: 2.3 to 8.7 Gyrs from the Big Bang. Our sample consists of 87 strong (Wr(MgII)>0.3 A) MgII absorbers, with redshifts 0.2<z<2.5, measured in 81 quasar spectra obtained from the Very Large Telescope(VLT)/Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph(UVES) archives of high-resolution spectra (R \sim 45,000). No evolutionary trend in Wr(FeII)/Wr(MgII) is found for moderately strong MgII absorbers (0.3<Wr(MgII)<1.0 A). However, at lower z we find an absence of very strong MgII absorbers (those with Wr(MgII)>1 A) with small ratios of equivalent widths of FeII to MgII. At high z, very strong MgII absorbers with both small and large Wr(FeII)/Wr(MgII) values are present. We compare our findings to a sample of 100 weak MgII absorbers (Wr(MgII)<0.3 A) found in the same quasar spectra by Narayanan et al. (2007). The main effect driving the evolution of very strong MgII systems is the difference between the kinematic profiles at low and high redshifts. At high z, we observe that, among the very strong MgII absorbers, all of the systems with small ratios of Wr(FeII)/Wr(MgII) have relatively large velocity spreads, resulting in less saturated profiles. At low z, such kinematically spread systems are absent, and both FeII and MgII are saturated, leading to Wr(FeII)/Wr(MgII) values that are all close to 1. The high redshift, small Wr(FeII)/Wr(MgII) systems could correspond to sub-DLA systems, many of which have large velocity spreads and are possibly linked to superwinds in star forming galaxies. In addition to the change in saturation due to kinematic evolution, the smaller Wr(FeII)/Wr(MgII) values could be due to a lower abundance of Fe at high z, which would indicate relatively early stages of star formation in those environments.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures (figure 1 is a set of 87 figures, which is available on the online version), accepted for publication in the MNRA

Enrichment analysis of Alu elements with different spatial chromatin proximity in the human genome

Transposable elements (TEs) have no longer been totally considered as “junk DNA” for quite a time since the continual discoveries of their multifunctional roles in eukaryote genomes. As one of the most important and abundant TEs that still active in human genome, Alu, a SINE family, has demonstrated its indispensable regulatory functions at sequence level, but its spatial roles are still unclear. Technologies based on 3C(chromosomeconformation capture) have revealed the mysterious three-dimensional structure of chromatin, and make it possible to study the distal chromatin interaction in the genome. To find the role TE playing in distal regulation in human genome, we compiled the new released Hi-C data, TE annotation, histone marker annotations, and the genome-wide methylation data to operate correlation analysis, and found that the density of Alu elements showed a strong positive correlation with the level of chromatin interactions (hESC: r=0.9, P<2.2×1016; IMR90 fibroblasts: r = 0.94, P < 2.2 × 1016) and also have a significant positive correlation withsomeremote functional DNA elements like enhancers and promoters (Enhancer: hESC: r=0.997, P=2.3×10−4; IMR90: r=0.934, P=2×10−2; Promoter: hESC: r = 0.995, P = 3.8 × 10−4; IMR90: r = 0.996, P = 3.2 × 10−4). Further investigation involving GC content and methylation status showed the GC content of Alu covered sequences shared a similar pattern with that of the overall sequence, suggesting that Alu elements also function as the GC nucleotide and CpG site provider. In all, our results suggest that the Alu elements may act as an alternative parameter to evaluate the Hi-C data, which is confirmed by the correlation analysis of Alu elements and histone markers. Moreover, the GC-rich Alu sequence can bring high GC content and methylation flexibility to the regions with more distal chromatin contact, regulating the transcription of tissue-specific genes