Mapping QTL for resistance against <i>Pyrenophora tritici-repentis</i> in wheat

Tan spot, caused by the fungus Pyrenophora tritici-repentis (Died.) Drechs is an important foliar disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). From a set of phenotypically and molecularly characterized set of Argentinean isolates, two isolates H0019 and H0120 which do not correspond to known races of the pathogen were selected. Segregation for resistance among a set of recombinant inbred lines bred from the cross 'W7984' × cv. 'Opata 85' was used to identify the basis for resistance at the seedling stage, against those fungal isolates (H0019 and H0120), across three independent environments. On the basis of the mean performance across all three environments, a QTL against chlorosis located on the 6AS and linked to the RFLP locus Xksuh4c was significant for both isolates (with a LOD of 3.76 for isolate H0019 and 5.87 for H0120).Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Mapping QTL for resistance against <i>Pyrenophora tritici-repentis</i> in wheat

Tan spot, caused by the fungus Pyrenophora tritici-repentis (Died.) Drechs is an important foliar disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). From a set of phenotypically and molecularly characterized set of Argentinean isolates, two isolates H0019 and H0120 which do not correspond to known races of the pathogen were selected. Segregation for resistance among a set of recombinant inbred lines bred from the cross 'W7984' × cv. 'Opata 85' was used to identify the basis for resistance at the seedling stage, against those fungal isolates (H0019 and H0120), across three independent environments. On the basis of the mean performance across all three environments, a QTL against chlorosis located on the 6AS and linked to the RFLP locus Xksuh4c was significant for both isolates (with a LOD of 3.76 for isolate H0019 and 5.87 for H0120).Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Semantic Matching of Components at run-time in Distributed Environments

Software factories are a key element in Component-Based Software Engineering due to the common space provided for software reuse through repositories of components. These repositories can be developed by third parties in order to be inspected and used by different organizations, and they can also be distributed in different locations. Therefore, there is a need for a trading service that manages all available components. In this paper, we describe a matching process based on syntactic and semantic information of software components. This matching operation is part of a trading service which is in charge of generating configurations of components from architectural definitions. With this aim, the proposed matching allows us to evaluate and score the possible configurations, thus guiding a search process to build the architectural solution which best fulfills an input definition

Lasting temperature effects on the muscle tissue, body growth and fillet texture of adult turbots, Scophthalmus maximus, L.

In the teleosts, several factors can influence the muscle growth patterns of fish by a modulation of the hypertrophy and hyperplasia. The temperature (T) is one of the most important environmental factors. Thus, the T history of fish influences on their potential growth, as it has been observed in Salmon, Salmo salar (Johnston et al., 2003) and other species. The T imprinting can influence on the muscle cellularity throughout the advanced stages of life due to the lasting T effects on myogenic cells precursors (MPC) (Steinbacher et al., 2011). In different teleost species, a correlation between texture and muscle fibre size has been demonstrated (Hatae et al., 1990). Hence, the thermal history can also influence in the flesh texture. In the present work we study the lasting T effects in adult turbots reared at different Ts during the early phases. This species reaches ≈ 1.5 kg at 18-20 months of age and the first sexual maturity takes place at ≈ 24 month

Effects of Forcing Time Scale on the Simulated Turbulent Flows and Turbulent Collision Statistics of Inertial Particles

In this paper, we study systematically the effects of forcing time scale in the large-scale stochastic forcing scheme of Eswaran and Pope [ An examination of forcing in direct numerical simulations of turbulence, Comput. Fluids 16, 257 (1988)] on the simulated flow structures and statistics of forced turbulence. Using direct numerical simulations, we find that the forcing time scale affects the flow dissipation rate and flow Reynolds number. Other flow statistics can be predicted using the altered flow dissipation rate and flow Reynolds number, except when the forcing time scale is made unrealistically large to yield a Taylor microscale flow Reynolds number of 30 and less. We then study the effects of forcing time scale on the kinematic collision statistics of inertial particles. We show that the radial distribution function and the radial relative velocity may depend on the forcing time scale when it becomes comparable to the eddy turnover time. This dependence, however, can be largely explained in terms of altered flow Reynolds number and the changing range of flow length scales present in the turbulent flow. We argue that removing this dependence is important when studying the Reynolds number dependence of the turbulent collision statistics. The results are also compared to those based on a deterministic forcing scheme to better understand the role of large-scale forcing, relative to that of the small-scale turbulence, on turbulent collision of inertial particles. To further elucidate the correlation between the altered flow structures and dynamics of inertial particles, a conditional analysis has been performed, showing that the regions of higher collision rate of inertial particles are well correlated with the regions of lower vorticity. Regions of higher concentration of pairs at contact are found to be highly correlated with the region of high energy dissipation rate. © 2015 AIP Publishing LLC

Simulating Rainfall, Water Evaporation and Groundwater Flow in Three-Dimensional Satellite Images with Cellular Automata

Remote sensing has been used in numerous environmental simulations with the aim of solving and improving many different kinds of problems, e.g., meteorology applications, soil quality studies, water resource exploration, and environmental protection. Besides, cellular automata have been widely used in the field of remote sensing for simulating natural phenomena over two-dimensional satellite images. However, simulations on Digital Elevation Models (DEM), or three-dimensional (3D) satellite images, are scarce. This paper presents a study of modeling and simulation of the weather phenomena of rainfall, water evaporation and groundwater flow in 3D satellite images through a new algorithm, developed by the authors, named RACA (Rainfall with Cellular Automata). The purpose of RACA is to obtain, from the simulation, numerical and 3D results related to the total cumulative flow and maximum level of water that allow us to make decisions on important issues such as analyzing how climate change will affect the water level in a particular area, estimating the future water supply of a population, establishing future construction projects and urban planning away from locations with high probability of flooding, or preventing the destruction of property and human life from future natural disasters in urban areas with probability of flooding

Mapping QTL for resistance against <i>Pyrenophora tritici-repentis</i> in wheat

Tan spot, caused by the fungus Pyrenophora tritici-repentis (Died.) Drechs is an important foliar disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). From a set of phenotypically and molecularly characterized set of Argentinean isolates, two isolates H0019 and H0120 which do not correspond to known races of the pathogen were selected. Segregation for resistance among a set of recombinant inbred lines bred from the cross 'W7984' × cv. 'Opata 85' was used to identify the basis for resistance at the seedling stage, against those fungal isolates (H0019 and H0120), across three independent environments. On the basis of the mean performance across all three environments, a QTL against chlorosis located on the 6AS and linked to the RFLP locus Xksuh4c was significant for both isolates (with a LOD of 3.76 for isolate H0019 and 5.87 for H0120).Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Differential contribution of the two major polygalacturonases from Penicillium digitatum to virulence towards citrus fruit

The fungus Penicillium digitatum is the causal agent of the citrus green mould, the major postharvest diseases of citrus fruit. Lesions on the surface of infected fruits first appear as soft areas around the inoculation site, due to maceration of fruit. The macerating activity has been associated with pectinases secreted by the fungus during infection. In order to evaluate the contribution to virulence and macerating activity of the two major polygalacturonases (PGs) secreted by P. digitatum, we have obtained and characterized mutants lacking either pg1 or pg2, the genes encoding PG1 and PG2, respectively. Disease incidence of deletants in either gene was not different from that of the parental strain or ectopic transformants. However, disease progressed more slowly in deletants, especially in those lacking the pg2 gene. The lesions originated by the Δpg2 deletants were not as soft and the pH was not as acid as those originated by either the wild type strain or the ectopic transformants. Total PG activity in the macerated tissue was also lower in fruits infected with the Δpg2 deletants. Interestingly, the macerated tissue of oranges infected with Δpg2 deletants showed around 50% reduction in galacturonic acid content with respect to lesions caused by any other strain.The technical assistance of Ana Izquierdo is gratefully acknowledged. LG-C's research is funded in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (AGL2011-30519-C03-01 and AGL2014-55802-R) and the Generalitat Valenciana (PROMETEOII/2014/027). ML-P was supported by a “Formación de Personal Investigador” scholarship (BES-2006-12983). Authors want to thank the technical assistance of S. Dashevskaya and the financial support by AGL2011-30519-CO3-03 from the “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad” (MINECO, Spain), and the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya

Risk Factors for COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortality in Institutionalised Elderly People

Background: SARS-CoV-2 has caused a high mortality in institutionalised individuals. There are very few studies on the involvement and the real impact of COVID-19 in nursing homes. This study analysed factors related to morbidity and mortality of COVID-19 in institutionalised elderly people. Methods: This cohort study included 842 individuals from 12 nursing homes in Sant Cugat del Vallès (Spain) from 15 March to 15 May 2020. We evaluated individual factors (demographic, dependence, clinical, and therapeutic) and those related to the nursing homes (size and staff) associated with infection and mortality by SARS-CoV-2. Infection was diagnosed by molecular biology test. Results: Of the 842 residents included in the analysis, 784 underwent a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test; 74.2% were women, the mean age was 87.1 years, and 11.1% died. The PCR test was positive in 44%. A total of 33.4% of the residents presented symptoms compatible with COVID-19 and of these, 80.9% were PCR-positive for SARS-CoV-2. Infection by SARS-CoV-2 among residents was associated with the rate of staff infected in the homes. Mortality by SARS-CoV-2 was related to male sex and a greater grade of dependence measured with the Barthel index. Conclusions: SARS-Cov-2 infection in institutionalised people is associated with the infection rate in nursing home workers and mortality by SARS-Cov-2 with sex and greater dependency according to the Barthel index. Adequate management of nursing home staff and special attention to measures of infection control, especially of individuals with greater dependence, are keys for successful management of future pandemic situations. Keywords: COVID-19; comorbidity; frail elderly; frailty; long-term care; nursing homes

Novel DNMT3A Germline Variant in a Patient with Multiple Paragangliomas and Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

Over the past few years, next generation technologies have been applied to unravel the genetics of rare inherited diseases, facilitating the discovery of new susceptibility genes. We recently found germline DNMT3A gain-of-function variants in two patients with head and neck paragangliomas causing a characteristic hypermethylated DNA profile. Here, whole-exome sequencing identifies a novel germline DNMT3A variant (p.Gly332Arg) in a patient with bilateral carotid paragangliomas, papillary thyroid carcinoma and idiopathic intellectual disability. The variant, located in the Pro-Trp-Trp-Pro (PWWP) domain of the protein involved in chromatin targeting, affects a residue mutated in papillary thyroid tumors and located between the two residues found mutated in microcephalic dwarfism patients. Structural modelling of the variant in the DNMT3A PWWP domain predicts that the interaction with H3K36me3 will be altered. An increased methylation of DNMT3A target genes, compatible with a gain-of-function effect of the alteration, was observed in saliva DNA from the proband and in one independent acute myeloid leukemia sample carrying the same p.Gly332Arg variant. Although further studies are needed to support a causal role of DNMT3A variants in paraganglioma, the description of a new DNMT3A alteration in a patient with multiple clinical features suggests a heterogeneous phenotypic spectrum related to DNMT3A germline variants