Screening of Perennial Grasses and a Mutant Maize Collection by Fourier-Transformed InfraRed (FTIR) Spectroscopy for Improved Biofuel Traits

Currently the potential of biomass crops, including grasses, is limited because most species have not been bred for this purpose. However traits such as lignification, phenolic cross-linking and carbohydrate accessibility, which are also important for nutritive quality in forage grasses, can affect potential biofuel quality in applications such as combustion, fast-pyrolysis or fermentation. A collection of Lolium and Festuca species known to exhibit a range of lignin, cell wall phenolic and carbohydrate concentrations have been used to test optimum characteristics for biofuel processing. This collection formed a “calibration” set for subsequent high through-put FTIR chemical screening of additional plant lines: (1) A set of Lolium-Festuca substitution lines, in which L. perenne chromosomes or chromosome segments are substituted by homoeologous regions of F. pratensis, that provide the potential to physically map biofuel traits to an individual chromosome or chromosome segment; (2) A maize transposon (Robertson’s Mutator) induced mutant collection, which provides the potential to identify gene sequences underlying important biochemical traits linked to biofuel as determined by FTIR analysis

Cloudbus Toolkit for Market-Oriented Cloud Computing

This keynote paper: (1) presents the 21st century vision of computing and identifies various IT paradigms promising to deliver computing as a utility; (2) defines the architecture for creating market-oriented Clouds and computing atmosphere by leveraging technologies such as virtual machines; (3) provides thoughts on market-based resource management strategies that encompass both customer-driven service management and computational risk management to sustain SLA-oriented resource allocation; (4) presents the work carried out as part of our new Cloud Computing initiative, called Cloudbus: (i) Aneka, a Platform as a Service software system containing SDK (Software Development Kit) for construction of Cloud applications and deployment on private or public Clouds, in addition to supporting market-oriented resource management; (ii) internetworking of Clouds for dynamic creation of federated computing environments for scaling of elastic applications; (iii) creation of 3rd party Cloud brokering services for building content delivery networks and e-Science applications and their deployment on capabilities of IaaS providers such as Amazon along with Grid mashups; (iv) CloudSim supporting modelling and simulation of Clouds for performance studies; (v) Energy Efficient Resource Allocation Mechanisms and Techniques for creation and management of Green Clouds; and (vi) pathways for future research.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, Conference pape

Finite geometries and diffractive orbits in isospectral billiards

Several examples of pairs of isospectral planar domains have been produced in the two-dimensional Euclidean space by various methods. We show that all these examples rely on the symmetry between points and blocks in finite projective spaces; from the properties of these spaces, one can derive a relation between Green functions as well as a relation between diffractive orbits in isospectral billiards.Comment: 10 page

On transformation of query scheduling strategies in distributed and heterogeneous database systems

This work considers a problem of optimal query processing in heterogeneous and distributed database systems. A global query sub- mitted at a local site is decomposed into a number of queries processed at the remote sites. The partial results returned by the queries are in- tegrated at a local site. The paper addresses a problem of an optimal scheduling of queries that minimizes time spend on data integration of the partial results into the final answer. A global data model defined in this work provides a unified view of the heterogeneous data structures located at the remote sites and a system of operations is defined to ex- press the complex data integration procedures. This work shows that the transformations of an entirely simultaneous query processing strate- gies into a hybrid (simultaneous/sequential) strategy may in some cases lead to significantly faster data integration. We show how to detect such cases, what conditions must be satisfied to transform the schedules, and how to transform the schedules into the more efficient ones

Relationship between Sex Steroid and Vitellogenin Concentrations in Flounder (Platichthys flesus) Sampled from an Estuary Contaminated with Estrogenic Endocrine-Disrupting Compounds

High concentrations of vitellogenin (VTG; egg yolk protein) have previously been found in male flounder (Platichthys flesus) from several UK estuaries; these levels have been ascribed to the presence of estrogenic endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs). Gonadal abnormalities, including intersex, have also been recorded in these estuaries. However, there is no firm evidence to date that these two findings are causally linked or that the presence of estrogenic EDCs has any adverse population effects. In the present study, we examined the relationship between concentrations of VTG and sex steroids (11-oxotestosterone in males and 17β-estradiol in females) in specimens of flounder captured from the estuary of the River Mersey. We first questioned whether the high concentrations of VTG in male and immature female flounder were indeed caused by a direct effect of exogenous EDCs and not indirectly via the endogenous secretion of 17β-estradiol. The data favored the direct involvement of estrogenic EDCs. We then questioned whether the presence of estrogenic EDCs not only stimulated inappropriate VTG synthesis but whether it might also have had a negative effect on endogenous steroid secretion. It should be noted that the predicted consequences of a drop in steroid secretion include smaller gonads, smaller oocytes, fewer numbers of sperm, and depressed spawning behavior. This question was more difficult to answer because of the strong effect of the seasonal reproductive cycle and stage of maturation on steroid concentrations. However, matched by month of capture and stage of maturation, both 17β-estradiol in females and 11-keto-testosterone in males were in most cases significantly lower in those years when VTG concentrations were higher

Diffractive orbits in isospectral billiards

Isospectral domains are non-isometric regions of space for which the spectra of the Laplace-Beltrami operator coincide. In the two-dimensional Euclidean space, instances of such domains have been given. It has been proved for these examples that the length spectrum, that is the set of the lengths of all periodic trajectories, coincides as well. However there is no one-to-one correspondence between the diffractive trajectories. It will be shown here how the diffractive contributions to the Green functions match nevertheless in a ''one-to-three'' correspondence.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure

The Role of the State in the Financialisation of the UK Economy

This article looks at the role of UK governments in the financialisation of the British economy and its industry. It argues two things. First, the UK state has had a rather more active role here than most observers have acknowledged. Successive governments since the 1970s have not merely abandoned industry, they have handed much of its control to the financial sector. Second, a key part of this policy shift was linked to the rising power of the Treasury and its reshaping of the former Department of Trade and Industry in its own ideal economic policy image. This both boosted the City and disadvantaged industry, thus propelling the UK towards financialisation at a faster pace than almost all rival economies. The arguments are based on evidence from a mix of interviews with central actors, published insider accounts and an analysis of budget statements in the period 1976–2010

Shrunk loop theorem for the topology probabilities of closed Brownian (or Feynman) paths on the twice punctured plane

The shrunk loop theorem presented here is an integral identity which facilitates the calculation of the relative probability (or probability amplitude) of any given topology that a free, closed Brownian or Feynman path of a given 'duration' might have on the twice punctured plane (the plane with two marked points). The result is expressed as a scattering series of integrals of increasing dimensionality based on the maximally shrunk version of the path. Physically, this applies in different contexts: (i) the topology probability of a closed ideal polymer chain on a plane with two impassable points, (ii) the trace of the Schroedinger Green function, and thence spectral information, in the presence of two Aharonov-Bohm fluxes, (iii) the same with two branch points of a Riemann surface instead of fluxes. Our theorem starts with the Stovicek expansion for the Green function in the presence of two Aharonov-Bohm flux lines, which itself is based on the famous Sommerfeld one puncture point solution of 1896 (the one puncture case has much easier topology, just one winding number). Stovicek's expansion itself can supply the results at the expense of choosing a base point on the loop and then integrating it away. The shrunk loop theorem eliminates this extra two dimensional integration, distilling the topology from the geometry.Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures (accepted by J. Phys. A: Math. Gen.

Multi-year fertility reduction in free-roaming feral horses with single-injection immunocontraceptive formulations

Abstract Context. Contraception is increasingly used as a management technique to reduce fertility in wildlife populations; however, the feasibility of contraceptive formulations has been limited until recently because they have required multiple treatments to achieve prolonged infertility. Aims. We tested the efficacy and evaluated potential side effects of two contraceptive formulations, a porcine zona pellucida (PZP) formulation, SpayVac ® and a gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) formulation GonaCon-BÔ, in a population of free-roaming feral horses (Equus caballus). Both formulations were developed to provide several years of infertility with one injection. Methods. Females were treated in June 2005 with either GonaCon-B (n = 24), SpayVac (n = 20), adjuvant only (n = 22), or received no injection (n = 18). Females were monitored for fertility status year round for 3 years after treatment. Key results. Both contraceptive treatments significantly reduced fertility for 3 years. Fertility rates for GonaCon-B mares were 39%, 42% and 31%, respectively, and 37%, 50% and 44% for SpayVac mares. During the same seasons, 61%, 67% and 76% of control females were fertile. We found no significant effects from contraceptive treatment on the sex ratio of foals, birthing season or foal survival. Conclusions. These results demonstrated that both vaccines are capable of significantly reducing fertility for several years without boosters. Implications. Contraceptive vaccines examined in the present study represent a useful tool for the management of feral horses, because of their being efficacious for 3 years in the absence of booster immunisations