Selection and evaluation of

This study aimed to select suitable strains that can be used as inoculants to enhance legume production and simultaneously reduce the use of inorganic fertilizers. Evaluations of the selected strains of Vigna radiata on the basis of polysaccharide (exopolysaccharides and lipopolysaccharides) produced reinforced evidence that Rhizobial strains and its mutant nodulate promote growth differently under stressed environments. Strains performance evaluation demonstrated that the R0132 (1106):Tn5 inoculant of Sinorhizobium fredii (Formerly, Rhizobium fredii) is a prime candidate as a commercial inoculant. It benefited growth of V. radiata and it was more easily cultured on solid and liquid media than any of the otherstrains tested including R0132 (1112):Tn5, R0132 (0097):Tn5 and R0132 (1106):Tn5. Mutant R0132 (1106):Tn5 exhibited superior growth promoting ability under extreme environmental condition; therefore it haspotential to be used in India

Controlled coalescence-induced droplet jumping on flexible superhydrophobic substrates

Sessile droplets coalescing on superhydrophobic substrates spontaneously jump from the surface. In this process, the excess surface energy available at the initiation of coalescence overcomes the minimal surface adhesion and manifests as sufficient kinetic energy to propel the droplets away from the substrate. Here, we show that the coalescence induced droplet jumping velocity is significantly curtailed if the superhydrophobic substrate is flexible in nature. Through detailed experimental measurements and numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the droplet jumping velocity and jumping height can be reduced by as much as 40 % and 64%, respectively, by synergistically tuning the substrate stiffness and substrate frequency. We show that this hitherto unexplored aspect of droplet coalescence jumping can be gainfully exploited in water harvesting from dew and fog harvesting. Additionally, through an exemplar butterfly wing substrate, we demonstrate that this effect is likely to manifest on many natural superhydrophobic substrates due to their inherent flexibility

Hidden fluctuations close to a quantum bicritical point

Here, we present an alternative approach for the description of quantum critical fluctuations. These are described by Langevin random fields, which are then related to the susceptibility using the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. We use this approach to characterize the physical properties arising in the vicinity of two coupled quantum phase transitions. We consider a phenomenological model based on two scalar order parameter fields locally coupled biquadratically and having a common quantum critical point as a function of a quantum tuning parameter such as pressure or magnetic field. A self-consistent treatment shows that the uniform static susceptibilities of the two order parameter fields have the same qualitative form at low temperature even where the forms are different in the absence of the biquadratic coupling.We acknowledge support from EPSRC, Corpus Christi College, the National Science Foundation Grant No. NSF DMR-1334428, and the Increase Competitiveness Program of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation Grant No. NUST MISiS K2-2017-024. We are grateful to Trinity College Cambridge, the Cavendish Laboratory, and the Aspen Center for Physics, supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. NSF PHY-1066293, for hospitality. S.E.R. acknowledges support from a CONFAP Newton grant

Goal-Based Selection of Visual Representations for Big Data Analytics

The H2020 TOREADOR Project adopts a model-driven architecture to streamline big data analytics and make it widely available to companies as a service. Our work in this context focuses on visualization, in particular on how to automate the translation of the visualization objectives declared by the user into a suitable visualization type. To this end we first define a visualization context based on seven prioritizable coordinates for assessing the user's objectives and describing the data to be visualized; then we propose a skyline-based technique for automatically translating a visualization context into a set of suitable visualization types. Finally, we evaluate our approach on a real use case excerpted from the pilot applications of TOREADOR

Broadband Multi-wavelength Properties of M87 during the 2017 Event Horizon Telescope Campaign

In 2017, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration succeeded in capturing the first direct image of the center of the M87 galaxy. The asymmetric ring morphology and size are consistent with theoretical expectations for a weakly accreting supermassive black hole of mass similar to 6.5 x 10(9) M-circle dot. The EHTC also partnered with several international facilities in space and on the ground, to arrange an extensive, quasi-simultaneous multi-wavelength campaign. This Letter presents the results and analysis of this campaign, as well as the multi-wavelength data as a legacy data repository. We captured M87 in a historically low state, and the core flux dominates over HST-1 at high energies, making it possible to combine core flux constraints with the more spatially precise very long baseline interferometry data. We present the most complete simultaneous multi-wavelength spectrum of the active nucleus to date, and discuss the complexity and caveats of combining data from different spatial scales into one broadband spectrum. We apply two heuristic, isotropic leptonic single-zone models to provide insight into the basic source properties, but conclude that a structured jet is necessary to explain M87's spectrum. We can exclude that the simultaneous gamma-ray emission is produced via inverse Compton emission in the same region producing the EHT mm-band emission, and further conclude that the gamma-rays can only be produced in the inner jets (inward of HST-1) if there are strongly particle-dominated regions. Direct synchrotron emission from accelerated protons and secondaries cannot yet be excluded

FRA2A is a CGG repeat expansion associated with silencing of AFF3

Folate-sensitive fragile sites (FSFS) are a rare cytogenetically visible subset of dynamic mutations. Of the eight molecularly characterized FSFS, four are associated with intellectual disability (ID). Cytogenetic expression results from CGG tri-nucleotide-repeat expansion mutation associated with local CpG hypermethylation and transcriptional silencing. The best studied is the FRAXA site in the FMR1 gene, where large expansions cause fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited ID syndrome. Here we studied three families with FRA2A expression at 2q11 associated with a wide spectrum of neurodevelopmental phenotypes. We identified a polymorphic CGG repeat in a conserved, brain-active alternative promoter of the AFF3 gene, an autosomal homolog of the X-linked AFF2/FMR2 gene: Expansion of the AFF2 CGG repeat causes FRAXE ID. We found that FRA2A-expressing individuals have mosaic expansions of the AFF3 CGG repeat in the range of several hundred repeat units. Moreover, bisulfite sequencing and pyrosequencing both suggest AFF3 promoter hypermethylation. cSNP-analysis demonstrates monoallelic expression of the AFF3 gene in FRA2A carriers thus predicting that FRA2A expression results in functional haploinsufficiency for AFF3 at least in a subset of tissues. By whole-mount in situ hybridization the mouse AFF3 ortholog shows strong regional expression in the developing brain, somites and limb buds in 9.5-12.5dpc mouse embryos. Our data suggest that there may be an association between FRA2A and a delay in the acquisition of motor and language skills in the families studied here. However, additional cases are required to firmly establish a causal relationship