RESPONSE OF SOYBEAN YIELD TO LATE SOWING DATES

This work conducted on the research farm of Mallawi Agricultural Research Station, El-Minia Province, Egypt, during two successive seasons of 2004 and 2005 to study the role of the late plant-ings on the productivity of soybean. Three out of four genotypes selected to achieve that goal were new released cultivars, Giza-22; Giza-35; and Gi-za-111, and the commercial one, Crawford, the common parent of the three genotypes, as control. Three planting dates started on June 1st, June 15th for the second date of sowing and ended on June 30th for the third sowing date in both seasons. The package of the recommendations of soybean cul-ture carefully applied to get the best results of each sowing date. The results showed that all of the morphological, yield and productivity traits highly significantly affected by genotype and three out of five morphological traits, number of days to both flowering and maturity and plant height, also high-ly significantly affected by late sowing date. The other two traits, number of branches and leaf area at 75 days just significantly affected by late sow-ing date. In terms of yield and its components traits, only seed index highly significantly affected by late sowing date and yield per plot significantly affected by sowing time. All productivity traits were significantly affected by late sowing date specially the content of both oil and protein. Alt-hough yield per plot was significantly affected by late sowing date, the yield per plant was not af-fected by late sowing date indicating that the fac-tor of time of sowing may affect the rate of the germination and control the stand of the plots. Number of active nodules considered as produc-tivity trait because of the residual nitrogen that remain in the soil after harvest for the next crop. This number was significantly affected by sowing time and reached the highest values in the second date of June 15th that may due to the high tempera-ture at this time which lead to increasing the inter-action between soybean roots and the nodule bac-teria

Multiscale three-dimensional scaffolds for soft tissue engineering via multimodal electrospinning

A novel (scalable) electrospinning process was developed to fabricate bio-inspired multiscale three-dimensional scaffolds endowed with a controlled multimodal distribution of fiber diameters and geared towards soft tissue engineering. The resulting materials finely mingle nano- and microscale fibers together, rather than simply juxtaposing them, as is commonly found in the literature. A detailed proof of concept study was conducted on a simpler bimodal poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) scaffold with modes of fiber distribution at 600 nm and 3.3 μm. Three conventional unimodal scaffolds with mean diameters of 300 nm and 2.6 and 5.2 μm, respectively, were used as controls to evaluate the new materials. Characterization of the microstructure (i.e. porosity, fiber distribution and pore structure) and mechanical properties (i.e. stiffness, strength and failure mode) indicated that the multimodal scaffold had superior mechanical properties (Young's modulus ∼40 MPa and strength ∼1 MPa) in comparison with the controls, despite the large porosity (∼90% on average). A biological assessment was conducted with bone marrow stromal cell type (mesenchymal stem cells, mTERT-MSCs). While the new material compared favorably with the controls with respect to cell viability (on the outer surface), it outperformed them in terms of cell colonization within the scaffold. The latter result, which could neither be practically achieved in the controls nor expected based on current models of pore size distribution, demonstrated the greater openness of the pore structure of the bimodal material, which remarkably did not come at the expense of its mechanical properties. Furthermore, nanofibers were seen to form a nanoweb bridging across neighboring microfibers, which boosted cell motility and survival. Lastly, standard adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation tests served to demonstrate that the new scaffold did not hinder the multilineage potential of stem cells. © 2009 Acta Materialia Inc

The role of tool geometry in process damped milling

The complex interaction between machining structural systems and the cutting process results in machining instability, so called chatter. In some milling scenarios, process damping is a useful phenomenon that can be exploited to mitigate chatter and hence improve productivity. In the present study, experiments are performed to evaluate the performance of process damped milling considering different tool geometries (edge radius, rake and relief angles and variable helix/pitch). The results clearly indicate that variable helix/pitch angles most significantly increase process damping performance. Additionally, increased cutting edge radius moderately improves process damping performance, while rake and relief angles have a smaller and closely coupled effect

Symbolic analysis of analog circuits containing voltage mirrors

7 páginas, 7 figuras, 2 tablas, 4 imágenes.-- Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License.The pathological elements voltage mirror (VM) and current mirror (CM) have shown advantages in analog behavioral modeling and circuit synthesis, where many nullor-mirror equivalences have been explored to design and to transform voltage-mode circuits to current-mode ones and viceversa. However, both the VM and CM have not equivalents to perform automatic symbolic circuit analysis. In this manner, we introduce nullor-equivalents for these pathological elements allowing to include parasitics and to perform only symbolic nodal analysis. The nullor-equivalent of the CM is extended to provide multiple-outpus (MO-CM). Finally, two active filters containing VMs, CMs and MO-CMs are analysed to show the usefulness of the models.This work is supported by: UC-MEXUS and CONACyT under grants CN-09-310 and 48396-Y; by Promep-Mexico under grant UATLX-PTC-088; by Consejeria de Innovacion, Ciencia y Empresa, Junta de Andalucia-Spain TIC-2532; and by the JAE-Doc program of CSIC co-funded by FSE, Spain.Peer reviewe

Partial Purification and Characterization of Two Endo-ȕ-1, 4-glucanase from Trichoderma sp. (Shmosa tri)

Abstract: Two endoglucanases (EC 3.2.1.4) from Trichoderma sp. (shmosaTri) FJ937359 were purified to homogeneity using ammonium sulfate precipitation and gel filtration. Purity was confirmed by SDS/PAGE. Enzymatic properties and molecular weights were determined. Molecular weights of CMCase I and II were 58 and 34 KDa, respectively. The effect of temperature on the 2 endoglucanase activity was studied and results showed that optimum activity obtained at 50°C for both CMCase I and II. The enzymes withstand 60 min at 50ºC without loss of enzymatic activity. CMCase I and II retained 14.0 and 26.5 % of their original activities at 70°C after 90 min. The optimum pH for CMCase I and II was 5.0. Results also show that CMCase I was active at room temperature after 24 hrs over a broad pH range (3.0-9.0) while CMCase II was relatively stable in pH range (4.0-6.0). Among different kinds of substrates, both enzymes showed a high preference for carboxymethyl cellulose while both CMCase I and II did not show any hydrolytic activity against chitin, starch and cellobiose. On the other hand both CMCase I and II have relatively low hydrolytic activity towards ȕ glucan and xylan. All metallic ions used as well as EDTA and SDS at a concentration of 20 ug/ml of reaction mixture have an inhibitory effect on both CMCase I and II

Activation of COX-2/PGE2 Promotes Sapovirus Replication via the Inhibition of Nitric Oxide Production.

Enteric caliciviruses in the genera Norovirus and Sapovirus are important pathogens that cause severe acute gastroenteritis in both humans and animals. Cyclooxygenases (COXs) and their final product, prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), are known to play important roles in the modulation of both the host response to infection and the replicative cycles of several viruses. However, the precise mechanism(s) by which the COX/PGE2 pathway regulates sapovirus replication remains largely unknown. In this study, infection with porcine sapovirus (PSaV) strain Cowden, the only cultivable virus within the genus Sapovirus, markedly increased COX-2 mRNA and protein levels at 24 and 36 h postinfection (hpi), with only a transient increase in COX-1 levels seen at 24 hpi. The treatment of cells with pharmacological inhibitors, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) against COX-1 and COX-2, significantly reduced PGE2 production, as well as PSaV replication. Expression of the viral proteins VPg and ProPol was associated with activation of the COX/PGE2 pathway. We observed that pharmacological inhibition of COX-2 dramatically increased NO production, causing a reduction in PSaV replication that could be restored by inhibition of nitric oxide synthase via the inhibitor N-nitro-l-methyl-arginine ester. This study identified a pivotal role for the COX/PGE2 pathway in the regulation of NO production during the sapovirus life cycle, providing new insights into the life cycle of this poorly characterized family of viruses. Our findings also reveal potential new targets for treatment of sapovirus infection. IMPORTANCE: Sapoviruses are among the major etiological agents of acute gastroenteritis in both humans and animals, but little is known about sapovirus host factor requirements. Here, using only cultivable porcine sapovirus (PSaV) strain Cowden, we demonstrate that PSaV induced the vitalization of the cyclooxygenase (COX) and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) pathway. Targeting of COX-1/2 using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as the COX-1/2 inhibitor indomethacin and the COX-2-specific inhibitors NS-398 and celecoxib or siRNAs targeting COXs, inhibited PSaV replication. Expression of the viral proteins VPg and ProPol was associated with activation of the COX/PGE2 pathway. We further demonstrate that the production of PGE2 provides a protective effect against the antiviral effector mechanism of nitric oxide. Our findings uncover a new mechanism by which PSaV manipulates the host cell to provide an environment suitable for efficient viral growth, which in turn can be a new target for treatment of sapovirus infection.Wellcome Trust (097997/Z/11/Z); Grant (2014R1A2A2A01004292) of Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, the Korea Basic Science Institute grant (C33730), and Bio-industry Technology Development Program (315021-04) funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Republic of Korea

Quinazolinone-based rhodanine-3-acetic acids as potent aldose reductase inhibitors: Synthesis, functional evaluation and molecular modeling study

A series of quinazolinone-based rhodanine-3-acetic acids was synthesized and tested for in vitro aldose reductase inhibitory activity. All the target compounds displayed nanomolar activity against the target enzyme. Compounds 3a, 3b, and 3e exhibited almost 3-fold higher activity as compared to the only marketed reference drug epalrestat. Structure-activity relationship studies indicated that bulky substituents at the 3-phenyl ring of the quinazolinone moiety are generally not tolerated in the active site of the enzyme. Insertion of a methoxy group on the central benzylidene ring was found to have a variable effect on ALR-2 activity depending on the nature of peripheral quinazolinone ring substituents. Removal of the acetic acid moiety led to inactive or weakly active target compounds. Docking and molecular dynamic simulations of the most active rhodanine-3-acetic acid derivatives were also carried out, to provide the basis for further structure-guided design of novel inhibitors