1,339 research outputs found
De novo sequence assembly and characterization of the floral transcriptome in cross- and self-fertilizing plants
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The shift from cross-fertilization to predominant self-fertilization is among the most common evolutionary transitions in the reproductive biology of flowering plants. Increased inbreeding has important consequences for floral morphology, population genetic structure and genome evolution. The transition to selfing is usually characterized by a marked reduction in flower size and the loss of traits involved in pollinator attraction and the avoidance of self-fertilization. Here, we use short-read sequencing to assemble, <it>de novo</it>, the floral transcriptomes of three genotypes of <it>Eichhornia paniculata</it>, including an outcrosser and two genotypes from independently derived selfers, and a single genotype of the sister species <it>E. paradoxa</it>. By sequencing mRNA from tissues sampled at various stages of flower development, our goal was to sequence and assemble the floral transcriptome and identify differential patterns of gene expression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our 24 Mbp assembly resulted in ~27,000 contigs that averaged ~900 bp in length. All four genotypes had highly correlated gene expression, but the three <it>E. paniculata </it>genotypes were more correlated with one another than each was to <it>E. paradoxa</it>. Our analysis identified 269 genes associated with floral development, 22 of which were differentially expressed in selfing lineages relative to the outcrosser. Many of the differentially expressed genes affect floral traits commonly altered in selfing plants and these represent a set of potential candidate genes for investigating the evolution of the selfing syndrome.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study is among the first to demonstrate the use of Illumina short read sequencing for <it>de novo </it>transcriptome assembly in non-model species, and the first to implement this technology for comparing floral transcriptomes in outcrossing and selfing plants.</p
Manipulation of the spin helix in FeGe thin films and FeGe/Fe multilayers
Magnetic materials without structural inversion symmetry can display the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, which manifests itself as chiral magnetic ground states. These chiral states can interact in complex ways with applied fields and boundary conditions provided by finite sample sizes that are of the order of the lengthscale of the chiral states. Here we study epitaxial thin films of FeGe with a thickness close to the helix pitch of the helimagnetic ground state, which is about 70 nm, by conventional magnetometry and polarized neutron reflectometry. We show that the helix in an FeGe film reverses under the application of a field by deforming into a helicoidal form, with twists in the helicoid being forced out of the film surfaces on the way to saturation. An additional boundary condition was imposed by exchange coupling a ferromagnetic Fe layer to one of the interfaces of an FeGe layer. This forces the FeGe spins at the interface to point in the same direction as the Fe, preventing node expulsion and giving a handle by which the reversal of the helical magnet may be controlled
Occupational balance: What tips the scales for new students?
The open question, ‘What prevents you from reaching occupational balance?’,
was posed within a questionnaire aimed at exploring the meanings of
occupation, health and wellbeing with a cohort of first-year occupational
therapy students during their initial few weeks at university. Their written
responses to the question about occupational balance were analysed and are
discussed in this paper. Not surprisingly, occupational balance appeared to be
achieved by only a few and more by chance than design.
People, time and money factors were identified as the main impediments
to achieving occupational balance, with psychological and emotional pressures
being at the forefront. Interestingly, despite these barriers, the overall
educational benefit of considering the occupational balance question in this
way raised the students’ awareness of its relationship to health and wellbeing.
This increased awareness might have longer-term health benefits, both
personally and professionally, which would be worthy of further research
Con§tel
CON§TEL es una plataforma Web de lectura, titulación y anotación que permite a los lectores poder recorrer los textos de manera activa, esto es: cada usuario puede marcar secciones, titular y hacer anotaciones sobre los textos y establecer sus propias relaciones entre ellos
Critical depinning force and vortex lattice order in disordered superconductors
We simulate the ordering of vortices and its effects on the critical current
in superconductors with varied vortex-vortex interaction strength and varied
pinning strengths for a two-dimensional system. For strong pinning the vortex
lattice is always disordered and the critical depinning force only weakly
increases with decreasing vortex-vortex interactions. For weak pinning the
vortex lattice is defect free until the vortex-vortex interactions have been
reduced to a low value, when defects begin to appear with a simultaneous rapid
increase in the critical depinning force. In each case the depinning force
shows a maximum for non-interacting vortices. The relative height of the peak
increases and the peak width decreases for decreasing pinning strength in
excellent agreement with experimental trends associated with the peak effect.
We show that scaling relations exist between the distance between defects in
the vortex lattice and the critical depinning force.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure
Attention deficit hyperactivity symptoms predict problematic mobile phone use
Attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed childhood disorder characterised by inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, or both. Some of the key traits of ADHD have previously been linked to addictive and problematic behaviours. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between problematic mobile phone use, smartphone
addiction risk and ADHD symptoms in an adult population. A sample of 273 healthy adult volunteers completed the Adult
ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS), the Mobile Phone Problem Usage Scale (MPPUS), and the Smartphone Addiction Scale
(SAS). A significant positive correlation was found between the ASRS and both scales. More specifically, inattention symptoms
and age predicted smartphone addiction risk and problematic mobile phone use. Our results suggest that there is a positive
relationship between ADHD traits and problematic mobile phone use. In particular, younger adults with higher level of inattention symptoms could be at higher risk of developing smartphone addiction. The implication of our findings for theoretical
frameworks of problematic mobile phone use and clinical practice are discussed
Helical magnetic structure and the anomalous and topological Hall effects in epitaxial B20 Fe₁−yCoyGe films
Epitaxial films of the B20-structure compound Fe1−yCoyGe were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on Si (111) substrates. The magnetization varied smoothly from the bulklike values of one Bohr magneton per Fe atom for FeGe to zero for nonmagnetic CoGe. The chiral lattice structure leads to a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), and the films' helical magnetic ground state was confirmed using polarized neutron reflectometry measurements. The pitch of the spin helix, measured by this method, varies with Co content y and diverges at y∼0.45. This indicates a zero crossing of the DMI, which we reproduced in calculations using first-principles methods. We also measured the longitudinal and Hall resistivity of our films as a function of magnetic field, temperature, and Co content y. The Hall resistivity is expected to contain contributions from the ordinary, anomalous, and topological Hall effects. Both the anomalous and topological Hall resistivities show peaks around y∼0.5. Our first-principles calculations show a peak in the topological Hall constant at this value of y, related to the strong spin polarization predicted for intermediate values of y. Our calculations predict half-metallicity for y=0.6, consistent with the experimentally observed linear magnetoresistance at this composition, and potentially related to the other unusual transport properties for intermediate value of y. While it is possible to reconcile theory with experiment for the various Hall effects for FeGe, the large topological Hall resistivities for y∼0.5 are much larger than expected when the very small emergent fields associated with the divergence in the DMI are taken into account
Spin-orbit interaction enhancement in permalloy thin films by Pt doping
The spin-orbit interaction is an inherent part of magnetism, which links up the independent world of spins to the atomic lattice, thus controlling many functional properties of magnetic materials. In the widely used 3d transition metal ferromagnetic films, the spin-orbit interaction is relatively weak, due to low atomic number. Here we show that it is possible to enhance and tune the spin-orbit interaction by adding 5d platinum dopants into permalloy (Ni 81 Fe 19 ) thin films by a cosputtering technique. This is achieved without significant changes of the magnetic properties, due to the vicinity of Pt to meeting the Stoner criterion for the ferromagnetic state. The spin-orbit interaction is investigated by means of transport measurements (the anisotropic magnetoresistance and anomalous Hall effect), ferromagnetic resonance measurements to determine the Gilbert damping, as well as by measuring the x-ray magnetic circular dichroism at the L 3 and L 2 x-ray absorption edges to reveal the ratio of orbital to spin magnetic moments. It is shown that the effective spin-orbit interaction increases with Pt concentration within the 0%–10% Pt concentration range in a way that is consistent with theoretical expectations for all four measurements
Searching for Exoplanets Using a Microresonator Astrocomb
Detection of weak radial velocity shifts of host stars induced by orbiting
planets is an important technique for discovering and characterizing planets
beyond our solar system. Optical frequency combs enable calibration of stellar
radial velocity shifts at levels required for detection of Earth analogs. A new
chip-based device, the Kerr soliton microcomb, has properties ideal for
ubiquitous application outside the lab and even in future space-borne
instruments. Moreover, microcomb spectra are ideally suited for astronomical
spectrograph calibration and eliminate filtering steps required by conventional
mode-locked-laser frequency combs. Here, for the calibration of astronomical
spectrographs, we demonstrate an atomic/molecular line-referenced,
near-infrared soliton microcomb. Efforts to search for the known exoplanet HD
187123b were conducted at the Keck-II telescope as a first in-the-field
demonstration of microcombs
Record linkage to obtain birth outcomes for the evaluation of screening biomarkers in pregnancy: a feasibility study
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Linking population health data to pathology data is a new approach for the evaluation of predictive tests that is potentially more efficient, feasible and efficacious than current methods. Studies evaluating the use of first trimester maternal serum levels as predictors of complications in pregnancy have mostly relied on resource intensive methods such as prospective data collection or retrospective chart review. The aim of this pilot study is to demonstrate that record-linkage between a pathology database and routinely collected population health data sets provides follow-up on patient outcomes that is as effective as more traditional and resource-intensive methods. As a specific example, we evaluate maternal serum levels of PAPP-A and free <it>β</it>-hCG as predictors of adverse pregnancy outcomes, and compare our results with those of prospective studies.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Maternal serum levels of PAPP-A and free <it>β</it>-hCG for 1882 women randomly selected from a pathology database in New South Wales (NSW) were linked to routinely collected birth and hospital databases. Crude relative risks were calculated to investigate the association between low levels (multiples of the median ≤ 5<sup>th </sup>percentile) of PAPP-A or free <it>β</it>-hCG and the outcomes of preterm delivery (<37 weeks), small for gestational age (<10<sup>th </sup>percentile), fetal loss and stillbirth.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using only full name, sex and date of birth for record linkage, pregnancy outcomes were available for 1681 (89.3%) of women included in the study. Low levels of PAPP-A had a stronger association with adverse pregnancy outcomes than a low level of free <it>β</it>-hCG which is consistent with results in published studies. The relative risk of having a preterm birth with a low maternal serum PAPP-A level was 3.44 (95% CI 1.96–6.10) and a low free <it>β</it>-hCG level was 1.31 (95% CI 0.55–6.16).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study provides data to support the use of record linkage for outcome ascertainment in studies evaluating predictive tests. Linkage proportions are likely to increase if more personal identifiers are available. This method of follow-up is a cost-efficient technique and can now be applied to a larger cohort of women.</p
- …