Reactions of selected eggplant cultivars and lines to verticillium wilt caused by Verticillium dahliae Kleb.

Verticillium wilt caused by the fungus Verticillium dahliae Kleb. leads to decrease in the yield and quality of eggplant, an economically important vegetable in Turkey. To develop eggplant lines that are resistant to or tolerant to verticillium wilt, this study used cultivars K-1, K-2, K-3, K-4, K-5, K-6, K-7 and K-8 in the studies presented here. The wild species Solanum torvum and Solanum sodemeum; the resistant cultivated forms DK-1, DK-2, DK-3, DK-4 and DK-6; and the cultivar DK-5 were also included in the study. For the pathogenicity tests, an isolate of V. dahliae used was identified by PCR at the Plant Protection Department of the Faculty of Agriculture, A. Menderes University. All the plant materials were tested with this isolate in 2004 and again in 2005. Results from the two years were similar; the lowest disease ratio was obtained from the DK-5 line in both years. F1 plants were obtained through hybridisation of cultivar K-1 and line DK-5, which were determined to be respectively susceptible and tolerant to V. dahliae. Next, F2 plants were obtained by selfing F1. In 2006, cultivar K-1, line DK-5, and F1 and F2 plants underwent pathogenicity tests. At the end of the pathogenity test, the disease  severity in cultivar K-1 and line DK-5 was similar to that seen in previous years, whereas the yellowing and wilting values of F1 plant leaves, as well as stem isolation and reisolation results, were higher than those of F2 plants. Using a 0 to 5 scale and considering the yellowing area on leaves, the disease severity in F1 plants was determined to be 38%; the severity value ranged from 2 to 6% in 55% of 200 F1 plants and from 36 to 44% in the remaining 45%.Key words: Solanum melongena, Verticillium dahliae, resistance, hybridisation

Misconceptions of science teacher candidates about heat and temperature

3rd World Conference on Educational Sciences (WCES) -- FEB 03-07, 2011 -- Bahcesehir Univ, Istanbul, TURKEYWOS: 000466750602149In this study, the misconceptions that the students have about heat and temperature and the reasons behind it have been focused. Members of study group include 60 second grade students of the Faculty of Education of Ahi Evran University during 2009-2010 school year. Multiple-choice tests have been used to be able find out misconceptions. In this test, also entitled as "Diagnostic Test", there is a space where students are expected to write why they have chosen that particular option after a number of items including the right answer along with confounding options. In addition, the misconceptions of teacher candidates have been put forth as an outcome of the analysis of data about heat and temperature. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.Ankara Univ, Near E Uni

Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program does not provide the right incentives: issues and remedies

The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) reduces Medicare payments to hospitals with higher-than-expected readmission rates where the expected readmission rate for each hospital is determined based on the readmission levels at other hospitals. Although similar relative-performance-based schemes are shown to lead to socially optimal outcomes in other settings (e.g., cost cutting efforts), HRRP differs from these schemes in three respects: (i) deviation from the targets are adjusted using a multiplier; (ii) the total financial penalty for a hospital with higher-than-expected readmission rate is capped; and (iii) hospitals with lower-than-expected readmission rates do not receive bonus payments. We study three regulatory schemes derived from HRRP to determine the impact of each feature, and use a principal-agent model to show that: (i) HRRP over-penalizes hospitals with excess readmissions because of the multiplier and its effect can be substantial; (ii) having a penalty cap can curtail the effect of financial incentives and result in a no-equilibrium outcome when the cap is too low; and (iii) not allowing bonus payments leads to many alternative symmetric equilibria, including one where hospitals exert no effort to reduce readmissions. These results show that HRRP does not provide the right incentives for hospitals to reduce readmissions. Next we show that a bundled payment type reimbursement method, which reimburses hospitals once for each episode of care (including readmissions), leads to socially optimal cost and readmissions reduction efforts. Finally we show that, when delays to accessing care are inevitable, the reimbursement schemes need to provide additional incentives for hospitals to invest sufficiently in capacity

A new approach to the exact solutions of the effective mass Schrodinger equation

Effective mass Schrodinger equation is solved exactly for a given potential. Nikiforov-Uvarov method is used to obtain energy eigenvalues and the corresponding wave functions. A free parameter is used in the transformation of the wave function. The effective mass Schrodinger equation is also solved for the Morse potential transforming to the constant mass Schr\"{o}dinger equation for a potential. One can also get solution of the effective mass Schrodinger equation starting from the constant mass Schrodinger equation.Comment: 14 page

Exponential Type Complex and non-Hermitian Potentials in PT-Symmetric Quantum Mechanics

Using the NU method [A.F.Nikiforov, V.B.Uvarov, Special Functions of Mathematical Physics, Birkhauser,Basel,1988], we investigated the real eigenvalues of the complex and/or $PT$- symmetric, non-Hermitian and the exponential type systems, such as Poschl-Teller and Morse potentials.Comment: 14 pages, Late

The microRNA expression signature of CD4+ T cells in the transition of brucellosis into chronicity

© 2018 Budak et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Brucellosis is a serious infectious disease that continues to be a significant cause of morbidity worldwide and across all ages. Despite early diagnosis and treatment, 10±30% of patients develop chronic brucellosis. Although there have been recent advances in our knowledge of Brucella virulence factors and hosts' immune response to the infection, there is a lack of clear data regarding how the infection bypasses the immune system and becomes chronic. The present study investigated immunological factors and their roles in the transition of brucellosis from an acute to a chronic infection in CD4+ T cells. CD4+ T cells sorted from peripheral blood samples of patients with acute or chronic brucellosis and healthy controls using flow cytometry as well as more than 2000 miRNAs were screened using the GeneSpring GX (Agilent) 13.0 miRNA microarray software and were validated using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Compared to acute cases, the expression levels of 28 miRNAs were significantly altered in chronic cases. Apart from one miRNA (miR-4649-3p), 27 miRNAs were not expressed in the acute cases (p 2). According to KEGG pathway analysis, these miRNAs are involved in the regulation of target genes that were previously involved in the MAPK signalling pathway, regulation of the actin cytoskeleton, endocytosis, and protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum. This indicates the potential role of these miRNAs in the development of chronic brucellosis. We suggest that these miRNAs can be used as markers to determine the transition of the disease into chronicity. This is the first study of miRNA expression that analyses human CD4+ T cells to clarify the mechanism of chronicity in brucellosis

Approximate Solution of the effective mass Klein-Gordon Equation for the Hulthen Potential with any Angular Momentum

The radial part of the effective mass Klein-Gordon equation for the Hulthen potential is solved by making an approximation to the centrifugal potential. The Nikiforov-Uvarov method is used in the calculations. Energy spectra and the corresponding eigenfunctions are computed. Results are also given for the case of constant mass.Comment: 12 page

Probing a Complex of Cytochromecand Cardiolipin by Magnetic Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy: Implications for the Initial Events in Apoptosis

Oxidation of cardiolipin (CL) by its complex with cytochrome c (cyt c) plays a crucial role in triggering apoptosis. Through a combination of magnetic circular dichroism spectroscopy and potentiometric titrations, we show that both the ferric and ferrous forms of the heme group of a CL:cyt c complex exist as multiple conformers at a physiologically relevant pH of 7.4. For the ferric state, these conformers are His/Lys- and His/OH–-ligated. The ferrous state is predominantly high-spin and, most likely, His/–. Interconversion of the ferric and ferrous conformers is described by a single midpoint potential of -80 ± 9 mV vs SHE. These results suggest that CL oxidation in mitochondria could occur by the reaction of molecular oxygen with the ferrous CL:cyt c complex in addition to the well-described reaction of peroxides with the ferric form

Approximate solution of the Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau equation for a vector Yukawa potential with arbitrary total angular momenta

The usual approximation scheme is used to study the solution of the Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau (DKP) equation for a vector Yukawa potential in the framework of the parametric Nikiforov-Uvarov (NU) method. The approximate energy eigenvalue equation and the corresponding wave function spinor components are calculated for arbitrary total angular momentum in closed form. Further, the approximate energy equation and wave function spinor components are also given for case. A set of parameter values is used to obtain the numerical values for the energy states with various values of quantum levelsComment: 17 pages; Communications in Theoretical Physics (2012). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1205.0938, and with arXiv:quant-ph/0410159 by other author

Exact solution of Effective mass Schrodinger Equation for the Hulthen potential

A general form of the effective mass Schrodinger equation is solved exactly for Hulthen potential. Nikiforov-Uvarov method is used to obtain energy eigenvalues and the corresponding wave functions. A free parameter is used in the transformation of the wave function.Comment: 9 page