CRISPR/Cas9 editing of endogenous banana streak virus in the B genome of Musa spp. overcomes a major challenge in banana breeding

Open Access Journal; Published online: 31 Jan 2019Presence of the integrated endogenous banana streak virus (eBSV) in the B genome of plantain (AAB) is a major challenge for breeding and dissemination of hybrids. As the eBSV activates into infectious viral particles under stress, the progenitor Musa balbisiana and its derivants, having at least one B genome, cannot be used as parents for crop improvement. Here, we report a strategy to inactivate the eBSV by editing the virus sequences. The regenerated genome-edited events of Gonja Manjaya showed mutations in the targeted sites with the potential to prevent proper transcription or/and translational into functional viral proteins. Seventy-five percent of the edited events remained asymptomatic in comparison to the non-edited control plants under water stress conditions, confirming inactivation of eBSV into infectious viral particles. This study paves the way for the improvement of B genome germplasm and its use in breeding programs to produce hybrids that can be globally disseminated

Effective charging energy for a regular granular metal array

We study the Ambegaokar-Eckern-Sch\"{o}n (AES) model for a regular array of metallic grains coupled by tunnel junctions of conductance $g$ and calculate both paramagnetic and diamagnetic terms in the Kubo formula for the conductivity. We find analytically, and confirm by numerical path integral Monte Carlo methods, that for $0<g<4$ the conductivity obeys an Arrhenius law $\sigma(T)\sim\exp[-E^{*}(g)/T]$ with an effective charging energy $E^{*} (g)$ when the temperature is sufficiently low, due to a subtle cancellation between $T^2$ inelastic-cotunneling contributions in the paramagnetic and diamagnetic terms. We present numerical results for the effective charging energy and compare the results with recent theoretical analyses. We discuss the different ways in which the experimentally observed $\sigma(T)\sim\exp[-\sqrt{T_{0}/T}]$ law could be attributed to disorder.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, ReVTeX; added estimates of effective charging energies and discussion of effects of disorde

Communication and Cyber Security issues in Smart Grid

Smart Grid is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enabled Power grid. It is efficient, secure, reliable and self-healing power grid. Integration of micro grids, electric vehicles and other utilities make it more interesting. The deregulation of electricity sector has necessitated the use of many advanced software and embedded technologies to handle the size and complexity of power network. Smart grid needs to be supported by efficient and secure communication architecture design and implementation. At the same time it is necessary to ensure the security and privacy of data and information moving or stored in the smart grid system to have near 100% uptime of the power grid. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the various communication and cyber security issues involved with the successful operation of Smart Grid

Unparticle physics in diphoton production at the CERN LHC

We have considered the di-photon production with unparticle at LHC. The contributions of spin-0 and spin-2 unparticle to the di-photon production are studied in the invariant mass and other kinematical distributions, along with their dependencies on the model dependent parameters. The signal corresponding to the unparticle is significant for moderate coupling constant values.Comment: 17 pages, 15 eps figure

Hybrid Optoelectronic Correlator Architecture for Shift Invariant Target Recognition

In this paper, we present theoretical details and the underlying architecture of a hybrid optoelectronic correlator that correlates images using Spatial Light Modulators (SLM), detector arrays and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The proposed architecture bypasses the need for nonlinear materials such as photorefractive polymer films by using detectors instead, and the phase information is yet conserved by the interference of plane waves with the images. However, the output of such a Hybrid Opto-electronic Correlator (HOC) has four terms: two convolution signals and two cross-correlation signals. By implementing a phase stabilization and scanning circuit, the convolution terms can be eliminated, so that the behavior of an HOC becomes essentially identical to that of a conventional holographic correlator (CHC). To achieve the ultimate speed of such a correlator, we also propose an opto-electronic chip which would perform all the electrical processes in a parallel manner. The HOC architecture along with the phase stabilization technique would thus be as good as a CHC, capable of high speed image recognition in a translation invariant manner