Agrobacterial rol genes modify thermodynamic and structural properties of starch in microtubers of transgenic potato

Wild-type (WT) plants of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) and their transgenic forms carrying agrobacterial genes rolB or rolC under the control of B33 class I patatin promoter were cultured in vitro on MS medium with 2% sucrose in a controlled-climate chamber at 16-h illumination and 22A degrees C. These plants were used as a source of single-node stem cuttings, which were cultured in darkness on the same medium supplemented with 8% sucrose. The tubers formed on them were used for determination of the structure of native starch using the methods of differential scanning microcalorimetry (DSC), X-ray scattering, and scanning electron microscopy. It was found that, in starch from the tubers of rolB-plants, the temperature of crystalline lamella melting was lower and their thickness was less than in WT potato. In tubers of rolC plants, starch differed from starch in WT plants by a higher melting temperature, considerably reduced melting enthalpy, and a greater thickness of crystalline lamellae. Deconvolution of DSC thermogram makes it possible to interpret the melting of starch from the tubers of rolC plants as the melting of two independent crystalline structures with melting temperatures of 65.0 and 69.8A degrees C. Electron microscopic examination confirmed the earlier obtained data indicating that, in the tubers of rolC plants, starch granules are smaller and in the tubers of rolB plants larger than in WT plants. Possible ways of influence of rol transgenes on structural properties of starch in amyloplasts of potato tubers are discusse

On the use of the OptD method for building diagnostics

Terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) measurements can be used to assess the technical condition of buildings and structures; in particular, high-resolution TLS measurements should be taken in order to detect defects in building walls. This consequently results in the creation of a huge amount of data in a very short time. Despite high-resolution measurements typically being needed in certain areas of interest, e.g., to detect cracks, reducing redundant information on regions of low interest is of fundamental importance in order to enable computationally efficient and effective analysis of the dataset. In this work, data reduction is made by using the Optimum Dataset (OptD) method, which allows to significantly reduce the amount of data while preserving the geometrical information of the region of interest. As a result, more points are retained on areas corresponding to cracks and cavities than on flat and homogeneous surfaces. This approach allows for a thorough analysis of the surface discontinuity in building walls. In this investigation, the TLS dataset was acquired by means of the time-of-flight scanners Riegl VZ-400i and Leica ScanStation C10. The results obtained by reducing the TLS dataset by means of OptD show that this method is a viable solution for data reduction in building and structure diagnostics, thus enabling the implementation of computationally more efficient diagnostic strategies

Down-sampling of large lidar dataset in the context of off-road objects extraction

Nowadays, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is used in many fields, such as transportation. Thanks to the recent technological improvements, the current generation of LiDAR mapping instruments available on the market allows to acquire up to millions of three-dimensional (3D) points per second. On the one hand, such improvements allowed the development of LiDAR-based systems with increased productivity, enabling the quick acquisition of detailed 3D descriptions of the objects of interest. However, on the other hand, the extraction of the information of interest from such huge amount of acquired data can be quite challenging and time demanding. Motivated by such observation, this paper proposes the use of the Optimum Dataset method in order to ease and speed up the information extraction phase by significantly reducing the size of the acquired dataset while preserving (retain) the information of interest. This paper focuses on the data reduction of LiDAR datasets acquired on roads, with the goal of extraction the off-road objects. Mostly motivated by the need of mapping roads and quickly determining car position along a road, the development of efficient methods for the extraction of such kind of information is becoming a hot topic in the research community

Experimental evaluation of a UWB-based cooperative positioning system for pedestrians in GNSS-denied environment

Cooperative positioning (CP) utilises information sharing among multiple nodes to enable positioning in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-denied environments. This paper reports the performance of a CP system for pedestrians using Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) technology in GNSS-denied environments. This data set was collected as part of a benchmarking measurement campaign carried out at the Ohio State University in October 2017. Pedestrians were equipped with a variety of sensors, including two different UWB systems, on a specially designed helmet serving as a mobile multi-sensor platform for CP. Different users were walking in stop-and-go mode along trajectories with predefined checkpoints and under various challenging environments. In the developed CP network, both Peer-to-Infrastructure (P2I) and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) measurements are used for positioning of the pedestrians. It is realised that the proposed system can achieve decimetre-level accuracies (on average, around 20 cm) in the complete absence of GNSS signals, provided that the measurements from infrastructure nodes are available and the network geometry is good. In the absence of these good conditions, the results show that the average accuracy degrades to meter level. Further, it is experimentally demonstrated that inclusion of P2P cooperative range observations further enhances the positioning accuracy and, in extreme cases when only one infrastructure measurement is available, P2P CP may reduce positioning errors by up to 95%. The complete test setup, the methodology for development, and data collection are discussed in this paper. In the next version of this system, additional observations such as the Wi-Fi, camera, and other signals of opportunity will be included

Modeling the Sources and Chemistry of Polar Tropospheric Halogens (Cl, Br, and I) Using the CAM-Chem Global Chemistry-Climate Model

31 pags., 12 figs., 6 tabs. -- Open Access funded by Creative Commons Atribution Licence 4.0. -- jame20925-sup-0001_Supporting_Information.pdfCurrent chemistry climate models do not include polar emissions and chemistry of halogens. This work presents the first implementation of an interactive polar module into the very short-lived (VSL) halogen version of the Community Atmosphere Model with Chemistry (CAM-Chem) model. The polar module includes photochemical release of molecular bromine, chlorine, and interhalogens from the sea-ice surface, and brine diffusion of iodine biologically produced underneath and within porous sea-ice. It also includes heterogeneous recycling of inorganic halogen reservoirs deposited over fresh sea-ice surfaces and snow-covered regions. The polar emission of chlorine, bromine, and iodine reach approximately 32, 250, and 39 Gg/year for Antarctica and 33, 271, and 4 Gg/year for the Arctic, respectively, with a marked seasonal cycle mainly driven by sunlight and sea-ice coverage. Model results are validated against polar boundary layer measurements of ClO, BrO, and IO, and satellite BrO and IO columns. This validation includes satellite observations of IO over inner Antarctica for which an iodine “leapfrog” mechanism is proposed to transport active iodine from coastal source regions to the interior of the continent. The modeled chlorine and bromine polar sources represent up to 45% and 80% of the global biogenic VSL and VSL emissions, respectively, while the Antarctic sea-ice iodine flux is ~10 times larger than that from the Southern Ocean. We present the first estimate of the contribution of polar halogen emissions to the global tropospheric halogen budget. CAM-Chem includes now a complete representation of halogen sources and chemistry from pole-to-pole and from the Earth's surface up to the stratopause.This study has been funded by the European Research Council Executive Agency under the European Union′s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program (Project “ERC‐2016‐COG 726349 CLIMAHAL”) and supported by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) of Spain. Computing resources, support, and data storage are provided and maintained by the Computational and Information System Laboratory from the National Center of Atmospheric Research (CISL,2017). R. P. F. would like to thank CONICET, ANPCyT (PICT 2015‐0714), UNCuyo (SeCTyP M032/3853), and UTN (PID 4920‐194/2018) for the financial support. Partial funding for this work was provided by the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) project (PE18200). The contributions of the University of Bremen have been supported by the State of Bremen, the German Research Foundation (DFG), the German Aerospace (DLR), and the European Space Agency (ESA). We gratefully acknowledge the funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) —Projektnummer 268020496—TRR 172, within the Transregional Collaborative Research Center “ArctiC Amplification: Climate Relevant Atmospheric and SurfaCe Processes,and Feedback Mechanisms (AC)3 ” in subproject C03 as well as the support by the University of Bremen Institutional Strategy Measure M8 in the framework of the DFG Excellence Initiative

Light and flow regimes regulate the metabolism of rivers

Mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation drive much of the variation in productivity across Earth's terrestrial ecosystems but do not explain variation in gross primary productivity (GPP) or ecosystem respiration (ER) in flowing waters. We document substantial variation in the magnitude and seasonality of GPP and ER across 222 US rivers. In contrast to their terrestrial counterparts, most river ecosystems respire far more carbon than they fix and have less pronounced and consistent seasonality in their metabolic rates. We find that variation in annual solar energy inputs and stability of flows are the primary drivers of GPP and ER across rivers. A classification schema based on these drivers advances river science and informs management.We thank Ted Stets, Jordan Read, Tom Battin, Sophia Bonjour, Marina Palta, and members of the Duke River Center for their help in developing these ideas. This work was supported by grants from the NSF 1442439 (to E.S.B. and J.W.H.), 1834679 (to R.O.H.), 1442451 (to R.O.H.), 2019528 (to R.O.H. and J.R.B.), 1442140 (to M.C.), 1442451 (to A.M.H.), 1442467 (to E.H.S.), 1442522 (to N.B.G.), 1624807 (to N.B.G.), and US Geological Survey funding for the working group was supported by the John Wesley Power Center for Analysis and Synthesis. Phil Savoy contributed as a postdoc- toral associate at Duke University and as a postdoctoral associate (contractor) at the US Geological Survey

Cyanobacteria in motion

This work was supported by a grant from the DFG (WI 2014/7-1) to A.W

Formation of Homopolymers and Heteropolymers Between Wheat Flour and Several Protein Sources by Transglutaminase-Catalyzed Cross-Linking

8 pages, 3 tables, 5 figures.-- In compliance with the publisher's copyright policy, the pre-print full-text version of the paper is attached.The effect of different protein sources (soy flour, lupin flour, egg albumin, gelatin powder, protein-rich beer yeast flour) on wheat dough functionality was tested by determining gluten index, texture properties, and thermomechanical parameters. Transglutaminase (TG) was also added to improve the dough functionality by forming cross-links. The presence of protein sources had a significant effect on the gluten index, with the exception of lupin flour. Gelatin and the presence of TG resulted in significant single effects on the texture properties of the wheat-protein dough. All the protein sources significantly modified the mixing characteristics of the dough or the thermal behavior. Capillary electrophoresis studies of the water-soluble, salt-soluble, and glutenin proteins indicated that interactions were mainly within proteins, thus homologous polymers. Scanning electron microscopy studies of the doughs made from blends of wheat and protein sources doughs supported the formation of heterologous structures in the wheat-lupin blends. The combination of TG and lupin would be a promising method to be used on the treatment of insect-damaged or weak flours, to increase the gluten strength.This work was financially supported by Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología Project (MCYT, AGL2005-05192-CO4-01) and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC).Peer reviewe