Peanut (Arachis hypogaea) Expressed Sequence Tag Project: Progress and Application

Many plant ESTs have been sequenced as an alternative to whole genome sequences, including peanut because of the genome size and complexity. The US peanut research community had the historic 2004 Atlanta Genomics Workshop and named the EST project as a main priority. As of August 2011, the peanut research community had deposited 252,832 ESTs in the public NCBI EST database, and this resource has been providing the community valuable tools and core foundations for various genome-scale experiments before the whole genome sequencing project. These EST resources have been used for marker development, gene cloning, microarray gene expression and genetic map construction. Certainly, the peanut EST sequence resources have been shown to have a wide range of applications and accomplished its essential role at the time of need. Then the EST project contributes to the second historic event, the Peanut Genome Project 2010 Inaugural Meeting also held in Atlanta where it was decided to sequence the entire peanut genome. After the completion of peanut whole genome sequencing, ESTs or transcriptome will continue to play an important role to fill in knowledge gaps, to identify particular genes and to explore gene function

Genome-Wide Analysis of Gene Expression Provides New Insights into Cold Responses in Thellungiella salsuginea

Low temperature is one of the major environmental stresses that affects plant growth and development, and leads to decrease in crop yield and quality. Thellungiella salsuginea (salt cress) exhibits high tolerance to chilling, is an appropriate model to investigate the molecular mechanisms of cold tolerance. Here, we compared transcription changes in the roots and leaves of T. salsuginea under cold stress using RNA-seq. We identified 2,782 and 1,430 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in leaves and roots upon cold treatment, respectively. The expression levels of some genes were validated by quantitative real-time-PCR (qRT-PCR). Among these DEGs, 159 (11.1%) genes in roots and 232 (8.3%) genes in leaves were annotated as various types of transcription factors. We found that five aquaporin genes (three TIPs, one PIPs, and one NIPs) responded to cold treatment. In addition, the expression of COR47, ICE1, and CBF1 genes of DREB1/CBF-dependent cold signaling pathway genes altered in response to low temperature. KEGG pathway analysis indicated that these cold regulated genes were enriched in metabolism, photosynthesis, circadian rhythm, and transcriptional regulation. Our findings provided a complete picture of the regulatory network of cold stress response in T. salsuginea. These cold-responsive genes could be targeted for detail functional study and utilization in crop cold tolerance improvement

Heusler type CoNiGa alloys with high martensitic transformation temperature

A strong need exists to develop new kinds of high-temperature shape-memory alloys. In this study, two series of CoNiGa alloys with different compositions have been studied to investigate their potentials as high-temperature shape-memory alloys, with regard to their microstructure, crystal structure, and martensitic transformation behavior. Optical observations and X-ray diffractions confirmed that single martensite phase was present for low cobalt samples, and dual phases containing martensite and gamma phase were present for high cobalt samples. It was also found that CoNiGa alloys in this study exhibit austenitic transformation temperatures higher than 340 degrees C, showing their great potentials for developing as high-temperature shape-memory alloys

Battery recycling policies for boosting electric vehicle adoption: evidence from a choice experimental survey

Electric vehicles must be widely accepted because of environmental concerns and carbon restrictions. Previous research has looked at consumer policy preferences and their influence on electric vehicle adoption. However, none have investigated the impact of policies linked to battery recycling on electric vehicle adoption. This study used a discrete choice model (the panel-data mixed logit model) to evaluate 552 actual consumer choice data from Southwest China collected via an online questionnaire. Our results indicate that (1) 75% of respondents feel that electric vehicles enhance the environment and are eager to embrace them. However, the lack of strong recycling policies may hinder their adoption of electric vehicles. Specifically, the four battery recycling policies significantly impact electric vehicle adoption. (2) Consumers appreciate producer-oriented incentives more than consumer-oriented incentives to a lesser extent, such as mandated battery recycling policies and electric vehicle battery flow tracing policies. (3) Consumers place a larger willingness to pay on charging station density than vehicle attributes. (4) Regarding consumer heterogeneity, the usual young group in higher-rated cities prefers electric vehicles, while customers who own a car are more inclined to buy electric vehicles. Finally, more management insights and policy recommendations are provided based on these findings to help government and producer policymakers