2,571 research outputs found
Antiproton annihilation on light nuclei at very low energies
The recent experimental data obtained by the OBELIX group on D and
He total annihilation cross sections are analyzed. The combined
analysis of these data with existing antiprotonic atom data allows, for the
first time, the imaginary parts of the S-wave scattering lengths for the two
nuclei to be extracted. The obtained values are: for D and for He. This
analysis indicates an unexpected behaviour of the imaginary part of the
-nucleus S-wave scattering length as a function of the atomic weight
A: (p) > (D) > (He).Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure
Coulomb corrections to low energy antiproton annihilation cross sections on protons and nuclei
We calculate, in a systematic way, the enhancement effect on
antiproton-proton and antiproton-nucleus annihilation cross sections at low
energy due to the initial state electrostatic interaction between the
projectile and the target nucleus. This calculation is aimed at future
comparisons between antineutron and antiproton annihilation rates on different
targets, for the extraction of pure isospin channels.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures (latex format
A phenomenological analysis of antiproton interactions at low energies
We present an optical potential analysis of the antiproton-proton
interactions at low energies. Our optical potential is purely phenomenological,
and has been parametrized on data recently obtained by the Obelix Collaboration
at momenta below 180 MeV/c. It reasonably fits annihilation and elastic data
below 600 MeV/c, and allows us for an evaluation of the elastic cross section
and rho-parameter down to zero kinetic energy. Moreover we show that the
mechanism that depresses antiproton-nucleus annihilation cross sections at low
energies is present in antiproton-proton interactions too.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Regeneration of plants from embryogenic callus-derived protoplasts of Garganega and Sangiovese grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) cultivars
Protoplasts are useful research tools for basic and applied plant science, but the regeneration of whole plants from protoplasts is challenging in most of agronomically important crops, including grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.). Here we describe an efficient protocol for the induction of embryogenic callus, the isolation of protoplasts, and the regeneration of whole grapevine plants in two Italian grapevine cultivars. Embryogenic callus was induced successfully from stamens collected from immature flowers. Isolated protoplasts were tested to confirm their viability and then cultivated using the disc-culture method, at a density of 1\u2009
7\u2009105 protoplasts/mL in solid Nitsch\u2019s medium supplemented with 2 mg/L 1-naphthaleneacetic acid and 0.5 mg/L 6-benzylaminopurine. After 3\u20134 months, the protoplasts of both cultivars regenerated with similar efficiency into cotyledonal-stage somatic embryos. The somatic embryos were transferred to solid Nitsch\u2019s medium supplemented with 30 g/L sucrose and 2 g/L gellan gum, and were maintained in the dark for 4 weeks. This step was necessary for the embryo to complete germination, allowing subsequent shoot elongation in response to light on a medium with 4 \ub5M 6-benzylaminopurine. Then root elongation occurred after transferring on a medium with 0.5 \ub5M 1-naphthaleneacetic. After\u2009~\u20096 months from the isolation of protoplasts, normal plants were regenerated, which were moved to the greenhouse. The protoplasts could also be transfected using the polyethylene glycol method, as confirmed using a plasmid carrying the yellow florescent protein marker gene. The new method is therefore compatible with biotechnological applications such as gene transfer and genome editing
TRANSCRIPTOMIC ANALYSIS OF WHOLE PISTILS AND OVULE CELLS TO IDENTIFY GENES RELATED TO APOSPORY IN HYPERICUM PERFORATUM L.
St. John\u2019s wort (Hypericum perforatum L.) is a medicinal plant that produces important
metabolites with antidepressant and anticancer activities. Beside the pharmaceutical interest,
recently gained information has shown that H. perforatum is also an attractive model system for the
study of aposporous apomixis, that is a reproductive strategy, which, unlike sexual reproduction,
permits the inheritance of the maternal genome over generations without genetic recombination
events. This asexual mode of seed formation is believed to be a trait with enormous economic and
social potential in agriculture. Its innovative use in this area relies upon the idea that indefinitely
fixing highly complex genotypes, including hybrid cultivars, through apomixis would have
tremendous advantages in plant breeding, biomass and seed production. During the last decades, the
understanding of the molecular basis of apomixis in this species has been complicated by the lack of
biological data, e.g. genomic or even transcriptomic sequences. The aim of our research project was
the sequencing, annotation and comparative investigation of the H. perforatum flower
transcriptome, as critical steps toward a better understanding of the genetic control of aposporic and
sexual reproduction in the facultative apomict H. perforatum. To this end, next generation
sequencing technologies have been used to sequence the flower transcriptomes of obligate sexual
and unrelated apomictic H. perforatum genotypes. This approach has enabled the assembly and
annotation of large cDNA repositories and their exploitation to design a custom array to be used in
flower expression studies. Global gene expression analysis of H. perforatum was initially
performed on ovaries collected from sexual and aposporic plant accessions for the purpose of
identifying genes and processes potentially associated with apomixis in this model species. Overall,
across two selected developmental stages, 224 and 973 unigenes were found to be significantly upand down-regulated. Ontological annotation of differentially expressed genes indicated that terms
related to cell cycle, single-organism cellular process DNA (cytosine-5-)-methyltransferase activity,
among others, were significantly enriched. In a following step, a laser-capture microdissection
approach was adopted in combination the RNA-seq technology with the aim of identifying genes
differentially expressed in the ovule cell types primarily involved in the differentiation of the
megaspore mother cells and aposporous initials. On the whole, our data suggest that phenotypic
expression of apospory is concomitant with the modulation of key genes involved in the sexual
reproductive pathway and the responsive to hormonal stimuli. Annotation of all identified flower
transcripts as well as their qualitative and quantitative expression data will be presented and
critically discussed as they prove a far better understanding of molecular bases of pistil
development, embyo sac and egg cell formation in sexual and apomictic H. perforatum
Direct-current stimulation of posterior tibial nerve modulates the Soleus H-reflex amplitude
Introduction: Several studies demonstrated that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCs) is a promising non-invasive tool able to modulate the excitability of several CNS structures. Its effect is usually facilitatory when using anodal polarity and inhibitory for the cathodal one. In most studies, DC stimulation was applied on cortical or spinal structures, while little is known about its effect on peripheral nerves fibres. This research aims at highlighting such effect. Methods: In twenty subjects, electrical stimulation of the posterior tibial nerve (1 ms current pulses, 1 shock every 9 s) was used to elicit the H-re\ufb02ex in the Soleus muscle. Once the H-re\ufb02ex amplitude was stable for at least 15 min, DCs (either cathodal or anodal) was applied proximally to the same nerve for 10 min, looking for changes in re\ufb02ex amplitude. Then, the H-re\ufb02ex was measured for 30 further minutes, looking for after-effects. Results: Cathodal DCs induced a significant increase of the H-re\ufb02ex amplitude (about +35%) with respect to the control value. In this configuration the after-effect lasted about 25 min. Anodal DCs induced instead a significant decrease (about -25%) of the re\ufb02ex amplitude. A significant after-effect was observed for just about 5 min. Discussion: This study shows that DCs applied to a peripheral nerve is able to elicit neuromodulation. Its polarity dependence suggests a local change in the excitability of nerve fibres rather than a central modulation of the spinal re\ufb02ex circuit. Moreover it is worth to note that the polarity dependence was opposite to what found for tDCS
A new Monte Carlo muon generator for cosmic-ray muon applications
Cosmic rays, thanks to their ubiquity and high penetration capability, have been successfully used in scientific research ever since their discovery. As soon as their knowledge improved, applications in the civil/environmental field were also developed: muon radiography (or muography, based on the flux attenuation) and muon tomography (based on the scattering angle) have been used to study the inner structure of volcanoes, to seek hidden rooms in Egyptian pyramids, to search for heavy metals in containers, and so on. And besides these imaging techniques, cosmic ray muons are also widely used for detector testing and alignment practically in every Nuclear Physics or Particle Physics experiment. Since most of these applications are sensitive to the angular and momentum distribution of cosmic muons, an accurate modelling of these distributions is a key feature for any generation tool conceived to simulate the cosmic muon flux. This can make the generator quite time-consuming, which is a strong limit when one needs to reach high statistics or to study large structures. A new Monte Carlo generator for cosmic-ray muons, named Efficient COsmic MUon Generator (EcoMug for short), especially designed to be fast (≳ 10^5 muons generated per second on a standard machine) without losing accuracy, is presented here. It is written as a header-only C++11 library, ready to be integrated into whatever C++ code, in particular C++ code based on Geant4 simulation tool. By default, EcoMug relies on a simple and effective parametrisation of the experimental data of cosmic ray differential flux at sea level, taken from the literature, but the library is written in such a way that every user can easily replace it with his own user-defined parametrisation. Unlike other tools, EcoMug is able to generate muons from different kind of surfaces (plane, cylinder and half-sphere), while keeping the correct angular and momentum distribution of generated tracks inside a fiducial volume. This allows to optimise the generation surface according to the system under study, and leads to a further improvement of the overall simulation efficiency. In this contribution we will present the main features of EcoMug, starting from its mathematical foundation, and eventually showing some interesting applications
Limits on the low energy antinucleon-nucleus annihilations from the Heisenberg principle
We show that the quantum uncertainty principle puts some limits on the
effectiveness of the antinucleon-nucleus annihilation at very low energies.
This is caused by the fact that the realization a very effective short-distance
reaction process implies information on the relative distance of the reacting
particles. Some quantitative predictions are possible on this ground, including
the approximate A-independence of antinucleon-nucleus annihilation rates.Comment: 10 pages, no figure
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