Head Shadowing Filter for 3D audio with headphones

There are several methods to achieve 3D sound in the headphone listening environment now.However, for virtual sound sources, engineers want simply create the localization information by digital process. Through making appropriate time delays and spectral characteristics, there are different methods to simulate natural spatial cues now. In this report we will show a solution of using the Matlab functions to create filters which can simulate those cues.Architecture & Allied Art

Characterization of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria from perennial ryegrass and genome mining of novel antimicrobial gene clusters

Background Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are good alternatives for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which cause severe environmental problems worldwide. Even though many studies focus on PGPR, most of them are limited in plant-microbe interaction studies and neglect the pathogens affecting ruminants that consume plants. In this study, we expand the view to the food chain of grass-ruminant-human. We aimed to find biocontrol strains that can antagonize grass pathogens and mammalian pathogens originated from grass, thus protecting this food chain. Furthermore, we deeply mined into bacterial genomes for novel biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) that can contribute to biocontrol. Results We screened 90 bacterial strains from the rhizosphere of healthy Dutch perennial ryegrass and characterized seven strains (B. subtilis subsp. subtilis MG27, B. velezensis MG33 and MG43, B. pumilus MG52 and MG84, B. altitudinis MG75, and B. laterosporus MG64) that showed a stimulatory effect on grass growth and pathogen antagonism on both phytopathogens and mammalian pathogens. Genome-mining of the seven strains discovered abundant BGCs, with some known, but also several potential novel ones. Further analysis revealed potential intact and novel BGCs, including two NRPSs, four NRPS-PKS hybrids, and five bacteriocins. Conclusion Abundant potential novel BGCs were discovered in functional protective isolates, especially in B. pumilus, B. altitudinis and Brevibacillus strains, indicating their great potential for the production of novel secondary metabolites. Our report serves as a basis to further identify and characterize these compounds and study their antagonistic effects against plant and mammalian pathogens

Queue-MAC: A queue-length aware hybrid CSMA/TDMA MAC protocol for providing dynamic adaptation to traffic and duty-cycle variation in wireless sensor networks

International audienceExisting low-power MAC protocols only provide low throughput because of the fixed low duty-cycle. This often leads to poor performance when dealing with time- constrained burst traffic. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid CSMA/TDMA MAC protocol, called Queue- MAC, that dynamically adapts the duty-cycle according to the current network traffic. The queue length of nodes is used as the network traffic indicator. When the traffic increases, the active CSMA period is accordingly extended by adding dynamic TDMA slots, allowing thus to efficiently handle burst traffic under real-time constraints. This protocol is implemented on the STM32W108 SOC chips and compared with both a fixed duty-cycle reference protocol and an optimized IEEE802.15.4 MAC protocol. Through extensive experimental measurements, we showed that our queue- length aware hybrid CSMA/TDMA MAC protocol largely outperforms the compared protocols. The proposed protocol can be easily implemented through slight adaptation of the IEEE802.15.4 standard. It presents an optimal bandwidth and energy allocation scheme according to the traffic to be carried. In fact, low-duty cycle, so low power consumption is preserved during light traffic load period, while high throughput is obtained during heavy burst load period

Exploring plant-microbe interactions of the rhizobacteria Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus mycoides by use of the CRISPR-Cas9 system

Bacillus subtilis HS3 and Bacillus mycoides EC18 are two rhizosphere-associated bacteria with plant growth-promoting activity. The CRISPR-Cas9 system was implemented to study various aspects of plant-microbe interaction mechanisms of these two environmental isolates. The results show that fengycin and surfactin are involved in the antifungal activity of B. subtilis HS3. Moreover, this strain emits several other volatile organic compounds than 2,3-butanediol, contributing to plant growth promotion. Confocal laser scanning microscopy observations of the GFP-labelled strain showed that HS3 selectively colonizes root hairs of grass (Lolium perenne) in a hydroponic system. For B. mycoides EC18, we found that the wild-type EC18 strain and a Delta asbA (petropectin-deficient) mutant, but not the Delta dhbB (bacillibactin-deficient) and ADKO (asbA and dhbB double knockout) mutants, can increase the plant biomass and total chlorophyll. All the mutant strains have a reduced colonization capability on Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa) roots, at the root tip and root hair region compared with the wild-type strain. These results indicate that the siderophore, bacillibactin, is involved in the plant growth promoting activity and could affect the root colonization of B. mycoides. Collectively, the CRISPR-Cas9 system we developed for environmental isolates is broadly applicable and will facilitate deciphering the mechanisms of Bacillus-plant interactions. (c) 2018 The Authors