The non-continuous direction vector I test

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A role for stomata in regulating water use efficiency in Populus x euramericana and characterization of a related gene, PdERECTA

The physiological mechanism of water use efficiency (WUE) remains elucidated, especially in poplar. We studied WUEi (instantaneous leaf transpiration efficiency), WUEL (ratio of unused biomass and water), carbon isotope composition (δ13C), photosynthetic rates (Pn), stomatal density and stomatal conductance (Gs) in three different, randomly chosen Populus×euramericana clones: DN-2 (Populus × euramericana), R-270 (Populus×euramericana) and NE-19 (Populus nigra × (Populus×euramericana)) under well-watered conditions. The clones had great differences in WUEL, WUEi, δ13C, stomatal density and Gs. We concluded that, stomatal control was a key factor leading to Pn and WUEi differences and ultimately inducing WUEL and δ13C differences. δ13C is therefore, a good indicator to use when evaluating WUEL in Populus×euramericana. We also went further to clone the ERECTA gene, which regulates plant transpiration efficiency in Arabidopsis from Populus×euramericana. Real-time polymerase chain reaction amplification (PCR) analysis revealed that, PdERECTA may play the same role in Populus×euramericana as it does in Arabidopsis.Key words: Carbon isotope composition, Populus×euramericana, PdERECTA gene, stomata, water use efficiency

Robust optimization in HTS cable based on DEPSO and design for six sigma

The non-uniform AC current distribution among the multi-layer conductors in a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cable reduces the current capacity and increases the AC loss. In this paper, Particle swarm optimization coupled with differential evolution operator (DEPSO) has been applied in structural optimization of HTS cables. While the existence of fluctuation in design variables or operation conditions has a great influence on the cable quality, in order to eliminate the effects of parameter perturbations in design and improve the design efficiency, a robust design method based on design for six sigma (DFSS) is applied in this paper. The optimization solutions show that the proposed optimization procedure can not only achieve a uniform current distribution, but also improve significantly the reliability and robustness of the HTS cable quality. © 2008 IEEE

Surface treatments of indium-tin-oxide substrates: Comprehensive investigation of mechanical, chemical, thermal, and plasma treatments

Various surface treatments significantly affect the work function and surface roughness of indium tin oxide (ITO), and thusly influence charge injection and overall performance of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Large number of treatments, most commonly oxygen plasma treatment and UV-ozone treatment, have been proposed to improve characteristics of ITO. In this work, we have investigated a) mechanical treatments (mechanical rubbing, followed by ultrasonic bath), b) chemical treatments (dipping into aqueous solutions of various acids, including acids which have not been investigated previously) c) thermal treatments (thermal annealing in different atmospheres) d) plasma treatments e) UV ozone treatment f) different combinations of the above. We have measured surface sheet resistance of the samples and investigated surface morphology of the treated samples and compared them to "as-received" samples. We have selected several treatments giving best results. Then we have fabricated OLEDs using ITO substrates treated with treatments selected, as well as a control OLED fabricated on "as-received" ITO. The impact of ITO treatments on the performance of OLEDs have been investigated on two types of devices, OLEDs with and without transport layer, having the structures glass/ITO/Alq 3/Al and glass/ITOFrPD/Alq 3/Al, respectively, where Alq 3 (tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum) is emitting layer and TPD (N,N′-diphenyl-N,N′-bis(3-methyl-phenyl)-1, 1′ biphenil-4,4′diamine) is a hole transport layer.published_or_final_versio

Optimization of fermentation medium for nisin production from Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis using response surface methodology (RSM) combined with artificial neural network-genetic algorithm (ANN-GA)

Nisin is a bacteriocin approved in more than 50 countries as a safe natural food preservative. Response surface methodology (RSM) combined with artificial neural network-genetic algorithm (ANN-GA) was employed to optimize the fermentation medium for nisin production. Plackett-Burman design (PBD) was used for identifying the significant components in the fermentation medium. After that, the path of steepest ascent method (PSA) was employed to approach their optimal concentrations. Sequentially, Box-Behnken design experiments were implemented for further optimization. RSM combined with ANNGA were used for analysis of data. Specially, a RSM model was used for determining the individual effect and mutual interaction effect of tested variables on nisin titer (NT), an ANN model was used for NT prediction, and GA was employed to search for the optimum solutions based on the ANN model. As the optimal medium obtained by ANN-GA was located at the verge of the test region, a further Box- Behnken design based on the RSM statistical analysis results was implemented. ANN-GA was implemented using the further Box-Behnken design data to locate the optimum solution which was as follow (g/l): Glucose (GLU) 15.92, peptone (PEP) 30.57, yeast extraction powder (YEP) 39.07, NaCl 5.25, KH2PO4 10.00, and MgSO4·7H2O 0.20, with expected NT of 22216 IU/ml. The validation experiments with the optimum solution were implemented in triplicate and the average NT was 21423 IU/ml, which was 2.13 times higher than that without ANN-GA methods and 8.34 times higher than that without optimization.Key words: Response surface methodology, artificial neural network, genetic algorithm, nisin titer

Real-time ultrasonic assessment of progressive proteoglycan depletion in articular cartilage

2008-2009 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalAccepted ManuscriptPublishe

Adiponectin is protective against oxidative stress induced cytotoxicity in amyloid-beta neurotoxicity

published_or_final_versio

Characterisation and expression of SPLUNC2, the human orthologue of rodent parotid secretory protein

We recently described the Palate Lung Nasal Clone (PLUNC) family of proteins as an extended group of proteins expressed in the upper airways, nose and mouth. Little is known about these proteins, but they are secreted into the airway and nasal lining fluids and saliva where, due to their structural similarity with lipopolysaccharide-binding protein and bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein, they may play a role in the innate immune defence. We now describe the generation and characterisation of novel affinity-purified antibodies to SPLUNC2, and use them to determine the expression of this, the major salivary gland PLUNC. Western blotting showed that the antibodies identified a number of distinct protein bands in saliva, whilst immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated protein expression in serous cells of the major salivary glands and in the ductal lumens as well as in cells of minor mucosal glands. Antibodies directed against distinct epitopes of the protein yielded different staining patterns in both minor and major salivary glands. Using RT-PCR of tissues from the oral cavity, coupled with EST analysis, we showed that the gene undergoes alternative splicing using two 5' non-coding exons, suggesting that the gene is regulated by alternative promoters. Comprehensive RACE analysis using salivary gland RNA as template failed to identify any additional exons. Analysis of saliva showed that SPLUNC2 is subject to N-glycosylation. Thus, our study shows that multiple SPLUNC2 isoforms are found in the oral cavity and suggest that these proteins may be differentially regulated in distinct tissues where they may function in the innate immune response

Protein-protein modelling using cryo-EM restraints

The recent improvements in cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) in the past few years are now allowing to observe molecular complexes at atomic resolution. As a consequence, numerous structures derived from cryo-EM are now available in the Protein Data Bank. However, if for some complexes atomic resolution is reached, this is not true for all. This is also the case in cryo-electron tomography where the achievable resolution is still limited. Furthermore the resolution in a cryo-EM map is not a constant, with often outer regions being of lower resolution, possibly linked to conformational variability. Although those low to medium resolution EM maps (or regions thereof) cannot directly provide atomic structure of large molecular complexes, they provide valuable information to model the individual components and their assembly into them. Most approaches for this kind of modelling are performing rigid fitting of the individual components into the EM density map. While this would appear an obvious option, they ignore key aspects of molecular recognition, the energetics and flexibility of the interfaces. Moreover, these often restricts the modelling to a unique source of data, the EM density map. In this chapter, we describe a protocol where an EM map is used as restraint in HADDOCK to guide the modelling process.Comment: 28 pages including 7 figure