Energy and Mass Exchange Over Incomplete Vegetation Cover

Competition for fresh water between agriculture and domestic and industrial uses is increasing worldwide. This is forcing subsistence and commercial agriculture to produce more with less water. Consequently, it is crucial to properly and efficiently manage water resources. This requires accurate determination of crop water loss into the atmosphere, which is greatly influenced by the exchange of energy and mass between the surface and the atmosphere. Measurement of these exchange processes can best be accomplished by micrometeorological methods. However, most micrometeorological methods are very expensive, difficult to set up, require extensive post-data collection corrections and/or involve a high degree of empiricism. This review discusses estimation of evapotranspiration using relatively inexpensive micrometeorological methods in temperature-variance (TV), surface renewal (SR) and mathematical models. The TV and SR methods use high frequency air temperature measurements above a surface to estimate sensible heat flux (H). The latent heat flux (λE), and hence evapotranspiration, is calculated as a residual of the shortened surface energy balance using measured or estimated net radiation and soil heat flux, assuming surface energy balance closure is met. For crops with incomplete cover, the disadvantage of these methods is that they do not allow separation of evapotranspiration into soil evaporation and plant transpiration. The mathematical models (single- and dual-source) involve a combination of radiation and resistance equations to determine evapotranspiration from inputs of automatic weather station observations. Single-source models (Penman-Monteith type equations) are used to determine evapotranspiration over homogeneous surfaces. The dual-source models, basically an extension of single-source models, determine soil evaporation and plant transpiration separately over heterogeneous or sparse vegetation. These mathematical models have also been modified to accommodate inputs of remotely-sensed radiometric surface temperatures that enable estimation of evapotranspiration on a regional and global scale.     

EB病毒编码的潜伏膜蛋白1参与鼻咽癌恶性演进的转录调控实验研究

探讨EB病毒潜伏膜蛋白1(LMP1)激活激活蛋白1(AP1),和核转录因子(NF-κB)在鼻咽癌细胞SUNE-1及亚细胞株恶性演进中的作用.运用报告基因法和凝胶电泳迁移率法(EMSA)分析AP1和NF-κB反式激活活性和DNA结合活性,蛋白质印迹检测蛋白质表达;裸鼠致瘤实验结合组织制片研究瘤细胞的成瘤和转移能力. 结果显示恶性程度不同的SUNE-1亚细胞株的反式激活活性、DNA结合活性、LMP1蛋白表达及c-Jun氨基端激酶(JNK)活性均存在明显差异,且与细胞恶性程度正相关.这些结果提示LMP1活化AP1和NF-κB的信号通路参与了鼻咽癌细胞SUNE-1的恶性演进过程.     

Cassava latent virus infections mediated by the Ti plasmid of Agrobacterium tumefaciens containing either monomeric or dimeric viral DNA

Plant infections with cassava latent virus (CLV) were mediated by the Ti plasmid of Agrobacterium tumefaciens containing either monomeric or dimeric copies of the virus genome. The CLV DNAs caused typical symptoms when they were inoculated in Agrobacterium strains C58, LBA4404 and a virE mutant A1026, but not other Agrobacterium strains with mutations in other vir loci or an E. coli polA strain. Virus-specific DNA forms characteristic of normal CLV infections were found after such infection. Characterization of progeny CLV DNA from selected plants identified several infectious mutants. These were found to be small insertions and/or deletions in the coat protein gene of DNA 1 and in the intergenic region of DNA 2.     

Incidence of active mycobacterial infections in Brazilian patients with chronic inflammatory arthritis and negative evaluation for latent tuberculosis infection at baseline - A longitudinal analysis after using TNFα blockers

Several studies point to the increased risk of reactivation of latent tuberculosisinfection (LTBI) in patients with chronic inflammatory arthritis (CIAs) after usingtumour necrosis factor (TNF)α blockers. To study the incidence ofactive mycobacterial infections (aMI) in patients starting TNF αblockers, 262 patients were included in this study: 109 with rheumatoid arthritis(RA), 93 with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), 44 with juvenile idiopathic arthritis(JIA) and 16 with psoriatic arthritis (PsA). All patients had indication for anti-TNFα therapy. Epidemiologic and clinical data were evaluated and asimple X-ray and tuberculin skin test (TST) were performed. The control groupincluded 215 healthy individuals. The follow-up was 48 months to identify cases ofaMI. TST positivity was higher in patients with AS (37.6%) than in RA (12.8%), PsA(18.8%) and JIA (6.8%) (p < 0.001). In the control group, TST positivity was32.7%. Nine (3.43%) patients were diagnosed with aMI. The overall incidence rate ofaMI was 86.93/100,000 person-years [95% confidence interval (CI) 23.6-217.9] forpatients and 35.79/100,000 person-years (95% CI 12.4-69.6) for control group (p <0.001). All patients who developed aMI had no evidence of LTBI at the baselineevaluation. Patients with CIA starting TNF α blockers and noevidence of LTBI at baseline, particularly with nonreactive TST, may have higher riskof aMI.     

Nuclear translocation of EGF receptor regulated by Epstein-Barr virus encoded latent membrane protein 1

Epstein-Barrvirus(EBV),oneoftheDNAon-cogenicviruses,iscloselyassociatedwiththegenesisofBurkitt抯lymphoma,undifferentiatednasopharyn-gealcarcinoma(NPC),Hodgkin抯disease,gastriccancerand,lungcancer,etc.[1].EBVencodedlatentmembraneprotein1(LMP1)isconsideredtobethemajoroncogenicproteinofEBVencodedproteins.Biologicallyspeaking,LMP1isanintegralmembraneproteincontaining386aminoacids.Thethreedo-mains(CTAR1,CTAR2,CTAR3)intheC-terminusofLMP1havebeenshowntoinitiatethesignalingproc-ess.The…     

PCR‐based Rapid Assay for Discriminative Detection of Latent Infections of Rice Bacterial Blight

A triplex PCR method has been developed for the race‐specific detection of Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), the bacterial blight (BB) pathogen of rice. For this, three primer sets were designed: for specific internal regions of two genes (hpaA and XorII very‐short‐patch‐repair endonuclease) and for a genomic locus derived from an amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) fragment specific for the K3 and K5 races. The sizes of the PCR products when using XOOF/XOOR, XRMF/XRMR and XAF3F/XAF3R primer pairs were 327, 427 bp and 1 kb, respectively, when the assay was applied to detect the pathogen in solution and lesion exudates, and as a template. Amplicons were obtained without the need for any prior processing (e.g. DNA preparation from infected leaf or bacterial cell isolation from the lesion). Furthermore, the pathogen could be quickly detected in the asymptomatic rice leaf 3 days after inoculation and at a distance of 6 cm from the lesion site. This PCR‐based simple and rapid assay will be a useful method for the detection and identification of Xoo as well as for disease forecasting in paddy fields.     

Profile-Statistical Periodicity of DNA Coding Regions

Novel methods for identifying a new type of DNA latent periodicity, called latent profile periodicity or latent profility, are used to search for periodic structures in genes. These methods reveal two distinct levels of organization of genetic information encoding. It is shown that latent profility in genes may correlate with specific structural features of their encoded proteins.     

Early patterned stimulation leads to changes in adult behavior and gene expression in C. elegans

Across phylogeny, early experience plays a critical role in nervous system development. In these experiments, we investigated the long-term effects that specific patterns of sensory experience during development had on the biology and function of the Caenorhabditis elegans nervous system. The delivery of a specific pattern of mechanosensory stimulation in the first larval stage (L1) produced significant enhancement in the tap withdrawal behavioral response, expression patterns of an ionotropic glutamate receptor (iGluR) subunit and mRNA levels for that receptor in 3-day-old adult worms and a depression of these same three measures in 5-day-old adult worms. A critical period for the 3-day enhanced behavior and GLR distribution was observed in L1, whereas there was no critical period for the depressed effects observed in 5-day-old worms. The spaced pattern of stimulation was essential for expression of this effect: Various forms of massed training produced neither the enhancement at 3 days nor the depression at 5 days. The 5-day depressed behavioral response had many features in common with long-term memory, including sensitivity to disruption following retrieval. The different behavioral and molecular effects that early patterned mechanosensory stimulation produced in 3 and 5-day-old worms led us to hypothesize that separate cellular phenomena produced the enhanced 3-day and depressed 5-day behaviors and molecular effects.