Fluorescence in situ hybridization in sugarcane or fish-ing in the genomic wilderness. [MO06]

Cytogenetics applied to sugarcane has brought our fundamental understanding of the sugarcane genome to a new level. In the mid-nineties, Genomic in situ Hybridisation (GISH) was first applied to sugarcane to determine the specific composition of the modern cultivar R570. GISH revealed the chromosomal composition of R570 was 80% Saccharum officinarum, 10% S. spontaneum and 10% of recombined chromosomes. The Australian counterpart Q165, revealed a slightly different species composition as 75%, 15% and 10%, respectively. Both R570 and Q165 genetic maps have portrayed a partial coverage of linkage groups (LG) despite the large number of molecular markers invested in the maps. It also shows that S. spontaneum chromosomes seem to have a better vertical coverage than S. officinarum chromosomes as the S. spontaneum genome is more polymorphic. To gain a better understanding of the genome composition in terms of LG number per homology group (HG) and species attribution of the LG, we applied BAC-FISH to sugarcane. Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes (BAC) consist of large chromosome segments (around 100kb). BAC from the Sorghum or Saccharum genomes were used as anchorage points on the sugarcane cultivars to identify homologous/homeologous chromosomes for each HG. We will present some examples of results of BAC-FISH applied to several cultivars for at least 4 different HG. The determination and comparison of the number of chromosomes per HG to the number of LG from the genetic maps will determine the saturation level of the genetic maps. This will help us to obtain critical knowledge of the horizontal chromosome distribution for a particular cultivar and compare its structure to another cultivar. Eventually we will have a better understanding of the distribution of the chromosomes during crossing and this will help breeders to make more informed and targeted choices in their selection programs. (Texte intégral

Exploiting Erianthus diversity to enhance sugarcane cultivars.[W1024]

Introgression of Erianthus arundinaceus into the SRA sugarcane-breeding program has been a goal for researchers for many years. The Erianthus genome was finally accessible to sugarcane breeders with the identification in 2005 of the first Saccharum/Erianthus fertile hybrids, developed in China. Today, Saccharum/Erianthus BC3 and BC4 clones are available in Australia, and Erianthus-sugarcane hybrids have been characterised by cytogenetics and investigated for their potential resistance against pachymetra root rot, sugarcane smut and nematodes. Some clones have shown potential as new sources of resistance for incorporation into the SRA breeding program. These hybrids were created from Erianthus clones indigenous to China and their reaction to the above diseases is unknown in Australian conditions. In Meringa we also have access to many Erianthus clones of Indonesian origin. Some of these Erianthus clones have previously shown immunity to pachymetra root rot. In the late 1990s, these Indonesian Erianthus clones were used in crossing but no fertile hybrids were ever produced due to an incompatibility between the Saccharum and the Erianthus genomes. We revisited this untapped source of resistance by utilising the fertile Erianthus hybrids derived from China to cross with the Indonesian Erianthus of known resistance to pachymetra root rot. Here we report on the early stage results of introgressing Indonesian Erianthus into the SRA breeding program

Symbiotic relationship between robots - a ROS ARDrone/YouBot library

A Symbiotic relationship between robots is theoretically developed. It is characterised by sharing sensory information and tightly coordinating operational logic by taking care of each other’s needs during missions. The system is characterised by an intertwined reasoning system while having separate conditioning and execution of plans to achieve subgoals to support each other. The results are illustrated on strong operational inter-dependence of a rover and a drone through shared logical inference. The drone uses the rover as a landing pad and the rover uses the drone to complements its sensor system by information gathering. There is a GitHub library provided in association with the demonstration for generic use of adding cameras and cooperation logic to a AR.Drone 2.0 and a KUKA youBot system. The benefits of symbiotic relationship are quantitatively evaluated on the demonstration example

Contributions in the field of palaeopalynology at the Bernard Price Institute, past, present and future

Main articleA brief chronological summary of the palynological research carried out by students and past members of the staff at the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research is presented. The contribution that each of these studies has made to the understanding of stratigraphic relationships in the southern African region is highlighted. A correlation chart of palynological biozones documented from South African localities is presented (Table 1).Non

Undernutrition and stage of gestation influence fetal adipose tissue gene expression

Funded by the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS), including the Strategic Partnership for Animal Science Excellence (SPASE) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (HD045784). None of the authors had any financial or personal conflicts of interest.Peer reviewedPostprin

Polarization of Thermal Emission from Aligned Dust Grains Under an Anisotropic Radiation Field

If aspherical dust grains are immersed in an anisotropic radiation field, their temperature depends on the cross-sections projected in the direction of the anisotropy.It was shown that the temperature difference produces polarized thermal emission even without alignment, if the observer looks at the grains from a direction different from the anisotropic radiation. When the dust grains are aligned, the anisotropy in the radiation makes various effects on the polarization of the thermal emission, depending on the relative angle between the anisotropy and alignment directions. If the both directions are parallel, the anisotropy produces a steep increase in the polarization degree at short wavelengths. If they are perpendicular, the polarization reversal occurs at a wavelength shorter than the emission peak. The effect of the anisotropic radiation will make a change of more than a few % in the polarization degree for short wavelengths and the effect must be taken into account in the interpretation of the polarization in the thermal emission. The anisotropy in the radiation field produces a strong spectral dependence of the polarization degree and position angle, which is not seen under isotropic radiation. The dependence changes with the grain shape to a detectable level and thus it will provide a new tool to investigate the shape of dust grains. This paper presents examples of numerical calculations of the effects and demonstrates the importance of anisotropic radiation field on the polarized thermal emission.Comment: 13pages, 7figure

Spillovers from Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe. An index for measuring a country’s potential to benefit from technology spillovers

In the paper, we construct a composite indicator to estimate the potential of four Central and Eastern European countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) to benefit from productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI) in the manufacturing sector. Such transfers of technology are one of the main benefits of FDI for the host country, and should also be one of the main determinants of FDI incentives offered to investing multinationals by governments, but they are difficult to assess ex ante. For our composite index, we use six components to proxy the main channels and determinants of these spillovers. We have tried several weighting and aggregation methods, and we consider our results robust. According to the analysis of our results, between 2003 and 2007 all four countries were able to increase their potential to benefit from such spillovers, although there are large differences between them. The Czech Republic clearly has the most potential to benefit from productivity spillovers, while Poland has the least. The relative positions of Hungary and Slovakia depend to some extent on the exact weighting and aggregation method of the individual components of the index, but the differences are not large. These conclusions have important implication both the investment strategies of multinationals and government FDI policies

Variable temperature 1H and 13C NMR study of restricted rotation in N,N-bis(2-hydroxyethyl)acetamide

N,N-bis(2-hydroxyethyl)acetamide shows restricted rotation about the amide bond in both 1H and 13C NMR spectra rendering the two hydroxyethyl groups non-equivalent. A variable temperature study in CD3SOCD3 allowed estimation of the free energy barrier to rotation as 75.6 ± 0.2 kJ mol–1. Previously published data in CDCl3 appears to be erroneous.PostprintPeer reviewe