New edible lotus rhizome varieties 'Kasumigaura' and 'Hayaka' Kasumi, M. (Ibaraki-ken. Plant Biotechnology Inst., Iwama (Japan)); Komatsu, E; Yashiro, K ...
Bulletin of the Plant Biotechnology Institute Ibaraki Agricultural Center (Japan),
20/Mar
5
Journal Article
'Kasutnigaura' is a medium maturing and 'Hayaka' is an early maturing edible lotus rhizome variety, released by Horticultural Institute and Plant Biotechnology Institute, Ibaraki Agricultural Center. ...'Kasumigaura' originated from clonal selection of 'Chugoku' which matures slightly later than 'Kasumigaura'. In comparison with most of the medium and late maturing varieties such as 'Chugoku', 'Kasumigaura' has shorter internode length of enlarged rhizome which grow shallow in the soil. 'Kasumigaura' is highly resistant to root rot as well as 'Chugoku'. 'Hayaka' originated from an open-pollinated population of seedlings of early maturing variety 'Gokuwase'. 'Hayaka' matures slightly earlier than 'Tennou'. In comparison with 'Tennou' , 'Hayaka' has shorter internode length, greater node numbers, lighter skin color, tenderer flesh of enlarged rhizome, and higher resistance to root rot.
Astrophys.J.Suppl.148:135,2003 We present the angular power spectrum derived from the first-year Wilkinson
Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) sky maps. We study a variety of power
spectrum estimation ...methods and data combinations and demonstrate that the
results are robust. The data are modestly contaminated by diffuse Galactic
foreground emission, but we show that a simple Galactic template model is
sufficient to remove the signal. Point sources produce a modest contamination
in the low frequency data. After masking ~700 known bright sources from the
maps, we estimate residual sources contribute ~3500 uK^2 at 41 GHz, and ~130
uK^2 at 94 GHz, to the power spectrum l*(l+1)*C_l/(2*pi) at l=1000. Systematic
errors are negligible compared to the (modest) level of foreground emission.
Our best estimate of the power spectrum is derived from 28 cross-power spectra
of statistically independent channels. The final spectrum is essentially
independent of the noise properties of an individual radiometer. The resulting
spectrum provides a definitive measurement of the CMB power spectrum, with
uncertainties limited by cosmic variance, up to l~350. The spectrum clearly
exhibits a first acoustic peak at l=220 and a second acoustic peak at l~540 and
it provides strong support for adiabatic initial conditions. Kogut et al.
(2003) analyze the C_l^TE power spectrum, and present evidence for a relatively
high optical depth, and an early period of cosmic reionization. Among other
things, this implies that the temperature power spectrum has been suppressed by
\~30% on degree angular scales, due to secondary scattering.
Astrophys.J.Suppl.148:213,2003 We confront predictions of inflationary scenarios with the WMAP data, in
combination with complementary small-scale CMB measurements and large-scale
structure data. The ...WMAP detection of a large-angle anti-correlation in the
temperature--polarization cross-power spectrum is the signature of adiabatic
superhorizon fluctuations at the time of decoupling. The WMAP data are
described by pure adiabatic fluctuations: we place an upper limit on a
correlated CDM isocurvature component. Using WMAP constraints on the shape of
the scalar power spectrum and the amplitude of gravity waves, we explore the
parameter space of inflationary models that is consistent with the data. We
place limits on inflationary models; for example, a minimally-coupled lambda
phi^4 is disfavored at more than 3-sigma using WMAP data in combination with
smaller scale CMB and large scale structure survey data. The limits on the
primordial parameters using WMAP data alone are: n_s(k_0=0.002
Mpc^{-1})=1.20_{-0.11}^{+0.12}, dn/dlnk=-0.077^{+0.050}_{- 0.052}, A(k_0=0.002
Mpc}^{-1})=0.71^{+0.10}_{-0.11} (68% CL), and r(k_0=0.002 Mpc^{-1})<1.28 (95%
CL).
Astrophys.J.Suppl.148:119-134,2003 We present limits to the amplitude of non-Gaussian primordial fluctuations in
the WMAP 1-year cosmic microwave background sky maps. A non-linear coupling
parameter, ...f_NL, characterizes the amplitude of a quadratic term in the
primordial potential. We use two statistics: one is a cubic statistic which
measures phase correlations of temperature fluctuations after combining all
configurations of the angular bispectrum. The other uses the Minkowski
functionals to measure the morphology of the sky maps. Both methods find the
WMAP data consistent with Gaussian primordial fluctuations and establish
limits, -58<f_NL<134, at 95% confidence. There is no significant frequency or
scale dependence of f_NL. The WMAP limit is 30 times better than COBE, and
validates that the power spectrum can fully characterize statistical properties
of CMB anisotropy in the WMAP data to high degree of accuracy. Our results also
validate the use of a Gaussian theory for predicting the abundance of clusters
in the local universe. We detect a point-source contribution to the bispectrum
at 41 GHz, b_src = (9.5+-4.4) X 1e-5 uK^3 sr^2, which gives a power spectrum
from point sources of c_src = (15+-6) X 1e-3 uK^2 sr in thermodynamic
temperature units. This value agrees well with independent estimates of source
number counts and the power spectrum at 41 GHz, indicating that b_src directly
measures residual source contributions.
To investigate the response of locally sympathectomized myocardium to sympathetic stimulation, 90% phenol solution was painted on the left ventricular anterior wall surface in 13 open chest ...anesthetized dogs. Two pairs of ultrasonic crystals were implanted into the mid-myocardium and the left ansa subclavia was stimulated (LSS) at a frequency of 4 Hz. Heart rate, left ventricular systolic pressure and peak dP/dt increased following LSS before and after phenol application. After phenol application, the increase in peak dP/dt was significantly lower than before phenol application (p < 0.01) despite similar increases in both heart rate and left ventricular systolic pressure. Before phenol application, norepinephrine (NE) overflow was observed following LSS (1.60 ng/ml) but after phenol application NE overflow decreased to 0.45 ng/ml, indicating that phenol interrupted sympathetic nerve conduction. During LSS, in both anterior and posterior walls, %shortening (%dL) increased from 13 ± 1 (mean ± SE) to 22 ± 3% and 12 1 to 20 2%, respectively. After phenol application, LSS caused an increase of %dL in the posterior wall from 10 1 to 17 2%, while in the anterior wall it decreased from 15 2 to 8 3%. At the end of the experiment, when NE was infused to maintain the left ventricular systolic pressure similar to that obtained during LSS, %dL increased from 15 2 to 21 3% in the anterior wall. Pressure-length loop during LSS showed an early systolic expansion in the phenol treated anterior wall which disappeared during NE infusion. These observations indicated that the abnormal pressure-length loop was derived from the delayed contraction in the phenol treated region.
Significance Terpenes are generally considered to be plant or fungal metabolites, although a small number of odoriferous terpenes of bacterial origin have been known for many years. Recently, ...extensive bacterial genome sequencing and bioinformatic analysis of deduced bacterial proteins using a profile based on a hidden Markov model have revealed 262 distinct predicted terpene synthases. Although many of these presumptive terpene synthase genes seem to be silent in their parent microorganisms, controlled expression of these genes in an engineered heterologous Streptomyces host has made it possible to identify the biochemical function of the encoded terpene synthases. Genes encoding such terpene synthases have been shown to be widely distributed in bacteria and represent a fertile source for discovery of new natural products.
Odoriferous terpene metabolites of bacterial origin have been known for many years. In genome-sequenced Streptomycetaceae microorganisms, the vast majority produces the degraded sesquiterpene alcohol geosmin. Two minor groups of bacteria do not produce geosmin, with one of these groups instead producing other sesquiterpene alcohols, whereas members of the remaining group do not produce any detectable terpenoid metabolites. Because bacterial terpene synthases typically show no significant overall sequence similarity to any other known fungal or plant terpene synthases and usually exhibit relatively low levels of mutual sequence similarity with other bacterial synthases, simple correlation of protein sequence data with the structure of the cyclized terpene product has been precluded. We have previously described a powerful search method based on the use of hidden Markov models (HMMs) and protein families database (Pfam) search that has allowed the discovery of monoterpene synthases of bacterial origin. Using an enhanced set of HMM parameters generated using a training set of 140 previously identified bacterial terpene synthase sequences, a Pfam search of 8,759,463 predicted bacterial proteins from public databases and in-house draft genome data has now revealed 262 presumptive terpene synthases. The biochemical function of a considerable number of these presumptive terpene synthase genes could be determined by expression in a specially engineered heterologous Streptomyces host and spectroscopic identification of the resulting terpene products. In addition to a wide variety of terpenes that had been previously reported from fungal or plant sources, we have isolated and determined the complete structures of 13 previously unidentified cyclic sesquiterpenes and diterpenes.
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