Flower yield performance and stability of various Rosa damascena Mill. landraces under different ecological conditions

The flower yield stability of Damask rose as an important medicinal and aromatic plant at different environments has not been well documented. In order to evaluate flower yield and stability, 35 landraces of Damask rose were studied at 8 locations in Iran during 2007–2008. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences (p ≤ 0.01) among landraces (G), environments (E), locations (L) and for landrace × environment (GE) and landrace × location (GL) interactions. Both GE and GL interactions were mainly crossover, a large portion of which was accounted for by non-linear (unpredictable) component. The landraces of IS9, YZ2, WA1, IS7 and IS1 with 3120.63, 2941.63, 2894.62, 2769.15 and 2716.92 kg/ha respectively produced the highest flower yield among studied landraces. Kerman with average flower yield of 3635.46 kg/ha produced the highest yield among studied locations. According to the results, most of landraces that originated from temperate, warm temperate and arid regions produced higher flower yield than those from cool, cool temperate, semi-arid and humid regions. The landraces of YZ2, IS5, IS8, IS4, KZ1, AR1_, IS3 and BA1 were stable and YZ2, IS5, IS8, IS4, KZ1, AR1 IS6, IS3, BA1, IS10 and YZ1 were adaptable landraces for flower yield according to Eberhart and Russell (1966) model. The presence of some high flower yield and stable landraces such as YZ2 and IS5 suggests that a genotype can demonstrate high flower yield and stability for yield simultaneously. Thus, simultaneous selection for flower yield and stability using nonparametric methods could be possible. In addition, taking into consideration flower yield and stability potential, the landraces of YZ2, IS5, IS8, IS4 and KZ1 as general stable, adaptable, and high flower yield are recommended. Furthermore, the landraces of IS9 and WA1 as high flower yield and specific adaptable landraces can be recommended for temperate and arid areas and the landraces of IS7 and IS1 for semitemperate and cool areas.     

Effects of emulsified versus saline administration of GnRHa on induction of ovulation in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss

The effects of saline-dissolved or Freund's incomplete adjuvant (FIA)-emulsified GnRHa treatment on the induction of ovulation in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, were examined. The FIA-emulsified GnRHa was first diluted in 0.25 ml physiological saline and then mixed with an equal volume of FIA. Fish were selected in the beginning of the spawning season and were allocated into four groups and were treated intraperitoneally with (a) 0.5 ml of emulsified GnRHa (GnRHa–FIA), (b) 0.5 ml saline-dissolved GnRHa in a single injection (GnRHa-1), (c) 0.5 ml saline-dissolved GnRHa in two injections spaced 1 d apart (GnRHa-2) and (d) 0.5 ml of saline (Control). The GnRHa dose in all hormone treatments was 25 µg kg^− 1. All fish in the FIA–GnRHa and GnRHa-2 groups ovulated within 10 and 11 d after treatment, respectively. In contrast, only 75% in the Control fish and 60% of the fish in the GnRHa-1 group ovulated within 36 d after treatment. None of the treatments caused any pre- or post-spawning mortality in the broodstock. Fertilization, eyeing and hatching percentages of the produced progeny were normal in all the treatment groups and did not differ significantly among them. In conclusion, FIA-emulsified GnRHa can be effective in advancing the onset of and synchronizing the ovulation of rainbow trout within a two-week period, thus shortening the egg collection period, without affecting broodstock survival and egg quality.     

CoRoT measures solar-like oscillations and granulation in stars hotter than the Sun

Oscillations of the Sun have been used to understand its interior structure. The extension of similar studies to more distant stars has raised many difficulties despite the strong efforts of the international community over the past decades. The CoRoT (Convection Rotation and Planetary Transits) satellite, launched in December 2006, has now measured oscillations and the stellar granulation signature in three main sequence stars that are noticeably hotter than the sun. The oscillation amplitudes are about 1.5 times as large as those in the Sun; the stellar granulation is up to three times as high. The stellar amplitudes are about 25% below the theoretic values, providing a measurement of the nonadiabaticity of the process ruling the oscillations in the outer layers of the stars.     

Axle-less F1-ATPase rotates in the correct direction

F1-adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase) is an ATP-driven rotary molecular motor in which the central gamma subunit rotates inside a cylinder made of three alpha and three beta subunits alternately arranged. The rotor shaft, an antiparallel alpha-helical coiled coil of the amino and carboxyl termini of the gamma subunit, deeply penetrates the central cavity of the stator cylinder. We truncated the shaft step by step until the remaining rotor head would be outside the cavity and simply sat on the concave entrance of the stator orifice. All truncation mutants rotated in the correct direction, implying torque generation, although the average rotary speeds were low and short mutants exhibited moments of irregular motion. Neither a fixed pivot nor a rigid axle was needed for rotation of F1-ATPase.     

High-luminosity blue and blue-green gallium nitride light-emitting diodes

Compact and efficient sources of blue light for full color display applications and lighting eluded and tantalized researchers for many years. Semiconductor light sources are attractive owing to their reliability and amenability to mass manufacture. However, large band gaps are required to achieve blue color. A class of compound semiconductors formed by metal nitrides, GaN and its allied compounds AIGaN and InGaN, exhibits properties well suited for not only blue and blue-green emitters, but also for ultraviolet emitters and detectors. What thwarted engineers and scientists from fabricating useful devices from these materials in the past was the poor quality of material and lack of p-type doping. Both of these obstacles have recently been overcome to the point where highluminosity blue and blue-green light-emitting diodes are now available in the marketplace.     

Effects of tree species diversity on leaf litter decomposition process in semi-arid Mediterranean oak forests

European Journal of Forest Research - Many studies have been conducted on the effects of changes in plant diversity and species composition on ecosystem functioning and plant productivity due to...     

A new color index for vegetation segmentation and classification

Color vegetation indices enable various precision agriculture applications by transforming a 3D-color image into its 1D-grayscale counterpart, such that the color of vegetation pixels can be accentuated, while those of nonvegetation pixels are attenuated. The quality of the transformation is essential to the outcomes of computational analyses to follow. The objective of this article is to propose a new vegetation index, the Elliptical Color Index (ECI), which leverages the quadratic discriminant analysis of 3D-color images along a normalized red (r)—green (g) plane. The proposed index is defined as an ellipse function of r and g variables with a shape parameter. For comparison, the ECI’s performance was evaluated along with six other indices, by using 240 color images as a test sample captured from four vegetation species under different illumination and background conditions, together with the corresponding ground-truth patterns. For comparative analysis, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and the precision–recall (PR) curves helped quantify the overall performance of vegetation segmentation across all of the vegetation indices evaluated. For a practical appraisal of vegetation segmentation outcomes, this paper applied Gaussian filtering, and then the thresholding method of Otsu, to the grayscale images transformed by each of the indices. Overall, the test results confirmed that ECI outperforms the other indices, in terms of the area under the curves of ROC and PR, as well as other performance metrics, including total error, precision, and F-score.

     

Copper,Chromium, and Arsenic Adsorption and Equilibrium Modeling in An Iron-Oxide-Coated Sand,Background Electrolyte System

The adsorption of copper, chromate, and arsenate (CCA)onto iron-oxide-coated sand (IOCS) was examined insingle-metal and mixed-metal systems. Copper andarsenate were strongly adsorbed or formed inner-spheresurface complexes with the IOCS surface while chromatewas weakly adsorbed or formed an outer-sphere surfacecomplex with the IOCS surface. Copper adsorption byIOCS slightly increased in the presence of arsenatebut was not affected by the presence of chromate. Arsenate adsorption was not affected by the presenceof copper and/or chromate. Chromate adsorptionincreased in the presence of copper by the combinationof electrostatic effects and possiblesurface-copper-chromate ternary complex formation. The presence of arsenate significantly decreasedchromate adsorption due to competition for adsorptionsites and electrostatic effects. Using inner-spheresurface complexation constants for copper and arsenateand outer-sphere surface complexation constants forchromate, the triple-layer model (TLM) was successfulin describing adsorption of copper, chromate, andarsenate in single-solute systems. The modelindicated that each metal uses a different number ofadsorption sites. For CCA metals-IOCS systems, theequilibrium constants determined from single-solutesystems were not able to predict adsorption frommulti-solute systems. The TLM does not currentlyaccount for the heterogeneity of oxide surface sitesand the formation of ternary complexes and/or solidphases that do not exist in single-solute systems.     

Zinc Blotting Assay for Detection of Zinc‐Binding Prolamin in Barley (Hordeum vulgare) Grain

In plants, zinc is commonly found bound to proteins. In barley (Hordeum vulgare), major storage proteins are alcohol‐soluble prolamins known as hordeins, and some of them have the potential to bind or store zinc. ⁶⁵Zn overlay and blotting techniques have been widely used for detecting zinc‐binding protein. However, to our knowledge so far this zinc blotting assay has never been applied to detect a prolamin fraction in barley grains. A radioactive zinc (⁶⁵ZnCl₂) blotting technique was optimized to detect zinc‐binding prolamins, followed by development of an easy‐to‐follow nonradioactive colorimetric zinc blotting method with a zinc‐sensing dye, dithizone. Hordeins were extracted from mature barley grain, separated by SDS‐PAGE, blotted on a membrane, renatured, overlaid, and probed with zinc; subsequently, zinc‐binding specificity of certain proteins was detected either by autoradiography or color formation. The dithizone staining method gave similar reproducibility to the radioactive blotting. The detected zinc‐binding protein was identified as B‐hordein by Western blotting.