The Strategic Importance of Cereal Virtual Water in Algeria： Report and Perspectives

In order to quantify the virtual water part which is contained in the imported cereals, compared with the hydraulic potentialities which are annually mobilised through the national territory, and on the basis of the agricultural statistics, we have determined the average quantities of the imported cereals per year in order to determine the virtual water volume that these cereals bind. The water needs of the cereals which are produced in Algeria have been calculated by the Cropwat software, in order to define the equivalent quantities of water in their production on the national scale. The obtained results confirm the importance of the annually imported virtual water, through the imported cereals, comparing with the national hydraulic potentialities. Our study shows also that in spite of the strategic importance of the virtual water in the imported cereals, a diminution has to take place, on the average term, by an improvement of the use efficiency of the precipitations （green virtual water） using the best mastery of the technical itinerary in general, and also the efficient use of precipitations in particular.     

The Pig Lhx8 Gene： cDNA Cloning, Bioinformatic Analysis and Expression Level in Tissues and Preimplantation Embryos

Evidence has shown in mouse that Lhx8 is a critical factor for maintenance and differentiation of the oocyte during early oogenesis. In the current paper, attempts were made to clone and characterize a gene encoding Lhx8 from pig. Rapid amplification of cDNA ends （RACE） gave rise to a full-length of Lhx8 which contained 1 681 bp nucleotides, with a complete open reading frame of 885 bp, encoding a 295 amino acid polypeptide. Homology search and sequence multialignment demonstrated that the deduced pig Lhx8 protein sequence shared a high identity with Lhx8 from other mammals, including several highly conservative motifs and amino acids. The phylogenetic tree of the LIM superfamily proteins has been constructed to reveal the evolutionary relationship of various species. RT-PCR analysis showed that the Lhx8 gene was expressed in gonad and immunity tissues. In preimplantation embryos, Lhx8 mRNA expression profiling using realtime PCR revealed that its mRNA levels were highest in 4-cell stage embryos and gradually decreased until the blastocyst stage.