Mapping of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae CDC3, CDC25, and CDC42 genes to chromosome XII by chromosome blotting and tetrad analysis

CDC3, CDC25 and CDC42 were localized to chromosome XII by hybridizing the cloned genes to Southern blots of chromosomes separated by orthogonal-field-alternation gel electrophoresis. Meiotic tetrad analyses further localized these genes to the region distal to the RDN1 locus on the right arm of the chromosome. The STE11 gene, which had previously been mapped to chromosome XII (Chaleff and Tatchell, 1985), was found to be tightly linked to ILV5. The data suggest a map order of CEN12-RDN1-CDC42-(CDC25-CDC3)-(ILV5- STE11)-URA4. Certain oddities of the data set raise the possibility that there may be constraints on the patterns of recombination in this region of chromosome XII.     

Argon I Lines Produced in a Hollow Cathode Source, 332 nm to 5865 nm

We report precision measurements by Fourier transform spectroscopy of the vacuum wavenumber, line width, and relative signal strength of 928 lines in the Ar I spectrum. Wavelength in air and classification of the transition are supplied for each line. A comparison of our results with other precision measurements illustrates the sensitivity of Ar I wavelengths to conditions in the light source.     

Iterative multi-party agreement negotiation for establishing collaborations

Inter-domain collaborations suffer not only from technological obstacles that hinder interoperability, but also from diverting business objectives of the involved domains. Today, hand-crafted contracts define the terms and conditions for service interactions. Electronic negotiation can serve as the enabler of dynamic interdomain collaborations by providing a large degree of freedom for the automation of agreement formation and electronic contracting. Negotiation by electronic means has been an area of intensive research for many years now. However, most effort was put on the determination of prices and neglected that real-world agreements also consist of complex dependencies of interdependent obligations. In this paper we present agreement negotiation as a tool to establish ad hoc services collaborations. Our novel protocol allows for the discovery of complex agreement options and for the formation of multi-party agreements. The protocol works through an iterative exchange of requirements and offers. A major benefit over existing bilateral negotiation protocols is that our protocol is capable of discovering potential collaborations between different parties. It will leave each negotiating party with a complete agreement document after a successful negotiation. This comprehensive agreement document defines the interdependent obligations between all parties and is well suited for E-Contracting.     

Impact of enzymatic mash maceration and storage on anthocyanin and color retention of pasteurized strawberry purées

Strawberry purées were prepared using a commercial polygalacturonase (PG) and a highly purified pectinesterase (PE) preparation, respectively. To elucidate the effect of pectin on color stability following enzymatic pulp maceration, pectin composition was studied by isolating and fractionating the alcohol-insoluble residue from the strawberry purées. The purées were stored at +20 and +4 °C in the dark over a period of 24 weeks monitoring the amounts of monomeric and polymeric anthocyanins as well as antioxidant activities (FRAP, TEAC). Individual anthocyanins were analyzed by HPLC–DAD–MS ⁿ , and color measurements were obtained in the CIE L*a*b* system. Pectin composition was significantly modified following enzymatic maceration of the purées. While PG treatment generally resulted in pectin losses, oxalate-soluble pectins were increased in PE-treated purées. After 24 weeks of storage, the best anthocyanin retention was observed in PE-treated purées. Such products also revealed greatest anthocyanin half-life values and lowest proportion of polymeric pigments. Compared to an untreated control, enzymatic purée maceration using the PG was also beneficial for pigment retention, but less effective than PE. In contrast, color and antioxidant activity were independent of both enzymatic treatments. An initial heating step (90 °C, 10 s) for immediate inactivation of native enzymes such as polyphenoloxidases slightly improved pigment stability, while lowered temperature during mash maceration was less effective. However, by far best color and pigment retention were achieved when the purées were stored at 4 °C in the dark.     

Recovery and characterisation of coloured phenolic preparations from apple seeds

The aim of this study was to investigate whether complexly constituted phenolic extracts from apple seeds may be utilised for the recovery of natural coloured antioxidant preparations, which might serve as potential food or cosmetic ingredients.In a first step, the recovery of phenolic compounds was optimised by varying crucial extraction parameters. A single extraction step at 25 °C using an acetone–water mixture (60:40, v/v) and a solid-to-solvent ratio of 1:8 (w/v) for 1 h was found to be appropriate to achieve both high phenolic yields and antioxidant activities.In a second step, differently produced apple seed extracts and a phloridzin model solution were enzymatically treated by mushroom polyphenol oxidase to investigate the rate of pigment synthesis. Depending on the extraction procedure applied, synthesis rates, pigment yields and colour properties significantly differed. Compared to the phloridzin model solution, extracts recovered from the seeds showed comparable and even better results, thus indicating such preparations to be a promising alternative to synthetic yellow dyes.     

A preamble-based approach for providing quality of service support in wireless sensor networks

Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are usually designed as random access protocols that apply different kinds of backoff strategies since Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) based protocols with admission control are very complex and require additional mechanisms for synchronization. Without such mechanisms, fair or priority based medium access with Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees can hardly be achieved by existing protocols. Therefore, we developed a random access protocol which uses a new preamble-based medium access strategy that enables collision-free priority based access without the need of synchronization. In this paper we introduce different QoS strategies and their use cases. All strategies can be easily integrated in our protocol to meet the requirements of different target applications. Furthermore, we compare the performance of the strategies with a typical carrier-sense based protocol.     

Evaluation of the effects of thermal treatments on color, polyphenol stability, enzyme activities and antioxidant capacities of innovative pasty celeriac (Apium graveolens L. var. rapaceum (Mill.) DC.) products

Initial heating was applied as the first processing step in the production of innovative pasty celeriac products. For this purpose, celeriac was converted into a paste and subsequently heated at 90 and 100 °C for 5–10 min. Alternatively, the fresh plant material was blanched prior to mincing. For the first time, phenolic compounds in celeriac were characterized by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC–MSⁿ). Among the 14 phenolics detected, several caffeic, ferulic and quinic acid derivatives as well as malonylated and acetylated flavonoid derivatives were newly identified. Upon thermal treatment, the antioxidant capacities (TEAC assay) and the total phenolic contents remained virtually unchanged. The antioxidant capacities of heated samples determined by the FRAP assay were even higher than those of the unheated control. The contents of the main phenolic compound apiin decreased upon heat treatment, whereas the levels of the minor compounds malonylapiin A and B increased. Only by extended steam- and water-blanching at 100 °C, respectively, complete inactivation of peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase was achieved. The obtained celeriac products were characterized by their bright white color. Consequently, blanching is recommended as the initial operation in the processing of celeriac into novel pasty products.