Cytogenetic analysis of quinoa chromosomes using nanoscale imaging and spectroscopy techniques

Here we present a high-resolution chromosomal spectral map derived from synchrotron-based soft X-ray spectromicroscopy applied to quinoa species. The label-free characterization of quinoa metaphase chromosomes shows that it consists of organized substructures of DNA-protein complex. The analysis of spectra of chromosomes using the scanning transmission X-ray microscope (STXM) and its superposition of the pattern with the atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images proves that it is possible to precisely locate the gene loci and the DNA packaging inside the chromosomes. STXM has been successfully used to distinguish and quantify the DNA and protein components inside the quinoa chromosomes by visualizing the interphase at up to 30-nm spatial resolution. Our study represents the successful attempt of non-intrusive interrogation and integrating imaging techniques of chromosomes using synchrotron STXM and AFM techniques. The methodology developed for 3-D imaging of chromosomes with chemical specificity and temporal resolution will allow the nanoscale imaging tools to emerge from scientific research and development into broad practical applications such as gene loci tools and biomarker libraries.     

Bioactive xylo-oligosaccharides from wheat bran soluble polysaccharides

Soluble polysaccharides (SP, 35 g) isolated from wheat bran (100 g) consisted mainly of arabinose and xylose with minor quantities of rhamnose, mannose, galactose and glucose. Wheat bran SP was subjected to purified endoxylanase (from 96 h ragi malt) treatment to obtain xylo-oligosaccharides (0.3 g/1 g wheat bran). The oligosaccharide mixture was purified on Biogel P-2 column into four major peaks designated as WO-1, WO-2, WO-3 and WO-4. Individual oligosaccharide purity was ascertained by HPLC and their composition was determined by GLC. The purified oligosaccharides were characterized by ESI-MS and ¹H NMR analysis. WO-1 and WO-2 were identified as arabinose containing xylotetraose and xylotriose, respectively, whereas WO-3 and WO-4 were identified as unsubstituted xylotriose and xylobiose, respectively. In vitro studies carried out using Bifidobacterium spp and Lactobacillus spp suggested the prebiotic nature of the crude as well as purified xylo-oligosaccharides as revealed by growth characteristics such as high O.D. of the culture broth, decrease in its pH, increase in cell mass and the resultant fermentation products. β-xylanase, β-xylosidase, α-arabinofuranosidase, α/β-galactosidases and acetyl esterase activities were determined in 24 h old culture broth and xylanase activity (440-830 μU/ml) was found to be the most preponderant among all of them.     

A New Energy Efficient Clustering Protocol for a Novel Concentric Circular Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Personal Communications - Researchers concentrate on big data. Wireless sensor network is one of the sources of big data. Wireless sensor network has hundreds of sensor nodes with limited...     

An interference cancellation scheme for D2D multi-link communication underlaying cellular network

Device-to-device (D2D) communication has attracted much attention in the field of mobile networks for local area connectivity due to its spectral efficiency, high bit rate support and low power consumption. A group of D2D capable devices, called a cluster, can be connected through multiple links by sharing common resources. This may however result in co-channel interference between them. In this paper, we propose a novel orthogonal precoding vector selection method for reducing co-channel interference and thus maximizing the achievable data rate for each device in the cluster. The proposed method can be employed for uplink and downlink transmissions of both cellular and D2D communications. The analysis of the proposed method is carried out for the case where the cellular channel resource is being shared by single and multiple D2D links. Initially, the results via simulations are compared with the theoretical analysis and the performance of the proposed method is evaluated and compared for different resource sharing modes. The results show that our proposed method enhance the system throughput when compared with the conventional precoding vector allocation method. Finally, the paper illustrates that the introduction of cluster head in a cluster can save battery life of devices.     

Effect of microwave treatment on the cooking and macronutrient qualities of pulses

The effect of microwave treatment to reduce the cooking times of five pulses, namely red lentil, chickpea, pigeon pea, mung bean, and pinto bean, were determined in this study. Pulses from 10 to 18% moisture contents were treated using 400 to 600 W microwaves for 14 to 56 s. The cooking times of microwave-treated pulses were significantly lower than that of the control samples. The lowest cooking time was observed for 18% moisture content chickpea and pigeon pea treated with 600 W for 56 s. The Fourier transform mid-infrared spectra in both lipids and fingerprint regions showed the macronutrients differences among the five pulses. Major changes were observed in the amide I region of microwave treated pulses. This effect of microwave treatment was higher in red lentil, chickpea, and mung bean than in pigeon pea and pinto bean at 10% moisture content. At 18% moisture content, the change of β-sheets to aggregates was observed in all pulses due to microwave treatment.     

Membranes,minerals, and proteins of developing vertebrate enamel

Developing tooth enamel is formed as organized mineral in a specialized protein matrix. In order to analyze patterns of enamel mineralization and enamel protein expression in species representative of the main extant vertebrate lineages, we investigated developing teeth in a chondrichthyan, the horn shark, a teleost, the guppy, a urodele amphibian, the Mexican axolotl, an anuran amphibian, the leopard frog, two lepidosauria, a gecko and an iguana, and two mammals, a marsupial, the South American short-tailed gray opossum, and the house mouse. Electron microscopic analysis documented the presence of a distinct basal lamina in all species investigated. Subsequent stages of enamel biomineralization featured highly organized long and parallel enamel crystals in mammals, lepidosaurians, the frog, and the shark, while amorphous mineral deposits and/or randomly oriented crystals were observed in the guppy and the axolotl. In situ hybridization using a full-length mouse probe for amelogenin mRNA resulted in amelogenin specific signals in mouse, opossum, gecko, frog, axolotl, and shark. Using immunohistochemistry, amelogenin and tuftelin enamel proteins were detected in the enamel organ of many species investigated, but tuftelin epitopes were also found in other tissues. The anti-M179 antibody, however, did not react with the guppy and axolotl enameloid matrix. We conclude that basic features of vertebrate enamel/enameloid formation such as the presence of enamel proteins or the mineral deposition along the dentin-enamel junction were highly conserved in vertebrates. There were also differences in terms of enamel protein distribution and mineral organization between the vertebrates lineages. Our findings indicated a correlation between the presence of amelogenins and the presence of long and parallel hydroxyapatite crystals in tetrapods and shark.     

CAPTCHAs against meddler image identification based on a convolutional neural network

Multimedia Tools and Applications - To strengthen personal identity security through a password, the CAPTCHA authenticates the human user. In this, text-based Hue Icon Montage (HIM) and image-based...     

Dielectric and thermal response of poly[(vinylidene chloride)‐co‐acrylonitrile]/poly(methyl methacrylate) blend membranes

Poly(methyl methacrylate) was mixed with poly[(vinylidene chloride)‐co‐acrylonitrile] (Saran‐F) and lithium perchlorate in tetrahydrofuran to make polymer blend systems. Solvent‐free membranes with various blend ratios were prepared using a solution casting technique. Impedance analysis was used to study the electrical response of the polymer membranes, which shows that the 50:50 wt% blend ratio polymer membrane has a low bulk resistance and high dielectric constant at room temperature and hence high ionic conductivity. The dielectric behaviour was analysed using dielectric permittivity and electric modulus of the samples. The conductance spectra follow the universal power law variation. Structural analysis confirms the amorphous nature and functional group analysis confirms the miscibility. The decomposition temperature of the membranes was determined using thermogravimetric analysis. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry     

3D LiDAR point cloud image codec based on Tensor

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a new and efficient codec called 3D Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) point cloud coding based on tensor (LPCT) concepts. By combining the techniques of Statistical Subspace Outlier Detection and Logarithmic Transformation, LPCT effectively makes the unreliable points imperceptible and diminishes the spatial coefficient ranges. LPCT is applied to achieve the perfect encoding and decoding performances by using tensor. The iterative compression method is introduced to immensely reduce the dimension of a higher-order point cloud data. Experimental results reveal that the proposed LPCT yields a better independent compression ratio (CR) and impressive quality of a decompressed image than the existing well-liked compression approaches, namely 7-Zip and WinRAR. This work proves that the proposed lossless LPCT algorithm compresses the spatial information of various size point cloud images into six bytes and produces better Hausdorff peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) for the shortest distance point cloud image.     

Influence of Barium Titanate on poly(vinyl pyrrolidone)‐based composite polymer blend electrolytes for lithium battery applications

Nanocomposite polymer blend electrolytes based on poly (ethylene oxide), poly (vinyl pyrrolidone) that contained lithium perchlorate as a dopant, propylene carbonate (PC) as a plasticizer and Barium Titanate (BaTiO₃) as a filler were prepared for various concentrations of BaTiO₃ using solvent casting technique. The structural and complex formations of the composite electrolyte membranes were confirmed by X‐ray diffraction and FTIR analysis. The addition of BaTiO₃ nanofillers improved the ionic conductivity of the polymer electrolytes to some extent when the content of the BaTiO₃ is 10 wt%. The addition of BaTiO₃ also enhanced the thermal stability of the electrolyte. The surface morphology of the sample having a maximum ionic conductivity was studied by AFM. Molecular motion in the polymeric media was supported by fluorescence studies. The charge transfer arises between the polymer blend and Li‐ions were confirmed by UV‐Vis analysis. POLYM. COMPOS., 36:302–311, 2015. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers