Insect chitinases: molecular biology and potential use as biopesticides

Chitin, an insoluble structural polysaccharide that occurs in the exoskeletal and gut linings of insects, is a metabolic target of selective pest control agents. One potential biopesticide is the insect molting enzyme, chitinase, which degrades chitin to low molecular weight, soluble and insoluble oligosaccharides. For several years, our laboratories have been characterizing this enzyme and its gene. Most recently, we have been developing chitinase for use as a biopesticide to control insect and also fungal pests. Chitinases have been isolated from the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta, and several other insect species, and some of their chemical, physical, and kinetic properties have been determined. Also, cDNA and genomic clones for the chitinase from the hornworm have been isolated and characterized. Transgenic plants that express hornworm chitinase constitutively have been generated and found to exhibit host plant resistance. A transformed entomopathogenic virus that produces the enzyme displayed enhanced insecticidal activity. Chitinase also potentiated the efficacy of the toxin from the microbial insecticide, Bacillus thuringiensis. Insect chitinase and its gene are now available for biopesticidal applications in integrated pest management programs. Current knowledge regarding the molecular biology and biopesticidal action of insect and several other types of chitinases is described in this mini-review.     

Effect of alloying elements on the solidification characteristics and microstructure of Al- Si- Cu- Mg- Fe 380 alloy

The effect of varying the major alloying elements within the limits of specification on the solidification behavior, fluidity, and microstructure of a 380 alloy has been studied at two cooling rates. The thermal analysis technique has been used to study the solidification behavior. The alloying elements investigated ranged from 3.22 to 4.09 pct copper, 1.01 to 1.70 pct iron, 0.06 to 0.50 pct magnesium, 1.69 to 3.00 pct zinc, and 0.16 to 0.46 pct manganese. The results show that the solidification behavior of the 380 alloys is complicated, and the cooling curve at 0.4 ‡C/s indicates six reactions taking place during the process of solidification. Cooling curves obtained for each of the alloying element additions, their analysis, and the resultant microstructures are discussed.     

Effect of cooling rate on the solidification behavior of Al-7 Pct Si-SiCp metal-matrix composites

The solidification behavior of two composites based on Al-Si alloy has been investigated as a function of cooling rate. Thermal analysis techniques have been used to establish the relationship between solidification history and the microstructure developed. The results of thermal analysis show that the characteristic parameters are influenced by the cooling rate. A marked difference in these parameters is observed between the reinforced and the unreinforced materials at all cooling rates studied. The cooling rates used in the present study range from 0.3 to 20 K/s. Increasing the cooling rate is shown to affect the undercooling parameters both in the liquidus and eutectic solidification region. The eutectic growth temperature of the composites is observed to be higher than that of the base alloy at all cooling rates. The depression in eutectic temperature ΔT is found to decrease by 27 K for the unreinforced alloy (A356) and by 17 K for the composites (A356 + 10, 20 vol pct SiC) at a higher cooling rate of ≃16 K/s. The presence of SiC reinforcement is observed to suppress the Mg₂Si precipitate formation and decrease the amount of heat liberated during both primary and eutectic phase formation. Dendrite arm spacing (DAS) is correlated to the cooling rate by a relationship of the form DAS =AT ^-n, wheren is found to be of the order of 0.33.     

Efficient approximation of correlated sums on data streams

In many applications such as IP network management, data arrives in streams and queries over those streams need to be processed online using limited storage. Correlated-sum (CS) aggregates are a natural class of queries formed by composing basic aggregates on (x, y) pairs and are of the form SUM{g(y) : x /spl les/ f(AGG(x))}, where AGG(x) can be any basic aggregate and f(), g() are user-specified functions. CS-aggregates cannot be computed exactly in one pass through a data stream using limited storage; hence, we study the problem of computing approximate CS-aggregates. We guarantee a priori error bounds when AGG(x) can be computed in limited space (e.g., MIN, MAX, AVG), using two variants of Greenwald and Khanna's summary structure for the approximate computation of quantiles. Using real data sets, we experimentally demonstrate that an adaptation of the quantile summary structure uses much less space, and is significantly faster, than a more direct use of the quantile summary structure, for the same a posteriori error bounds. Finally, we prove that, when AGG(x) is a quantile (which cannot be computed over a data stream in limited space), the error of a CS-aggregate can be arbitrarily large.     

Topological improvement procedures for quadrilateral finite element meshes

This paper presents a set of procedures for improving the topology of unstructured quadrilateral finite element meshes. These procedures are based on the topology of the finite element mesh, and all operations act only on local regions of the mesh. The goal is to optimize the topology such that the smoothing process can produce the best possible element quality. Topological improvement procedures are presented both for elements that are interior to the mesh and for elements connected to the boundary. Also presented is a discussion of efficiency and optimal ordering of the procedures. Several example meshes are included to show the effectiveness of the current approach in improving element qualities in a finite element mesh.     

Quantum fast Fourier transform using multilevel atoms

We propose an implementation of the quantum fast Fourier transform algorithm in an entangled system of multilevel atoms. The Fourier transform occurs naturally in the unitary time evolution of energy eigenstates and is used to define an alternative wave-packet basis for quantum information in the atom. A change of basis from energy levels to wave packets amounts to a discrete quantum Fourier transform within each atom. The algorithm then reduces to a series of conditional phase transforms between two entangled atoms in mixed energy and wave-packet bases. We show how to implement such transforms using wave-packet control of the internal states of the ions in the linear ion-trap scheme for quantum computing.     

Quantum shell game: Finding the hidden pea in a single attempt

Abstract

A quantum search of a database of four elements can be carried out in a single run with unit success probability. The classical analogy is to finding a pea hidden under one of four nut shells in a single attempt. We consider the algorithm in a system composed of two qubits, and show how the one and two-qubit search transforms are related to Pauli spin operators. The key search operation, the inversion about the mean, appears as a spatially rotated two-qubit phase shift, which provides some physical intuition for how it is implemented.     

Growth and adhesion of hot filament chemical vapor deposited diamond coatings on surface modified high speed steel

Diamond coatings were deposited by hot filament chemical vapor deposition on high speed steel substrates. Iron boride diffusion barrier and WC–Co layers were used as interlayers. At high deposition pressure, the quality of the diamond deposits is poor due to the extensive formation of graphitic deposits. At low pressure, diamond films of better quality were obtained, but their adhesion to the substrate was insufficient. A two-step deposition process at low pressure was developed. In a first deposition step performed at high methane percentage, a high nucleation density was achieved. In a second deposition step, the methane percentage was reduced to achieve continuous, dense, and adherent diamond layers on borided or WC–Co coated high speed steel substrates. Adhesion of these diamond layers on the surface modified high speed steel substrates was tested based on reciprocating sliding tests.     

Object-oriented methodology for intersection simulation model under heterogeneous traffic conditions

In developing countries like India, the traffic on roads is highly heterogeneous in nature, with vehicles of widely varying static and dynamic characteristics. In this type of traffic, vehicles do not follow lane discipline and they move freely over the entire width of roadway based on availability of space. To study this type of complex traffic flow and associated vehicular interactions, simulation is considered as an effective tool. An object-oriented methodology (OOM) for heterogeneous traffic simulation is proposed in this paper with focus on mid-block and intersection flow modeling. The paper presents the basics and advanced features of object-oriented programming (OOP) in detail in the context of traffic flow. The sample C++ code is discussed in detail to demonstrate the implementation of OOP features, such as encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism. The contribution of this research work is the development of software objects for various components such as vehicle, traffic, link and node. This software can be adopted for heterogeneous traffic simulation programs, in general.