Heat shock response in mulberry silkworm races with different thermotolerances

The thermal sensitivity and heat shock response of the different races of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori have been analysed. The multivoltine race, strains C. Nichi and Pure Mysore showed better survival rates than the bivoltine race, strain NB4D2 exposed to 41 degrees C and above. In general, the fifth instar larvae and the pupae exhibited maximum tolerance compared to the early larval instars, adult moths or the eggs. Exposure up to 39 degrees C for 1 or 2 h was tolerated equally whereas temperatures above 43 degrees C proved to be lethal for all. Treatment of larvae at 41 degrees C for Ih resulted in a variety of physiological alterations including increased heart beat rates, differential haemocyte counts, enlargement of granulocytes and the presence of additional protein species in the tissues and haemolymph. The appearance of a 93 kDa protein in the haemolymph, fat bodies and cuticle, following the heat shocking of larvae in vivo was a characteristic feature in all the three strains examined although the kinetics of their appearance itself was different. In haemolymph, the protein appeared immediately in response to heat shock in C. Nichi reaching the maximal levels in 2-4 h whereas its presence was noticeable only after 2-4 h recovery time in Pure Mysore and bivoltine races. The fat body from both C. Nichi and NB4D2 showed the presence of 93 kDa, 89 kDa and 70 kDa proteins on heat shock. The haemocytes, on the other hand, expressed only a 70 kDa protein consequent to heat shock. The 93 kDa protein in the haemolymph, therefore could have arisen from some other tissue, possibly the fat body. The 93 kDa protein was detected after heat shock in pupae and adult moths as well, although the presence of an additional (56 kDa) protein was also apparent in the adults. The presence of 46 kDa and 28 kDa bands in addition to the 93 kDa band in the cuticular proteins immediately following heat shock was clearly discernible. The 70 kDa band did not show much changes in the cuticular proteins on heat shock. In contrast to the changes in protein profiles seen in tissues and haemolymph following heat shock in vivo, the heat treatment of isolated fat body or haemolymph in vitro resulted in protein degradation.

Efficient Runtime Detection and Toleration of Asymmetric Races

We introduce ToleRace, a runtime system that allows programs to detect and even tolerate asymmetric data races. Asymmetric races are race conditions where one thread correctly acquires and releases a lock for a shared variable while another thread improperly accesses the same variable. ToleRace provides approximate isolation in the critical sections of lock-based parallel programs by creating a local copy of each shared variable when entering a critical section, operating on the local copies, and propagating the appropriate copies upon leaving the critical section. We start by characterizing all possible interleavings that can cause races and precisely describe the effect of ToleRace in each case. Then, we study the theoretical aspects of an oracle that knows exactly what type of interleaving has occurred. Finally, we present software implementations of ToleRace and evaluate them on multithreaded applications from the SPLASH2 and PARSEC suites.