毛乌素沙地两种固沙禾草种子萌发和幼苗生长与环境的关系

干旱区和半干旱区生长的植物具有复杂的生存机制，以确保其能够在特定的环境中生存和发展。植物在干旱的荒漠条件下的生存，与其特殊的种子萌发机制密切相关，这种机制能够确保植物在合适的时间与地点进行种子萌发与幼苗生长发育。在植物的生活史中，种子对极端环境具有最大的忍耐力，而萌发的幼苗对环境胁迫的忍耐程度最小。在干旱区生长的植物往往具有特殊的萌发机制使萌发出的幼苗能够度过对外界的敏感期，对于植物的生存具有重要意义。 毛乌素沙地是我国的四大沙地之一，该地区具有水分短缺，蒸发强烈，风沙剧烈和生境异质性高的特征。本文假设生长在这种极端环境中的植物也发展出了“适时适地”的种子萌发和幼苗生长的适应对策。为了验证以上的假设，本文选取毛乌素沙地不同生境中生长的两种优势固沙禾草——流动沙丘上生长的沙鞭(Psammochloa villosa)和固定沙丘上生长的赖草(Leymus secalinus)为研究材料，通过野外调查、温室控制实验和实验室控制实验的方法，从生理生态学的角度探讨这两种植物的种子萌发和幼苗生长过程对沙丘环境的适应对策，主要对比它们在种子休眠、萌发和幼苗早期生长过程中对沙丘生境适应性的异同点。研究结果表明： （1）新成熟的沙鞭和赖草的种子为适应冬季低温而发展出生理性的内生休眠——非深度生理休眠。沙鞭和赖草的种子分别需要经过4周和8周的低温层积处理(3－5ºC)来完全打破休眠。另外，划破种皮或者部分切除胚乳也能够促进种子的萌发，这进一步证明两种植物的种子具有非深度生理休眠。然而，切除胚乳在不同程度上影响它们的幼苗生长。由非深度生理休眠、温度和损伤种皮/胚乳调节的部分萌发机制能够确保两种植物的种子即使在条件适宜的情况下只有部分种子萌发，从而分散植物生存的风险性。 （2）毛乌素沙地的小量降水（无法触发萌发）使种子经常遭受湿润－干燥的交替胁迫过程。种子先在湿润条件下吸涨1d或者2d，然后在室温下干燥0-8天。尽管在经历反复吸涨和自然干燥脱水后仍能够保持萌发能力，沙鞭和赖草种子的萌发特性却发生了不同的变化：和各自的对照相比，沙鞭种子萌发率相同而萌发速率降低;赖草种子的萌发率和萌发速率都降低，部分种子进入休眠状态。沙鞭和赖草萌发出的幼苗可能由于没有后续降雨或者因沙蚀而遭受干燥胁迫，但是其幼苗在生长早期能够忍耐一定程度的干燥，再次湿润后部分幼苗能够恢复生长。沙鞭和赖草幼苗的耐干燥的“极限点”不同：当幼根长度为1 mm时，它们的幼苗忍耐干燥的时间分别是60d和30d;当幼根长度为4 mm时，它们的幼苗忍耐干燥的时间分别是14d和7d。沙鞭和赖草的种子和生长早期的幼苗的耐干燥性特性可能是它们对降雨量和降雨时间都不可预测的沙地生境的生存策略之一。 （3）不同的沙埋深度影响沙鞭和赖草的种子萌发和出苗。这两种植物的种子萌发和出苗都需1－2 cm的浅层沙埋。随着沙埋深度的增加，两种植物的种子萌发率和出苗率逐渐降低，强迫休眠率逐渐升高;萌发率与出苗率和沙埋深度呈负相关关系而休眠率和沙埋深度呈正相关关系。但是，沙鞭种子出苗的最大沙埋深度是8 cm，而赖草的则为4 cm。因强迫休眠而没有萌发的种子对维持一个长期的土壤种子库来说具有生态学优势，这些种子暴露在合适的萌发土壤深度时具有生长出幼苗的潜能。 （4）沙鞭和赖草的种子都具有大小的差异性，种子大小对沙鞭和赖草的种子在不同沙埋深度的出苗具有不同的影响。沙鞭的三种不同大小种子的平均质量分别为小，4.489 ± 0.012 mg (4 – 4.9 mg);中，5.457 ± 0.012 mg (5 – 5.9 mg)和大，6.415 ± 0.011 mg (6 – 6.9 mg)。赖草的两种不同大小种子的平均质量分别为小，3.083 ± 0.026 mg (3 – 3.5 mg)和大3.955 ± 0.028 mg (3.6 – 4.0 mg)。在相同的沙埋深度下，两种植物的大种子的出苗率都显著高于小种子。和小种子相比，两种植物的大种子由于贮藏更多的能量，所以在相同深度的沙埋中具有出苗率更高的生态优势，而大量小种子在沙埋中不能萌发，可以作为种子库保存在沙层中，这样就分散了一次性大量萌发给植物带来的冒险性。 （5）沙鞭和赖草的幼苗在生长过程中会遭受沙埋，其幼苗忍耐沙埋的能力与沙埋的相对深度（沙埋比例）和幼苗年龄有关。沙鞭和赖草幼苗的耐沙埋能力不同：沙鞭的2周龄幼苗可以忍耐达到株高100%的沙埋，而其1周龄幼苗只能忍耐75%的沙埋。赖草的1周龄和2周龄幼苗都只能忍耐75%的沙埋。沙埋之后，沙鞭和赖草幼苗的生物量，根/茎比以及根和茎的长度都受到不同程度的影响。赖草幼苗不能忍耐完全沙埋可能是限制它在流动沙丘上分布的一个原因。 （6）降雨量和降雨频率能够不同程度地影响沙鞭和赖草在不同沙层的萌发和出苗。这两种植物的种子萌发和出苗需要的最小降雨量不同：在一次浇水相当于5 mm降雨量后，沙鞭和赖草种子的萌发率都超过50%;但是使沙鞭和赖草的出苗率能够达到50%的降雨量分别为10 mm和15 mm。沙埋中的沙鞭和赖草种子的出苗对降雨的响应具有以下特征：两种植物种子的出苗随降雨量或者降雨频率的增加而增加;沙鞭的出苗率受到降雨量和降雨频率的显著影响，但是二者交互作用的影响不显著;赖草的出苗率受到降雨量、降雨频率以及二者交互作用的显著影响。 由非深度生理休眠，种子大小，干燥－湿润循环，沙埋和降雨调节的种子萌发和出苗机制确保了自然条件下沙鞭和赖草每次只有少量种子萌发和出苗，从而分散了两种植物在沙丘上的生存风险。 根据沙鞭和赖草在沙丘上的种子萌发和幼苗生长特性，本文为毛乌素沙地通过植物固沙恢复受损的沙地生态系统的种子飞播实践提出了几点建议。

Cloning and characterization of interferon stimulated genes Viperin and ISG15, and their promoters from snakehead Channa argus

By suppression subtractive hybridization, rapid amplification of cDNA ends and gene walking methods, interferon stimulated genes (ISGs), Viperin and ISG15, and their promoters have been cloned and characterized from snakehead Channa argus. The Viperin cDNA was found to be 1474 nt and contain an open reading frame (ORF) of 1059 nt that translates into a putative peptide of 352 amino acid (aa). The putative peptide of Viperin shows high identity to that in teleosts and mammals except for the N-terminal 70 aa. The ISG15 cDNA was found to be 758 nt and contain an ORF of 468 nt that translates into a putative peptide of 155 aa. The putative peptide of ISG15 is composed of two tandem repeats of ubiquitin-like (UBL) domains, and a canonical conjugation motif (LRGG) at C-terminal. Viperin and ISG15 promoter regions were characterized by the presence of interferon stimulating response elements (ISRE) and gamma-IFN activation sites (GAS). ISRE is a feature of IFN-induced gene promoter and partially overlaps interferon regulatory factor (IRF) 1 and IRF2 recognition sites. GAS is responsible for the gamma-IFN mediated transcription. One conserved site for NF-kappa B was found in the promoter region of Viperin. This is the first report of conservative binding motif for NF-kappa B in accordance with the consensus sequence (GGGRN-NYYCC) among teleost ISG promoters. Moreover, there were also TATA, CAAT and Sp1 transcription factor sites in Viperin and ISG15 promoters. In 5' untranslated region (UTR), snakehead ISG15 gene contains a single intron, which differs from Viperin gene. The transcripts of Vipeirn and ISG15 mRNA were mainly expressed in head kidney, posterior kidney, spleen and gill. The expression levels in liver were found to increase obviously in response to induction by IFN-inducer poly I : C.

Effects of microcystin-RR on the antioxidant system of Bacillus subtilis

Microcystins are a kind of cyclic hepatotoxins produced by many cyanobacterial species. Many works have been done concerning, the toxic effects of microcystins on animals and plants. However, the reports about their effects on microbial cells are very limited. In the present paper, Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis) was used to determine the dose- and time-effect of microcystin-RR, and the results showed that the activity of antioxidant enzymes including superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) was significantly increased to that of control, when exposed to 5 or 10 mu g/ml microcystin-RR for 1 h. The contents of thiobarbituric acid-reactive sub-stances (TBARS) and glutathione (GSH) as well as glu-tathione reductase (GR) activity were obviously increased only when exposed to 10 mu g/ml microcystin-RR. For the time-effect of microcystin-RR on B. subtilis, the activities of antioxidant enzymes including SOD and CAT as well as GR activity and TBARS, GSH contents in B. subtilis were at first significantly increased, and then subsequently de-creased. These results suggested that microcystin-RR could induce the oxidative stress of B. subtilis for a short period. The antioxidant system protects B. subtilis from oxidative damage.

A framework for the analysis of thermal losses in reciprocating compressors and expanders

This article presents a framework that describes formally the underlying unsteady and conjugate heat transfer processes that are undergone in thermodynamic systems, along with results from its application to the characterization of thermodynamic losses due to irreversible heat transfer during reciprocating compression and expansion processes in a gas spring. Specifically, a heat transfer model is proposed that solves the one-dimensional unsteady heat conduction equation in the solid simultaneously with the first law in the gas phase, with an imposed heat transfer coefficient taken from suitable experiments in gas springs. Even at low volumetric compression ratios (of 2.5), notable effects of unsteady heat transfer to the solid walls are revealed, with thermally induced thermodynamic cycle (work) losses of up to 14% (relative to the work input/output in equivalent adiabatic and reversible compression/expansion processes) at intermediate Péclet numbers (i.e., normalized frequencies) when unfavorable solid and gas materials are selected, and closer to 10-12% for more common material choices. The contribution of the solid toward these values, through the conjugate variations attributed to the thickness of the cylinder wall, is about 8% and 2% points, respectively, showing a maximum at intermediate thicknesses. At higher compression ratios (of 6) a 19% worst-case loss is reported for common materials. These results suggest strongly that in designing high-efficiency reciprocating machines the full conjugate and unsteady problem must be considered and that the role of the solid in determining performance cannot, in general, be neglected. © 2014 Richard Mathie, Christos N. Markides, and Alexander J. White. Published with License by Taylor & Francis.

automated test case generation for the stress testing of multimedia systems

With the advancement in network bandwidth and computing power, multimedia systems have become a popular means for information delivery. However, general principles of system testing cannot be directly applied to testing of multimedia systems on account of their stringent temporal and synchronization requirements. In particular, few studies have been made on the stress testing of multimedia systems with respect to their temporal requirements under resource saturation. Stress testing is important because erroneous behavior is most likely to occur under resource saturation. This paper presents an automatable method of test case generation for the stress testing of multimedia systems. It adapts constraint solving techniques to generate test cases that lead to potential resource saturation in a multimedia system. Coverage of the test cases is defined upon the reachability graph of a multimedia system. The proposed stress testing technique is supported by tools and has been successfully applied to a real-life commercial multimedia system. Although our technique focuses on the stress testing of multimedia systems, the underlying issues and concepts are applicable to other types of real-time systems.

模拟酸雨条件下树木氨基酸变化与害虫的发生关系

本文通过人工模拟酸雨试验小区置木招引的研究方法,对马尾松次期性害虫进行了招引试验,并对样木中16种氨基酸含量进行了分析。结果表明,马尾松样木在人工模拟酸雨条件下比对照都易招次期性害虫的入侵,样木中氨基酸含量也比对照高。但在强酸(pH=2)条件下其氨基酸含量比对照低,其原因还有待进一步探讨。

Poly(L-lysine)-graft-chitosan copolymers: Synthesis, characterization, and gene transfection effect

Polypeptide/polysaccharide graft copolymers poly(L-lysine)-graft-chitosan (PLL-g-Chi) were prepared by ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of epsilon-benzoxycarbonyl L-lysine N-carboxyanhydrides (Z-L-lysine NCA) in the presence of 6-O-triphenylmethyl chitosan. The PLL-g-Chi copolymers were thoroughly characterized by H-1 NMR, C-13 NMR, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). The number-average degree of polymerization of PLL grafted onto the chitosan backbone could be adjusted by controlling the feed ratio of NCA to 6-O-triphenylmethyl chitosan. The particle size of the complexes formed from the copolymer and calf thymus DNA was measured by dynamic light scattering (DLS). It was found in the range of 120 similar to 340 nm. The gel retardation electrophoresis showed that the PLL-g-Chi copolymers possessed better plasmid DNA-binding ability than chitosan. The gene transfection effect in HEK 293T cells of the copolymers was evaluated, and the results showed that the gene transfection ability of the copolymer was better than that of chitosan and was dependent on the PLL grafting ratio. The PLL-g-Chi copolymers could be used as effective gene delivery vectors.