scholarly journals Can artificially selected phenotypes influence a component of field fitness? Thermal selection and fly performance under thermal extremes

2006 ◽  
Vol 274 (1611) ◽  
pp. 771-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torsten Nygaard Kristensen ◽  
Volker Loeschcke ◽  
Ary A Hoffmann

Artificially selected lines are widely used to investigate the genetic basis of quantitative traits and make inferences about evolutionary trajectories. Yet, the relevance of selected traits to field fitness is rarely tested. Here, we assess the relevance of thermal stress resistance artificially selected in the laboratory to one component of field fitness by investigating the likelihood of adult Drosophila melanogaster reaching food bait under different temperatures. Lines resistant to heat reached the bait more often than controls under hot and cold conditions, but less often at intermediate temperatures, suggesting a fitness cost of increased heat resistance but not at temperature extremes. Cold-resistant lines were more common at baits than controls under cold as well as hot field conditions, and there was no cost at intermediate temperatures. One of the replicate heat-resistant lines was caught less often than the others under hot conditions. Direct and correlated patterns of responses in laboratory tests did not fully predict the low performance of the heat selected lines at intermediate temperatures, nor the high performance of the cold selected lines under hot conditions. Therefore, lines selected artificially not only behaved partly as expected based on laboratory assays but also evolved patterns only evident in the field releases.

Author(s):  
S. Yegnasubramanian ◽  
V.C. Kannan ◽  
R. Dutto ◽  
P.J. Sakach

Recent developments in the fabrication of high performance GaAs devices impose crucial requirements of low resistance ohmic contacts with excellent contact properties such as, thermal stability, contact resistivity, contact depth, Schottky barrier height etc. The nature of the interface plays an important role in the stability of the contacts due to problems associated with interdiffusion and compound formation at the interface during device fabrication. Contacts of pure metal thin films on GaAs are not desirable due to the presence of the native oxide and surface defects at the interface. Nickel has been used as a contact metal on GaAs and has been found to be reactive at low temperatures. Formation Of Ni2 GaAs at 200 - 350C is reported and is found to grow epitaxially on (001) and on (111) GaAs, but is shown to be unstable at 450C. This paper reports the investigations carried out to understand the microstructure, nature of the interface and composition of sputter deposited and annealed (at different temperatures) Ni-Sb ohmic contacts on GaAs by TEM. Attempts were made to correlate the electrical properties of the films such as the sheet resistance and contact resistance, with the microstructure. The observations are corroborated by Scanning Auger Microprobe (SAM) investigations.


Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 371 (6531) ◽  
pp. eaba6605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre-Marc Delaux ◽  
Sebastian Schornack

During 450 million years of diversification on land, plants and microbes have evolved together. This is reflected in today’s continuum of associations, ranging from parasitism to mutualism. Through phylogenetics, cell biology, and reverse genetics extending beyond flowering plants into bryophytes, scientists have started to unravel the genetic basis and evolutionary trajectories of plant-microbe associations. Protection against pathogens and support of beneficial, symbiotic, microorganisms are sustained by a blend of conserved and clade-specific plant mechanisms evolving at different speeds. We propose that symbiosis consistently emerges from the co-option of protection mechanisms and general cell biology principles. Exploring and harnessing the diversity of molecular mechanisms used in nonflowering plant-microbe interactions may extend the possibilities for engineering symbiosis-competent and pathogen-resilient crops.


2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (06) ◽  
pp. 1350026 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADIEL TEIXEIRA DE ALMEIDA

Using additive models for aggregation of criteria is an important procedure in many multicriteria decision methods. This compensatory approach, which scores the alternatives straightforwardly, may have significant drawbacks. For instance, the Decision Maker (DM) may prefer not to select alternatives which have a very low performance in whatever criterion. In contrast, such an alternative may have the best overall evaluation, since the additive model may compensate this low performance in one of the criteria as a result of high performance in other criteria. Thus, additive-veto models are proposed with a view to considering the possibility of vetoing alternatives in such situations, particularly for choice and ranking problems. A numerical application illustrates the use of such models, with a detailed discussion related to real practical problems. Moreover, the results obtained from a numerical simulation show that it is not so rare for a veto of the best alternative to occur in the additive model. This is of considerable relevance depending on the DM's preference structure.


1984 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Inouye ◽  
K.S. Park ◽  
A. Asaka

AbstractApplying newly devised model, heritability (VA/VP) of plasma uric acid level, corrected for age and sex and standardized, was estimated at 0.8 in families consisting of twin parents, spouses and children. Correlation between spouses due to common genotype (ρ) was approximately 0.1, and variance due to common familial environment (VEC/Vp) was -0.3. Analysis of families of selected twin children and their parents resulted in two estimates of heritability: approximately 0.7 and 0.3, ρ being 0.34 and 0.04, and VEC/Vp being 0.04 and 0.34, respectively. Regression of IQ (y) on corrected and standardized plasma uric acid level (x) in the twin children was y = 5.56x + 123, correlation being 0.334 (p < 0.025). The result indicates a genetic basis of blood uric acid level, which may have resulted from polymorphisms in purine metabolism pathway, end product of which is uric acid in man. The significant correlation between plasma uric acid level and IQ suggests a contribution of partly common gene loci to the two quantitative traits.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chia-Wei Li ◽  
Carol Yeh-Yun Lin ◽  
Ting-Ting Chang ◽  
Nai-Shing Yen ◽  
Danchi Tan

AbstractManagers face risk in explorative decision-making and those who are better at such decisions can achieve future viability. To understand what makes a manager effective at explorative decision-making requires an analysis of the manager’s motivational characteristics. The behavioral activation/inhibition system (BAS/BIS), fitting the motivational orientation of “approach” or “avoidance,” can affect individual decision-making. However, very little is known about the neural correlates of BAS/BIS orientation and their interrelationship with the mental activity during explorative decision-making. We conducted an fMRI study on 111 potential managers to investigate how the brain responses of explorative decision-making interact with BAS/BIS. Participants were separated into high- and low-performance groups based on the median exploration-score. The low-performance group showed significantly higher BAS than that of the high-performance group, and its BAS had significant negative association with neural networks related to reward-seeking during explorative decision-making. Moreover, the BIS of the low-performance group was negatively correlated with the activation of cerebral regions responding to risk-choice during explorative decision-making. Our finding showed that BAS/BIS was associated with the brain activation during explorative decision-making only in the low-performance group. This study contributed to the understanding of the micro-foundations of strategically relevant decision-making and has an implication for management development.


Author(s):  
Adam G. Pautsch ◽  
Arun Gowda ◽  
Ljubisa Stevanovic ◽  
Rich Beaupre

In the continuing effort to alleviate the increasing thermal loads for power electronics devices, numerous aggressive solutions have been developed, such as small-scale micro-channel heat exchangers. Although these methods can improve overall surface heat transfer to the order of 500 W cm−2, they are limited to single-sided cooling due to the typical wire-bonded electrical connections of the devices. Power overlay (POL) technology provides a stable planar structure for electrical connection, as well as attachment of an additional top-side heat exchanger. This study presents an analysis of double-sided microchannel cooling of a power electronics module. Two optimized, integral micro-channel heat sinks were attached above and below silicon power devices, with more traditional attachment on one side and a POL interface on the other. A compliant TIM was selected for low thermal resistance and good mechanical response, which allowed top-side connection to the POL surface. A theoretical model is presented that predicts the benefit of double-sided cooling based on the known performance of a single-sided heat sink and given addition thermal contact resistance for the top side. For microchannels with water, an enhancement of 26% was predicted. An experiment was also carried out to measure the actual performance benefit seen with double-sided cooling. An enhancement of over 30% was measured for a particular design. As the theory predicts, the benefit of double-sided cooling is limited for high performance designs. However, double-sided cooling could lead to high levels of thermal performance using low-performance technology.


2018 ◽  
Vol 89 (16) ◽  
pp. 3244-3259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumit Mandal ◽  
Simon Annaheim ◽  
Andre Capt ◽  
Jemma Greve ◽  
Martin Camenzind ◽  
...  

Fabric systems used in firefighters' thermal protective clothing should offer optimal thermal protective and thermo-physiological comfort performances. However, fabric systems that have very high thermal protective performance have very low thermo-physiological comfort performance. As these performances are inversely related, a categorization tool based on these two performances can help to find the best balance between them. Thus, this study is aimed at developing a tool for categorizing fabric systems used in protective clothing. For this, a set of commercially available fabric systems were evaluated and categorized. The thermal protective and thermo-physiological comfort performances were measured by standard tests and indexed into a normalized scale between 0 (low performance) and 1 (high performance). The indices dataset was first divided into three clusters by using the k-means algorithm. Here, each cluster had a centroid representing a typical Thermal Protective Performance Index (TPPI) value and a typical Thermo-physiological Comfort Performance Index (TCPI) value. By using the ISO 11612:2015 and EN 469:2014 guidelines related to the TPPI requirements, the clustered fabric systems were divided into two groups: Group 1 (high thermal protective performance-based fabric systems) and Group 2 (low thermal protective performance-based fabric systems). The fabric systems in each of these TPPI groups were further categorized based on the typical TCPI values obtained from the k-means clustering algorithm. In this study, these categorized fabric systems showed either high or low thermal protective performance with low, medium, or high thermo-physiological comfort performance. Finally, a tool for using these categorized fabric systems was prepared and presented graphically. The allocations of the fabric systems within the categorization tool have been verified based on their properties (e.g., thermal resistance, weight, evaporative resistance) and construction parameters (e.g., woven, nonwoven, layers), which significantly affect the performance. In this way, we identified key characteristics among the categorized fabric systems which can be used to upgrade or develop high-performance fabric systems. Overall, the categorization tool developed in this study could help clothing manufacturers or textile engineers select and/or develop appropriate fabric systems with maximum thermal protective performance and thermo-physiological comfort performance. Thermal protective clothing manufactured using this type of newly developed fabric system could provide better occupational health and safety for firefighters.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming-Chi Wei ◽  
Yu-Chiao Yang ◽  
Show-Jen Hong

Oleanolic acid (OA) and ursolic acid (UA) were extracted fromHedyotis diffusausing a hyphenated procedure of ultrasound-assisted and supercritical carbon dioxide (HSC–CO2) extraction at different temperatures, pressures, cosolvent percentages, and SC–CO2flow rates. The results indicated that these parameters significantly affected the extraction yield. The maximal yields of OA (0.917 mg/g of dry plant) and UA (3.540 mg/g of dry plant) were obtained at a dynamic extraction time of 110 min, a static extraction time of 15 min, 28.2 MPa, and 56°C with a 12.5% (v/v) cosolvent (ethanol/water = 82/18, v/v) and SC–CO2flowing at 2.3 mL/min (STP). The extracted yields were then analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to quantify the OA and UA. The present findings revealed thatH. diffusais a potential source of OA and UA. In addition, using the hyphenated procedure for extraction is a promising and alternative process for recovering OA and UA fromH. diffusaat high concentrations.


Holzforschung ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vebi Mimini ◽  
Vasken Kabrelian ◽  
Karin Fackler ◽  
Hubert Hettegger ◽  
Antje Potthast ◽  
...  

AbstractThe bulk use of renewable polymers is currently largely limited to cellulose and, less significantly, hemicelluloses. Technical lignins are only applied in novel materials to a rather limited extent, although bulk lignin utilization is a worldwide research object. Native lignins, which belong to the second or third most abundant biopolymers of terrestrial plants, are mostly used in the form of technical lignins from wood pulping processes; they are employed in low-performance sectors or simply burnt for the generation of energy. Technical lignins are available in huge quantities and have a large application potential, mainly in areas where their aromatic nature is of relevance. This review presents the state of the art of foamed lignin-based polymers (lignofoams) as high-performance insulation materials. In the focus of this presentation are the fundamental foaming principles and influential agents that have an improvement potential concerning the matrix interactions between technical lignins (including lignosulfonates) and a copolymer in foam composites. The different approaches for foam preparation are critically compared. In general, the reviewed papers disclose that the lignin part in foams should be less than 37%. There are significant difficulties to improve the properties of lignofoams, and thus intensive research is needed to find better formulations and new technologies.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 112
Author(s):  
Amal Ahmed Abdou ◽  
Iman Osama Abd El Gwad ◽  
Ayman Alsayed Altaher Mahmoud

Egyptian universities had the most powerful buildings that encourage sustainable development. Sustaining university buildings had been the main concern, thus the development focused on different aspects (social, sociological, bio-life, physical, healthy surroundings, etc.). In recent times, the main problem facing university buildings has been the high consumption of energy despite the low performance. This problem affected the interior areas and spaces used by the majority of students. The issue hindered the learning environment—which should be designed to facilitate high academic performance—from achieving its purpose. Fixing the problem required finding the errors applied in the planning policy, in order to integrate low energy consumption with high performance. This paper analyzes the design strategy, low energy design strategy, and its analysis systems in order to integrate them with the analysis of four case studies in comparative methodology. This approach helps in achieving effective observation to implement principles, policy, criteria, and strategies. The method of the paper shall help with coming up with an efficient vision to create the integrated design strategy for constructing university buildings in Egypt. The solution is characterized by low-cost energy consumption that is applicable to the conditions in Egypt and is in synchronization with sustainability as a whole vision.


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