scholarly journals The art of growing plants for experimental purposes: a practical guide for the plant biologist

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (11) ◽  
pp. 821 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik Poorter ◽  
Fabio Fiorani ◽  
Mark Stitt ◽  
Uli Schurr ◽  
Alex Finck ◽  
...  

Every year thousands of experiments are conducted using plants grown under more-or-less controlled environmental conditions. The aim of many such experiments is to compare the phenotype of different species or genotypes in a specific environment, or to study plant performance under a range of suboptimal conditions. Our paper aims to bring together the minimum knowledge necessary for a plant biologist to set up such experiments and apply the environmental conditions that are appropriate to answer the questions of interest. We first focus on the basic choices that have to be made with regard to the experimental setup (e.g. where are the plants grown; what rooting medium; what pot size). Second, we present practical considerations concerning the number of plants that have to be analysed considering the variability in plant material and the required precision. Third, we discuss eight of the most important environmental factors for plant growth (light quantity, light quality, CO2, nutrients, air humidity, water, temperature and salinity); what critical issues should be taken into account to ensure proper growth conditions in controlled environments and which specific aspects need attention if plants are challenged with a certain a-biotic stress factor. Finally, we propose a simple checklist that could be used for tracking and reporting experimental conditions.

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Angione ◽  
Pietro Lió

Abstract Bacterial phenotypic traits and lifestyles in response to diverse environmental conditions depend on changes in the internal molecular environment. However, predicting bacterial adaptability is still difficult outside of laboratory controlled conditions. Many molecular levels can contribute to the adaptation to a changing environment: pathway structure, codon usage, metabolism. To measure adaptability to changing environmental conditions and over time, we develop a multi-omic model of Escherichia coli that accounts for metabolism, gene expression and codon usage at both transcription and translation levels. After the integration of multiple omics into the model, we propose a multiobjective optimization algorithm to find the allowable and optimal metabolic phenotypes through concurrent maximization or minimization of multiple metabolic markers. In the condition space, we propose Pareto hypervolume and spectral analysis as estimators of short term multi-omic (transcriptomic and metabolic) evolution, thus enabling comparative analysis of metabolic conditions. We therefore compare, evaluate and cluster different experimental conditions, models and bacterial strains according to their metabolic response in a multidimensional objective space, rather than in the original space of microarray data. We finally validate our methods on a phenomics dataset of growth conditions. Our framework, named METRADE, is freely available as a MATLAB toolbox.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 2855
Author(s):  
Anna Janeczko ◽  
Jana Oklestkova ◽  
Danuše Tarkowská ◽  
Barbara Drygaś

Ecdysteroids (ECs) are steroid hormones originally found in the animal kingdom where they function as insect molting hormones. Interestingly, a relatively high number of these substances can also be formed in plant cells. Moreover, ECs have certain regulatory effects on plant physiology, but their role in plants still requires further study. One of the main aims of the present study was to verify a hypothesis that fenarimol, an inhibitor of the biosynthesis of ECs in the animal kingdom, also affects the content of endogenous ECs in plants using winter wheat Triticum aestivum L. as a model plant. The levels of endogenous ECs in winter wheat, including the estimation of their changes during a course of different temperature treatments, have been determined using a sensitive analytical method based on UHPLC-MS/MS. Under our experimental conditions, four substances of EC character were detected in the tissue of interest in amounts ranging from less than 1 to over 200 pg·g−1 FW: 20-hydroxyecdysone, polypodine B, turkesterone, and isovitexirone. Among them, turkesterone was observed to be the most abundant EC and accumulated mainly in the crowns and leaves of wheat. Importantly, the level of ECs was observed to be dependent on the age of the plants, as well as on growth conditions (especially temperature). Fenarimol, an inhibitor of a cytochrome P450 monooxygenase, was shown to significantly decrease the level of naturally occurring ECs in experimental plants, which may indicate its potential use in studies related to the biosynthesis and physiological function of these substances in plants.


1975 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-304
Author(s):  
Ann E. Martin

The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of environmental conditions on visual workload. The environmental variables used were temperature, studied at levels of 45°F., WBGT, and 95°F., WBGT; and noise, studied at 83 dBA intermittent noise and 93 dBA continuous noise. Workload was defined as the amount of attention demanded from an operator as measured by performance decrement on a secondary task while performing a primary and secondary task simultaneously. The secondary task was reading random numbers, and the primary task was reading word lists. Significant differences (p<.05) were found between the control condition and all experimental conditions. The low temperature and high temperature-continuous noise conditions were significantly different from the other conditions. Noise and temperature were found to significantly increase workload (p<05).


mSystems ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Collin M. Timm ◽  
Kelsey R. Carter ◽  
Alyssa A. Carrell ◽  
Se-Ran Jun ◽  
Sara S. Jawdy ◽  
...  

The identification of a common “stress microbiome” indicates tightly controlled relationships between the plant host and bacterial associates and a conserved structure in bacterial communities associated with poplar trees under different growth conditions. The ability of the microbiome to buffer the plant from extreme environmental conditions coupled with the conserved stress microbiome observed in this study suggests an opportunity for future efforts aimed at predictably modulating the microbiome to optimize plant growth.


Author(s):  
Rossella Cinelli ◽  
Gianluca Maggiani ◽  
Serena Gabriele ◽  
Alessio Castorrini ◽  
Giuliano Agati ◽  
...  

Abstract The Gas Turbine (GT) Axial Compressor (AXCO) can absorb up to the 30% of the power produced by the GT, being the component with the largest impact over the performances. The axial compressor blades might undergo the fouling phenomena as a consequence of the unwanted material locally accumulating during the machine operations. The presence of such polluting substances reduces the aerodynamic efficiency as well as the air intake causing the drop of performances and the increase of the fuel consumption. To address the above-mentioned critical issues, several washing strategies have been implemented so far, among the most promising ones, High Flow On-Line Water Washing (HFOLWW) is worth to mention. Exploiting this technique, the performance levels are preserved, whereas the stops for maintenance should be reduced. Nevertheless, this comes at the cost of a long-term erosion exposure caused by the impact of water washing droplets. Hence, it was deemed necessary to carry out a finite element method (FEM) structural analysis of the first rotor stage of the compressor of an aeroderivative GT, integrated into the HFOLWW scheme, in order to evaluate the fatigue strength of the component subjected to the erosion; possibly along with its acceptability limits. The first step requires the determination of the blade areas affected by erosion, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, followed by the creation and the 3D modelling of the damaged geometry. The final step consists in the evaluation of the static stress and the dynamic agents, to perform a fatigue analysis through the Goodman relation and carrying out a simulation of damage propagation exploiting the theory of fracture mechanics. This procedure has been extended to the damage-free baseline component to set-up a model suitable for comparison. The structural analysis confirms the design of the blade, moreover dynamic and static evaluation of the eroded profiles haven’t outlined any working, nor mechanical, issue. This entitles the structural choice of HFOLWW as a system which guarantees full performance levels of the compressor.


2009 ◽  
pp. 91-106
Author(s):  
Roberto Cerabolini ◽  
Gabrielle Boissard ◽  
Tiziana Buonfiglio ◽  
Maria Pia Savorelli

- A study has been carried out in order to evaluate the possibility of overcoming children aversion to aerosol therapy as well as facilitating their parents' task. Starting point of this study was the investigation, which was performed through focus groups, clinical interviews and a playful approach, on how children and parents perceive the aerosol therapy. After having identified critical issues and spontaneous proposals to ameliorate aerosol administration, the Authors evaluated the results obtained by the association of the traditional aerosol therapy with a device equipped with educational games. An experimental environment was set up in a school together with a procedure aiming at evaluating the children behavior towards aerosol therapy administered with and without the device equipped with educational games. The results of this monocentric, randomized, cross-over study demonstrated a statistically significant increase of the compliance index when aerosol therapy was administered with the device equipped with educational games, increasing interest, satisfaction and pleasure during the aerosol administration, which was accepted for a longer time.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Schmittmann ◽  
Ute U Hentschel

This protocol generates sponges (Halichondria panicea) with a disturbed microbiome under controlled experimental conditions, in order to study bacterial recolonization dynamics. Bacteria-bacteria interactions can be analysed with this set-up within the host environment aiming at a better understanding of sponge-microbe symbiosis in vivo. It is divided into the sections 1) preparation, 2) antibiotic treatment and recovery phase, 3) recolonization with the natural microbiome and 4) sampling.


2019 ◽  
Vol 295 ◽  
pp. 93-97
Author(s):  
Chang Zhao ◽  
Man Zhao ◽  
Su Ye Lv ◽  
Qing Jun Liu ◽  
Guang Jian Xing

This study prepared an SiC thin film by using the ratio frequency magnetron sputtering method, investigated the effects of different sputtering powers on the SiC material and analysed the changes in crystal morphology and photoluminescence characteristics caused by changes in the growth conditions used. It was considered that there was 6H-SiC crystal morphologies in the SiC thin film under the experimental conditions prevailing in this study. The SiC morphologies with small grain sizes intermingled and therefore formed anSiC thin film. The analyses of the photoluminescence spectra and Scanning Electron Microscope indicated that the SiC thin film materials with preferable crystal compositions could be prepared under appropriate power inputs.


2020 ◽  
pp. 107815522096639
Author(s):  
Mario Cirino ◽  
Riccardo Provasi ◽  
Irina Cebulec ◽  
Clara Palmieri ◽  
Paolo Schincariol ◽  
...  

Introduction Blinatumomab is an anticancer drug used in the treatment of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) in both adults and children. ALL is the most common form of cancer in children and patients who are refractory to standard treatments have poor prognosis. The preparation of blinatumomab is unique and extremely complex. It’s important to carry out any information to identify all the critical issues related to the preparation of blinatumomab: sharing procedure between prescribers, staff of the Centralized Chemotherapy Preparation Unit [Unità Farmaci Antiblastici (UFA)] and administering nurses aimed at reducing the clinical risk related to the management of the drug blinatumomab and to obtain correct prescriptions on the real dose to be prepared, safe worksheets with computer processing of all variables (volumes to be added and corresponding dose of drug) and complete labels containing all the information necessary for the control of the preparation and its correct infusion. Methods A computerized process involves the use of specific software to which precise instructions must be given. This study is divided into two phases, the first one focused on the analysis of Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) and the extrapolation of any unclear part of SmPC. The second phase involved the manufacturer to answer a questionnaire. Results This comparison with the company allowed to perfect the blinatumomab preparation process leading to: 1. allow the patient to be discharged and return a few times for infusions and consequently reduce the number of medical prescriptions; 2. set up the drug for each patient every 4 days; 3. reduce costs related to devices, staff employed. Conclusion Computerizing the preparation of anti-blastic drugs is a necessary path for the safety of the patient and all the operators involved, however it may be necessary to make changes in the preparation process to allow the software to work correctly. The comparison between pharmacist, clinician and, where necessary, the manufacturer of the drug, was effective in the preparation of this drug.


Author(s):  
Miguel Jose Hernandez y Lopez ◽  
Carlos Francisco Lerma Resendez

This chapter discusses the basic aspects of Honeypots, how they are implemented in modern computer networks, as well as their practical uses and implementation in educational environments, providing the reader with the most important points regarding the main characteristics of Honeypots and Honeynets. Honeypots are defined as “closely monitored network decoys” that can be set by network administrators to deal with a wide variety of attacks and interact with users in different levels (Provos, 2004). The implementation of Honeypots provides an answer to a common question posted by the field of information security and forensics: How to dissect the elements that make up an attack against a computer system. The chapter will summarizes the different features and capabilities of Honeypots once they are set up in a production environment to clarify the elements that are needed to be configured in order for a Honeypot to accomplish its main tasks and in order for it to be considered an effective tool. The end of the chapter will shift towards the analysis of virtualization as an important tool that maximizes the practical use of Honeypots in controlled environments that are focused towards the study of attacks, responses and analysis methods.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document