A neoceratopsian dinosaur from the early Cretaceous of Mongolia and the early evolution of ceratopsia

Ceratopsia is a diverse dinosaur clade from the Middle Jurassic to Late Cretaceous with early diversification in East Asia. However, the phylogeny of basal ceratopsians remains unclear. Here we report a new basal neoceratopsian dinosaur Beg tse based on a partial skull from Baruunbayan, Ömnögovi aimag, Mongolia. Beg is diagnosed by a unique combination of primitive and derived characters including a primitively deep premaxilla with four premaxillary teeth, a trapezoidal antorbital fossa with a poorly delineated anterior margin, very short dentary with an expanded and shallow groove on lateral surface, the derived presence of a robust jugal having a foramen on its anteromedial surface, and five equally spaced tubercles on the lateral ridge of the surangular. This is to our knowledge the earliest known occurrence of basal neoceratopsian in Mongolia, where this group was previously only known from Late Cretaceous strata. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that it is sister to all other neoceratopsian dinosaurs.

Crystal Structure of NisI in a Lipid-Free Form, the Nisin Immunity Protein, fromLactococcus lactis

ABSTRACTNisin is a lantibiotic, a member of a family of polypeptides containing lanthionine with antimicrobial activity. Nisin-producing microorganisms require immunity proteins for self-protection from nisin itself.Lactococcus lactis, a microorganism that synthesizes nisin, has an integral NisFEG ABC transporter and an NisI lipoprotein that function in nisin immunity. Here, we present the crystal structure of the full length of NisI22-C, a lipid-free form of NisI, determined at 1.9-Å resolution. As with the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) structures of the N- and C-terminal domains of NisI, NisI22-Cis composed of N- and C-terminal domains, both of which display a fold similar to that found in SpaI, a lipoprotein with immunity against subtilin inBacillus subtilis. The full-length structure of NisI22-creveals a large, deep cleft by the interdomain association, one side of which is occupied by the residues important for immunity. Opposite the cleft, a shallow groove is found where nisin-interacting residues are distributed in the periphery composed of the C-terminal negative patch. Based on a sulfate ion found in the large and deep cleft, a model of NisI in complex with a farnesyl diphosphate backbone of lipid II is proposed, suggesting a mechanism for increasing the chances of encountering nisin.

Consumable and Process Improvement for Large Copper Wire Bonding

Aluminum (Al) wire has certain limitations and cannot satisfy the increased demands for power electronics interconnects. Copper (Cu) wire has many benefits and is replacing Al wire in high power, high temperature applications. Cu wire is much harder and wears the bond tool much faster than Al wire. Consumable lifetime and process stability have to be improved so that Cu wire interconnect can be accepted for mass production. The bond tool wear mechanism is investigated. Bond process parameter, bond tool tip geometry, and bond tool material affect bond tool lifetime and bond performance. By combining the bond tool tip design and bond process optimization, an ultra-shallow groove bond tool that has a groove depth (GD) of 40% wire diameter achieved producing 260,000 Cu wire bonds. The groove opening angle (GOA) affects wire confine capability of a bond tool and a larger GOA is preferred for bond tools with a shallower GD. Alternative bond tool material shows benefits of improving bond appearance and further extending bond tool lifetime.

Physical and morphometric characteristics of Gangatiri cattle

Gangatiri cattle are mainly found in the adjacent areas of the river Ganga in eastern Uttar Pradesh (Chandauli, Ghazipur, Varanasi, Mirzapur and Ballia districts) and adjacent Bhabhua (Kaimoor), Buxar, Arrah and Chhapra areas of Bihar. The breeding tract of this breed includes mainly Ballia and Ghazipur districts of Uttar Pradesh and Rohtas and Shahbad Districts of Bihar. Present study was conducted on 114 Gangatiri cattle - an indigenous cattle herd - maintained at Surbhi Shodh Sansthan (Geeta Goshala), Dagmagpur, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh- to study the physical and morphometric characterstics. White colour was the most prominant colour in the population. Colour of coat, forehead and neck was white and eyelid, tail and hoof were black in 65.78, 76.31, 63.15, 66.66, 82.45 and 76.31 % of animals, respectively. Hair was mainly straight type (97.10 %) but 2.90 % of the animals also had curly type of hair. Medium size muzzle was present in 79.71 % of the animals while it was small and large sized in 11.59 and 8.69 % of animals, respectively. Shades of grey were also present on different body parts of these animals. Grey colour was the second most prominant colour in the population. Majority of animals have shallow groove in middle head (57.97 %). Poll was prominent in 92.75 % of the population. Forehead was straight type in almost 78.26 % of these animals. Most of the adult animal population (72.46 %) was having medium body size. The average height at wither, body length, heart girth, face length, face width, neck length, ear length, fore cannon bone girth, height at hip bone, height at pin bone, rump slope and rump length were 117.12±1.23, 108.06±0.90, 145.50±1.80, 30.14±0.86, 15.48±0.43, 47.07±1.25, 19.99±0.56, 15.65±0.40, 117.78±1.16, 105.25±1.10, 12.47±0.16 and 35.56±0.65 cm, respectively.

Observation of Pair Structures of Threading Dislocation and Surface Defect in 4H-SiC Wafer by Mirror Projection Electron Microscopy

Two types of shallow surface defects associated with treading dislocation were found out by using mirror projection electron microscope. One was single groove with a dimension of about 4 nm in depth, 2 μm in width and 15 μm in length, named “as nanogroove”. The other was a shallow groove at 1.3nm in depth being between pair of hillocks at 2-3 nm in height and 1.5 μm in distance, named as “nanohillock pair”. Dislocations combined with the defects were found out by micro-KOH etching method with low-energy scanning electron microscopy. The dislocations were identified by g-b analysis using scanning transmission electron microscopy as threading edge dislocations converted from basal plane dislocation at bulk-epi layer interface or within epi layer.

Spectrally-Narrowed Emissions from Organic Crystals Having a One-Dimensional Grating on Their Surface

We have succeeded in directly engraving one-dimensional diffraction gratings on the surface of organic semiconducting oligomer crystals by using focused ion beam (FIB) lithography and laser ablation (LA) methods. The FIB method enabled us to shape the gratings with varying periods down to ∼150 nm. With the LA method a large-area grating with a ∼500-nm period was readily accessible. All the above crystals indicated spectrally-narrowed emission (SNE) lines even in the case of shallow groove depths ∼2–4 nm. In particular, we definitively observed the SNE pertinent to the first-order diffraction with the crystal having the diffraction grating of a 148.3-nm average period. The present results indicate utility of the built-in gratings that can directly be fabricated on the surface of the crystals.