Dataset Information

Striking the Right Chord: Signaling Enigma during Root Gravitropism.

ABSTRACT: Plants being sessile can often be judged as passive acceptors of their environment. However, plants are actually even more active in responding to the factors from their surroundings. Plants do not have eyes, ears or vestibular system like animals, still they "know" which way is up and which way is down? This is facilitated by receptor molecules within plant which perceive changes in internal and external conditions such as light, touch, obstacles; and initiate signaling pathways that enable the plant to react. Plant responses that involve a definite and specific movement are called "tropic" responses. Perhaps the best known and studied tropisms are phototropism, i.e., response to light, and geotropism, i.e., response to gravity. A robust root system is vital for plant growth as it can provide physical anchorage to soil as well as absorb water, nutrients and essential minerals from soil efficiently. Gravitropic responses of both primary as well as lateral root thus become critical for plant growth and development. The molecular mechanisms of root gravitropism has been delved intensively, however, the mechanism behind how the potential energy of gravity stimulus converts into a biochemical signal in vascular plants is still unknown, due to which gravity sensing in plants still remains one of the most fascinating questions in molecular biology. Communications within plants occur through phytohormones and other chemical substances produced in plants which have a developmental or physiological effect on growth. Here, we review current knowledge of various intrinsic signaling mechanisms that modulate root gravitropism in order to point out the questions and emerging developments in plant directional growth responses. We are also discussing the roles of sugar signals and their interaction with phytohormone machinery, specifically in context of root directional responses.

SUBMITTER: Singh M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5529344 | biostudies-other | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Purpose The identification of abnormalities that are relatively rare within otherwise normal anatomy is a major challenge for deep learning in the semantic segmentation of medical images. The small number of samples of the minority classes in the training data makes the learning of optimal classification challenging, while the more frequently occurring samples of the majority class hamper the generalization of the classification boundary between infrequently occurring target objects and classes. In this paper, we developed a novel generative multi-adversarial network, called Ensemble-GAN, for mitigating this class imbalance problem in the semantic segmentation of abdominal images.Method The Ensemble-GAN framework is composed of a single-generator and a multi-discriminator variant for handling the class imbalance problem to provide a better generalization than existing approaches. The ensemble model aggregates the estimates of multiple models by training from different initializations and losses from various subsets of the training data. The single generator network analyzes the input image as a condition to predict a corresponding semantic segmentation image by use of feedback from the ensemble of discriminator networks. To evaluate the framework, we trained our framework on two public datasets, with different imbalance ratios and imaging modalities: the Chaos 2019 and the LiTS 2017.Result In terms of the F1 score, the accuracies of the semantic segmentation of healthy spleen, liver, and left and right kidneys were 0.93, 0.96, 0.90 and 0.94, respectively. The overall F1 scores for simultaneous segmentation of the lesions and liver were 0.83 and 0.94, respectively.Conclusion The proposed Ensemble-GAN framework demonstrated outstanding performance in the semantic segmentation of medical images in comparison with other approaches on popular abdominal imaging benchmarks. The Ensemble-GAN has the potential to segment abdominal images more accurately than human experts.

Project description:Singlet fission is a process that splits collective excitations, or excitons, into two with unity efficiency. This exciton splitting process, unique to molecular photophysics, has the potential to considerably improve the efficiency of optoelectronic devices through more efficient light harvesting. While the first step of singlet fission has been characterized in great detail, subsequent steps critical to achieving overall highly-efficient singlet-to-triplet conversion are only just beginning to become well understood. One of the most elementary suggestions, which has yet to be tested, is that an appropriately balanced coupling is necessary to ensure overall highly efficient singlet fission; that is, the coupling needs to be strong enough so that the first step is fast and efficient, yet weak enough to ensure the independent behavior of the resultant triplets. In this work, we show how high overall singlet-to-triplet conversion efficiencies can be achieved in singlet fission by ensuring that the triplets comprising the triplet pair behave as independently as possible. We show that side chain sterics govern local packing in amorphous pentacene derivative nanoparticles, and that this in turn controls both the rate at which triplet pairs form and the rate at which they decay. We show how compact side chains and stronger couplings promote a triplet pair that effectively couples to the ground state, whereas bulkier side chains promote a triplet pair that appears more like two independent and long-lived triplet excitations. Our results show that the triplet pair is not emissive, that its decay is best viewed as internal conversion rather than triplet-triplet annihilation, and perhaps most critically that, in contrast to a number of recent suggestions, the triplets comprising the initially formed triplet pair cannot be considered independently. This work represents a significant step toward better understanding intermediates in singlet fission, and how molecular packing and couplings govern overall triplet yields.

Project description:BackgroundAdolescents are navigating a period of rapid growth and development within an era of digitalization. Mobile phone ownership among adolescents is nearly ubiquitous, and this provides an opportunity to harness text messaging to promote a healthy lifestyle and reduce chronic disease risk factors. Inclusion of adolescents throughout the design process has been recognized as essential for engagement and future implementation of such interventions. This study aimed to co-design a bank of text messages to promote a healthy lifestyle which are useful, acceptable, and engaging for adolescents aged 12-18 years old.MethodsIterative, mixed-methods design with consumer partnership. Co-design occurred over three stages: text message development, text message review and final refinement and testing. The text message development included literature searches and consumer partnership with an established youth advisory group (n = 16). Participants who gave e-consent participated in text message review. Demographic characteristics were collected, and quantitative surveys were distributed to adolescents (n = up to 50) and health professionals (n = up to 30), who rated text message content for understanding, usefulness and appropriateness (total score out of 15). Final refinement was completed by the research team to edit or remove messages which had low scores and to assess readability and interactivity of the text messages.ResultsThe Heath Advisory Panel for Youth at the University of Sydney (HAPYUS) identified the top six lifestyle health issues for young people today in relation to chronic disease prevention, which became the key content areas for the text message bank and drafted new text messages. Following text message development, 218 messages were available for review. Adolescents (n = 18, mean age 16.3 [SD 1.4]) and healthcare professionals (n = 16) reviewed the text messages. On average, all reviewers found that the text messages were easy to understand (mean = 13.4/15) and useful (mean = 12.7/15). Based on scoring and open ended-feedback, 91 text messages were edited and 42 deleted. The final text message bank included 131 text messages. The overall program is suitable for a seventh-grade reading level, and interactive.ConclusionsThis study describes the process of effectively engaging adolescents to co-design a text message bank intervention, which are useful, acceptable and engaging for an adolescent audience. The effectiveness of the co-designed text message bank is currently being tested in the Health4Me RCT.

Dataset Information

Striking the Right Chord: Signaling Enigma during Root Gravitropism.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets