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Suberin is a hydrophobic biopolymer that can be deposited at the periphery of cells, forming protective barriers against biotic and abiotic stress. In roots, suberin forms lamellae at the periphery of endodermal cells where it plays crucial roles in the control of water and mineral transport. Suberin formation is highly regulated by developmental and environmental cues. However, the mechanisms controlling its spatiotemporal regulation are poorly understood. Here, we show that endodermal suberin is regulated independently by developmental and exogenous signals to fine-tune suberin deposition in roots. We found a set of four MYB transcription factors (MYB41, MYB53, MYB92, and MYB93), each of which is individually regulated by these two signals and is sufficient to promote endodermal suberin. Mutation of these four transcription factors simultaneously through genome editing leads to a dramatic reduction in suberin formation in response to both developmental and environmental signals. Most suberin mutants analyzed at physiological levels are also affected in another endodermal barrier made of lignin (Casparian strips) through a compensatory mechanism. Through the functional analysis of these four MYBs, we generated plants allowing unbiased investigation of endodermal suberin function, without accounting for confounding effects due to Casparian strip defects, and were able to unravel specific roles of suberin in nutrient homeostasis.

Cytoplasmic incompatibility is a selfish reproductive manipulation induced by the endosymbiont Wolbachia in arthropods. In males Wolbachia modifies sperm, leading to embryonic mortality in crosses with Wolbachia-free females. In females, Wolbachia rescues the cross and allows development to proceed normally. This provides a reproductive advantage to infected females, allowing the maternally transmitted symbiont to spread rapidly through host populations. We identified homologs of the genes underlying this phenotype, cifA and cifB, in 52 of 71 new and published Wolbachia genome sequences. They are strongly associated with cytoplasmic incompatibility. There are up to seven copies of the genes in each genome, and phylogenetic analysis shows that Wolbachia frequently acquires new copies due to pervasive horizontal transfer between strains. In many cases, the genes have subsequently acquired loss-of-function mutations to become pseudogenes. As predicted by theory, this tends to occur first in cifB, whose sole function is to modify sperm, and then in cifA, which is required to rescue the cross in females. Although cif genes recombine, recombination is largely restricted to closely related homologs. This is predicted under a model of coevolution between sperm modification and embryonic rescue, where recombination between distantly related pairs of genes would create a self-incompatible strain. Together, these patterns of gene gain, loss, and recombination support evolutionary models of cytoplasmic incompatibility.

The problem of detecting whether two behavioral constructs reference the same real-world phenomenon has existed for over 100 years. Discordant naming of constructs is here termed the construct identity fallacy (CIF). We designed and evaluated the construct identity detector (CID), the first tool with large-scale construct identity detection properties and the first tool that does not require respondent data. Through the adaptation and combination of different natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, six designs were created and evaluated against human expert decisions. All six designs were found capable of detecting construct identity, and a design combining two existing algorithms significantly outperformed the other approaches. A set of follow-up studies suggests the tool is valuable as a supplement to expert efforts in literature review and metaanalysis. Beyond design science contributions, this article has important implications related to the taxonomic structure of social and behavioral science constructs, for the jingle and jangle fallacy, the core of the Information Systems nomological network, and the inaccessibility of social and behavioral science knowledge. In sum, CID represents an important, albeit tentative, step toward discipline-wide identification of construct identities.

NRC publication: Yes

The indoor application of wave propagation in the 5G network is essential to fulfill the increasing demands of network access in an indoor environment. This study investigated the wave propagation properties of line-of-sight (LOS) links at two long corridors of Chosun University (CU). We chose wave propagation measurements at 3.7 and 28 GHz, since 3.7 GHz is the closest to the roll-out frequency band of 3.5 GHz in South Korea and 28 GHz is next allocated frequency band for Korean telcos. In addition, 28 GHz is the promising millimeter band adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the 5G network. Thus, the 5G network can use 3.7 and 28 GHz frequencies to achieve the spectrum required for its roll-out frequency band. The results observed were applied to simulate the path loss of the LOS links at extended indoor corridor environments. The minimum mean square error (MMSE) approach was used to evaluate the distance and frequency-dependent optimized coefficients of the close-in (CI) model with a frequency-weighted path loss exponent (CIF), floating-intercept (FI), and alpha–beta–gamma (ABG) models. The outcome shows that the large-scale FI and CI models fitted the measured results at 3.7 and 28 GHz.

The xylem is the main pathway for the transport of water and molecules from roots to shoots. To date, it has been reported that secreted oligopeptides mediate root-to-shoot signaling, and some long-distance mobile oligopeptides have been detected in xylem exudates. However, the conservation of a number of oligopeptides and the overall features of peptide fragments contained in xylem exudates are poorly understood. Here, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of small proteins and peptides in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) xylem exudates and characterized the identified peptide fragments. We found that putative secreted proteins were enriched in xylem exudates compared with all proteins in the tomato protein database. We identified seven oligopeptides that showed common features of bioactive oligopeptides, including homologs of CLV3/ESR-related (CLE), C-TERMINALLY ENCODED PEPTIDE (CEP), and CASPARIAN STRIP INTEGRITY FACTOR (CIF) peptides. Furthermore, five of the identified oligopeptides were homologs of the soybean xylem exudate-associated oligopeptides that we previously reported. Our results suggest that oligopeptides in xylem exudates are conserved across plant species and provide insights into not only root-to-shoot signaling but also the maintenance of the xylem conduit.

Wolbachia is an endosymbiotic bacterium found in many species of arthropods and manipulates its host reproduction. Cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) is one of the most common manipulations that is induced when an uninfected female mates with a Wolbachia-infected male. The CI factors (cifA and cifB genes) are encoded by phage WO that naturally infects Wolbachia. Here, we questioned whether an environmental factor (temperature) or host factor (male age) affected the strength of the CI phenotype in the ectoparasitoid wasp, Habrobracon hebetor. We found that temperature, but not male age, results in reduced CI penetrance. Consistent with these results, we also found that the expression of the cif CI factors decreased in temperature-exposed males but was consistent across aging male wasps. Similar to studies of other insect systems, cifA showed a higher expression level than cifB, and male hosts showed increased cif expression relative to females. Our results suggest that prophage WO is present in the Wolbachia-infected wasps and expression of cif genes contributes to the induction of CI in this insect. It seems that male aging has no effect on the intensity of CI; however, temperature affects Wolbachia and prophage WO titers as well as expression levels of cif genes, which modulate the CI level.

The objective of this research is to develop some novel operational laws based of T-norm and T-conorm and then using these operational laws to develop several Einstein operators for aggregating the different complex intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (CIFNs) by considering the dependency between the pairs of its membership degrees. In the existing studies of fuzzy and its extensions, the uncertainties present in the data are handled with the help of degrees of membership that are the subset of real numbers, which may also loss some valuable data and hence consequently affect the decision results. A modification to these, complex intuitionistic fuzzy set handles the uncertainties with the degree whose ranges are extended from real subset to the complex subset with unit disk and hence handle the two-dimensional information in a single set. Thus, motivated by this and this paper we present some novel methods such as complex intuitionistic fuzzy Einstein weighted geometric aggregation (CIFEWGA) operator, complex intuitionistic fuzzy Einstein ordered weighted geometric aggregation (CIFEOWGA) operator, complex intuitionistic fuzzy Einstein hybrid geometric aggregation (CIFEHGA) operator, induced complex intuitionistic fuzzy Einstein ordered weighted geometric aggregation (I-CIFEOWGA) operator and induced complex intuitionistic fuzzy Einstein hybrid geometric aggregation (I-CIFEHGA) operator. We present some of their desirable properties such as idempotency, boundedness and monotonicity. Furthermore, based on these methods a multi-attribute group decision-making problem developed under complex intuitionistic fuzzy set environment. An illustrative example related to the selection of the best alternative is considered to show the effectiveness, importance and efficiency of the novel approach.

En los modelos actuales de discapacidad se considera esencial el rol del contexto. Hasta la fecha no se han desarrollado modelos teóricos que permitan analizar de forma sistemática la influencia del contexto en la vida de las personas con discapacidad. En el artículo se explica el tratamiento recibido por el contexto en diferentes modelos de referencia. Se ofrece un modelo conceptual de análisis del contexto basado en categorías que permita entender mejor su influencia en la vida de las personas y facilite la transformación de las barreras que se afronten.

The landfill liner is the last line of defense to protect the soil from damage, but it is difficult to satisfy both impermeability and crack resistance requirements with conventionally compacted clay. This paper proposes a new composite material to enhance the anti-seepage and anti-cracking properties of clay as a solution to this problem. In this Study, the effects of two single amendment materials, Nano-SiO 2 (6 dopings) and sisal fiber (SF) (4 dopings), and a composite amendment material (Nano-SiO 2 +SF), on the permeability and cracking resistance of the improved clay were investigated by infiltration tests and dry-wet cycle tests, respectively. The nuclear magnetic resonance test (NMR) test reveals the microscopic pore changes of soil and explore the reinforcement mechanism. The findings of penetration experiments demonstrate that Nano-SiO 2 and SF, both single and composite components, can increase the modified clay’s impermeability. The optimum content of Nano-SiO 2 is 3%, and its permeability coefficient is 5.09 × 10 −8 cm·s −1 , which is two orders of magnitude lesser than that of virgin soil. The results of three dry and wet cycle tests showed that the overall trend of fracture length and cracking factor (CIF) increased with the increase of the number of de-wetting. After the third de-wetting of the modified clay, 0.75% Nano-SiO 2 + 0.3% SF is the optimal dose, which reduces the fissure length by 19.94 times and CIF by 27.25 times compared with the three de-wetting of the plain clay. As a whole, the data demonstrates that the composite Nano-SiO 2 and SF are able to make up for the shortcomings of each component. It can simultaneously improve the anti-seepage and anti-cracking properties of the enhanced clay. The test results provide a certain benchmark for the impermeability and anti-cracking of landfill liners.