Two weeks-old maize (Zea mays cv. XL-72.3) plants were exposed to Al concentrations 0 (Al0), 9 (Al9), 27 (Al27) or 81 (Al81) g m-3 for 20 d in a growth medium with low ionic strength. Thereafter, the Al concentration-dependent interactions on root nitrate uptake, and its subsequent reduction to ammonia in the leaves were investigated. Al concentrations in the roots sharply increased with increasing Al concentrations while root elongation correspondingly decreased. Root fresh and dry masses, acidification capacity, and nitrate and nitrogen contents decreased from Al27 onwards, whereas leaf nitrogen, nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia concentrations decreased starting with Al9. Electrolytic conductance increased by 60 % in root tissues from Al0 to Al81 but it did not increase significantly in the leaves. In Al9, Al27, and Al81 plants a decrease in shoot fresh and dry masses was observed. Al concentrations between 0 and 27 g m-3 increased net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, and the quantum yield of photosynthetic electron transport, whereas the intercellular CO2 concentration was minimum in Al27 plants. In the leaves, nitrate reductase (E.C. 1.6.6.1) activity increased until Al27, and nitrite reductase (E.C. 1.6.6.4) activity until Al81. Hence there may be an Al mediated extracellular and intracellular regulation of root net nitrate uptake. Nitrate accumulation in the roots affects the translocation rates and, therefore, the nitrate concentration in the leaves. The in vivo reducing power generated by the photosynthetic electron flow does not limit nitrate to ammonia reduction, and the increase of maximum nitrate and nitrite reductase activities parallels the decreasing nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia concentrations. and F. C. Lidon, J. C. Ramalho, M. G. Barreiro.
The role of Computer Aided Engineering in research as well as product development has been significantly increased during two last decades. The growing demands on the simulation address not only monodisciplinary phenomena but also phenomena from
different engineering branches. The current state-of-the-art simulation tools allow two basic approaches for meeting the demands, either coupling of various specialised simulation codes or application of multiphysical simulation tools.
This paper focuses on the simulation approaches for the multidisciplinary tasks and particularly on the connection of specialised simulation tools by interfaces. It classifies the interfaces between specialised software packages in general and gives some case studies using the coupling of specialised simulation tools. Finally, the development stages of an interface between civil and mechanical systems are presented. and Obsahuje seznam literatury
Paper deals with sediments settled in the Elbe reservoir Les Království (King´s Forest) between 1914 and 2005. This reservoir is laid on upper Elbe closing the mountain watershed of Krkonoše (Giant Mountains) with the source of the river. To this profile, watershed can be taken as mountain and foothill area. The sediments, before approximately 1950, were non-polluted by heavy metals and specific organic matter because of the undisturbed natural environment. After that time, the conditions of sedimentation became worse. With the industrial boom and ploughing of the grazing land away there, the amount of sediments settled in the reservoir increased much times and high pollution appeared. To this point, the badly treated sewage waters and washing outs of the soil with pesticides and herbicides from the new high-sloped cropland contributed for many years. With this, the amount of sediments increased up to 21 % of the total volume of the reservoir, i.e., approximately, to 2 mil. m3 . It was decided in 1984 that the sediments have to be removed from reservoir. Up to this time, the quality of sediments was followed in the surface layers only and this quality was applied to all layers of sediments. Thus the wrong idea appeared that all sediments are polluted. On the contrary, the authors suppose that the old layers are not polluted and, in the case of cleaning of the reservoir, these need not be stored in a protected dump. Differentiating the sediments to polluted and non-polluted would bring a considerable increase in economy of cleaning. Thus the authors looked for a method to distinguish the sediment components one another. Among others, the method of the radar search of sediments appeared to be promising enough to describe the sediment layers from the actual bottom down to the original bedrock. To this aim, a new radar antenna working in two regimes was applied. In shallow parts of the reservoir, it was towed in cross profiles on water surface while in the deep ones it was moved along the bottom escorted by a diver. Using this, we were able to distinguish 5 components of sediment (i.e. the non-consolidated and cohesive sediment, the sandy loam, sandy silt and the gravel), to fix their positions and to estimate, in accordance to their apparent grain distribution, if they could be polluted or not. Moreover the mathematical method just presented here was worked out to compute volumes of different sediment components directly from radar signals. This method enables to compute the sediment volumes in relatively straight parts of the valley and the meandering ones., Thus the authors have presented a method enabling the estimate of component volumes on one side and to fix their positions to take samples for quality analyses on the other side., and Příspěvek se zabývá sedimenty usazenými v labské nádrži Les Království v období od r. 1914 do současnosti. Nádrž byla vybudovaná na horním Labi a prakticky uzavírá horskou a podhorskou část povodí, v němž je i pramen Labe. Sedimenty usazené v nádrži řekněme do r. 1950 nevykazují znečistění ani těžkými kovy, ani specifickými organickými látkami. Potom se však podmínky sedimentace zhoršily. S tehdejší extensivní industrializací a rozšířením rostlinné výroby i na svažité pozemky dřívějších luk a pastvin došlo k masivnímu zvýšení množství sedimentů přinesených do nádrže a podstatně se zhoršila jejich kvalita díky špatně čištěným odpadním vodám a intenzivnímu užívání chemie s pesticidy a herbicidy na nových velmi svažitých polích. Do r. 1984 stoupl pak objem sedimentů na cca 21 % objemu nádrže, tj. na téměř 2 mil. m3 . Až donedávna se uskutečňovaly kvalitativní analýzy pouze v povrchových vrstvách sedimentů a tak vznikl chybný názor, že celý objem sedimentů je silně znečistěný. Naproti tomu autoři předpokládají, že sedimenty usazené před r. 1950 nejsou znečistěné a nemusí být uloženy na zajištěné skládky. Rozlišení sedimentů na znečištěné a neznečištěné povede k velkým úsporám při čistění nádrže. K tomu cíli autoři hledali vhodnou metodu. Byla zvolena geofyzikální metoda radarového průzkumu dna, která může rozlišit jednotlivé složky sedimentů od jejich současné úrovně až po skalní podklad. K tomu byla použita radarová anténa pracující ve dvou režimech, a to tažením po hladině v malých hloubkách nádrže a tažením po dně za doprovodu potápěče ve větších hloubkách. Touto metodou jsme rozlišili 5 složek sedimentů (tj. nezpevněný sediment, kohesivní sediment, písčité hlíny, písčité bahno a štěrk), zjistili polohu vrstev a následně podle jejich granulometrie mohli odhadnout, jestli mohou obsahovat význačné znečištění. Tyto výsledky byly porovnány se všemi dosažitelnými kvalitativními analýzami a s jejich využitím jsme mohli rozlišit, které vrstvy je při čistění nádrže nutno uložit na zajištěnou skládku a které je možno využít jako výplňový materiál při zemních pracích. Tímto rozlišením je možno ušetřit značné náklady při čistění nádrže.
The paper presents cellular automata as a promising modeling approach to simulate the diffusion process as a 2D task. The proposed methodology is applied to the degradation assessment of civil engineering structures describing more realistically the spatial and temporal variability of harmful substance ingress (e.g. chloride ions in concrete). Some illustrative examples are presented together with an example of application to a particular bridge. and Obsahuje seznam literatury
Based on molecular markers (COII and ITS1-ITS2) and morphological data, we describe three new Neotropical species of Gyrodactylus von Nordmann, 1832 from Scleromystax barbatus (Quoy et Gaimard) and Scleromystax macropterus (Regan) from southern Brazil. The three new species can be distinguished from each other by sequences of both molecular markers and morphology of hooks and anchors. Gyrodactylus bueni sp. n. is characterised by having hook with shaft curved, heel straight, shelf straight, toe pointed, anchor with superficial root slender, elongate and male copulatory organ armed with two rows of spinelets. Gyrodactylus major sp. n. presents hook with shaft, point curved, proximal shaft straight, heel convex, shelf convex, toe concave, anchor with superficial root robust and male copulatory organ armed with two rows of spinelets. Gyrodactylus scleromystaci sp. n. presents hook with shaft, point recurved, heel convex, shelf convex, toe pointed, anchor with superficial root curved and male copulatory organ armed with two rows of spinelets. These species appear to be closely related to other species of Gyrodactylus known from other species of Callichthyidae. These new species, however, differ by the comparative morphology of the haptoral hard structures and molecular data. Comparative analysis of sequences from these species of Gyrodactylus suggests that the COII gene may represent an important marker for the taxonomy of species of Gyrodactylidae and, perhaps, for species of other lineages of Monogenoidea.
The following three species of the Philometridae (Nematoda: Dracunculoidea) are described from marine perciform fishes of the Everglades National Park (northern Gulf of Mexico), Florida, USA: Philometra brevispicula sp. n. (male and females) from the subcutaneous tissue of mouth of the gray snapper Lutjanus griseus (Linnaeus) (Lutjanidae), Philometroides grandipapillatus sp. n. (only females) from pectoral fin muscle of the crevalle jack Caranx hippos (Linnaeus) (Carangidae), and Caranginema americanum Moravec, Montoya-Mendoza et Salgado-Maldonado, 2008 (females) from the subcutaneous fascia of trunk muscle in crevalle jack C. hippos. Philometra brevispicula is mainly characterized by small cephalic papillae of the external circle, the absence of oesophageal teeth and the presence of small caudal projections in gravid female, markedly short spicules (45 µm) in male, and by its location in the host. Philometroides grandipapillatus differs from congeners mainly in the shape of the cephalic region (narrow, conspicuously protruding), large cephalic papillae of the external circle and the absence of caudal projections in female, and by the site of infection in the host. Caranginema americanum is for the first time recorded from the northern Gulf of Mexico.
The objective of this study was to evaluate the significance of blue light (B) in the growth and photosynthetic capacity of cucumber. Gas exchange, chlorophyll (Chl) fluorescence kinetics, chloroplast ultrastructure, and leaf growth were investigated to explore the influence of three different light qualities of light emitting diodes (LEDs) on plant morphogenesis and the development of photosynthetic apparatus in cucumber (Cucumis sativus) leaves from emergence to full expansion under weak light [50 μmol(photon) m-2 s-1]. We found that B could significantly increase the leaf area (LA), shoot elongation, Chl a/b, net photosynthetic rate, and stomatal conductance (g s). In addition, the comparisons of maximal quantum yield of PSII photochemistry and the photosynthetic performance index between B-, W (white light)-, and R (red light)-grown leaves suggested that B was essential for the development of photosynthetic apparatus under weak light. B-grown leaves had the lowest Chl content under weak light, however, they had well-developed chloroplasts with the highest degree of stacked lamellae and the lowest starch accumulation. This could explain to a considerable extent the highest net photosynthetic rate per Chl unit. The results demonstrated that B optimized photosynthetic performance by improving the photosynthetic rate, increasing LA, and prolonging active photosynthesis duration under low irradiance. Therefore B is necessary to ensure healthy development of chloroplasts and highly efficient photosynthetic functions in cucumbers under a weak light environment. More importantly, our study also provided theoretical and technical support for the development of light environmental control technology., X. Y. Wang, X. M. Xu, J. Cui., and Obsahuje bibliografii