The promoter region of SPT was dissected by truncation and deletion, and two main regions occupied by tissue-specific enhancers were identified. These were correlated with eight regions conserved between promoter regions of Arabidopsis, Brassica oleracea, and Brassica rapa. When transformed into Arabidopsis, the B. oleracea promoter

drove expression in reproductive tissues mostly comparable to the 7-Cl-O-Nec1 equivalent Arabidopsis promoter. There is genetic evidence that SPT function in the gynoecium is associated with the perception of auxin. However, site-directed mutagenesis of three putative auxin-response elements had no detectable effect on SPT expression patterns. Even so, disruption of a putative E-box variant adjacent to one of these resulted in a loss of valve dehiscence buy Citarinostat zone expression. This expression was also specifically lost in mutants of another bHLH gene INDEHISCENT, indicating that IND may directly regulate SPT expression through this variant E-box.”
“We modified synthetic isoprene rubber by means of the in situ generation of silica particles through the sol-gel process starting from tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as an inorganic oxide precursor. Different reaction conditions were investigated with variations in the initial TEOS content, the reaction time of the sol-gel process, and the presence of a coupling/surfactant agent (octyltriethoxysilane). Organic-inorganic hybrid materials

with a silica content up to 70 phr were obtained with the complete conversion of TEOS to silica for a long enough sol-gel reaction time. A very homogeneous dispersion of silica particles was observed in all cases together with a very good adhesion between the filler and matrix. The size of the in situ generated silica was controlled by the appropriate addition of octyltriethoxysilane. Swelling and extraction tests and dynamic mechanical analysis indicated that the vulcanization process of isoprene rubber was perturbed by

the sol-gel process; this led to a slight decrease in the crosslinking degree. However, a significant reinforcing selleck chemical effect due to the presence of silica particles was observed for all of the investigated samples. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 119: 3422-3428, 2011″
“Spatial filtering is demonstrated at beam-type excitations by utilizing finite thickness slabs of two-dimensional dielectric photonic crystals (PCs) showing exotic Fabry-Perot resonances that are preserved over a wide range of variation of the incidence angle. Bandstop and dual-bandpass filtering effects are illustrated theoretically and the corresponding filters are validated in the microwave experiments by using square-lattice PCs. It is shown that the basic transmission features that were observed earlier for a plane-wave illumination are also recognizable at beam-type excitations. The proposed spatial filtering mechanism exhibits directional beaming.