SUMMARYThe effect of high temperatures (above 25°C) on starch concentration and the morphology of starch granules in the grains of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) were studied. Wheat plants of cultivars Yangmai 9 (weak-gluten) and Yangmai 12 (medium-gluten) were treated with high temperatures for 3 days at different times after anthesis. The results showed that the starch concentration of grains given a heat-shock treatment above 30°C were lower than those developing at normal temperature in both cultivars. High temperature lowered starch concentration due to the decrease of amylopectin. Under the same temperature, the effect of heat shock from 6 to 8 days after anthesis (DAA) was the greatest, whereas from 36 to 38 DAA the effect was the least. The effects of high temperatures after anthesis on starch-pasting properties were similar to those on starch concentration, especially after 35–40°C treatments. The size, shape and structure of starch granules in wheat grains (determined by electron microscopy) after heat shock were visibly different from the control. When given heat shock during development, the starch granules in mature wheat grains were ellipsoid in shape and bound loosely with a protein sheath in Yangmai 9, while they were damaged and compressed with fissures in Yangmai 12, indicating the differences in resistance to high temperature between cultivars. Ratios of large (type-A) and small (type-B) starch granules significantly decreased under heat shock, which limited the potential sink size for dry matter deposition in the grain.

Although there have been some studies on the plant–carbonaceous nanomaterials (CNMs) interactions, related conclusions were controversial.

No abstract

Spring freeze events seriously limit the growth, development, and grain yield of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). A 2-yr eld experiment with two contrasting cultivars: XM21 (low-temperature resistant) and XZ24 (low-temperature sensitive), was conducted using an air temperature control device designed to allow investigation of the physiological and grain yield responses to spring freeze. e plants were grown in the eld and subjected to a 5-d spring freeze episode (approximately 8°C lower than the ambient temperature) at jointing stage (Zadoks scale 31). Spring freeze signi cantly decreased gas exchange rates and maximum quantum e ciency of photosystem II in wheat leaves of both cultivars. Under spring freeze, the yield loss was 12 to 14% in XZ24 vs. 5 to 6% in XM21. Greater yield loss in XZ24 coincided with a greater reduction of tiller and spike number in XZ24 than in XM21. Spring freeze occurring at jointing stage depressed the photosynthetic capacity of the leaves when measured at the end of the 5-d period and again at 7 d later, resulting in lowered number of e ective tillers, and eventually decreasing the grain yield. e genetic and/or bio-physiochemical basis for the di erent sensitivity of tiller development to spring freeze between the two cultivars could be further exploited for breeding new wheat cultivars tolerant to spring freeze stress.

We present a robust and efficient approach to directly slicing implicit solids. Different from prior slicing techniques that reconstruct contours on the slicing plane by tracing the topology of intersected line segments, which is actually not robust, we generate contours by a topology guaranteed contour extraction on binary images sampled from given solids and a subsequent contour simplification algorithm which has the topology preserved and the geometric error controlled. The resultant contours are free of self-intersection, topologically faithful to the given r-regular solids and with shape error bounded. Therefore, correct objects can be fabricated from them by rapid prototyping. Moreover, since we do not need to generate the tessellated B-rep of given solids, the memory cost our approach is low—only the binary image and the finest contours on one particular slicing plane need to be stored in-core. Our method is general and can be applied to any implicit representations of solids.