The enhancement of photosynthetic performance, water use efficiency and potato yield under elevated CO is cultivar dependent.

As a fourth major food crop, potato could fulfill the nutritional demand of the growing population. Understanding how potato plants respond to predicted increase in atmospheric CO at the physiological, biochemical and molecular level is therefore important to improve potato productivity. Thus, the main objectives of the present study are to investigate the effects of elevated CO on the photosynthetic performance, water use efficiency and tuber yield of various commercial potato cultivars combined with biochemical and molecular analyses.

Blockchain-Based Secure Authentication with Improved Performance for Fog Computing.

Advancement in the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing has escalated the number of connected edge devices in a smart city environment. Having billions more devices has contributed to security concerns, and an attack-proof authentication mechanism is the need of the hour to sustain the IoT environment. Securing all devices could be a huge task and require lots of computational power, and can be a bottleneck for devices with fewer computational resources.

Securing Fog Computing with a Decentralised User Authentication Approach Based on Blockchain.

The use of low-cost sensors in IoT over high-cost devices has been considered less expensive. However, these low-cost sensors have their own limitations such as the accuracy, quality, and reliability of the data collected. Fog computing offers solutions to those limitations; nevertheless, owning to its intrinsic distributed architecture, it faces challenges in the form of security of fog devices, secure authentication and privacy.

The Complementary Roles of Chloroplast Cyclic Electron Transport and Mitochondrial Alternative Oxidase to Ensure Photosynthetic Performance.

Chloroplasts use light energy and a linear electron transport (LET) pathway for the coupled generation of NADPH and ATP. It is widely accepted that the production ratio of ATP to NADPH is usually less than required to fulfill the energetic needs of the chloroplast. Left uncorrected, this would quickly result in an over-reduction of the stromal pyridine nucleotide pool (i.

Potato Response to Drought Stress: Physiological and Growth Basis.

Drought poses a major challenge to the production of potatoes worldwide. Climate change is predicted to further aggravate this challenge by intensifying potato crop exposure to increased drought severity and frequency. There is an ongoing effort to adapt our production systems of potatoes through the development of drought-tolerant cultivars that are appropriately engineered for the changing environment.

Photosynthesis, respiration and growth: A carbon and energy balancing act for alternative oxidase.

This review summarizes knowledge of alternative oxidase, a mitochondrial electron transport chain component that lowers the ATP yield of plant respiration. Analysis of mutant and transgenic plants has established that alternative oxidase activity supports leaf photosynthesis. The interaction of alternative oxidase respiration with chloroplast metabolism is important under conditions that challenge energy and/or carbon balance in the photosynthetic cell.

A Multi-Node Energy Prediction Approach Combined with Optimum Prediction Interval for RF Powered WSNs.

Energy prediction plays a vital role in designing an efficient power management system for any environmentally powered Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Most of the Moving Average (MA)-based energy prediction methods depend on past energy readings of the concerned node to predict its future energy availability. However, in case of RF powered WSNs the harvesting history of the main node along with neighbouring nodes can also be used to develop a more robust prediction technique.

Does the stromal concentration of P control chloroplast ATP synthase protein amount in contrasting growth environments?

Changes in the growth environment can generate imbalances in chloroplast photosynthetic metabolism. Under water deficit, stomatal closure limits CO availability such that the production of ATP and NADPH by the thylakoid membrane-localized electron transport chain may not match the consumption of these energy intermediates by the stroma-localized Calvin-Benson cycle, thus challenging energy balance. Alternatively, in an elevated CO atmosphere, carbon fixation by the Calvin-Benson cycle may outpace the activity of downstream carbohydrate-utilizing processes, thus challenging carbon balance.

Improving Potato Stress Tolerance and Tuber Yield Under a Climate Change Scenario - A Current Overview.

Global climate change in the form of extreme heat and drought poses a major challenge to sustainable crop production by negatively affecting plant performance and crop yield. Such negative impact on crop yield is likely to be aggravated in future because continued greenhouse gas emissions will cause further rise in temperature leading to increased evapo-transpiration and drought severity, soil salinity as well as insect and disease threats. This has raised a major challenge for plant scientists on securing global food demand, which urges an immediate need to enhance the current yield of major food crops by two-fold to feed the increasing population.

Growth at Elevated CO Requires Acclimation of the Respiratory Chain to Support Photosynthesis.

Plants will experience an elevated atmospheric concentration of CO (ECO) in the future. Growth of tobacco () at ECO more than doubled the leaf protein amount of alternative oxidase (AOX), a non-energy-conserving component of mitochondrial respiration. To test the functional significance of this AOX increase, wild-type tobacco was compared with AOX knockdown and overexpression lines, following growth at ambient CO or ECO The ECO-grown AOX knockdowns had a reduced capacity for triose phosphate use (TPU) during photosynthesis compared with the other plant lines.

Improved chloroplast energy balance during water deficit enhances plant growth: more crop per drop.

The non-energy-conserving alternative oxidase (AOX) respiration of plant mitochondria is known to interact with chloroplast photosynthesis. This may have consequences for growth, particularly under sub-optimal conditions when energy imbalances can impede photosynthesis. This hypothesis was tested by comparing the metabolism and growth of wild-type Nicotiana tabacum with that of AOX knockdown and overexpression lines during a prolonged steady-state mild to moderate water deficit.

Effect of importance sampling on robust segmentation of audio-cough events in noisy environments.

This paper proposes a new cough detection system based on audio signals acquired from conventional smartphones. The system relies on local Hu moments to characterize cough events and a Λ-NN classifier to distinguish cough events from non-cough ones (speech, laugh, sneeze, etc.) and noisy sounds.

Visualizing risks in cancer communication: A systematic review of computer-supported visual aids.

Objective: Health websites are becoming important sources for cancer information. Lay users, patients and carers seek support for critical decisions, but they are prone to common biases when quantitative information is presented. Graphical representations of risk data can facilitate comprehension, and interactive visualizations are popular.

Coordinated regulation of photosynthetic and respiratory components is necessary to maintain chloroplast energy balance in varied growth conditions.

Mitochondria have a non-energy-conserving alternative oxidase (AOX) proposed to support photosynthesis, perhaps by promoting energy balance under varying growth conditions. To investigate this, wild-type (WT) Nicotiana tabacum were compared with AOX knockdown and overexpression lines. In addition, the amount of AOX protein in WT plants was compared with that of chloroplast light-harvesting complex II (LHCB2), whose amount is known to respond to chloroplast energy status.

Alternative oxidase respiration maintains both mitochondrial and chloroplast function during drought.

The mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) terminates at cytochrome (cyt) oxidase or alternative oxidase (AOX). In Nicotiana tabacum leaves, mitochondrial respiration in the light (R ) declined with increasing drought severity but then increased under extreme drought, despite a steep decline in maximal cyt oxidase activity. This increased R was absent in AOX knockdown lines, while AOX overexpression lines showed enhanced R relative to the wild-type (WT).

Photosynthetic acclimation, vernalization, crop productivity and 'the grand design of photosynthesis'.

Daniel Arnon first proposed the notion of a 'grand design of photosynthesis' in 1982 to illustrate the central role of photosynthesis as the primary energy transformer for all life on Earth. However, we suggest that this concept can be extended to the broad impact of photosynthesis not only in global energy transformation but also in the regulation of plant growth, development, survival and crop productivity through chloroplast redox signalling. We compare and contrast the role of chloroplast redox imbalance, measured as excitation pressure, in governing acclimation to abiotic stress and phenotypic plasticity.

Alternative oxidase: a respiratory electron transport chain pathway essential for maintaining photosynthetic performance during drought stress.

Photosynthesis and respiration are the hubs of energy metabolism in plants. Drought strongly perturbs photosynthesis as a result of both diffusive limitations resulting from stomatal closure, and in some cases biochemical limitations that are associated with a reduced abundance of key photosynthetic components. The effects of drought on respiration, particularly respiration in the light (RL ), are less understood.

Improved photosynthetic performance during severe drought in Nicotiana tabacum overexpressing a nonenergy conserving respiratory electron sink.

Chloroplasts have means to manage excess reducing power but these mechanisms may become restricted by rates of ATP turnover. Alternative oxidase (AOX) is a mitochondrial terminal oxidase that uncouples the consumption of reducing power from ATP synthesis. Physiological and biochemical analyses were used to compare respiration and photosynthesis of Nicotiana tabacum wild-type (WT) plants with that of transgenic lines overexpressing AOX, under both well-watered and drought stress conditions.

Mitochondrial alternative oxidase maintains respiration and preserves photosynthetic capacity during moderate drought in Nicotiana tabacum.

The mitochondrial electron transport chain includes an alternative oxidase (AOX) that is hypothesized to aid photosynthetic metabolism, perhaps by acting as an additional electron sink for photogenerated reductant or by dampening the generation of reactive oxygen species. Gas exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence, photosystem I (PSI) absorbance, and biochemical and protein analyses were used to compare respiration and photosynthesis of Nicotiana tabacum 'Petit Havana SR1' wild-type plants with that of transgenic AOX knockdown (RNA interference) and overexpression lines, under both well-watered and moderate drought-stressed conditions. During drought, AOX knockdown lines displayed a lower rate of respiration in the light than the wild type, as confirmed by two independent methods.

Potential for increased photosynthetic performance and crop productivity in response to climate change: role of CBFs and gibberellic acid.

We propose that targeting the enhanced photosynthetic performance associated with the cold acclimation of winter cultivars of rye (Secale cereale L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), and Brassica napus L.

Knockdown of mitochondrial alternative oxidase induces the 'stress state' of signaling molecule pools in Nicotiana tabacum, with implications for stomatal function.

The mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) includes an alternative oxidase (AOX) that may control the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS). ROS and RNS act as signaling intermediates in numerous plant processes, including stomatal movement. The role of AOX in controlling ROS and RNS concentrations under both steady-state and different stress conditions was evaluated using Nicotiana tabacum plants lacking AOX as a result of RNA interference.

Long-term growth under elevated CO2 suppresses biotic stress genes in non-acclimated, but not cold-acclimated winter wheat.

This study compared the photosynthetic performance and the global gene expression of the winter hardy wheat Triticum aestivum cv Norstar grown under non-acclimated (NA) or cold-acclimated (CA) conditions at either ambient CO2 or elevated CO2. CA Norstar maintained comparable light-saturated and CO2-saturated rates of photosynthesis but lower quantum requirements for PSII and non-photochemical quenching relative to NA plants even at elevated CO2. Neither NA nor CA plants were sensitive to feedback inhibition of photosynthesis at elevated CO2.

Role of CBFs as integrators of chloroplast redox, phytochrome and plant hormone signaling during cold acclimation.

Cold acclimation of winter cereals and other winter hardy species is a prerequisite to increase subsequent freezing tolerance. Low temperatures upregulate the expression of C-repeat/dehydration-responsive element binding transcription factors (CBF/DREB1) which in turn induce the expression of COLD-REGULATED (COR) genes. We summarize evidence which indicates that the integration of these interactions is responsible for the dwarf phenotype and enhanced photosynthetic performance associated with cold-acclimated and CBF-overexpressing plants.

Chloroplast redox imbalance governs phenotypic plasticity: the "grand design of photosynthesis" revisited.

Sunlight, the ultimate energy source for life on our planet, enters the biosphere as a direct consequence of the evolution of photoautotrophy. Photoautotrophs must balance the light energy absorbed and trapped through extremely fast, temperature-insensitive photochemistry with energy consumed through much slower, temperature-dependent biochemistry and metabolism. The attainment of such a balance in cellular energy flow between chloroplasts, mitochondria and the cytosol is called photostasis.

Cold acclimation and BnCBF17-over-expression enhance photosynthetic performance and energy conversion efficiency during long-term growth of Brassica napus under elevated CO2 conditions.

The effects of cold acclimation and long-term elevated CO(2) on photosynthetic performance of wild-type (WT) and BnCBF17-over-expressing line of Brassica napus cv. Westar (BnCBF17-OE) grown at either 20/16 °C (non-acclimated) or 5/5 °C (cold acclimated) and at either ambient (380 μmol C mol(-1)) or elevated (700 μmol C mol(-1)) CO(2) were studied. Compared with non-acclimated WT, the BnCBF17-OE grown at 20 °C mimicked the effects of cold acclimation on WT B.