14-3-3 proteins are known to play a pivotal role in a diverse array of cellular events such as cell survival, apoptosis, and signal transduction. Numerous 14-3-3 ζ have been cloned and characterized from a host of eukaryotic organisms including human, plants, yeast, fruit fly and silkworm. However, no study on Spodoptera exigua 14-3-3ζ in conjunction with virus infection has so far been reported in insects. It appears that expression of Se14-3-3ζ was decreased starting 24 h post-SeNPV infection as SeNPV titers seemed to increase as evidenced by intense bands of SeNPV IAP3. Interestingly, confocal microscopic analysis revealed that Se14-3-3ζ is expressed at the apical side of the NPV-uninfected gut cells, whereas it was detected mainly in the nucleus of the NPV-infected cells. Thus, despite the biological significance of Se14-3-3ζ in S. exigua in conjunction with molecular interactions between SeNPV and S. exigua is unclear now, our data suggest that Se14-3-3 ζ protein plays a role to protect S. exigua from the infection or inhibit replication of SeNPV.

Here we present a linear stability analysis and an MHD 2D model for the Parker-Jeans instability in the Galactic gaseous disk. The magnetic field is assumed parallel to a Galactic spiral arm, and the gaseous disk is modelled as a multi-component, magnetized, and isothermal gas layer. The model employs the observed vertical stratifications for the gas density and the gravitational acceleration in the Solar neighborhood, and the self-gravity of the gas is also included. By solving Poisson's equation for the gas density stratification, we determine the vertical acceleration due to self-gravity as a function of z. Subtracting it from the observed gravitational acceleration, we separate the total acceleration into self and external gravities. The linear stability analysis provides the corresponding dispersion relations. The time and length scales of the fastest growing mode of the Parker-Jeans instability are about 40 Myr and 3.3 kpc, respectively. In order to confirm the linear stability analysis, we have performed two-dimensional MHD simulations. These show that the Parker-Jeans instability under the self and external gravities evolves into a quasi-equilibrium state, creating condensations on the northern and southern sides of the plane, in an alternate manner.

As a companion to an adiabatic version developed by Ryu and his coworkers, we have built an isothermal magnetohydrodynamic code for astrophysical flows. It is suited for the dynamical simulations of flows where cooling timescale is much shorter than dynamical timescale, as well as for turbulence and dynamo simulations in which detailed energetics are unimportant. Since a simple isothermal equation of state substitutes the energy conservation equation, the numerical schemes for isothermal flows are simpler (no contact discontinuity) than those for adiabatic flows and the resulting code is faster. Tests for shock tubes and Alfven wave decay have shown that our isothermal code has not only a good shock capturing ability, but also numerical dissipation smaller than its adiabatic analogue. As a real astrophysical application of the code, we have simulated the nonlinear three-dimensional evolution of the Parker instability. A factor of two enhancement in vertical column density has been achieved at most, and the main structures formed are sheet-like and aligned with the mean field direction. We conclude that the Parker instability alone is not a viable formation mechanism of the giant molecular clouds.

We have constructed a 3-dim hydrodynamics code called BTSPH. The fluid dynamics part of the code is based on the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), and for its Poisson solver the binary tree (BT) scheme is employed. We let the smoothing length in the SPH algorithm vary with space and time, so that resolution of the calculation is considerably enhanced over the version of SPH with fixed smoothing length. The binary tree scheme calculates the gravitational force at a point by collecting the monopole forces from neighboring particles and the multipole forces from aggregates of distant particles. The BTSPH is free from geometric constraints, does not rely on grids, and needs arrays of moderate size. With the code we have run the following set of test calculations: one-dim shock tube, adiabatic collapse of an isothermal cloud, small oscillation of an equilibrium polytrope of index 3/2, and tidal encounter of the polytrope and a point mass perturber. Results of the tests confirmed the code performance.

Weibull analyses given to the initial mass function (IMF) deduced by Miller and Scalo (1979) have shown that the mass dependence of IMF is an exp [ − α m ] - form in low mass range while in the high mass range it assumes an exp [ − α √ m ] / √ m -form with the break-up being at about the solar mass. Various astrophysical reasonings are given for identifying the exp [ − α m ] and exp [ − α √ m ] / √ m with halo and disk star characteristics, respectively. The physical conditions during the halo formation were such that low mass stars were preferentially formed and those in the disk high mass stars favoured. The two component nature of IMF is in general accord with the dichotomies in various stellar properties.