Long-term retention of ice-nucleating active Pseudomonas fluorescens by overwintering colorado potato beetles

Ice nucleating-active Pseudomonas fluorescens F264C was fed to Colorado potato beetles to determine bacterial retentioin in the beetle gut and its effect on the cold hardiness of this insect pest. The bacrterium was present in beetles recovered after overwintering in the field, seven months after their exposure to P. fluorescens. Retention was evident not only in the detection of the P. fluorescens ice nucleating gene, inaW, in bacterial cultures from beetle guts but also in the elevated supercooling points of some treated beetles.     

Breakdown of stabilization of atoms interacting with intense, high-frequency laser pulses

An analysis of the influence of the magnetic field of an intense, high-frequency laser pulse on the stabilization of an atomic system is presented. We demonstrate that at relatively modest intensities the magnetic field can significantly alter the dynamics of the system. In particular, a breakdown of stabilization occurs, thereby restricting the intensity regime in which the atom is relatively stable against ionization. Counterpropagating pulses do not negate the detrimental effects of the magnetic field. We compare our quantum mechanical results with classical Monte Carlo simulations.     

Evaluation of various fire retardants for use in wood flour-polyethylene composites

Wood-plastic composites represent a growing class of materials used by the residential construction industry and the furniture industry. For some applications in these industries, the fire performance of the material must be known, and in some cases improved. However, the fire performance of wood-plastic composites is not well understood, and there is little information regarding the effectiveness of various fire retardants in the public domain. We used oxygen index and cone calorimeter tests to characterize the fire performance of wood flour-polyethylene composites, and compared the results with unfilled polyethylene and solid wood. We then evaluated the effect of five additive-type fire retardants on fire performance. Generally, magnesium hydroxide and ammonium polyphosphate improved the fire performance of WPCs the most while a bromine-based fire retardant and zinc borate improved fire performance the least.     

Chassis dynamometers

Chassis dynamometers are a valuable tool for evaluating the performance of full vehicles. The basic concept is flexible enough that a very wide range of
wheeled vehcles can be tested. They are routinely used to evaluate drive train performance, full vehicle noise and vibration characteristics and other ve-
hicle parameters. Of course, their use is limited to situations in which complete, running vehicles are available. For situations in which that is not true, four poster and shaker tables can be used. These systems are described in the next article in this series.     

Characterization of dielectric barrier electrospray ionization for mass spectrometric detection

A novel electrospray interface is presented which induces an electric field by dielectric polarization through a non-conductive barrier. Therefore, a square-wave high-voltage signal is applied. This technique allows mass spectrometric measurements in the positive as well as in the negative mass spectrometry mode without changing the polarity of the potential applied, and it decreases the risk of undesired discharges, induced by high electric currents. The applicability of this technique is demonstrated by mass spectrometric determination of reserpine.     

Active colloidal suspensions exhibit polar order under gravity

Recently, the steady sedimentation profile of a dilute suspension of chemically powered colloids was studied experimentally [J. Palacci et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 088304 (2010)]. It was found that the sedimentation length increases quadratically with the swimming speed of the active Brownian particles. Here we investigate theoretically the sedimentation of self-propelled particles undergoing translational and rotational diffusion. We find that the measured increase of the sedimentation length is coupled to a partial alignment of the suspension with the mean swimming direction oriented against the gravitational field. We suggest realistic parameter values to observe this polar order. Furthermore, we find that the dynamics of the active suspension can be derived from a generalized free energy functional.     

Dynamics of semi-flexible tethered sheets

The dynamics of a semi-flexible sheet or tethered membrane in a solvent is studied using the method of stochastic rotation dynamics. Hydrodynamic interactions between different parts of the sheet are naturally included in this method. We confirm the scaling law for the radius of gyration versus sheet size predicted for a self-avoiding tethered membrane. The mean-square displacement shows both sub-diffusive and diffusive behavior similar to linear polymers. In the intermediate scattering function the sub-diffusive behavior appears as stretched exponential which we reproduce in our simulations. Thereby, we confirm an early prediction between the roughness and the sub-diffusion exponent derived from Zimm dynamics (E. Frey, D.R. Nelson, J. Phys. I 1, 1715 (1991)). Finally, we show that the diffusion coefficient of the square sheet is inversely proportional to the edge length of the sheet again in good agreement with theoretical predictions.