QUANTITATION OF PHOTOSYSTEM II ACTIVITY IN SPINACH CHLOROPLASTS. EFFECT OF ARTIFICIAL QUINONE ACCEPTORS

Quantitation of photosystem II (PSII) activity in spinach chloroplasts is presented. Rates of PSII electron-transport were estimated from the concentration of PSII reaction-centers (Chl/PSII = 380:1 when measured spectrophotometrically in the ultraviolet [ΔA₃₂₀] and green [ΔA_540–550] regions of the spectrum) and from the rate of light utilization by PSII under limiting excitation conditions. Rates of PSII electron-transport were measured under the same light-limiting conditions using 2,5-dimethylbenzoquinone or 2,5-dichlorobenzoquinone as the PSII artificial electron acceptors. Evaluation is presented on the limitations imposed in the measurement of PSII electron flow to artificial quinones in chloroplasts. Limitations include the static quenching of excitation energy in the pigment bed by added quinones, the fraction of PSII centers (PSII_β) with low affinity to native and added quinones, and the loss of reducing equivalents to molecular oxygen. Such artifacts lowered the yield of steady-state electron transport in isolated chloroplasts and caused underestimation of PSII electron-transport capacity. The limitations described could explain the low PSII concentration estimates in higher plant chloroplasts (Chl/PSII = 600 ± 50) resulting from proton flash yield and/or oxygen flash-yield measurements. It is implied that quantitation of PSII by repetitive flash-yield methods requires assessment of the slow turnover of electrons by PSII_β and, in the presence of added quinones, assessment of the PSII quantum yield.     

Aryne-Enabled C−N Arylation of Anilines

Anilines are potentially high-value arylating agents, but are limited by the low reactivity of the strong C−N bond. We show that the reactive intermediate benzyne can be used to both activate anilines, and set-up an aryl transfer reaction in a single step. The reaction does not require any transition metal catalysts or stoichiometric organometallics, and establishes a metal-free route to valuable biaryl products by functionalizing the aniline C−N bond.     

Sharp integral inequalities for the dyadic maximal operator and applications

Mathematische Zeitschrift - We prove a sharp integral inequality for the dyadic maximal function of $$\phi \in L^p$$ . This inequality connects certain quantities related to integrals of $$\phi $$...     

An Elementary Proof of Pólya-Vinogradov's Inequality, II

Let be a primitive character mod k, k > 2. In [1], the following elementary estimate

Equilibria for networks with malicious users

We consider the problem of characterizing user equilibria and optimal solutions for selfish routing in a given network. We extend the known models by considering malicious behavior. While selfish users follow a strategy that minimizes their individual cost, a malicious user will use his flow through the network in an effort to cause the maximum possible damage to the overall cost. We define a generalized model, present characterizations of flows at equilibrium and prove bounds for the ratio of the social cost of a flow at equilibrium over the cost when centralized coordination among users is allowed. An extended abstract of this work appeared in the Proceedings of the 14th Annual International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC) 2003. G. Karakostas’ research was supported by an NSERC Discovery research grant and MITACS. Part of this research was done when Viglas was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, Canada.     

Geometry and Physics Today

“Geometry,” in the sense of the classical differential geometry of smooth manifolds (CDG), is put under scrutiny from the point of view of Abstract Differential Geometry (ADG). We explore potential physical implications of viewing things under the light of ADG, especially matters concerning the “gauge theories” of modern physics, when the latter are viewed (as they are actually regarded currently) as “physical theories of a geometrical character.” Thence, “physical geometry,” in connection with physical laws and the associated with them, within the background spacetime manifoldless context of ADG, “differential” equations, are also being discussed.     

A preliminary investigation on the topology of Chinese and climate networks

Complex networks have been studied across many fields of science in recent years. In this paper, we give a brief introduction of networks, then follow the original works by Tsonis et al (2004, 2006) starting with data of the surface temperature from 160 Chinese weather observations to investigate the topology of Chinese climate networks. Results show that the Chinese climate network exhibits a characteristic of regular, almost fully connected networks, which means that most nodes in this case have the same number of links, and so-called super nodes with a very large number of links do not exist there. In other words, though former results show that nodes in the extratropical region provide a property of scale-free networks, they still have other different local fine structures inside. We also detect the community of the Chinese climate network by using a Bayesian technique; the effective number of communities of the Chinese climate network is about four in this network. More importantly, this technique approaches results in divisions which have connections with physics and dynamics; the division into communities may highlight the aspects of the dynamics of climate variability.     

Performance of Thyme Oil@Na-Montmorillonite and Thyme Oil@Organo-Modified Montmorillonite Nanostructures on the Development of Melt-Extruded Poly-L-lactic Acid Antioxidant Active Packaging Films

Today, the use of natural biodegradable materials in the production processes is more and more adopted by industry to achieve cyclic economy targets and to improve environmental and human health indexes. Active packaging is the latest trend for food preservation. In this work, nanostructures were prepared by incorporation of thyme oil with natural natrium-montmorillonite and organo-montmorillonite with two different techniques, direct impregnation and the green evaporation–adsorption process. Such nanostructures were mixed with poly-L-lactic-acid for the first time via an extrusion molding process to develop a new packaging film. Comparisons of morphological, mechanical, and other basic properties for food packaging were carried out via XRD, FTIR, TG, SEM/EDS, oxygen and water vapor permeation, and antimicrobial and antioxidant activity for the first time. Results showed that poly-L-lactic-acid could be modified with clays and essential oils to produce improved active packaging films. The final product exhibits food odor prevention characteristics and shelf-life extension capabilities, and it could be used for active packaging. The films based on OrgMt clay seems to be more promising, while the thyme oil addition improves their behavior as active packaging. The PLLA/3%TO@OrgMt and PLLA/5%TO@OrgMt films were qualified between the tested samples as the most promising materials for this purpose.