Influence of biological origin on the tensile properties of cellulose nanopapers

Cellulose - Cellulose nanopapers provide diverse, strong and lightweight templates prepared entirely from sustainable raw materials, cellulose nanofibers (CNFs). Yet the strength of CNFs has not...     

Wounding-Induced VOC Emissions in Five Tropical Agricultural Species

Leaf mechanical wounding triggers a rapid release—within minutes—of a blend of volatile organic compounds. A wounding-induced VOC blend is mainly composed of oxygenated ubiquitous stress volatiles such as methanol and volatile products of lipoxygenase (LOX) pathway (mainly C5 and C6 alcohols and aldehydes and their derivatives), but also includes multiple minor VOCs that collectively act as infochemicals, inducing defences in non-damaged plant leaves and neighbouring plants and attracting herbivore enemies. At present, the interspecific variability of the rate of induction and magnitude of wounding-induced emissions and the extent to which plant structural traits and physiological activity alter these emissions are poorly known. Particularly scarce is information on the induced emissions in tropical agricultural plant species, despite their economic importance and large area of cultivation at regional and global scales. We chose five tropical crops with varying photosynthetic activity and leaf structural characteristics—Abelmoschus esculentus, Amaranthus cruentus, Amaranthus hybridus, Solanum aethiopicum, and Telfairia occidentalis—to characterize the kinetics and magnitude of wounding-induced emissions, hypothesizing that the induced emission response is greater and faster in physiologically more active species with greater photosynthetic activity than in less active species. Rapid highly repeatable leaf wounds (12 mm cuts) were generated by a within-leaf-chamber cutting knife. Wounding-induced VOC emissions were measured continuously with a proton-transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometer and gas-chromatography mass spectrometry was used to separate isomers. Twenty-three ion VOCs and twelve terpenoid molecule structures were identified, whereas ubiquitous stress volatiles methanol (on average 40% of total emissions), hexenal (24%), and acetaldehyde (11%) were the main compounds across the species. Emissions of low-weight oxygenated compounds (LOC, 70% of total) and LOX products (29%) were positively correlated across species, but minor VOC components, monoterpenoids and benzenoids, were negatively correlated with LOC and LOX, indicating a reverse relationship between signal specificity and strength. There was a large interspecific variability in the rate of induction and emission magnitude, but the hypothesis of a stronger emission response in physiologically more active species was only partly supported. In addition, the overall emission levels were somewhat lower with different emission blend compared to the data reported for wild species, as well as different shares for the VOCs in the blend. The study demonstrates that wounding-dependent emissions from tropical agricultural crops can significantly contribute to atmospheric volatiles, and these emissions cannot be predicted based on current evidence of wild plant model systems.     

Random conformal weldings

We construct a conformally invariant random family of closed curves in the plane by welding of random homeomorphisms of the unit circle. The homeomorphism is constructed using the exponential of βX, where X is the restriction of the 2-dimensional free field on the circle and the parameter β is in the “high temperature” regime \( \beta < \sqrt {2} \). The welding problem is solved by studying a non-uniformly elliptic Beltrami equation with a random complex dilatation. For the existence a method of Lehto is used. This requires sharp probabilistic estimates to control conformal moduli of annuli and they are proven by decomposing the free field as a sum of independent fixed scale fields and controlling the correlations of the complex dilatation restricted to dyadic cells of various scales. For the uniqueness we invoke a result by Jones and Smirnov on conformal removability of Hölder curves. Our curves are closely related to SLE(?) for ?<4.     

Jumping numbers and ordered tree structures on the dual graph

Let R be a two-dimensional regular local ring having an algebraically closed residue field and let ${\mathfrak{a}}$ be a complete ideal of finite colength in R. In this article we investigate the jumping numbers of ${\mathfrak{a}}$ by means of the dual graph of the minimal log resolution of the pair ${(X,\mathfrak{a})}$ . Our main result is a combinatorial criterium for a positive rational number ?? to be a jumping number. In particular, we associate to each jumping number certain ordered tree structures on the dual graph.     

Critical Mandelbrot Cascades

We study Mandelbrot’s multiplicative cascade measures at the critical temperature. As has been recently shown by Barral et al. (C R Acad Sci Paris Ser I 350:535–538, 2012), an appropriately normalized sequence of cascade measures converges weakly in probability to a nontrivial limit measure. We prove that these limit measures have no atoms and give bounds for the modulus of continuity of the cumulative distribution function of the measure. Using the earlier work of Barral and Seuret (Adv Math 214:437–468, 2007), we compute the multifractal spectrum of the measures. We also extend the result of Benjamini and Schramm (Commun Math Phys 289:653–662, 2009), in which the KPZ formula from quantum gravity is validated for the high temperature cascade measures, to the critical and low temperature cases.     

Effects of intermediate zinc pulses on properties of TiN and NbN films deposited by atomic layer epitaxy

The reasons for the improvements gained by using intermediate zinc pulses in atomic layer epitaxy growth of TiN and NbN films were examined by a comprehensive characterization and comparison of films prepared from TiCl₄ or NbCl₅ and NH₃ with and without zinc. The characterization techniques used comprise time-of-flight elastic recoil detection analysis, secondary ion mass spectrometry, Rutherford backscattering spectrometry, nuclear resonance broadening, proton backscattering spectrometry, deuteron induced reactions, proton induced X-ray emission, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Hall effect and reflectance measurements. The effect of zinc was found to be manifold: both compositional and structural changes were observed. In the case of TiN the major improvement gained by using zinc was significantly decreased oxygen contamination whereas a marked increase of grain size was the dominant effect observed with NbN. A clear correlation between the compositional and structural changes and the improvements of the electrical properties was established.     

Utilizing Polymer Blends to Prepare Ultrathin Films with Diverse Cellulose Textures

This paper presents an overview of the recent work on ultrathin polymer blend films containing cellulose. Three systems prepared via trimethylsilyl cellulose derivative, which is subsequently hydrolyzed to cellulose, are presented: polystyrene/cellulose, poly(methyl methacrylate)/cellulose and polystyrene-block-polyethyleneoxide/cellulose. Diverse textures emerge within the films depending on the interactions between the polymers and their interactions with the substrate as well as on different solubilities of the polymers. Furthermore, an ultrathin film containing a cellulose/xylan blend is presented. This film was deposited directly from a common solvent (dimethylacetamide/lithium chloride) and it did not exhibit distinct morphological patterns comparable to the blends with synthetic polymers.     

Coefficient ideals and the Cohen-Macaulay property of Rees algebras

Let be a local ring and let be an ideal of positive height. If is a reduction of , then the coefficient ideal is by definition the largest ideal such that . In this article we study the ideal when the Rees algebra is Cohen-Macaulay.