Treatment of Pea Seeds with Plasma Activated Water to Enhance Germination,Plant Growth,and Plant Composition

Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing - The present study has been carried to investigate the interaction and effect of plasma activated water (PAW) on pea seeds. PAW is produced with the...     

Deciding confluence of certain term rewriting systems in polynomial time

We present a characterization of confluence for term rewriting systems, which is then refined for special classes of rewriting systems. The refined characterization is used to obtain a polynomial time algorithm for deciding the confluence of ground term rewrite systems. The same approach also shows the decidability of confluence for shallow and linear term rewriting systems. The decision procedure has a polynomial time complexity under the assumption that the maximum arity of a function symbol in the signature is a constant.     

Magnetic and martensitic transitions in Ni-Fe-Ga alloy

The ferromagnetic shape memory alloy with nominal composition Ni₅₄Fe₁₉Ga₂₇ is investigated by Ac susceptibility and resistivity measurements. The alloy shows long-range ferromagnetic order below 290 K. The anomaly due to the martensitic transition is observed in the susceptibility and resistivity data in the temperature range around 220 K, which is associated with clear thermal hysteresis. Minor hysteresis loop technique was used to investigate the phase coexistence across the martensitic transition, and our analysis indicate that both martensite and austenite phases mutually coexist in the region of hysteresis.     

Thermal decomposition of a generation 4.5 PAMAM dendrimer platinum drug conjugate

A nanoscale multivalent platinum drug based on a poly(amidoamine) [PAMAM] dendrimer (generation 4.5, carboxylate surface) has been synthesized and fully characterized using a variety of spectroscopic, chromatographic and thermal methods. Treatment of the dendrimer with an aqueous solution containing an excess diaquo(cis-1,2-diaminocyclohexane)platinum(II) produces a conjugate containing approximately forty (diaminocyclohexane)platinum(II) moieties at the surface of the dendrimer. This material undergoes smooth two-stage thermal decomposition to provide residual platinum oxide reflecting the platinum loading in the drug.     

Dynamic stability of uncertain laminated beams subjected to subtangential loads

Because of the inherent complexity of fiber-reinforced laminated composites, it can be challenging to manufacture composite structures according to their exact design specifications, resulting in unwanted material and geometric uncertainties. Thus the understanding of the effect of uncertainties in laminated structures on their static and dynamic responses is highly important for a reliable design of such structures. In this research, we focus on the probabilistic stability analysis of laminated structures subject to subtangential loading, a combination of conservative and nonconservative tangential loads, using the dynamic criterion. In order to study the dynamic behavior by including uncertainties into the problem, three models were developed: exact Monte Carlo simulation, sensitivity-based Monte Carlo simulation, and probabilistic FEA. These methods were integrated into the existing finite element analysis. Also, perturbation and sensitivity analysis have been used to study nonconservative problems to study the stability analysis using the dynamic criterion.     

INDUCIBLE POSTREPLICATION REPAIR IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MINIMAL MEDIUM RECOVERY IN UV-IRRADIATED Escherichia coliK–12

Abstract— Ultraviolet (UV)-irradiated Escherichia coli K–12 uvrA cells showed higher survival if plated on minimal growth medium rather than on rich growth medium, i.e., they showed minimal medium recovery (MMR). A 2-hour treatment of UV-irradiated cells with rifampicin inhibited the subsequent expression of MMR, and produced a large reduction in survival. We have recently isolated a new mutant ( mmrA1 ) that does not show MMR. The mmrA mutation protected UV-irradiated uvrA cells from the effect of rich growth medium on survival, but not from the effect of rifampicin on survival. DNA daughter-strand gap (DSG) repair in UV-irradiated (4 J/m²) uvrA cells was inhibited to the same degree whether rich growth medium was added immediately after irradiation or after 10 min of postirradiation incubation in minimal growth medium. However, chloramphenicol added immediately after irradiation greatly reduced this repair; there was less reduction if it was added 10 min after UV irradiation. These findings suggest that MMR is an inducible repair phenomenon, and that rich growth medium inhibits this repair process itself rather than its induction.     

Analytical applications of a differential technique in laser-induced fluorimetry: accurate and precise determination of uranium in concentrates and for designing microchemielectronic devices for on-line determination in processing industries

A novel instrumental technique for the direct, fast, accurate, and precise determination of uranium in concentrates and other U-rich materials (as well as to mineralized rocks) is presented. The proposed technique is an absolute methodology, based on the comparison of the fluorescence of the accurately known standard with a sample of similar but unknown concentration in the low operational range of the instrument (on same sample-dilution basis), by the use of H₃PO₄-NH₄H₂PO₄ as a fluorescence-enhancing reagent. The relative standard deviation of the proposed technique was 0.5-0.9% (n=9) at 18.1, 36.2, 61.2, and 99.6% U₃O₈. The proposed technique is suitable for the determination of uranium in samples arising from exploration projects, ores from mining operations, mill process samples, uranium ore concentrates leading to fuel fabrication as well as samples from environmental monitoring containing up to 100% uranium. The results are in good agreement with those obtained by titrimetric, gravimetric, and TBP extraction-H₂O₂ spectrophotometric methods. The precision of the technique is within the acceptable ‘pure geochemistry’ type of analysis (R.S.D. ∼ 1.0%) and is comparable even those obtained with titrimetric and gravimetric assay. The proposed differential technique coupled with flow injection may open up new advancement in instrumentation leading to design and development of microchemielectronic devices for direct on-line determination, more compatible with the tools of computer age as also to help in handling of radioactive solutions in chemical laboratories in uranium processing industries.