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...     

Microstructure dependent dynamic fracture analyses of trabecular bone based on nascent bone atomistic simulations

Trabecular bone fracture is closely related to the trabecular architecture, microdamage accumulation, and bone tissue properties. Primary constituents of trabecular tissue are hydroxyapatite (HA) mineralized type-I collagen fibers. In this research, dynamic fracture in two dimensional (2-D) micrographs of ovine (sheep) trabecular bone is modeled using the mesoscale cohesive finite element method (CFEM). The bone tissue fracture properties are obtained based on the atomistic strength analyses of a type-I collagen + HA interfacial arrangement using molecular dynamics (MD). Analyses show that the presented framework is capable of analyzing the architecture dependent fracture in 2-D micrographs of trabecular bone.     

Estimating the largest singular values of large sparse matrices via modified moments

We describe a procedure for determining a few of the largest singular values of a large sparse matrix. The method by Golub and Kent which uses the method of modified moments for estimating the eigenvalues of operators used in iterative methods for the solution of linear systems of equations is appropriately modified in order to generate a sequence of bidiagonal matrices whose singular values approximate those of the original sparse matrix. A simple Lanczos recursion is proposed for determining the corresponding left and right singular vectors. The potential asynchronous computation of the bidiagonal matrices using modified moments with the iterations of an adapted Chebyshev semi-iterative (CSI) method is an attractive feature for parallel computers. Comparisons in efficiency and accuracy with an appropriate Lanczos algorithm (with selective re-orthogonalization) are presented on large sparse (rectangular) matrices arising from applications such as information retrieval and seismic reflection tomography. This procedure is essentially motivated by the theory of moments and Gauss quadrature.This author's work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grants NSF CCR-8717492 and CCR-910000N (NCSA), the U.S. Department of Energy under grant DOE DE-FG02-85ER25001, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under grant AFOSR-90-0044 while at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Center for Supercomputing Research and Development.This author's work was supported by the U.S. Army Research Office under grant DAAL03-90-G-0105, and the National Science Foundation under grant NSF DCR-8412314.     

Europium-151 Mössbauer spectroscopic and XANES investigation of europium-exchanged Y-zeolite

Eu³⁺ in ca. 10 wt% europium-exchanged Y-zeolite is partially reduced by treatment in hydrogen at 600°C to Eu²⁺. The reduction of Eu³⁺ is more readily achieved in Y-zeolite than in europium(III) oxide. The discrepancy in the extent of reduction as revealed by¹⁵¹Eu Mössbauer spectroscopy and near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (XANES) is associated with any difference in the recoil free fractions of Eu²⁺ and Eu³⁺ which may exist at 298 K and the enhanced sensitivity of the XANES to changes in the europium oxidation state.     

Interpretive approach to collective effects of electrons in multicenter problems

Interpretive theoretical tools prove valuable in guiding the analysis of experiments in the realm of atomic clusters. Here, we review basic elements of an analytic approach that makes it possible to find and visualize the effective electrostatic potential and Coulomb correlations in multicenter problems. To illustrate the utility of these concepts we apply them to exploring molecular-doped metallic clusters. This study is aiming at a systematic, visual assessment of changes induced in screening, Coulomb correlation and effective potential by varying the charge of the electronegative impurity and its position in the cluster cage.     

Why chaos is rarely observed in natural populations

An attempt has been made to understand why chaotic dynamics have received poor evidential support from field studies. Our study opens up the possibility that the cause of failure might not be poor quality of data, as pointed out by earlier authors, but an ecological reality. We have designed two model food chains to examine whether there is a biological basis for the crisis. This investigation is effected with the help of a new method which we introduce at an appropriate place in the text. The fact that chaos exists in a narrow range of parametric values in both the model systems suggests that the crisis indeed has a biological origin.     

57Fe Mössbauer Spectroscopy Study of LaFe1−x Co x O3 (x=0 and 0.5) Formed by Mechanical Milling

Hyperfine Interactions - Perovskite-related phases of the type LaFe1?x Co x O3 (x=0 and 0.5) have been synthesised by milling techniques. The materials are of smaller particle size and more...