Growth of micro-ikebana on a floating substrate: a method to monitor local supersaturation levels

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 6695-6699 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Fischer ◽  
O. Karthaus

The growth of biomimetic SrCO3–SiO2 micro-ikebana was conducted by an organic additive-free process to monitor the degree of local supersaturation at the surface of a floating substrate. The obtained crystallization pattern mirrors the level of local concentration which was the basis to derive a mathematical equation for the prediction of local nucleation rates.

Author(s):  
C.L. Briant

Grain boundary segregation is the process by which solute elements in a material diffuse to the grain boundaries, become trapped there, and increase their local concentration at the boundary over that in the bulk. As a result of this process this local concentration of the segregant at the grain boundary can be many orders of magnitude greater than the bulk concentration of the segregant. The importance of this problem lies in the fact that grain boundary segregation can affect many material properties such as fracture, corrosion, and grain growth.One of the best ways to study grain boundary segregation is with Auger electron spectroscopy. This spectroscopy is an extremely surface sensitive technique. When it is used to study grain boundary segregation the sample must first be fractured intergranularly in the high vacuum spectrometer. This fracture surface is then the one that is analyzed. The development of scanning Auger spectrometers have allowed researchers to first image the fracture surface that is created and then to perform analyses on individual grain boundaries.


Author(s):  
M. Haider ◽  
B. Bohrmann

The technique of Z-contrast in STEM offers the possibility to determine the local concentration of macromolecules like lipids, proteins or DNA. Contrast formation depends on the atomic composition of the particular structure. In the case of DNA, its phosphorous content discriminates it from other biological macromolecules. In our studies, sections of E. coli, the dinoflagellate Amphidinium carterae and Euglena spec. cells were used which were obtained by cryofixation followed by freeze-substitution into acetone with 3% glutaraldehyde. The samples were then embedded either in Lowicryl HM20 at low temperature or in Epon at high temperature. Sections were coated on both sides with 30Å carbon.The DF- and the inelastic image have been recorded simultaneously with a Cryo-STEM. This Cryo-STEM is equipped with a highly dispersive Electron Energy Loss Spectrometer. With this instrument pure Z-contrast can be achieved either with a Filtered DF-image divided by the inelastic image or, as is used in this paper, by dividing the conventional DF-image by an inelastic image which has been recorded with an inelastic detector whose response is dependent on the total energy loss of the inelastically scattered electrons.


Author(s):  
Peter K. Hepler ◽  
Dale A. Callaham

Calcium ions (Ca) participate in many signal transduction processes, and for that reason it is important to determine where these ions are located within the living cell, and when and to what extent they change their local concentration. Of the different Ca-specific indicators, the fluorescent dyes, developed by Grynkiewicz et al. (1), have proved most efficacious, however, their use on plants has met with several problems (2). First, the dyes as acetoxy-methyl esters are often cleaved by extracellular esterases in the plant cell wall, and thus they do not enter the cell. Second, if the dye crosses the plasma membrane it may continue into non-cytoplasmic membrane compartments. Third, even if cleaved by esterases in the cytoplasm, or introduced as the free acid into the cytoplasmic compartment, the dyes often become quickly sequestered into vacuoles and organelles, or extruded from the cell. Finally, the free acid form of the dye readily complexes with proteins reducing its ability to detect free calcium. All these problems lead to an erroneous measurement of calcium (2).


2017 ◽  
Vol 87 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 191-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nidhal Soualeh ◽  
Aliçia Stiévenard ◽  
Elie Baudelaire ◽  
Rachid Soulimani ◽  
Jaouad Bouayed

Abstract. In this study, cytoprotective and antioxidant activities of Rosa canina (RC) and Salix alba (SA), medicinal plants, were studied on mouse primary splenocytes by comparing Controlled Differential Sieving process (CDSp), which is a novel green solvent-free process, versus a conventional technique, employing hydroethanolic extraction (HEE). Thus, preventive antioxidant activity of three plant powders of homogeneous particle sizes, 50–100 µm, 100–180 µm and 180–315 µm, dissolved directly in the cellular buffer, were compared to those of hydroethanolic (HE) extract, at 2 concentrations (250 and 500 µg/mL) in H2O2-treated spleen cells. Overall, compared to HE extract, the superfine powders, i. e., fractions < 180 µm, at the lowest concentration, resulted in greater reactive oxygen species (ROS) elimination, increased glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity and lower malondialdehyde (MDA) production. Better antioxidant and preventive effects in pre-treated cells were found with the superfine powders for SA (i. e., 50–100 µm and 100–180 µm, both p < 0.001), and with the intermediate powder for RC (i. e., 100–180 µm, p < 0.05) versus HE extract. The activity levels of catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) in pretreated splenocytes exposed to H2O2, albeit reduced, were near to those in unexposed cells, suggesting that pretreatment with the fine powders has relatively restored the normal levels of antioxidant-related enzymes. These findings supported that CDSp improved the biological activities of plants, avoiding the use of organic solvents and thus it could be a good alternative to conventional extraction techniques.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dung Do

<p>Chiral molecules with their defined 3-D structures are of paramount importance for the study of chemical biology and drug discovery. Having rich structural diversity and unique stereoisomerism, chiral molecules offer a large chemical space that can be explored for the design of new therapeutic agents.<sup>1</sup> Practically, chiral architectures are usually prepared from organometallic and organocatalytic processes where a transition metal or an organocatalyst is tailor-made for desired reactions. As a result, developing a method that enables rapid assembly of chiral complex molecules under metal- and organocatalyst-free condition represents a daunting challenge. Here we developed a straightforward route to create a chiral 3-D structure from 2-D structures and an amino acid without any chiral catalyst. The center of this research is the design of a <a>special chiral spiroimidazolidinone cyclohexadienone intermediate</a>, a merger of a chiral reactive substrate with multiple nucleophillic/electrophillic sites and a transient organocatalyst. <a>This unique substrate-catalyst (“subcatalyst”) dual role of the intermediate enhances </a><a>the coordinational proximity of the chiral substrate and catalyst</a> in the key Aza-Michael/Michael cascade resulting in a substantial steric discrimination and an excellent overall diastereoselectivity. Whereas the “subcatalyst” (hidden catalyst) is not present in the reaction’s initial components, which renders a chiral catalyst-free process, it is strategically produced to promote sequential self-catalyzed reactions. The success of this methodology will pave the way for many efficient preparations of chiral complex molecules and aid for the quest to create next generation of therapeutic agents.</p>


Author(s):  
Siti Noor Baya Khalib ◽  
◽  
Irnis Azura Zakarya ◽  
Tengku Nuraiti Tengku Izhar ◽  
◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
pp. 514-516
Author(s):  
Martin Bruhns

The massecuite circulates in a loop within the evaporating crystallizing vessel. The massecuite flows upwards through the heating tubes. In the room above the calandria the massecuite flow changes its direction to radial inwards and then to vertical downwards. An impeller in the central tube forces the circulation. Below the calandria the main direction of flow is radially outwards until threads of the massecuite stream enter the heating tubes in upwards direction. Within the tubes heat is transferred to the massecuite. At low temperature differences between heating steam and massecuite and higher levels of the massecuite in the crystallizer vapor bubbles are not found in the tubes. Vapor bubbles can be formed at a massecuite level in the crystallizer where the temperature of the massecuite is higher than the local boiling temperature of water, which depends on the local pressure (including the static pressure of the massecuite at this point) and the boiling point elevation of the mother liquor. The surface tension of the liquid is a resistance against the bubble formation, which has to be overcome by the local superheating i.e. the part of the enthalpy of the massecuite exceeding the local boiling temperature. The formation and the flow of the bubbles change the density of the massecuite/bubbles mixture and has an influence on the massecuite flow. The formation of a vapour bubble is connected with a local drop of the massecuite temperature which changes the local supersaturation. Today the heat transfer into the magma is quite well known but the process of bubble formation is quite unknown. Some basic considerations about the formation of bubbles and its influence on local supersaturation based on calculation of heat and mass balances and models of bubble formation are be given and discussed. Experiments for basic investigations are proposed.


1981 ◽  
Vol 46 (7) ◽  
pp. 1577-1587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karel Jeřábek

Catalytic activity of ion exchangers prepared by partial sulphonation of styrene-divinylbenzene copolymers in reesterifications of ethyl acetate by methanol and propanol, hydrolysis of ethyl acetate and in synthesis of bisphenol A has been compared with data on polymer structure of these catalysts and with distribution of the crosslinking agent, divinylbenzene, calculated from literature data on kinetics of copolymerisation of styrene with divinylbenzene. It was found that the polymer structure of ion exchangers influences catalytic activity predominantly by changing the local concentration of acid active sites. The results obtained indicated that the effect of transport phenomena on the rate of catalytic reactions does not depend on the degree of swelling of the ion exchangers in reaction medium but it is mainly dependent on the relative affinity of reaction components to the acid groups or to the polymer skeleton.


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