Commercialization of oil-seed biotechnology economic implications for secondary agricultural areas

Progress in commercialization of biotechnology in production of oil palm, rapeseed, and soybeans has been remarkable, and the supply of vegetable oils is likely to increase. Some of the new cultivars of the oilbearing crops offer an opportunity to expand agricultural production in marginal agricultural areas, but many will cause land diversion to other purposes. The long-term changes in the location of production will depend on the biological nature of the crop (annual vs perennial) and the future changes in demand. Aging populations in developed countries will pay more attention to nutritional qualities of vegetable oils. An increase industrial use of vegetable oil may require breeding for oil characteristics that are useful to industry.     

Percolation conductivity in Nafion membranes

This article deals with the method of determination of a threshold volume fraction of the conductive phase within perfluorosulfonic acid ionomer Nafion. Experiments have been performed with the commercial Nafion-120 and Nafion-427 membranes equilibrated with concentrated sodium chloride and sodium hydroxide solutions at 353 K. It has been stated that the insulator-to-conductor transition in membranes occurs at the critical volume fraction of the conductive phase (V_c) equal to 0.1. The same V_c has been estimated for a geometrical cluster-network model. Lower than the theoretical V_c for a classical dense-packed-hard-sphere model (V_c = 0.15), the volume fraction for the membranes is caused mainly by channels connecting the ionic clusters. The critical exponent t has been calculated for both membranes and found to be equal to 1.6 for Nafion-120 and 1.5 for Nafion-427. Both these constants correspond to those theoretically predicted for 3D systems. The ratios of sodium ion mobility in the internal membrane solution to its mobility in the equilibrating NaCl or NaOH solutions (u ₊/u₊) are below unity, and they are dependent on the nature and concentration of the electrolyte.     

On the formation of liquid inclusions in some solution-grown crystals: (I) sodium-cadmium formate

The formation of liquid inclusions in sodium-cadmium formate (SCF) single crystals has been studied. Crystals were grown on seeds by slow cooling of unstirred aqueous solution. It was found that liquid inclusions in SCF are a result of convective flow around a crystal. The results are briefly analysed from theoretical considerations.     

Ultrapure materials for alpha particle-sensitive applications

Materials used in applications where alpha particle radiation can produce “soft” or transitory errors are commonly specified and characterized in terms of uranium and thorium content, often by glow discharge mass spectrographic analysis. Analytical results indicate that low levels of uranium and thorium do not adequately reflect the alpha flux potential of some materials, especially in cases where radioactive isotopes are not in equilibrium or where a dominant decay parent other than uranium or thorium is present. An additional characterization technique—highly sensitive, surface alpha particle flux measurement—has been developed. Alpha particle counting, when used in conjunction with trace metal analysis, allows more optimum selection of low-alpha-radiation materials.     

On the height of digital trees and related problems

This paper studies in a probabilistic framework some topics concerning the way words (strings) can overlap, and relationship of this to the height of digital trees associated with this set of words. A word is defined as a random sequence of (possibly infinite) symbols over a finite alphabet. A key notion of analignment matrix {C _ij } _i,j=1 ⁿ is introduced whereC _ij is the length of the longest string that is a prefix of theith and thejth word. It is proved that the height of an associated digital tree is simply related to the alignment matrix through some order statistics. In particular, using this observation and proving some inequalities for order statistics, we establish that the height of adigital trie under anindependent model (i.e., all words are statistically independent) is asymptotically equal to 2 log_α n wheren is the number of words stored in the trie and α is a parameter of the probabilistic model. This result is generalized in three directions, namely we considerb-tries,Markovian model (i.e., dependency among letters in a word), and adependent model (i.e., dependency among words). In particular, when consecutive letters in a word are Markov dependent (Markovian model), then we demonstrate that the height converges in probability to 2 log_θ n where θ is a parameter of the underlying Markov chain. On the other hand, for suffix trees which fall into the dependent model, we show that the height does not exceed 2 log_κ n, where κ is a parameter of the probabilistic model. These results find plenty of applications in the analysis of data structures built over digital words.     

User perspective and security of a new mobile authentication method

This paper describes a new mobile authentication method which is based on an Open ID Connect standard and subscriber identity module card. The proposed solution enables users to access websites, services and applications without the need to remember passwords, responses or support of any equipment. The proposed method is evaluated from the users’ perspective as well as from the security viewpoint. Moreover, we compare it with the two most popular existing authentication schemes i.e. static passwords and SMS OTP (one time password). In order to evaluate user’s view on various authentication methods a questionnaire was prepared and distributed among 40 participants. Obtained results revealed that the new authentication scheme yielded better results than the existing methods. Finally, we also performed a security analysis with respect to all abovementioned authentication solutions to assess whether there are any major risks related to the proposed method.     

Electric Field Assisted Microfluidic Platform for Generation of Tailorable Porous Microbeads as Cell Carriers for Tissue Engineering

Injection of cell‐laden scaffolds in the form of mesoscopic particles directly to the site of treatment is one of the most promising approaches to tissue regeneration. Here, a novel and highly efficient method is presented for preparation of porous microbeads of tailorable dimensions (in the range ≈300–1500 mm) and with a uniform and fully interconnected internal porous texture. The method starts with generation of a monodisperse oil‐in‐water emulsion inside a flow‐focusing microfluidic device. This emulsion is later broken‐up, with the use of electric field, into mesoscopic double droplets, that in turn serve as a template for the porous microbeads. By tuning the amplitude and frequency of the electric pulses, the template droplets and the resulting porous bead scaffolds are precisely produced. Furthermore, a model of pulsed electrodripping is proposed that predicts the size of the template droplets as a function of the applied voltage. To prove the potential of the porous microbeads as cell carries, they are tested with human mesenchymal stem cells and hepatic cells, with their viability and degree of microbead colonization being monitored. Finally, the presented porous microbeads are benchmarked against conventional microparticles with nonhomogenous internal texture, revealing their superior performance.     

X-ray microanalysis of biological material in the frozen-hydrated state by PIXE

Elemental microanalysis of biological material in the frozen-hydrated state using in-vacuum proton induced X-ray emission is described for the first time. For this purpose, a commercially available cryotransfer system was modified and coupled to the experimental chamber of the nuclear microprobe (NMP). The analyzed material was frozen in propane cooled by liquid nitrogen, fractured, carbon coated, and transferred onto the cold stage (100 K) of the nuclear microprobe chamber. Micro-PIXE and simultaneous proton backscattering was performed using a 3 MeV proton beam. Quantitative results were obtained by the standardless method, and tested using 20% gelatin standards. Monitoring of the gas composition inside the system by means of mass spectrometry performed before, during, and after proton bombardment showed good stability of the analyzed material for proton currents not exceeding 150 pA. Average concentrations of light elements (C, N, O, and indirectly H) were also obtained by the proton backscattering technique. No losses of elements measurable by particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) during proton irradiation were found during repetitive, short analyses of the same micro areas of gelatin standards. Measurements of thick sections of selected plant and animal material in the frozen-hydrated state-leaf sections of the plant Senecio anomalochrous Hilliard (Asteraceae) and larvae of Chysolina pardalina Fabricius (Chrysomelidae)-showed very good preservation of morphology and elemental distribution. Limits of detection of the order of a few micro g g(-1) were obtained for most elements.     

Smart Substrate MCMs

This paper presents a cost-based assessment of the effectiveness of Smart Substrate MCM Systems. A Smart Substrate MCM System is one in which the substrate contains active circuitry for carrying out testing functions. The feasibility of using this approach is investigated. The Smart Substrate strategy is compared to an alternative approach based on the assumption that system components are perfect (Known Good Die (KGD) approach). The obtained results identify the domain of applicability of Smart substrate MCMs and point to limitations of the KGD approach.