Solid-state diffusion in amorphous zirconolite

his research utilised Queen Mary's MidPlus computational facilities, supported by QMUL Research-IT and funded by EPSRC grant EP/K000128/1. We are grateful to E. Maddrell for discussions and to CSC for support

Phase transitions and magnetic domain coexistence in Nd0.5Sr0.5MnO3 thin films

We present a study of the physical properties of perovskite oxide Nd0.5Sr0.5MnO3 (NSMO) thin films grown on (110)-oriented SrTiO3 substrates. In bulk form, NSMO displays coupled magnetic and electronic transitions from paramagnetic/insulator to ferromagnetic (FM)/metal and then to antiferromagnetic (AFM)/charge-ordered insulator with decreasing temperature. In thin films, the AFM ordering only occurs when the films exist in an anisotropic strain state such as those obtained on (110)-oriented cubic substrates. In this work, resonant X-ray reflectivity, soft X-ray photoemission electron microscopy (X-PEEM), and magnetometry measurements showed that the NSMO film displays both vertical and lateral magnetic phase separation. Specifically, the film consists of three layers with different density and magnetic properties. The FM and AFM properties of the main NSMO layer were probed as a function of temperature using soft X-ray magnetic spectroscopy, and the coexistence of lateral FM and AFM domains was demonstrated at 110 K using X-PEEM

Seleksi Bakteri Penambat Nitrogen Dan Penghasil Hormon Iaa (Indole Acetic Acid) Dari Rizosfer Tanah Perkebunan Kedelai (Glycine Max L.)

Rizosphere bacteria can be used to fix nitrogen and produce IAA (Indol Acetic Acid) as biofertilizer to support plant growth. The ability of rhizosphere bacteria can be improved using biotechnology. The aim of this study is to select the most potential nitrogen fixing and IAA producing bacteria. Nitrogen fixing and IAA producing bacteria were isolated using JNFB and Luria Bertani + L-tryptofan medium respectively. The ability of nitrogen fixing bacteria were tested by ARA method, while the ability of IAA producing bacteria were investigated by spectrophotometer technique of 535 nm. The highest IAA concentration was produced by isolate I3 which was 33.3 ppm and the highest concentration of nitrogen was yielded by isolate N3 which was 29.93 ppm. Both N3 isolate and I3 isolate potentially as biofertilizer known as PGPR (Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria)

Probing Short Range Nucleon Correlations in High Energy Hard Quasielastic pd Reactions

We show that the strong dependence of the amplitude for $NN$ hard scattering on the collision energy can be used to magnify the effects of short range nucleon correlations in quasielastic $pd$ scattering. Under specific kinematical conditions the effect of initial and final state interactions can be accounted for by rescaling the cross section calculated within the plane wave impulse approximation. The feasibility to investigate the role of relativistic effects in the deuteron wave function is demonstrated by comparing the predictions of different formalisms. Binding effects due to short range correlations in deuteron are discussed as well.Comment: 18 pages (LaTex) + 10 postscript figs (available on request

Genotoxic Effect of Atrazine, Arsenic, Cadmium and Nitrate, Individually and in Mixtures at Maximum Contaminant Levels on mammalian Breast Cell Lines

There is strong evidence that hormonally active agents (HAAs) such as Atrazine (ATZ), Cadmium (Cd), Arsenic (As) and Nitrate (NO3) have both estrogenic activity and carcinogenic potential. Atrazine has clastogenic effects and may also act as tumor promoter as it induces the aromatase enzyme. Arsenic and Cadmium have been implicated in the etiology of skin, lung, prostate and liver cancers. Nitrate in drinking water has been found to increase the risk of bladder cancer.This study examined the genotoxicity of the aforementioned HAAs alone and in mixtures using mammalian breast cell lines, MCF-7 and MCF-10A, which are estrogen receptorpositive (ER+) and estrogen receptor-negative (ER-), respectively. To study the clastogenic potential by whole cell and flow karyotype damage, cells were exposed to environmentally relevant concentrations of ATZ, Cd, As and NO3 for 4 and 7 days.Results indicated that all treatments induced whole cell clastogenicity in MCF-7 cells; except Cd and NO3 after 4 and 7 days as well as the 10% quaternary As mixture after 1 week. In MCF-10A cells, all treatments except the 10% mixture induced whole cell clastogenicity after 4 days, where flow karyotype damage was detected in all treatments except for the 10% mixture after 1 week. Estrogen caused whole cell damage but not flow karyotype damage in MCF-7. On the other hand, estrogen caused flow karyotype damage and not whole cell damage in MCF-10A cells, suggesting that estrogen receptor modulated the genotoxicity of estrogen. Cd caused flow karyotype damage but not whole cell damage in MCF-7 indicating that Cd’s gentoxicity is not related to its estrogenic activity.Keywords: HAAs, clastogenicity, flow-karyotype, genotoxicity, MCF-7, MCF-10

Modelling Students’ Thematically Associated Knowledge : Networked Knowledge from Affinity Statistics

Peer reviewe

Cell size, genome size, and maximum growth rate are near-independent dimensions of ecological variation across bacteria and archaea.

Among bacteria and archaea, maximum relative growth rate, cell diameter, and genome size are widely regarded as important influences on ecological strategy. Via the most extensive data compilation so far for these traits across all clades and habitats, we ask whether they are correlated and if so how. Overall, we found little correlation among them, indicating they should be considered as independent dimensions of ecological variation. Nor was correlation evident within particular habitat types. A weak nonlinearity (6% of variance) was found whereby high maximum growth rates (temperature-adjusted) tended to occur in the midrange of cell diameters. Species identified in the literature as oligotrophs or copiotrophs were clearly separated on the dimension of maximum growth rate, but not on the dimensions of genome size or cell diameter

Using Sat solvers for synchronization issues in partial deterministic automata

We approach the task of computing a carefully synchronizing word of minimum length for a given partial deterministic automaton, encoding the problem as an instance of SAT and invoking a SAT solver. Our experimental results demonstrate that this approach gives satisfactory results for automata with up to 100 states even if very modest computational resources are used.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure