Compositional characteristics of the essential oil of Pimpinella anisum and Foeniculum vulgare grown in Serbia

The essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation from the mature fruits of Pimpinella anisum and Foeniculum vulgare were analyzed by GC-MS. The oil of aniseed was characterized by higher amounts of trans-anethole (96.80%) than fennel essential oil (83.43%). The isomer of trans-anethole, methyl chavicol (estragol) was also present in both plants, with 1.36% in fennel and 0.19% in aniseed. Apart from these two phenylpropanoids, nine sesquiterpenes and one monoterpene were present in essential oil of Pimpinella anisum, which constituted the other 3.01% of essential oil, but only γ-himachalene was present with more than 1%. In the case of fennel, eight monoterpenes constituted the other 15.21% of essential oil, and limonene and fenchone were present with contributions of 9.34 and 4.58%, respectively. © 2015 Institute of Botany and Botanical Garden Jevremovac, Belgrade

Modeling of Neuronal Growth In Vitro: Comparison of Simulation Tools NETMORPH and CX3D

We simulate the growth of neuronal networks using the two recently published tools, NETMORPH and CX3D. The goals of the work are (1) to examine and compare the simulation tools, (2) to construct a model of growth of neocortical cultures, and (3) to characterize the changes in network connectivity during growth, using standard graph theoretic methods. Parameters for the neocortical culture are chosen after consulting both the experimental and the computational work presented in the literature. The first (three) weeks in culture are known to be a time of development of extensive dendritic and axonal arbors and establishment of synaptic connections between the neurons. We simulate the growth of networks from day 1 to day 21. It is shown that for the properly selected parameters, the simulators can reproduce the experimentally obtained connectivity. The selected graph theoretic methods can capture the structural changes during growth.Peer reviewe

Compositional characteristics of the essential oil of Pimpinella anisum and Foeniculum vulgare grown in Serbia

The essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation from the mature fruits of Pimpinella anisum and Foeniculum vulgare were analyzed by GC-MS. The oil of aniseed was characterized by higher amounts of trans-anethole (96.80%) than fennel essential oil (83.43%). The isomer of trans-anethole, methyl chavicol (estragol) was also present in both plants, with 1.36% in fennel and 0.19% in aniseed. Apart from these two phenylpropanoids, nine sesquiterpenes and one monoterpene were present in essential oil of Pimpinella anisum, which constituted the other 3.01% of essential oil, but only γ-himachalene was present with more than 1%. In the case of fennel, eight monoterpenes constituted the other 15.21% of essential oil, and limonene and fenchone were present with contributions of 9.34 and 4.58%, respectively. © 2015 Institute of Botany and Botanical Garden Jevremovac, Belgrade

Blueberries infected with the fungal pathogen Colletotrichum fioriniae release odors that repel Drosophila suzukii

Spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii, is a serious pest of thin-skinned fruits. Alternative methods to control this pest are needed to reduce insecticide use, including new repellents. Previous research demonstrated that D. suzukii adults use odor cues to avoid blueberries infected with the fungal pathogen Colletotrichum fioriniae, which causes the disease anthracnose. To identify novel D. suzukii repellents, we investigated the volatile emission from experimentallyinfected fruit, which were inoculated with C. fioriniae isolates in the laboratory, and from field-collected fruit, which were naturally infected and harvested from a field. We then tested the pathogen-induced volatiles on D. suzukii adult behavior.hanks to Arthur Rudolph for his help operating the GC–MS during pandemic work restrictions, Chelsea Abegg for providing field-collected blueberry fruit infected with anthracnose, to Mustafa Wasti, Robert Holdcraft, and Vera Kyryczenko-Roth for technical assistance. Authors CCR and JJB were supported by USDA ARS CRIS 6036-224300-001-000D and CR-S and AQ were supported by USDA SCRI 2020-51181-32140, The Sridhar Polavarapu Memorial Endowment for Vaccinium Research, and USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (grant no. LNE22-455R).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mode-matching in multiresonant plasmonic nanoantennas for enhanced second harmonic generation

Boosting nonlinear frequency conversion in extremely confined volumes remains a key challenge in nano-optics, nanomedicine, photocatalysis, and background-free biosensing. To this aim, field enhancements in plasmonic nanostructures are often exploited to effectively compensate for the lack of phase-matching at the nanoscale. Second harmonic generation (SHG) is, however, strongly quenched by the high degree of symmetry in plasmonic materials at the atomic scale and in nanoantenna designs. Here, we devise a plasmonic nanoantenna lacking axial symmetry, which exhibits spatial and frequency mode overlap at both the excitation and the SHG wavelengths. The effective combination of these features in a single device allows obtaining unprecedented SHG conversion efficiency. Our results shed new light on the optimization of SHG at the nanoscale, paving the way to new classes of nanoscale coherent light sources and molecular sensing devices based on nonlinear plasmonic platforms.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

Approaching the socialist factory and its workforce: considerations from fieldwork in (former) Yugoslavia

The socialist factory, as the ‘incubator’ of the new socialist (wo)man, is a productive entry point for the study of socialist modernization and its contradictions. By outlining some theoretical and methodological insights gathered through field-research in factories in former Yugoslavia, we seek to connect the state of labour history in the Balkans to recent breakthroughs made by labour historians of other socialist countries. The first part of this article sketches some of the specificities of the Yugoslav self-managed factory and its heterogeneous workforce. It presents the ambiguous relationship between workers and the factory and demonstrates the variety of life trajectories for workers in Yugoslav state-socialism (from model communists to alienated workers). The second part engages with the available sources for conducting research inside and outside the factory advocating an approach which combines factory and local archives, print media and oral history

Disposable sensors in diagnostics, food and environmental monitoring

Disposable sensors are low‐cost and easy‐to‐use sensing devices intended for short‐term or rapid single‐point measurements. The growing demand for fast, accessible, and reliable information in a vastly connected world makes disposable sensors increasingly important. The areas of application for such devices are numerous, ranging from pharmaceutical, agricultural, environmental, forensic, and food sciences to wearables and clinical diagnostics, especially in resource‐limited settings. The capabilities of disposable sensors can extend beyond measuring traditional physical quantities (for example, temperature or pressure); they can provide critical chemical and biological information (chemo‐ and biosensors) that can be digitized and made available to users and centralized/decentralized facilities for data storage, remotely. These features could pave the way for new classes of low‐cost systems for health, food, and environmental monitoring that can democratize sensing across the globe. Here, a brief insight into the materials and basics of sensors (methods of transduction, molecular recognition, and amplification) is provided followed by a comprehensive and critical overview of the disposable sensors currently used for medical diagnostics, food, and environmental analysis. Finally, views on how the field of disposable sensing devices will continue its evolution are discussed, including the future trends, challenges, and opportunities