On certain surfaces in the Euclidean space E3{\mathbb{E}}^3

In the present paper we classify all surfaces in \E^3 with a canonical principal direction. Examples of these type of surfaces are constructed. We prove that the only minimal surface with a canonical principal direction in the Euclidean space ${\mathbb{E}}^3$ is the catenoid.Comment: 13 Latex page

A Note on Doubly Warped Product Contact CR-Submanifolds in trans-Sasakian Manifolds

Warped product CR-submanifolds in Kaehlerian manifolds were intensively studied only since 2001 after the impulse given by B.Y. Chen. Immediately after, another line of research, similar to that concerning Sasakian geometry as the odd dimensional version of Kaehlerian geometry, was developed, namely warped product contact CR-submanifolds in Sasakian manifolds. In this note we proved that there exists no proper doubly warped product contact CR-submanifolds in trans-Sasakian manifolds.Comment: 5 Latex page

What is the best method to calculate the solar wind propagation delay?

We present a statistical study of propagation times of solar wind discontinuities between Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft orbiting the L1 libration point and the Cluster quartet of spacecraft near the Earth's magnetopause. The propagation times for almost 200 events are compared with the predicted times from four different models. The simplest model assumes a constant convective motion of solar wind disturbances along the Sun-Earth line, whereas more sophisticated models take the orientation of the discontinuity as well as the real positions of the solar wind monitor and target into account. The results show that taking orientation and real position of the solar wind monitor and target into account gives a more precise time delay estimation in most cases. In particular, we show that recent modifications to the minimum variance technique can improve the estimation of propagation times of solar wind discontinuities

Effects of Sequence Disorder on DNA Looping and Cyclization

Effects of sequence disorder on looping and cyclization of the double-stranded DNA are studied theoretically. Both random intrinsic curvature and inhomogeneous bending rigidity are found to result in a remarkably wide distribution of cyclization probabilities. For short DNA segments, the range of the distribution reaches several orders of magnitude for even completely random sequences. The ensemble averaged values of the cyclization probability are also calculated, and the connection to the recent experiments is discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, LaTeX; accepted to Physical Review E; v2: a substantially revised version; v3: references added, conclusions expanded, minor editorial corrections to the text; v4: a substantially revised and expanded version (total number of pages doubled); v5: new Figure 4, captions expanded, minor editorial improvements to the tex

Polylactic acid (PLA)/Silver-NP/VitaminE bionanocomposite electrospun nanofibers with antibacterial and antioxidant activity

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The antibacterial property of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) and the antioxidant activity of Vitamin E have been combined by incorporation of these two active components within polylactic acid (PLA) nanofibers via electrospinning (PLA/Ag-NP/VitaminE nanofibers). The morphological and structural characterizations of PLA/Ag-NP/VitaminE nanofibers were performed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The average fiber diameter was 140 ± 60 nm, and the size of the Ag-NP was 2.7 ± 1.5 nm. PLA/Ag-NP/VitaminE nanofibers inhibited growth of Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella typhymurium up to 100 %. The amount of released Ag ions from the nanofibers immersed in aqueous solution was determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry, and it has been observed that the release of Ag ions was kept approximately constant after 10 days of immersion. The antioxidant activity of PLA/Ag-NP/VitaminE nanofibers was evaluated according to DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) method and determined as 94 %. The results of the tests on fresh apple and apple juice indicated that the PLA/Ag/VitaminE nanofiber membrane actively reduced the polyphenol oxidase activity. The multifunctional electrospun PLA nanofibers incorporating Ag-NP and Vitamin E may be quite applicable in food packaging due to the extremely large surface area of nanofibers along with antibacterial and antioxidant activities. These materials could find application in food industry as a potential preservative packaging for fruits and juices. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht