Liquid nitrogen blackbody for spectral emittance studies

Cryogenic black body used in spectral emittance of rock

The little-known Fissidens axilliflorus Thwaites & Mitt. (Fissidentaceae: Bryophyta) - new to the moss flora of India

Fissidens axilliflorus, so far known from Sri Lanka and Laos, has been discovered in the Western Ghats in India. A description with line drawings, a photo plate and a key to distinguish F. axilliflorus from the similar F. crenulatus are provided

Rediscovery of a long-lost moss Fissidens serratus var. serratus in the Western Ghats of India

Fissidens serratus, a long-lost liverwort, is rediscovered in the Indira Gandhi National Park in Anamalais in the Western Ghats in Peninsular India after nearly two centuries. Till now, the collection made by Perrottet between 1834 and 1839 in the Nilgiri Hills has been the only Indian representative of this species

Ceratolejeunea belangeriana (Lejeuneaceae), new to India from the Western Ghats

Abstract Ceratolejeunea belangeriana is added here to the liverwort flora of India from the Indira Gandhi National Park, Anamalais in the Western Ghats. A brief description together with illustrations are provided

Cheilolejeunea obtusifolia (Lejeuneaceae) new to the Indian mainland from the Western Ghats

Cheilolejeunea obtusifolia, so far known only from Andaman Islands in India, is added here to the flora of the Indian mainland from the Anamalais in the Western Ghats. A brief description with an illustration and a photoplate is provided here since there is none based on any Indian material

Islands of conformational stability for Filopodia

Filopodia are long, thin protrusions formed when bundles of fibers grow outwardly from a cell surface while remaining closed in a membrane tube. We study the subtle issue of the mechanical stability of such filopodia and how this depends on the deformation of the membrane that arises when the fiber bundle adopts a helical configuration. We calculate the ground state conformation of such filopodia, taking into account the steric interaction between the membrane and the enclosed semiflexible fiber bundle. For typical filopodia we find that a minimum number of fibers is required for filopodium stability. Our calculation elucidates how experimentally observed filopodia can obviate the classical Euler buckling condition and remain stable up to several tens of . We briefly discuss how experimental observation of the results obtained in this work for the helical-like deformations of enclosing membrane tubes in filopodia could possibly be observed in the acrosomal reactions of the sea cucumber Thyone, and the horseshoe crab Limulus. Any realistic future theories for filopodium stability are likely to rely on an accurate treatment of such steric effects, as analysed in this work

Additions to the moss flora of peninsular India from the Western Ghats

Two Asian mosses Entodontopsis setschwanica (Broth.) W. R. Buck et R. R. Ireland and Mitthyridium cardotii (M. Fleisch.) H. Rob., so far known from the Eastern Himalaya and Northeast India, respectively for India, are added here to the moss flora of Peninsular India from the Western Ghats. Brief descriptions with illustrations are provided

Genus Wijkia (Sematophyllaceae, Bryophyta) in the western ghats of India

The Asian moss Wijkia baculifera (Dixon) H. A. Crum so far known from Northeast India and Myanmar, is added here to the moss flora of Peninsular India from the Western Ghats. A brief description with illustrations and photographic plate is provided

Foundation Selection and Construction Performance - Clark Bridge Replacement

The paper describes the foundation investigation for the Clark Bridge Replacement, which spans the Mississippi River at Alton, Illinois. The subsurface investigation and the design considerations leading to the foundation piling selection are detailed. The construction performances of the selected H-piles and composite piles are described, including the use of pre-construction wave equation analyses to predict the performance of proposed pile hammers, and the use of the dynamic pile driving analyzer during construction to limit driving stresses and prevent pile damage

Semiflexible polymers: Dependence on ensemble and boundary orientations

We show that the mechanical properties of a worm-like-chain (WLC) polymer, of contour length $L$ and persistence length \l such that t=L/\l\sim{\cal O}(1), depend both on the ensemble and the constraint on end-orientations. In the Helmholtz ensemble, multiple minima in free energy near $t=4$ persists for all kinds of orientational boundary conditions. The qualitative features of projected probability distribution of end to end vector depend crucially on the embedding dimensions. A mapping of the WLC model, to a quantum particle moving on the surface of an unit sphere, is used to obtain the statistical and mechanical properties of the polymer under various boundary conditions and ensembles. The results show excellent agreement with Monte-Carlo simulations.Comment: 15 pages, 15 figures; version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E; one new figure and discussions adde