Effect of blue light on the photosynthesis and flavonoid accumulation in leaves of Hedyotis corymbosa (L.) Lam.

In plants, blue light with a short wavelength can promote light reaction in photosynthesis and increase dry mass. Photosynthesis plays an important role in supporting carbohydrates for primary and secondary metabolism processes. Flavonoids are phenolic compounds, a class of plant secondary metabolites, that can be obtained from many medicinal herbs. These phenolic compounds are involved in the reactive oxygen species scavenging system, inhibit lipid peroxidation by free-radical, chelate redox-active metals resulting in their antioxidant ability and cardioprotective effects. In this study, H. corymbosa (L.) Lam., one of the common medicinal herbs, was cultured for 4 weeks under conditions of 450 nm blue LED (light-emitting diode) lights at the different light intensity as treatments and fluorescent lamp light as a control to investigate the effects of blue light on photosynthesis and flavonoid accumulation in leaves. The results show that blue light at 450 nm promoted photosynthetic rate by enhancing stomatal opening, electron transport rate in light reaction. Blue light also enhanced photoprotection by decrease the quantum yield of non-photochemical losses, increase the quantum yield of non-photochemical quenching and gained 24% more in dry mass. The accumulation of flavonoid and total phenolic compounds in leaves was followed by a decrease in sucrose. These events proved that blue light enhances photosynthesis and increase carbohydrate and flavonoid accumulation in leaves

Family name distributions: Master equation approach

Although cumulative family name distributions in many countries exhibit power-law forms, there also exist counterexamples. The origin of different family name distributions across countries is discussed analytically in the framework of a population dynamics model. Combined with empirical observations made, it is suggested that those differences in distributions are closely related with the rate of appearance of new family names.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

Comparative Analysis of the Dalat Nuclear Research Reactor with HEU Fuel Using SRAC and MCNP5

Neutronics analysis has been performed for the 500 kW Dalat Nuclear Research Reactor loaded with highly enriched uranium fuel using the SRAC code system. The effective multiplication factors, keff, were analyzed for the core at criticality conditions and in two cases corresponding to the complete withdrawal and the full insertion of control rods. MCNP5 calculations were also conducted and compared to that obtained with the SRAC code. The results show that the difference of the keff values between the codes is within 55 pcm. Compared to the criticality conditions established in the experiments, the maximum differences of the keff values obtained from the SRAC and MCNP5 calculations are 119 pcm and 64 pcm, respectively. The radial and axial power peaking factors are 1.334 and 1.710, respectively, in the case of no control rod insertion. At the criticality condition these values become 1.445 and 1.832 when the control rods are partially inserted. Compared to MCNP5 calculations, the deviation of the relative power densities is less than 4% at the fuel bundles in the middle of the core, while the maximum deviation is about 7% appearing at some peripheral bundles. This agreement indicates the verification of the analysis models

Health-Related Quality of Life Profiles among Patients with Different Road Traffic Injuries in an Urban Setting of Vietnam

Road traffic injuries (RTIs) cause a substantial disease burden in Vietnam. Evaluating health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among patients having a diversity of RTIs informs an integral part of treatment effectiveness. This study aims to examine HRQOL of patients suffering different RTIs in Vietnam’s urban areas. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 408 patients from October to December 2018 in six hospitals in Thai Binh. The EuroQol-5 dimensions-5 levels (EQ-5D-5L) and visual analog scale (VAS) were used to assess the HRQOL of patients. Multivariable Tobit regression was applied to measure the difference of HRQOL among different kinds of injuries. The mean EQ-5D-5L and VAS score was 0.40–0.66, respectively. Mean EQ-5D-5L index was lowest in patients with oral and facial injuries (0.22) and fracture injuries (0.23), while patients having hand injuries had the highest EQ-5D-5L index (0.54). EQ-5D-5L index had a negative association with oral, facial, and fracture injuries. Meanwhile, patients with brain, fracture, and multiple injuries tended to have lower VAS score. Poor HRQOL among patients injured in road traffic were observed. Pain management, early rehabilitation, and mental health counseling services should be considered during treatment time, especially among those having the brain, oral and facial trauma, fracture, and multiple injuries

Solid-state crystallization, oxygen-vacancy rich mesopores and stable triad-silanol nests in ZSM-5 catalyst induced by electron-beam irradiation and calcination

Mesopores and silanol nests are known two technological keys that essentially control the catalytic performance of ZSM-5 zeolite. However, designing and controlling them without using chemicals so that the produced ZSM-5 can have strongly enhanced catalytic properties and more importantly can be applied at industrial scale have still been a big challenge up to now. The present study employed the 10 MeV electron beam (EB) generated from an industrial linear accelerator to introduce both the O-vacancy rich mesopores and stable triad-silanol nests in ZSM-5. The structural modification of irradiated ZSM-5 samples was explored by using SEM and FTIR combined with positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) including positron annihilation lifetime (PAL), Doppler broadening (DB) of electron–positron annihilation energy and electron momentum distribution (EMD). Obtained results indicated that EB irradiation could recover the defective-crystal structure as well as intensively modify the structures of ZSM-5. In particular, the mechanism for the solid-state crystallization and the formation of the O-vacancy rich mesopores (maximum size of ∼4.5 nm) in ZSM-5 under the combined EB irradiation (10−110 kGy) and calcination (600 °C) was, for the first time, proposed. The mechanism for the formation of stable triad-silanol nests in the channels of irradiated and calcined ZSM-5 zeolites was also explored. The present study, therefore, opens a new research path of applying both EB irradiation and calcination to produce ZSM-5 with novel features for industrial catalytic application at large-production scale