A rapid staining-assisted wood sampling method for PCR-based detection of pine wood nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus in Pinus massoniana wood tissue

For reasons of unequal distribution of more than one nematode species in wood, and limited availability of wood samples required for the PCR-based method for detecting pinewood nematodes in wood tissue of Pinus massoniana, a rapid staining-assisted wood sampling method aiding PCR-based detection of the pine wood nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (Bx) in small wood samples of P. massoniana was developed in this study. This comprised a series of new techniques: sampling, mass estimations of nematodes using staining techniques, and lowest limit Bx nematode mass determination for PCR detection. The procedure was undertaken on three adjoining 5-mg wood cross-sections, of 0.5 · 0.5 · 0.015 cm dimension, that were cut from a wood sample of 0.5 · 0.5 · 0.5 cm initially, then the larger wood sample was stained by acid fuchsin, from which two 5-mg wood cross-sections (that adjoined the three 5-mg wood cross-sections, mentioned above) were cut. Nematode-staining-spots (NSSs) in each of the two stained sections were counted under a microscope at 100· magnification. If there were eight or more NSSs present, the adjoining three sections were used for PCR assays. The B. xylophilus – specific amplicon of 403 bp (DQ855275) was generated by PCR assay from 100.00% of 5-mg wood cross-sections that contained more than eight Bx NSSs by the PCR assay. The entire sampling procedure took only 10 min indicating that it is suitable for the fast estimation of nematode numbers in the wood of P. massonina as the prelimary sample selections for other more expensive Bx-detection methods such as PCR assay

Effect of Decoherence on the Dynamics of Bose-Einstein Condensates in a Double-well Potential

We study the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential in the mean-field approximation. Decoherence effects are considered by analyzing the couplings of the condensate to environments. Two kinds of coupling are taken into account. With the first kind of coupling dominated, the decoherence can enhance the self-trapping by increasing the damping of the oscillations in the dynamics, while the decoherence from the second kind of condensate-environment coupling leads to spoiling of the quantum tunneling and self-trapping.Comment: for color figures, see PR

Formation of Ti–Zr–Cu–Ni bulk metallic glasses

Formation of bulk metallic glass in quaternary Ti–Zr–Cu–Ni alloys by relatively slow cooling from the melt is reported. Thick strips of metallic glass were obtained by the method of metal mold casting. The glass forming ability of the quaternary alloys exceeds that of binary or ternary alloys containing the same elements due to the complexity of the system. The best glass forming alloys such as Ti34Zr11Cu47Ni8 can be cast to at least 4-mm-thick amorphous strips. The critical cooling rate for glass formation is of the order of 250 K/s or less, at least two orders of magnitude lower than that of the best ternary alloys. The glass transition, crystallization, and melting behavior of the alloys were studied by differential scanning calorimetry. The amorphous alloys exhibit a significant undercooled liquid region between the glass transition and first crystallization event. The glass forming ability of these alloys, as determined by the critical cooling rate, exceeds what is expected based on the reduced glass transition temperature. It is also found that the glass forming ability for alloys of similar reduced glass transition temperature can differ by two orders of magnitude as defined by critical cooling rates. The origins of the difference in glass forming ability of the alloys are discussed. It is found that when large composition redistribution accompanies crystallization, glass formation is enhanced. The excellent glass forming ability of alloys such as Ti34Zr11Cu47Ni8 is a result of simultaneously minimizing the nucleation rate of the competing crystalline phases. The ternary/quaternary Laves phase (MgZn2 type) shows the greatest ease of nucleation and plays a key role in determining the optimum compositions for glass formation

Analytical BER Performance of DS-CDMA Ad Hoc Networks using Large Area Synchronized Spreading Codes

The family of operational CDMA systems is interference-limited owing to the Inter Symbol Interference (ISI) and the Multiple Access Interference (MAI) encountered. They are interference-limited, because the orthogonality of the spreading codes is typically destroyed by the frequency-selective fading channel and hence complex multiuser detectors have to be used for mitigating these impairments. By contrast, the family of Large Area Synchronous (LAS) codes exhibits an Interference Free Window (IFW), which renders them attractive for employment in cost-efficient quasi-synchronous ad hoc networks dispensing with power control. In this contribution we investigate the performance of LAS DS-CDMA assisted ad hoc networks in the context of a simple infinite mesh of rectilinear node topology and benchmark it against classic DS-CDMA using both random spreading sequences as well as Walsh-Hadamard and Orthogonal Gold codes. It is demonstrated that LAS DS-CDMA exhibits a significantly better performance than the family of classic DS-CDMA systems operating in a quasi-synchronous scenario associated with a high node density, a low number of resolvable paths and a sufficiently high number of RAKE receiver branches