Effect of selected microbiological products on soybean seed germination capacity

Germination of three soybean cultivars: Abelina, SG Anser and Merlin was examined in a laboratory study as affected by products containing effective microorganisms: EM5, EM Farma and EM Mulit Grower. Germination in an aqueous environment was the control treatment. Analysis of germination capacity after 5 and 10 days from the beginning of the experiment (as indicated by International Seed Testing Association) was based on two-way analysis of variance. A logistic function was used to analyse the average number of germinating seeds over time (for each cultivar × product). Based on this function, the rate of germination and the time (day) when the greatest number of seeds germinated were determined. Regardless of the applied product, cv. Abelina had the best germination performance at the first and second date of counting as its germination capacity was 55 and 86%, respectively. An application of EM Farma contributed to a significant increase in seed germination capacity at both the dates compared with the control and the remaining products. No significant differences in the number of germinated seeds counted after 5 and 10 days following EM application were found for cv. Merlin only. The highest number of germinated seeds at the logistic curve inflection point was observed for all the cultivars treated with EM Farma, their germination rate ranging from over 7 to 19% per 24 hrs

Direct inner shell ionization accompanying nuclear fusion reactions with heavy ions

Probabilities for K-shell ionization prior to fusion (half-trajectory collisions) are determined for 51V, 59Co, 62Ni target atoms and 4.5 MeV/u 40Ar projectiles. Also measured are energy shifts of the Kα and Kβ X-ray lines of residue atoms resulting from multiple inner shell ionization

An international round-robin calibration protocol for nanoindentation measurements

Nanoindentation has become a common technique for measuring the hardness and elastic-plastic properties of materials, including coatings and thin films. In recent years, different nanoindenter instruments have been commercialised and used for this purpose. Each instrument is equipped with its own analysis software for the derivation of the hardness and reduced Young's modulus from the raw data. These data are mostly analysed through the Oliver and Pharr method. In all cases, the calibration of compliance and area function is mandatory. The present work illustrates and describes a calibration procedure and an approach to raw data analysis carried out for six different nanoindentation instruments through several round-robin experiments. Three different indenters were used, Berkovich, cube corner, spherical, and three standardised reference samples were chosen, hard fused quartz, soft polycarbonate, and sapphire. It was clearly shown that the use of these common procedures consistently limited the hardness and reduced the Young's modulus data spread compared to the same measurements performed using instrument-specific procedures. The following recommendations for nanoindentation calibration must be followed: (a) use only sharp indenters, (b) set an upper cut-off value for the penetration depth below which measurements must be considered unreliable, (c) perform nanoindentation measurements with limited thermal drift, (d) ensure that the load-displacement curves are as smooth as possible, (e) perform stiffness measurements specific to each instrument/indenter couple, (f) use Fq and Sa as calibration reference samples for stiffness and area function determination, (g) use a function, rather than a single value, for the stiffness and (h) adopt a unique protocol and software for raw data analysis in order to limit the data spread related to the instruments (i.e. the level of drift or noise, defects of a given probe) and to make the H and E r data intercomparable