Fungi Associated with Decay in Treated Southern Pine Utility Poles in the Eastern United States

Approximately 1,320 fungi were isolated and studied from 246 creosote- or pentachlorophenol-treated southern pine poles in service in the eastern United States. The fungi identified were Basidiomycete decayers, soft rotters, and microfungi. White rot fungi predominated in the 262 Basidiomycete decayers isolated from 180 poles. The major Basidiomycetes isolated by radial position from poles of varying service ages appeared to develop initially in the outer treated zones and were often associated with seasoning checks. Some decay origins, however, appeared to be cases of preinvasion and escapes of preservative treatment. Five species of soft rot fungi comprised nearly 85% of 211 isolates obtained from 131 poles. They were isolated primarily from creosote-treated poles in outer treated zones at the groundline. Dissection analysis of 92 poles indicated that six developmental decay patterns and certain fungi were associated commonly with a pattern. The pole mycoflora isolated was relatively uniform in distribution in the eastern United States. The soft rotters and white rot group of Basidiomycete decayers appear to be a more important component of the treated southern pine pole mycoflora than has been recognized previously

Magnetization and spin gap in two-dimensional organic ferrimagnet BIPNNBNO

A magnetization process in the two-dimensional ferrimagnet BIPNNBNO is analyzed. The compound consists of ferrimagnetic (1,1/2) chains coupled by two sorts of antiferromagnetic interaction. Whereas the behavior of the magnetization curve in higher magnetic fields can be understood within a process for the separate ferrimagnetic chain, the appearance of the singlet plateau at lower fields is an example of non-Lieb-Mattis type ferrimagnetism. By using the exact diagonalization technique for finite clusters of size 4×6, 4×8 and 4×10 we show that the interchain frustration coupling plays an essential role in stabilization of the singlet phase. These results are complemented by an analysis of four cylindrically coupled ferrimagnetic (1,1/2) chains via an Abelian bosonization technique and an effective theory based on the XXZ spin-1/2 Heisenberg model when the interchain interactions are sufficiently weak/strong, respectively. © 2012 IOP Publishing Ltd