Selenium uptake and associated anti-oxidant properties in Pleurotus fossulatus cultivated on wheat straw from seleniferous fields

The present study was carried out to examine the antioxidant activity in oyster mushroom cultivated on selenium (Se) rich substrate. Pleurotus fossulatus was cultivated on Se-rich wheat straw collected from the seleniferous belt of Punjab (India) and its potential to accumulate Se from substrate was examined. Using different assay systems the modulations in the anti-oxidant profile of Se enriched mushroom was studied in comparison to the mushrooms cultivated on normal straw. The oyster mushrooms were observed to potentially mobilize Se from Se-rich substrates to fruiting bodies, resulting in significantly high uptake (37.2±0.6 μg g−1) as compared to control (3.57±0.53 mg g−1). The antioxidant activity, as determined by various assays, such as reducing power, 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl free radical scavenging, and metal chelating activity, was higher in the experimental mushrooms when compared to control. The results obtained demonstrate that Se-fortified mushrooms through cultivation on straw containing organic forms of Se can be considered as natural and effective dietary supplements of organic Se for humans. The present study proposes the use of Se-rich agricultural residues as substrates for mushroom cultivation for human and livestock supplementation

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET

A phase relationship is identified between sequential edge localized modes (ELMs) occurrence times in a set of H-mode tokamak plasmas to the voltage measured in full flux azimuthal loops in the divertor region. We focus on plasmas in the Joint European Torus where a steady H-mode is sustained over several seconds, during which ELMs are observed in the Be II emission at the divertor. The ELMs analysed arise from intrinsic ELMing, in that there is no deliberate intent to control the ELMing process by external means. We use ELM timings derived from the Be II signal to perform direct time domain analysis of the full flux loop VLD2 and VLD3 signals, which provide a high cadence global measurement proportional to the voltage induced by changes in poloidal magnetic flux. Specifically, we examine how the time interval between pairs of successive ELMs is linked to the time-evolving phase of the full flux loop signals. Each ELM produces a clear early pulse in the full flux loop signals, whose peak time is used to condition our analysis. The arrival time of the following ELM, relative to this pulse, is found to fall into one of two categories: (i) prompt ELMs, which are directly paced by the initial response seen in the flux loop signals; and (ii) all other ELMs, which occur after the initial response of the full flux loop signals has decayed in amplitude. The times at which ELMs in category (ii) occur, relative to the first ELM of the pair, are clustered at times when the instantaneous phase of the full flux loop signal is close to its value at the time of the first ELM