Morphological and ultrastructural changes in tobacco BY-2 cells exposed to microcystin-RR

Tobacco BY-2 cells were exposed to microcystin-RR (MC-RR) at two concentrations, 60 mu g mL(-1) and 120 mu g mL(-1), to study the changes in morphology and ultrastructure of cells as a result of the exposure. Exposure to the lower concentration for 5 d led to typical apoptotic morphological changes including condensation of nuclear chromatin, creation of a characteristic 'half moon' structure, and cytoplasm shrinkage and decreased cell volume, as revealed through light microscopy. fluorescence microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. Exposure to the higher concentration, on the other hand, led to morphological and ultrastructural changes typical of necrosis, such as rupture of the plasma membrane and the nuclear membrane and a marked swelling of cells. The presence of many vacuoles containing unusual deposits points to the involvement of vacuoles in detoxifying MC-RR. Results of the present study indicate that exposure of tobacco BY-2 cells to MC-RR at a lower concentration (60 mu g mL(-1)) results in apoptosis and that to a higher concentration (120 mu g mL(-1)), in necrosis. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Morphological and ultrastructural characterization of the coelomocytes in Apostichopus japonicus

The coelomocytes suspended in the coelomic fluid and occurring in the coelomic epithelial layer of the sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus (Selenka) (Holothuroidea: Aspidochirota: Stichopodidae) function as mediators of the immune system, trephocytic cells and nutrient transport cells. Types of coelomocytes are characterized based on their morphological and ultrastructural features. Flow cytometry plus light and electron microscopic analyses were conducted in order to characterize the coelomocytes of A. japonicus. Six types of coelomocytes were identified: lymphocytes, morula cells, amoebocytes, crystal cells, fusiform cells and vibratile cells. Within these major categories, several distinctive cell types occurred that might represent developmental stages. The mean +/- SD coelomocyte concentration in the individuals (body length: 10 to 15 cm; weight: 100 to 150 g) was (3.79 +/- 0.65) X 10(6) cells ml(-1). The coelomic fluid contained mainly hyalinocytes (76.69%) and granulocytes (23.31 %).

Deformation Morphology Underneath the Vickers Indent in Bulk Metallic Glasses

Plastic deformation behaviour of Zr52.5Al10Ni10Cu15Be12.5 and Mg65Cu25Gd10 bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) is studied by using the depth-sensing nanoindentation and microindentation. The subsurface plastic deformation zone of the BMGs is investigated using the bonded interface technique. Both the BMGs exhibit the serrated flow depending on the loading rate in the loading process of indentation. Slow indentation rates promote more conspicuous serrations, and rapid indentations suppress the serrated flow. Mg-based BMG shows a much higher critical loading rate for the disappearance of the serration than that in Zr-based BMG. The significant difference in the shear band pattern in the subsurface plastic deformation zone is responsible for the different deformation behaviour between the two BMGs. Increase of the loading rate can lead to the increase of the density of shear bands. However, there is no distinct change in the character of shear bands at the loading rate of as high as 1000 nm/s.

From Hexagonally Arrayed Nanorods To Ordered Porous Film Through Controlling The Morphology Of Zno Crystals

The macrostructure can be changed by changing the morphology of its units. In this article, we use a colloidal template route, combined with hydrothermal growth method, to get the hexagonally arrayed ZnO nanorods on the polycrystalline ZnO substrate. More significantly, through controlling the morphology of ZnO crystals by adding structure-directing agent in the precursor solution, the highly ordered porous ZnO films were obtained instead of ZnO nanorods. This templated solvent-thermal method has great potential in micro/nano-fabrication. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Optical intrinsically fuzzy mathematical morphology for gray-scale image processing

Intrinsically fuzzy morphological erosion and dilation are extended to a total of eight operations that have been formulated in terms of a single morphological operation--biased dilation. Based on the spatial coding of a fuzzy variable, a bidirectional projection concept is proposed. Thus, fuzzy logic operations, arithmetic operations, gray-scale dilation, and erosion for the extended intrinsically fuzzy morphological operations can be included in a unified algorithm with only biased dilation and fuzzy logic operations. To execute this image algebra approach we present a cellular two-layer processing architecture that consists of a biased dilation processor and a fuzzy logic processor. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America

Logic-operated mathematical morphology and its optical implementation

A more powerful tool for binary image processing, i.e., logic-operated mathematical morphology (LOMM), is proposed. With LOMM the image and the structuring element (SE) are treated as binary logical variables, and the MULTIPLY between the image and the SE in correlation is replaced with 16 logical operations. A total of 12 LOMM operations are obtained. The optical implementation of LOMM is described. The application of LOMM and its experimental results are also presented. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America.

FUZZY SOLID SETS FOR MATHEMATICAL MORPHOLOGY AND OPTICAL IMPLEMENTATION

Fuzzy sets in the subject space are transformed to fuzzy solid sets in an increased object space on the basis of the development of the local umbra concept. Further, a counting transform is defined for reconstructing the fuzzy sets from the fuzzy solid sets, and the dilation and erosion operators in mathematical morphology are redefined in the fuzzy solid-set space. The algebraic structures of fuzzy solid sets can lead not only to fuzzy logic but also to arithmetic operations. Thus a fuzzy solid-set image algebra of two image transforms and five set operators is defined that can formulate binary and gray-scale morphological image-processing functions consisting of dilation, erosion, intersection, union, complement, addition, subtraction, and reflection in a unified form. A cellular set-logic array architecture is suggested for executing this image algebra. The optical implementation of the architecture, based on area coding of gray-scale values, is demonstrated. (C) 1995 Optical Society of America

Fuzzy inferring mathematical morphology and optical implementation

Fuzzification is introduced into gray-scale mathematical morphology by using two-input one-output fuzzy rule-based inference systems. The fuzzy inferring dilation or erosion is defined from the approximate reasoning of the two consequences of a dilation or an erosion and an extended rank-order operation. The fuzzy inference systems with numbers of rules and fuzzy membership functions are further reduced to a simple fuzzy system formulated by only an exponential two-input one-output function. Such a one-function fuzzy inference system is able to approach complex fuzzy inference systems by using two specified parameters within it-a proportion to characterize the fuzzy degree and an exponent to depict the nonlinearity in the inferring. The proposed fuzzy inferring morphological operators tend to keep the object details comparable to the structuring element and to smooth the conventional morphological operations. Based on digital area coding of a gray-scale image, incoherently optical correlation for neighboring connection, and optical thresholding for rank-order operations, a fuzzy inference system can be realized optically in parallel. (C) 1996 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.

Optoelectronic implementation of mathematical morphology

An optoelectronic implementation based on optical neighborhood operations and electronic nonlinear feedback is proposed to perform morphological image processing such as erosion, dilation, opening, closing and edge detection. Results of a numerical simulation are given and experimentally verified.

Influence of thermal annealing on optical properties and surface morphology of NiOx thin films

NiOx thin films were deposited by reactive DC-magnetron sputtering from a nickel metal target in Ar + O-2 with the relative O-2 content of 5%. Thermal annealing effects on optical properties and surface morphology of NiOx, films were investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscope and optical measurement. The results showed that the changes in optical properties and surface morphology depended on the temperature. The surface morphology of the films changed obviously as the annealing temperature increased due to the reaction NiOx -> NiO + O-2 releasing O-2. The surface morphology change was responsible for the variation of the optical properties of the films. The optical contrast between the as-deposited films and 400 degrees C annealed films was about 52%. In addition, the relationship of the optical energy band gap with the variation of annealing temperature was studied. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Study on the growth, etch morphology and spectra of Y2SiO5 crystal

Undoped Y2SiO5 single crystal was grown by the Czochralski method. The samples were optically polished after orienting and cutting. The rhombus and quadrangular dislocation etching pits, the low-angle grain boundaries and the inclusions in the samples were observed using optical microscope and scanning electron microscope. The absorption spectra were measured before and after H-2 annealing or air annealing. The absorption edge of Y2SiO5 crystal was determined to be about 202 nm. The absorption coefficient of Y2SiO5 crystal decreased after H-2 annealing and obviously increased after air annealing. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Growth, etching morphology and spectra of LiAlO2 crystal

gamma-LiAlO2 single crystal was successfully grown by Czochralski method. The crystal quality was characterized by X-ray rocking curve and chemical etching. The effects of air-annealing and vapor transport equilibration (VTE) on the crystal quality, etch pits and absorption spectra of LiAlO2 were also investigated in detail. The results show that the as-grown crystal has very high quality with the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 17.7-22.6 arcsec. Dislocation density in the middle part of the crystal is as low as about 3.0 x 10(3) cm(-2). The VTE-treated slice has larger FWHM value, etch pits density and absorption coefficient as compared with those of untreated and air-annealed slices, which indicates that the crystal quality became inferior after VTE treatment. (C) 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Laser-induced damage morphology of high-reflective optical coatings

Two different kinds of 1064 nm high-reflective (HR) coatings, with and without SiO2 protective layer, were prepared by electron beam evaporation. Three-dimensional damage morphology, caused by a Nd:YAG pulsed laser, was investigated for these HR coatings. Development of laser-induced damage on HR coatings was revealed by both temperature field calculation and discrete meso-element simulation. Theoretical results met experimental very well. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Surface morphology and properties of zirconia thin films prepared at different deposition rates

ZrO2 thin films were prepared on BK7 glass substrates by electron beam evaporation deposition method. The influence of deposition rate varying from 1.2 to 6.3 nm s(-1) on surface morphology and other properties of ZrO2 films were examined. With increasing deposition rate, the surface defect density increased. The decrease in half width at full maximum in X-ray diffraction pattern with deposition rate indicates an increase in crystal dimension with increasing deposition rate. Electron beam deposited ZrO2 films are known to be inhomogeneous. From the change of the peak transmittance value, it can be deduced that the inhomogeneity of ZrO2 films strengthened gradually with increasing deposition rate. The type of surface defects changed from nodules to craters when the deposition rate was high enough.