A new observation on large scale disintegration of eggs of Indian major carps during development

While carp themselves may destroy carp eggs by sucking from outside the happa, destruction in the absence of carp also occurs. During observations of the effect of electrical field on developing carp eggs it was seen that the egg membrane ruptured prematurely under certain potential differences. In natural waters and mud potential differences occur in the presence of high concentrations of certain salts compared with the internal concentration. Temperature and pH fluctuations following strong sun or heavy rain accelerates the diffusion of ions along side water through the egg membrane. The egg cells expand rapidly and the embryos were rapidly dropped.

Large-scale synthesis of Berlin green Fe[Fe(CN)(6)] microcubic crystals

Berlin green FeFe(CN)(6) microcubic crystals have been successfully prepared by a simple hydrothermal process between K-3[Fe(CN)(6)] with Na2S2O3 aqueous solution, free of any surfactant or template. The experimental results clearly show that the molar ratio of K-3[Fe(CN)(6)] to Na2S2O3 and their concentrations are the dominant processing factors in controlling the size, morphology, and composition of the resulting products.

Large-scale recovery of C-phycocyanin from Spirulina platensis using expanded bed adsorption chromatography

C-phycocyanin was purified on a large scale by a combination of expanded bed adsorption, anion-exchange chromatography and hydroxyapatite chromatography from inferior Spirulina platensis that cannot be used for human consumption. First, phycobiliproteins were extracted by a simple, scaleable method and then were recovered by Phenyl-Sepharose chromatography in an expanded bed column. The purity (the A(620)/A(280) ratio) of C-phycocyanin isolated with STREAMLINE (TM) Column was up to 2.87, and the yield was as high as 31 mg/g of dried S. platensis. After the first step, we used conventional anion-exchange chromatography for the purification steps, with a yield of 7.7 mg/g of dried S. platensis at a purity greater than 3.2 and with an A(620)/A(650) index higher than 5.0. The fractions from anion-exchange chromatography with a level of purity that did not conform to the above standard were subjected to hydroxyapatite chromatography, with a C-PC yield of 4.45 mg/g of dried S. platensis with a purity greater than 3.2. The protein from both purification methods showed one absolute absorption peak at 620 nm and a fluorescence maximum at 650 nm, which is consistent with the typical spectrum of C-phycocyanin. SDS-PAGE gave two bands corresponding to 21 and 18 kDa. In-gel digestion and LC-ESI-MS showed that the protein is C-phycocyanin. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Large Scale Verification of MPI Programs Using Lamport Clocks with Lazy Update

We propose a dynamic verification approach for large-scale message passing programs to locate correctness bugs caused by unforeseen nondeterministic interactions. This approach hinges on an efficient protocol to track the causality between nondeterministic message receive operations and potentially matching send operations. We show that causality tracking protocols that rely solely on logical clocks fail to capture all nuances of MPI program behavior, including the variety of ways in which nonblocking calls can complete. Our approach is hinged on formally defining the matches-before relation underlying the MPI standard, and devising lazy update logical clock based algorithms that can correctly discover all potential outcomes of nondeterministic receives in practice. can achieve the same coverage as a vector clock based algorithm while maintaining good scalability. LLCP allows us to analyze realistic MPI programs involving a thousand MPI processes, incurring only modest overheads in terms of communication bandwidth, latency, and memory consumption. © 2011 IEEE.

Mimicking the colourful wing scale structure of the Papilio blumei butterfly

The brightest and most vivid colours in nature arise from the interaction of light with surfaces that exhibit periodic structure on the micro- and nanoscale. In the wings of butterflies, for example, a combination of multilayer interference, optical gratings, photonic crystals and other optical structures gives rise to complex colour mixing. Although the physics of structural colours is well understood, it remains a challenge to create artificial replicas of natural photonic structures(1-3). Here we use a combination of layer deposition techniques, including colloidal self-assembly, sputtering and atomic layer deposition, to fabricate photonic structures that mimic the colour mixing effect found on the wings of the Indonesian butterfly Papilio blumei. We also show that a conceptual variation to the natural structure leads to enhanced optical properties. Our approach offers improved efficiency, versatility and scalability compared with previous approaches(4-6).

Synthesis by extrusion: continuous, large-scale preparation of MOFs using little or no solvent

Grinding solid reagents under solvent-free or low-solvent conditions (mechanochemistry) is emerging as a general synthetic technique which is an alternative to conventional solvent-intensive methods. However, it is essential to find ways to scale-up this type of synthesis if its promise of cleaner manufacturing is to be realised. Here, we demonstrate the use of twin screw and single screw extruders for the continuous synthesis of various metal complexes, including Ni(salen), Ni(NCS)(2)(PPh3)(2) as well as the commercially important metal organic frameworks (MOFs) Cu-3(BTC)(2) (HKUST-1), Zn(2-methylimidazolate)(2) (ZIF-8, MAF-4) and Al(fumarate)(OH). Notably, Al(fumarate)(OH) has not previously been synthesised mechanochemically. Quantitative conversions occur to give products at kg h(-1) rates which, after activation, exhibit surface areas and pore volumes equivalent to those of materials produced by conventional solvent-based methods. Some reactions can be performed either under completely solvent-free conditions whereas others require the addition of small amounts of solvent (typically 3-4 mol equivalents). Continuous neat melt phase synthesis is also successfully demonstrated by both twin screw and single screw extrusion for ZIF-8. The latter technique provided ZIF-8 at 4 kg h(-1). The space time yields (STYs) for these methods of up to 144 x 10(3) kg per m(3) per day are orders of magnitude greater than STYs for other methods of making MOFs. Extrusion methods clearly enable scaling of mechanochemical and melt phase synthesis under solvent-free or low-solvent conditions, and may also be applied in synthesis more generally.

Large scale test of a novel back-pass non-perforated unglazed solar air collector

This paper describes large scale tests conducted on a novel unglazed solar air collector system. The proposed system, referred to as a back-pass solar collector (BPSC), has on-site installation and aesthetic advantages over conventional unglazed transpired solar collectors (UTSC) as it is fully integrated within a standard insulated wall panel. This paper presents the results obtained from monitoring a BPSC wall panel over one year. Measurements of temperature, wind velocity and solar irradiance were taken at multiple air mass flow rates. It is shown that the length of the collector cavities has a direct impact on the efficiency of the system. It is also shown that beyond a height-to-flow ratio of 0.023m/m³/hr/m², no additional heat output is obtained by increasing the collector height for the experimental setup in this study, but these numbers would obviously be different if the experimental setup or test environment (e.g. location and climate) change. An equation for predicting the temperature rise of the BPSC is proposed.

Infrared and Raman screening of seized novel psychoactive substances: A large scale study of >200 samples

The potential of IR absorption and Raman spectroscopy for rapid identification of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) has been tested using a set of 221 unsorted seized samples suspected of containing NPS. Both IR and Raman spectra showed large variation between the different sub-classifications of NPS and smaller, but still distinguishable, differences between closely related compounds within the same class. In initial tests, screening the samples using spectral searching against a limited reference library allowed only 41% of the samples to be fully identified. The limiting factor in the identification was the large number of active compounds in the seized samples for which no reference vibrational data were available in the libraries rather than poor spectral quality. Therefore, when 33 of these compounds were independently identified by NMR and mass spectrometry and their spectra used to extend the libraries, the percentage of samples identified by IR and Raman screening alone increased to 76%, with only 7% of samples having no identifiable constituents. This study, which is the largest of its type ever carried out, therefore demonstrates that this approach of detecting non-matching samples and then identifying them using standard analytical methods has considerable potential in NPS screening since it allows rapid identification of the constituents of the majority of street quality samples. Only one complete feedback cycle was carried out in this study but there is clearly the potential to carry out continuous identification/updating when this system is used in operational settings.