Pentacene islands grown on ultra-thin SiO2

Ultra-thin oxide (UTO) films were grown on Si(111) in ultrahigh vacuum at room temperature and characterized by scanning tunneling microscopy. The ultra-thin oxide films were then used as substrates for room temperature growth of pentacene. The apparent height of the first layer is 1.57 +/- 0.05 nm, indicating standing up pentacene grains in the thin-film phase were formed. Pentacene is molecularly resolved in the second and subsequent molecular layers. The measured in-plane unit cell for the pentacene (001) plane (ab plane) is a=0.76+/-0.01 nm, b=0.59+/-0.01 nm, and gamma=87.5+/-0.4 degrees. The films are unperturbed by the UTO's short-range spatial variation in tunneling probability, and reduce its corresponding effective roughness and correlation exponent with increasing thickness. The pentacene surface morphology follows that of the UTO substrate, preserving step structure, the long range surface rms roughness of ~0.1 nm, and the structural correlation exponent of ~1.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Optimizing biodiesel production in marine Chlamydomonas sp. JSC4 through metabolic profiling and an innovative salinity-gradient strategy

BACKGROUND: Biodiesel production from marine microalgae has received much attention as microalgae can be cultivated on non-arable land without the use of potable water, and with the additional benefits of mitigating CO(2) emissions and yielding biomass. However, there is still a lack of effective operational strategies to promote lipid accumulation in marine microalgae, which are suitable for making biodiesel since they are mainly composed of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids. Moreover, the regulatory mechanisms involved in lipid biosynthesis in microalgae under environmental stress are not well understood. RESULTS: In this work, the combined effects of salinity and nitrogen depletion stresses on lipid accumulation of a newly isolated marine microalga, Chlamydomonas sp. JSC4, were explored. Metabolic intermediates were profiled over time to observe transient changes during the lipid accumulation triggered by the combination of the two stresses. An innovative cultivation strategy (denoted salinity-gradient operation) was also employed to markedly improve the lipid accumulation and lipid quality of the microalga, which attained an optimal lipid productivity of 223.2 mg L(-1) d(-1) and a lipid content of 59.4% per dry cell weight. This performance is significantly higher than reported in most related studies. CONCLUSIONS: This work demonstrated the synergistic integration of biological and engineering technologies to develop a simple and effective strategy for the enhancement of oil production in marine microalgae

Mutants in orthophosphate-regulated cyclic phosphodiesterase showing rhythmic condiation in Neurospora

Mutants in orthophosphate-regulated cyclic phosphodiesterase showing rhythmic conidiation in Neurospor

Completely Independent Spanning Trees in Line Graphs

Completely independent spanning trees in a graph $G$ are spanning trees of $G$ such that for any two distinct vertices of $G$, the paths between them in the spanning trees are pairwise edge-disjoint and internally vertex-disjoint. In this paper, we present a tight lower bound on the maximum number of completely independent spanning trees in $L(G)$, where $L(G)$ denotes the line graph of a graph $G$. Based on a new characterization of a graph with $k$ completely independent spanning trees, we also show that for any complete graph $K_n$ of order $n \geq 4$, there are $\lfloor \frac{n+1}{2} \rfloor$ completely independent spanning trees in $L(K_n)$ where the number $\lfloor \frac{n+1}{2} \rfloor$ is optimal, such that $\lfloor \frac{n+1}{2} \rfloor$ completely independent spanning trees still exist in the graph obtained from $L(K_n)$ by deleting any vertex (respectively, any induced path of order at most $\frac{n}{2}$) for $n = 4$ or odd $n \geq 5$ (respectively, even $n \geq 6$). Concerning the connectivity and the number of completely independent spanning trees, we moreover show the following, where $\delta(G)$ denotes the minimum degree of $G$. $\$ $\bullet$ Every $2k$-connected line graph $L(G)$ has $k$ completely independent spanning trees if $G$ is not super edge-connected or $\delta(G) \geq 2k$. $\$ $\bullet$ Every $(4k-2)$-connected line graph $L(G)$ has $k$ completely independent spanning trees if $G$ is regular. $\$ $\bullet$ Every $(k^2+2k-1)$-connected line graph $L(G)$ with $\delta(G) \geq k+1$ has $k$ completely independent spanning trees.Comment: 20 pages with 5 figure