Comparative micromorphology of the seed surface of Solanum melongena L. (eggplant) and allied species

The seed surface microstructure of Solanum melongena L., S. incanum L. and some other species were examined using SEM. Seeds were given enzyme (Driselase) etching treatment prior to examination to sweep off the outer layer of cells which obscured observation. Most seeds were characterised by hair-like structures or fibrils which surrounded each cell and which are strands of thickening in the lateral walls of the outer epidermal cells of the testa. Seed coat structure of S. melongena and S. incanum was found to be highly uniform in the samples examined indicating a close relationship between them. The seed coat patterns of S. torvum Sw., S. tomentosum L., S. aethiopicum L., S. kwebense Br. and Wr. and S. cinereum R.Br. were considerably different not only from S. melongena and S. incanum but also between themselves which supports the distinctness of these taxa

Geophysical investigations of a geothermal anomaly at Wadi Ghadir, eastern Egypt

During regional heat flow studies a geothermal anomaly was discovered approximately 2 km from the Red Sea coast at Wadi Ghadir, in the Red Sea Hills of Eastern Egypt. A temperature gradient of 55 C/km was measured in a 150 m drillhole at this location, indicating a heat flow of approximately 175 mw/sqm, approximately four times the regional background heat flow for Egypt. Gravity and magnetic data were collected along Wadi Ghadir, and combined with offshore gravity data, to investigate the source of the thermal anomaly. Magnetic anomalies in the profile do not coincide with the thermal anomaly, but were observed to correlate with outcrops of basic rocks. Other regional heat flow and gravity data indicate that the transition from continental to oceanic type lithosphere occurs close to the Red Sea margin, and that the regional thermal anomaly is possibly related to the formation of the Red Sea

GRIDKIT: Pluggable overlay networks for Grid computing

A `second generation' approach to the provision of Grid middleware is now emerging which is built on service-oriented architecture and web services standards and technologies. However, advanced Grid applications have significant demands that are not addressed by present-day web services platforms. As one prime example, current platforms do not support the rich diversity of communication `interaction types' that are demanded by advanced applications (e.g. publish-subscribe, media streaming, peer-to-peer interaction). In the paper we describe the Gridkit middleware which augments the basic service-oriented architecture to address this particular deficiency. We particularly focus on the communications infrastructure support required to support multiple interaction types in a unified, principled and extensible manner-which we present in terms of the novel concept of pluggable overlay networks

Shear Behavior of Steel I-Beams Strengthened With CFRP Strips

This paper studies the behavior of simply supported steel I-beams strengthened with carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) strips on the web as shear reinforcement. The experimental program contains seven simply supported steel beams. One of them was considered as a control beam and the other specimens were strengthened with different schemes; varying the position of CFRP strips to the web, its number of layers and its angle of orientation. The results show that applying CFRP strips on the web of the steel I-beams was an effective strengthening method for increasing the load bearing capacity and decreasing the deformations. Using two layers of diagonal CFRP strips on both sides of the web realized the highest increasing in the load capacity. Moreover, finite element analysis method has been utilized to analyze the tested specimens using ANSYS. A great convergence between the experimental results and the corresponding ones obtained from finite element simulation

Imaging Gold Nanoparticles in Living Cells Environments using Heterodyne Digital Holographic Microscopy

This paper describes an imaging microscopic technique based on heterodyne digital holography where subwavelength-sized gold colloids can be imaged in cell environment. Surface cellular receptors of 3T3 mouse fibroblasts are labeled with 40 nm gold nanoparticles, and the biological specimen is imaged in a total internal reflection configuration with holographic microscopy. Due to a higher scattering efficiency of the gold nanoparticles versus that of cellular structures, accurate localization of a gold marker is obtained within a 3D mapping of the entire sample's scattered field, with a lateral precision of 5 nm and 100 nm in the x,y and in the z directions respectively, demonstrating the ability of holographic microscopy to locate nanoparticles in living cells environments

Establishing the importance of oil-membrane interactions on the transmembrane diffusion of physicochemically diverse compounds

© 2016. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is a pre-copyedited, author produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in International Journal of Phrmaceutics following peer review. The final, definitive version of this paper Vol 56 (1-2): 429-437 , first published online March 21, 2016, is available on line at doi: 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2016.03.020The diffusion process through a non-porous barrier membrane depends on the properties of the drug, vehicle and membrane. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether a series of oily vehicles might have the potential to interact to varying degrees with synthetic membranes and to determine whether any such interaction might affect the permeation of co-formulated permeants: methylparaben (MP); butylparaben (BP) or caffeine (CF). The oils (isopropyl myristate (IPM), isohexadecane (IHD), hexadecane (HD), oleic acid (OA) and liquid paraffin (LP)) and membranes (silicone, high density polyethylene and polyurethane) employed in the study were selected such that they displayed a range of different structural, and physicochemical properties. Diffusion studies showed that many of the vehicles were not inert and did interact with the membranes resulting in a modification of the permeants’ flux when corrected for membrane thickness (e.g. normalized flux of MP increased from 1.25 ± 0.13 μg cm−1 h−1 in LP to 17.94 ± 0.25 μg cm−1 h−1in IPM). The oils were sorbed differently to membranes (range of weight gain: 2.2 ± 0.2% for polyurethane with LP to 105.6 ± 1.1% for silicone with IHD). Membrane interaction was apparently dependent upon the physicochemical properties including; size, shape, flexibility and the Hansen solubility parameter values of both the membranes and oils. Sorbed oils resulted in modified permeant diffusion through the membranes. No simple correlation was found to exist between the Hansen solubility parameters of the oils or swelling of the membrane and the normalized fluxes of the three compounds investigated. More sophisticated modelling would appear to be required to delineate and quantify the key molecular parameters of membrane, permeant and vehicle compatibility and their interactions of relevance to membrane permeation.Peer reviewe