Advanced Materials Research Vols. 955-959

Abstract: R. solani is a soil borne pathogens that has great harm on crops including corn, rice, wheat, cotton and a variety of fruits and vegetables. Biological control is an economic and effective method for crop prevention; T. asperellum is a key biocontrol fungus, can growth and reproduce on the pathogen R. Solani; moveover, also can discern and stick to the cell wall of R. solani cell wall degrading enzymes were secreted from T. asperellum to hydrolyze the hyphae of R. solani, and kill ultimately R. solani. In addition, T. asperellum can secret antifungal metabolites to inhibit and even kill directly R. solani. The study result proved that T. asperellum has highly effective in controlling R. solani.

Abstract: SO₄²⁻/SnO₂-ZrO₂ catalyst, organic acids, inorganic acids and sulfates have been applied for the alcoholysis of sugars to butyl levulinate using n-buthanol as solvent and reactant. The combined effect of solid acid and H₂SO₄ showed a high catalytic activity for the selective conversion of cellulose to butyl levulinate at 200 °C, whereas the glucose yielded around 40 mol% butyl levulinate. The oxalic acid and CuSO₄ also showed great activity towards the cellulose alcoholysis.

Abstract: Time-series satellite images can reflect the seasonal variation from vegetation on land surface. Single cropping and double cropping were extracted by decision tree classification based on MODIS NDVI of Beijing in 2007, and spatial distribution of dominant crops in Beijing was obtained. The dominant crops of single cropping were maize, wheat and vegetable, and the overwhelming majority of crops with double cropping were wheat-maize. The results showed that this method could effectively determine the dominated crops in Beijing.

Abstract: The amylose and amylopectin of starch separated from four different D. opposita Thunb. were investigated by capillary electrophoresis. Nowadays, much research was focused on the utilization of plant starch as an industrial raw material which can effectively reduce the dependence on non-renewable resource. Then, the content of amylose in the starch will largely influence the availability of starches. Most detect methods were not suitable for this detection because of the high molecular mass of starch. This paper described the application of capillary electrophoresis to separate the amylose and amylopectin in four different D. opposita Thunb. and made a differentiation between them based on the well-known affinity of these compounds to iodine. The paper also improved the method of detecting yam starch because the method applying in other starches might appear somewhat different.

Abstract: Air pollution tolerance index (APTI) is used by landscapers to select plant species tolerant to air pollution. The present study evaluated APTI for selected ten common plant species, which were fumigated with 40 ppb sulfur dioxide (SO₂) gas for 210 days. The APTI is used by landscapers to select plant species tolerant to air pollution. In order to develop the usefulness of plants as indicators requires an appropriate selection of plant species, which is of utmost importance in specific situations. Four biochemical parameters, including ascorbic acid content, leaf extract pH, total leaf chlorophyll, and leaf relative water content were used to develop an APTI. The results showed that plants have the potential to serve as excellent quantitative and qualitative indices of pollution. Since biomonitoring of plants is an important tool by which to evaluate the impact of air pollution on plants, Diospyros maritime is a good selection as an index of SO₂ pollution. The order of tolerance in SO₂ as Diospyros maritime > Diospyros discolor > Decusscarpus nagi > Cerbera manghas > Delonix regia > Melia azedarach > Machilus zuihoensis > Ficus sepitca > Erythrina variegate > Messerschmidia argentea.

Abstract: In this study, canola oil triglycerides have been successfully transformed into canola oil-based polyisocyanates via thiol-ene click reaction and Curtius rearrangement reaction sequently. The synthesis method is non-phosgene and green. The structure of these novel diisocyanates was confirmed through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The result shows that the goal product has been produce successfully.

Abstract: Dryopteris fragrans(L.) schott is a deciduous perennial herb in the genus Dryopteris, used to treat all kinds of skin diseases and arthritis as a folk remedy of Northeast Chinese. A new glycoside was isolated from the aerial parts of Dryopteris fragrans. The structure was elucidated as 6-O-β-D-glucopyranosyl-3-ethyl-7-hydroxyisobenzofuran-1(3H)-one.on the basis of spectroscopic methods and named fragranoside F.

Abstract: Characteristics of vegetation under meadow, typical steppe and desert steppe were comparatively studied, such as aboveground biomass, height, total carbon and total nitrogen. The results demonstrated that the aboveground biomass and height of vegetation under these three types of steppes were the lowest in the early growing season of May, and reached their highest in the peak season, usually in July or August. Variance analysis showed that the differences among these three steppes in aboveground biomass, height, total carbon and total nitrogen were highly significant. Therefore, the variances and irregularity in vegetation characteristics of these three steppes were affected by moisture and other ecological factors, of which moisture was the primary ecological factor.

Abstract: Located in Southwest China, Northwest Yunnan has drawn much attention around the world because of its high plant richness. However, spatial associations among different diversity measures of seed plants in this region remain elusive. We compiled a database of spatial distribution of total, endemic, and threatened seed plants at county scale in Northwest Yunnan, and examined spatial associations among the three diversity measures and altitudinal range. We found similar spatial patterns of the three diversity measures, which were highest in the northern part of the region. Moreover, strong correlations among the three diversity measures were observed. Altitudinal range was positively correlated with total and endemic species diversity, while endemic species diversity explained more spatial variation of threatened species diversity. The spatial patterns of all three diversity measures were directly or indirectly correlated with altitudinal range, suggesting strong associations among controlling factors of the three diversity measures. Overall, our results showed strong spatial correlations among total, endemic, and threatened plant diversity in Northwest Yunnan, which should help land managers design cost-effective conservation plans in this region.

Abstract: The correlation between neurons in primary visual cortex (V1 region) plays a vital role in the encoding process of visual information. By experimenting on Anesthesia Long Evens (LE) rats, a novel method called state-space log-linear model (SLM) was applied to research the curves of dynamic correlation between neurons in V1 under stimuli with different orientation gratings. The dynamic correlation curve was analyzed by extracting features and activity level of neurons measured by the response strength of identical grating (RSIG). Our investigations demonstrate that: 1) The means of dynamic correlation curve between neurons always decrease with its RSIG; 2) During the visual stimuli period, correlation between neurons shows an increasing trend; 3) If the best preferred orientations of two neurons are orthogonal, the correlation between neurons may appear decreasing trend when the pair receives stimuli from orientation with weak RSIG.