Poor germination and low seedling growth of stevia are common problems in the cultivation of the plant. Nutri-priming is a newest, safe, easy, and effective method to increase germination characteristics and seedling tolerance against stress. The objective in this study was to assess the effect of nutri-priming with nano potassium (nano-K), paclobutrazol (PBZ), and salicylic acid (SA) on stevia...

Supercritical fluid extraction was used to extract the alkaloid N-[7-(3',4'-methylenedioxyphenyl)-2(Z),4(Z)-heptadienoyl]pyrrolidine from leaves of Piper amalago L. A three-level orthogonal array design matrix, OAD OA9(34), was used for optimization of the parameters of supercritical extraction of the alkaloid, employing supercritical carbon dioxide: extraction time (20, 40, and 60 min), temper...

We present a composite material with embedded sensing and actuation that can perform permanent shape changes by temporarily varying its stiffness and applying an external moment. Varying stiffness is a complementary approach to actuator-chain based approaches that can be accomplished using a large variety of means ranging from heat, electric field or vacuum. A polycaprolactone (PCL) bar provide...

A method for reading a four-state bar code, using raster-scanned images is described. Documents are prebar coded with one-dimensional four-state bar code that has the free location and no more than 5 degrees inclination. Using raster-scanned images captured by optical character recognition (OCR) equipment, the location and orientation of this bar code is detected and decoded to 20 data characte...

Dynamic legged robots are capable of a wide range of behaviors, such as running, climbing and jumping. In each of these cases the leg morphology, compliance, and postural control all interact to enable dexterous, dynamic motion. In this paper we examine the design trade-offs between these factors in producing stable running and powerful jumping. Specifically we examine the stability of a SLIP-l...

Assuming independence between failure modes makes system reliability calculation simple but it adds approximation error. Interestingly, error due to ignoring dependence can be negligible for a highly reliable system. This paper investigates the reasons and the factors affecting the error. Error in system probability of failure (PF) is small for high reliability when tail-dependence is not very ...

A novel stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) procedure termed sequential SBSE was developed. Compared to conventional SBSE, sequential SBSE provides more uniform enrichment over the entire polarity/volatility range for organic pollutants at ultra-trace levels in water. Sequential SBSE consists of a SBSE performed sequentially on a 5-mL sample fi rst without modifi er using one stir bar, then on ...

Bin-Amphiphysin-Rvs (BAR) domain proteins are central regulators of many cellular processes involving membrane dynamics. BAR domains sculpt phosphoinositide-rich membranes to generate membrane protrusions or invaginations. Here, we report that, in addition to regulating membrane geometry, BAR domains can generate extremely stable lipid microdomains by "freezing" phosphoinositide dynamics. This ...