The monosaccharide spectra of natural waters

Monosaccharides were determined in waters and sediment pore waters from a wide variety of environments and locations. Desalting was performed by electrodialysis and concentrated extracts were analyzed by two forms of liquid chromatography. At least 12 sugars were identified. Glucose and fructose were the dominant monosaccharides in nearly all samples examined. Analyses of over 150 seawater and sediment pore water samples showed that fructose is highly significantly correlated (>0.99) with glucose concentrations. Laboratory kinetic experiments on the epimerization reaction, glucose ? fructose, in sterilized natural seawater in the dark, yielded a forward rate constant, k₁, of 1.2 × 10^?5 h^?1 at 25°C and 1.6 × 10^?7 h^?1 at 2°C. The approximate time required to attain equilibrium at 25°C was 1.1 y and at 2°C, 15.4 y; the measured equilibrium constant was in the range 0.3–0.4. The actual ratio of fructose to glucose in natural water samples was usually in the range 1.0–1.4/l, independent of the total monosaccharide concentrations, which varied in the samples by a factor of ～100. Several possible explanations for the apparent discrepancy in the determined and found ratios are discussed: the presence of universal, as yet, undiscovered major biological sources for fructose in marine environments; preferential utilization of glucose; preferential incorporation of fructose into or onto inorganic colloids; and preferential formation of fructose-transition metal ion associations.     

Do Skeletal Networks Derived from Water Bodies Follow Horton's Laws?

The aim of this short note is to test whether the morphological skeletal network (MSN) of water bodies that resembles a river network follows Horton's laws. A fractal relationship of MSN of a water body is also shown. This investigation shows that the MSN of the Nizamsagar reservoir follows Horton's laws. Furthermore, this reservoir has a fractal dimension (D _m) of 1.92 which was computed by using two morphometric quantities and the fractal dimension of the main skeletal length (d). This value tallies exactly with the fractal dimension (D _f) of the whole MSN computed through box-counting method.     

Do Skeletal Networks Derived from Water Bodies Follow Horton's Laws?

The aim of this short note is to test whether the morphological skeletal network (MSN) of water bodies that resembles a river network follows Horton's laws. A fractal relationship of MSN of a water body is also shown. This investigation shows that the MSN of the Nizamsagar reservoir follows Horton's laws. Furthermore, this reservoir has a fractal dimension (D _m) of 1.92 which was computed by using two morphometric quantities and the fractal dimension of the main skeletal length (d). This value tallies exactly with the fractal dimension (D _f) of the whole MSN computed through box-counting method.     

Modification of the spontaneous emission of quantum dots near the surface of a three-dimensional colloidal photonic crystal

This paper demonstrates experimentally and numerically that a significant modification of spontaneous emission rate can be achieved near the surface of a three-dimensional photonic crystal. In experiments, semiconductor core-shell quantum dots are intentionally confined in a thin polymer film on which a three-dimensional colloidal photonic crystal is fabricated. The spontaneous emission rate of quantum dots is characterised by conventional and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) measurements. The modification of the spontaneous emission rate, which is reflected in the change of spectral shape and PL lifetime, is clearly observed. While an obvious increase in the PL lifetime is found at most wavelengths in the band gap, a significant reduction in the PL lifetime by one order of magnitude is observed at the short-wavelength band edge. Numerical simulation reveals a periodic modulation of spontaneous emission rate with decreasing modulation strength when an emitter is moved away from the surface of the photonic crystal. It is supported by the fact that the modification of spontaneous emission rate is not pronounced for quantum dots distributed in a thick polymer film where both enhancement and suppression are present simultaneously. This finding provides a simple and effective way for improving the performance of light emitting devices.     

Intra-Seasonal Oscillation (ISO) of south Kerala rainfall during the summer monsoons of 1901–1995

Time series of daily averaged rainfall of about 40 rain gauge stations of south Kerala, situated at the southern-most part of peninsular India between latitudes about 8‡N and 10‡N were subjected to Wavelet Analysis to study the Intra Seasonal Oscillation (ISO) in the rainfall and its inter-annual variability. Of the 128 days, 29th May to 3rd October of each of the 95 years 1901-1995 were analysed. We find that the period of ISO does not vary during a monsoon season in most of the years, but it has large inter-annual variability in the range 23 to 64 days. Period-wise, the years cluster into two groups of ISO, the SHORT consisting of periods 23, 27 and 32 days and the LONG with a single period of 64 days, both the sets at a significance level of 99%. During the 95 years at this level of significance there are 44 years with SHORT and 20 years with LONG periods. 11 years have no ISO even at the 90% level of significance. We composited NCEP SST anomalies of the summer monsoon season June to September for two groups of years during the period 1965–1993. The first group is of 5 years with a LONG ISO period of 64 days for south Kerala rainfall at significance level of 99% and the second group is of 12 years with SHORT ISO periods of 23, 27 and 32 days at the same level of significance. The SST anomaly for the LONG (SHORT) ISO resembles that for an El Nino (La Nina).