No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The adaptability and productivity of cool-season food legumes (chickpea, faba bean, lentil, pea) are limited by major abiotic stresses including drought, heat, frost, chilling, waterlogging, salinity and mineral toxicities. The severity of these stresses is unpredictable in field experiments, so field trials are increasingly supplemented with controlledenvironment testing and physiological screening. For drought testing, irrigation is used in dry fields and rain-out shelters in damp ones. Carbon isotope discrimination ( 13 C) is a well-established screen for drought tolerance in C3 cereal crops which is now being validated for use in grain legumes, but it is relatively expensive per sample and more economical methods include stomatal conductance and canopy temperature. Chickpea lines ICC4958 and FLIP87-59C and faba bean line ILB938 have demonstrated good drought tolerance parameters in different experiments. For frost tolerance, an efficient controlled-environment procedure involves exposing hardened pot-grown plants to subzero temperatures. Faba beans Cote d'Or and BPL4628 as well as lentil ILL5865 have demonstrated good freezing tolerance in such tests. Chilling-tolerance tests are more commonly conducted in the field and lentil line ILL1878 as well as derivatives of interspecific crosses between chickpea and its wild relatives have repeatedly shown good results. The timing of chilling is particularly important as temperatures which are not lethal to the plant can greatly disrupt fertilization of flowers. Salinity response can be determined using hydroponic methods with a sand or gravel substrate and rapid, efficient scoring is based on leaf symptoms. Many lines of chickpea, faba bean and lentil have shown good salinity tolerance in a single article but none has become a benchmark. Waterlogging tolerance can be evaluated using paired hydroponic systems, one oxygenated and the other de-oxygenated. The development of lysigenous cavities or aerenchyma in roots, common in warm-season legumes, is reported in pea and lentil but is not well established in chickpea or faba bean. Many stresses are associated with oxidative damage leading to changes in chlorophyll fluorescence, membrane stability and peroxidase levels. An additional factor relevant to the legumes is the response of the symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria to the stress.

Multicompartment vesicles of ferrocene-containing triblock terpolymer containing on−off switchable pores in the vesicular membrane are prepared by seeded RAFT polymerization. In these multicompartment vesicles, the incompatible solvophobic poly(4-vinylbenzyl ferrocenecarboxylate) (PVFC) and poly(benzyl methacrylate) (PBzMA) blocks form the porous phase-segregated membrane and the solvophilic poly[2-(dimethylamino) ethyl methacrylate] block locates at the inner and outer sides of the membrane. These porous multicompartment vesicles are redox-responsive and the membrane pores can be on−off switched through redox triggering. These porous multicompartment vesicles are deemed to be new nanoassembly of ABC triblock terpolymer and are anticipated to be a smart host to load and release guests.

The use of biobased plastics is of great importance for many applications. Blending thermoplastic polylactide (PLA) with polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) enables the formulation of a more mechanically powerful material and this enables tailored biodegradation properties. In this study we demonstrate the 3D printing of a PLA/PHA blend as a potential candidate for biocompatible material applications. The filament for 3D printing consisted of PHA, which contains predominantly 3-hydroxybutyrate units and a small amount of 3

No abstract

A new formulation of polymerization-induced self-assembly in poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) named PEG-PISA to synthesize diblock copolymer nanoassemblies via macromolecular RAFT agent mediated dispersion polymerization is reported. In PEG-PISA, the viscous PEG with molecular weight ranging from 200 to 1000 Da is used as polymerization medium. The utilization of the viscous PEG as the polymerization medium affords the advantages including fast polymerization rate, good control over the synthesis of diblock copolymers, and in situ synthesis of both amphiphilic and doubly hydrophobic diblock copolymer nanoassemblies at polymer concentration of up to 50%. Also ascribed to the viscous polymerization medium of PEG, two new and/or interesting diblock copolymer nanoassemblies of ellipsoidal vesicles and nanotubes are formed via PEG-PISA, and the reason on formation of ellipsoidal vesicles and nanotubes is discussed. The proposed PEG-PISA is anticipated to be an effective method to synthesize block copolymer nanoassemblies combining the advantages of alcoholic/aqueous PISA and versatility of poly(ethylene glycol).