Unambiguous and Low-Cost Determination of Growth Rates and Ages of Tropical Trees and Palms

Radiocarbon ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge I del Valle ◽  
Juan R Guarín ◽  
Carlos A Sierra
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rates ◽  
Sustainable Forest Management ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Accurate Determination ◽  
Tropical Trees ◽  
Forest Inventories ◽  
Management Plans ◽  
Cost Determination

The determination of the age of tropical trees and palms is of significant importance for ecological studies and designing sustainable forest management plans. Radiocarbon is a powerful tool that can potentially help the determination of ages and growth rates of these plants. However, the application of 14C analyses has one important problem for trees without annual rings and palms: the calibration of 14C measurements with common programs such as CALIBomb or OxCal gives erroneous determinations for wood formed between AD 1954 and 1964. This problem is illustrated here using samples from a tropical tree (Otoba gracilipes) and a tropical palm (Oenocarpus bataua). This study shows how the use of two adjacent samples can help to unambiguously determine the real age of the samples and their mean growth rates. For comparison, long-term growth measurements for both species were used and it was determined that 14C analyses provide accurate determination of growth rates for tropical trees and palms. Furthermore, the application of 14C analyses in palms allows the determination of the rosette stage, rarely quantified in forest inventories and life-history studies.

Radiocarbon dating of Chinese Ancient Tea Trees

Radiocarbon ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (6) ◽  
pp. 1741-1748
Author(s):  
Jia Chen ◽  
Hongtao Shen ◽  
Kimikazu Sasa ◽  
Haihui Lan ◽  
Tetsuya Matsunaka ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Growth Rates ◽  
Radial Growth ◽  
Accurate Determination ◽  
Annual Rings ◽  
The World ◽  
Automated Sample Preparation ◽  
The University

ABSTRACTThe jungles of Linyun and Longlin Autonomous Prefecture, located in the heart of the southwestern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China, are home to the oldest tea trees (Camellia sinensis) in the world. In the absence of regular annual rings, radiocarbon (14C) dating is one of the most powerful tools that can assist in the determination of the ages and growth rates of these plants. In this work, cores were extracted from large ancient tea trees in a central Longlin rain forest; extraction of carbon was performed with an automated sample preparation system. The 14C levels in the tree cores were measured using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) at the University of Tsukuba. These measurements indicated that contrary to conventional views, the ages of trees in these forests range up to ~700 years, and the growth rate of this species is notably slow, exhibiting a long-term radial growth rate of 0.039±0.006 cm/yr. It was demonstrated that 14C analyses provide accurate determination of ages and growth rates for subtropical wild tea trees.

scholarly journals Revisiting Electrochemical Biosensing in the 21st Century Society for Inflammatory Cytokines Involved in Autoimmune, Neurodegenerative, Cardiac, Viral and Cancer Diseases

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 189
Author(s):  
Susana Campuzano ◽  
Paloma Yáñez-Sedeño ◽  
José Manuel Pingarrón
Keyword(s):  
Point Of Care ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Accurate Determination ◽  
Test Time ◽  
Electrochemical Biosensing ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Inflammatory Processes ◽  
Human Skills ◽  
Cancer Diseases

The multifaceted key roles of cytokines in immunity and inflammatory processes have led to a high clinical interest for the determination of these biomolecules to be used as a tool in the diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring and treatment of several diseases of great current relevance (autoimmune, neurodegenerative, cardiac, viral and cancer diseases, hypercholesterolemia and diabetes). Therefore, the rapid and accurate determination of cytokine biomarkers in body fluids, cells and tissues has attracted considerable attention. However, many currently available techniques used for this purpose, although sensitive and selective, require expensive equipment and advanced human skills and do not meet the demands of today’s clinic in terms of test time, simplicity and point-of-care applicability. In the course of ongoing pursuit of new analytical methodologies, electrochemical biosensing is steadily gaining ground as a strategy suitable to develop simple, low-cost methods, with the ability for multiplexed and multiomics determinations in a short time and requiring a small amount of sample. This review article puts forward electrochemical biosensing methods reported in the last five years for the determination of cytokines, summarizes recent developments and trends through a comprehensive discussion of selected strategies, and highlights the challenges to solve in this field. Considering the key role demonstrated in the last years by different materials (with nano or micrometric size and with or without magnetic properties), in the design of analytical performance-enhanced electrochemical biosensing strategies, special attention is paid to the methods exploiting these approaches.

scholarly journals Using MoS2/Fe3O4 as Ion-Electron Transduction Layer to Manufacture All-Solid-State Ion-Selective Electrode for Determination of Serum Potassium

Chemosensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Yan Su ◽  
Ting Liu ◽  
Caiqiao Song ◽  
Aiqiao Fan ◽  
Nan Zhu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Accurate Determination ◽  
Water Layer ◽  
Ion Selective Electrode ◽  
Potential Response ◽  
Selective Electrode ◽  
Response Measurement ◽  
Long Term Stability

As an essential electrolyte for the human body, the potassium ion (K+) plays many physiological roles in living cells, so the rapid and accurate determination of serum K+ is of great significance. In this work, we developed a solid-contact ion-selective electrode (SC-ISE) using MoS2/Fe3O4 composites as the ion-to-electron transducer to determine serum K+. The potential response measurement of MoS2/Fe3O4/K+-ISE shows a Nernst response by a slope of 55.2 ± 0.1 mV/decade and a low detection limit of 6.3 × 10−6 M. The proposed electrode exhibits outstanding resistance to the interference of O2, CO2, light, and water layer formation. Remarkably, it also presents a high performance in potential reproducibility and long-term stability.

scholarly journals Visualizing the Bohr effect in hemoglobin: neutron structure of equine cyanomethemoglobin in the R state and comparison with human deoxyhemoglobin in the T state

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (7) ◽  
pp. 892-903 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Dajnowicz ◽  
Sean Seaver ◽  
B. Leif Hanson ◽  
S. Zoë Fisher ◽  
Paul Langan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Structural Changes ◽  
Accurate Determination ◽  
Bohr Effect ◽  
Salt Bridges ◽  
Histidine Residues ◽  
Regions Of Stability ◽  
The Individual ◽  
T State

Neutron crystallography provides direct visual evidence of the atomic positions of deuterium-exchanged H atoms, enabling the accurate determination of the protonation/deuteration state of hydrated biomolecules. Comparison of two neutron structures of hemoglobins, human deoxyhemoglobin (T state) and equine cyanomethemoglobin (R state), offers a direct observation of histidine residues that are likely to contribute to the Bohr effect. Previous studies have shown that the T-state N-terminal and C-terminal salt bridges appear to have a partial instead of a primary overall contribution. Four conserved histidine residues [αHis72(EF1), αHis103(G10), αHis89(FG1), αHis112(G19) and βHis97(FG4)] can become protonated/deuterated from the R to the T state, while two histidine residues [αHis20(B1) and βHis117(G19)] can lose a proton/deuteron. αHis103(G10), located in the α1:β1dimer interface, appears to be a Bohr group that undergoes structural changes: in the R state it is singly protonated/deuterated and hydrogen-bonded through a water network to βAsn108(G10) and in the T state it is doubly protonated/deuterated with the network uncoupled. The very long-term H/D exchange of the amide protons identifies regions that are accessible to exchange as well as regions that are impermeable to exchange. The liganded relaxed state (R state) has comparable levels of exchange (17.1% non-exchanged) compared with the deoxy tense state (T state; 11.8% non-exchanged). Interestingly, the regions of non-exchanged protons shift from the tetramer interfaces in the T-state interface (α1:β2and α2:β1) to the cores of the individual monomers and to the dimer interfaces (α1:β1and α2:β2) in the R state. The comparison of regions of stability in the two states allows a visualization of the conservation of fold energy necessary for ligand binding and release.

scholarly journals Electrochemical Immunosensors for Antibiotic Detection

Biosensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Pollap ◽  
Jolanta Kochana
Keyword(s):  
Bacterial Resistance ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Accurate Determination ◽  
Bacterial Diseases ◽  
Rapid Action ◽  
Electrochemical Immunosensors ◽  
Global Problems ◽  
Antibiotics Residues ◽  
Antigen Antibody

Antibiotics are an important class of drugs destined for treatment of bacterial diseases. Misuses and overuses of antibiotics observed over the last decade have led to global problems of bacterial resistance against antibiotics (ABR). One of the crucial actions taken towards limiting the spread of antibiotics and controlling this dangerous phenomenon is the sensitive and accurate determination of antibiotics residues in body fluids, food products, and animals, as well as monitoring their presence in the environment. Immunosensors, a group of biosensors, can be considered an attractive tool because of their simplicity, rapid action, low-cost analysis, and especially, the unique selectivity arising from harnessing the antigen–antibody interaction that is the basis of immunosensor functioning. Herein, we present the recent achievements in the field of electrochemical immunosensors designed to determination of antibiotics.

scholarly journals Paper-based platforms with coulometric readout for ascorbic acid determination in fruit juices

The Analyst ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 145 (9) ◽  
pp. 3431-3439
Author(s):  
Estefanía Nunez-Bajo ◽  
M. Teresa Fernández-Abedul
Keyword(s):  
Ascorbic Acid ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Fruit Juices ◽  
Ascorbic Acid Determination ◽  
Cost Determination ◽  
Acid Determination

Paper-based electrochemical platforms with coulometric readout are employed for fast and low cost determination of ascorbic acid in commercial juice samples.

Determination of inorganic arsenic in rice by solid phase extraction and hydride generation atomic fluorescence spectrometry

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (20) ◽  
pp. 8896-8900 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yatao Huang ◽  
Jihao Shan ◽  
Bei Fan ◽  
Yan He ◽  
Shuangmei Xia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Solid Phase ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Accurate Determination ◽  
Hydride Generation ◽  
Inorganic Arsenic ◽  
Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometry ◽  
Food Crops ◽  
Total Arsenic ◽  
Atomic Fluorescence

Low-cost, simple methods are needed for accurate determination of iAs in food crops. Total arsenic (As) from rice was extracted and As5+ reduced to As3+. The combined As3+ was separated then quantified. This method appears suitable for general use due to its low cost.

Long-term observations of the strongest inflow branch of warm water to the Arctic Mediterranean

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogi Hansen ◽  
Karin M. H. Larsen ◽  
Hjálmar Hátún ◽  
Svein Østerhus
Keyword(s):  
Satellite Altimetry ◽  
Saline Water ◽  
Accurate Determination ◽  
Volume Transport ◽  
High Accuracy ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Boundary Current ◽  
Data Set

<p>Warm and saline water from the North Atlantic enters the Arctic Mediterranean through three gaps. The strongest of these three flows is the inflow between Iceland and Faroes, which is focused into a narrow boundary current north of the Faroes. This boundary current, the Faroe Current, has been observed with regular CTD cruises since 1988 and with moored ADCPs since 1997, as well as satellite altimetry since 1993. Once calibrated by the long-term ADCP measurements, the satellite altimetry is found to yield high-accuracy determination of the velocity field and volume transport down to fixed depth. Due to geostrophic adjustment, satellite altimetry combined with CTD data also allow fairly accurate determination of the depth of the Atlantic layer. From the combined data set, monthly transport time series have been generated for the period Jan 1993 to April 2019. Over the period, the annually averaged volume transport of Atlantic water in the Faroe Current seems to have increased slightly, while the heat transport relative to an outflow temperature of 0°C increased by 13%, significant at the 95% level. The salinity increased from the mid-1990s to around 2010, after which it has decreased, especially after 2016, leading to the lowest salinities in the whole period since 1988. To stay updated on a possible inflow reduction due to reduced thermohaline ventilation caused by this freshening, the future monitoring system of the Faroe Current is planned to be expanded with moored PIES (Pressure Inverted Echo Sounders). An experiment with two PIES in 2017-2019 has documented that these instruments allow high-accuracy monitoring of the depth of the Atlantic layer on the section, which combined with satellite altimetry and CTD observations should give more accurate transport estimates.</p>

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