The Relationship between Fungal Growth Rate and Temperature and Humidity

In order to determine the relation among the three factors of wood fiber decomposition rate, mycelial elongation and moisture resistance, our team resorted to the Monod equation and the modified Logistic equation. Combing with the kinetic principle and the law of mass action, the equations between the decomposition rate of wood fiber, the elongation rate of mycelium and the moisture resistance were established. In the course of solving the model, we found that when the temperature ranges from 24? to 28? and the relative humidity from 60% to75%, the growth rate of fungi is the fastest.

Nutrient dose-responsive transcriptome changes driven by Michaelis–Menten kinetics underlie plant growth rates

An increase in nutrient dose leads to proportional increases in crop biomass and agricultural yield. However, the molecular underpinnings of this nutrient dose–response are largely unknown. To investigate, we assayed changes in theArabidopsisroot transcriptome to different doses of nitrogen (N)—a key plant nutrient—as a function of time. By these means, we found that rate changes of genome-wide transcript levels in response to N-dose could be explained by a simple kinetic principle: the Michaelis–Menten (MM) model. Fitting the MM model allowed us to estimate the maximum rate of transcript change (Vmax), as well as the N-dose at which one-half ofVmaxwas achieved (Km) for 1,153 N-dose–responsive genes. Since transcription factors (TFs) can act in part as the catalytic agents that determine the rates of transcript change, we investigated their role in regulating N-dose–responsive MM-modeled genes. We found that altering the abundance of TGA1, an early N-responsive TF, perturbed the maximum rates of N-dose transcriptomic responses (Vmax),Km, as well as the rate of N-dose–responsive plant growth. We experimentally validated that MM-modeled N-dose–responsive genes included both direct and indirect TGA1 targets, using a root cell TF assay to detect TF binding and/or TF regulation genome-wide. Taken together, our results support a molecular mechanism of transcriptional control that allows an increase in N-dose to lead to a proportional change in the rate of genome-wide expression and plant growth.

Development of a differential cable drive mechanism for acquiring tracking and pointing application

A brief overview of previously built acquiring tracking and pointing devices reveals a trend toward smaller, more agile systems. A differential cable drive mechanism is developed to realize large look angle, high precise and compact structures. The mechanical design, including structure configuration, transmission system, and feathers, is introduced. The kinetic principle is studied and the differential relation between the motors orientations and gimbals pointing positions is investigated. Dynamics of the differential cable drive mechanism is studied based on the Lagrange equations, and the dynamics coupling and kinetic coupling is analyzed. The differential cable drive mechanism is machined and assembled. Experimental setup is built, and the frequency response in different operating conditions is investigated and the transmission performance is tested. Studies and analysis in this paper could provide a basis for further decoupled control of the differential cable drive mechanism.

The Effect of Nonequilibrium Structure State on the Creep and Superplastic Behaviour of Materials

Mechanical behaviour at creep and superplasticity of coarse grain and monocrystalline aluminum under torsion, of coarse grain molybdenum, of fine grain zinc alloy and amorphous cobalt alloy under tension are discussed from unified positions. It is shown that realization of their superplasticity requires fulfillment of structure-kinetic principle.

'The Infinite Variety of Formes and Magnitudes': 16Th- and 17Th-Century English Corpuscular Philosophy and Aristotelian Theories of Matter and Form

In this article, I argue that the interest on the part of Bacon, Hill, and Warner in corpuscularian interpretations of natural phenomena and their similarity to certain views later held by Digby or Boyle offer a strong indication for the existence of an 'independent English atomistic milieu', a view that fits more closely Porter & Teich's recent model of national contexts for early modern science than Kargon's traditional picture of English atomism as a foreign import. In the course of this article, I consider Francis Bacon's anti-Aristotelian polemic in the light of his continued adherence to a conception of material form and his essentially Aristotelian metaphysics, as well as the relationship between his conception of form and his corpuscular theories of matter. This is followed by an examination of Walter Warner's natural philosophical manuscripts. Particular attention is paid to his Averroist distinction between assistant form (which has the role of an active, organizing, kinetic principle) and insistent forms (passive material formation, according to the nature of the substance and its internal combination or mixture of parts) in his treatment of the atoms of vital spirits and of the transmission of light, an idea that has interesting links to the scholastic notion of the sphaera actiuitatis. It is shown how Warner replaced the assistant form/sphere of activity with an energic principle, which he called vis and which took over many of the characteristics of the formative principles it replaced. I then compare Warner's use of vis with Nicholas Hill's, for whom it represented a hypostatic principle, i.e. an instrument of divine agency in the physical world. Such a strong view of divine causation enabled Hill to undertake a more radical critique of Aristotelian form than was available to Warner. My discussion ends with a look at Boyle's critique of the modern Aristotelian doctrine of forms, and his re-interpretation of form in terms of atomic configuration and the modifications of local motion. I end by suggesting that the 'phasing out' of Aristotelian notions of form, and their replacement with ideas of force or local motion opened the way for a similar 'phasing out' of divine causation, by making force a self-sufficient explanatory principle.

On the Sufficiency of the Principle of Virtual Work for Mechanical Equilibrium: A Critical Reexamination

Starting from the general kinetic principle of d’Alembert/Lagrange, an energetic proof of the sufficiency conditions for equilibrium (known as Principle of Virtual Work) is presented. It is clearly demonstrated why to maintain equilibrium requires that, in addition to the familiar vanishing of the virtual work of the impressed forces on the originally motionless system, its geometrical (holonomic) constraints be explicitly time independent (stationary) and its nonintegrable kinematical (nonholonomic) ones be linear and homogeneous in the generalized velocities (catastatic).