Supramolecular Organic-Inorganic Domains Integrating Fullerene- based Acceptors with Polyoxometalate-bis-Pyrene Tweezers for Organic Photovoltaic Applications

A strategy to improve organic photovoltaics, and to enhance the device efficiency, builds on the design of interfacial layers (IFL) materials implementing the performance of the photoactive acceptor/donor system. A...

Buddhist Business and Benevolence in Leh, Ladakh

Due to a burgeoning tourism industry in the Indian Himalayan region of Ladakh, Buddhist monasteries now have lucrative means for generating income through tourism-related business and financial support from international sponsors and local business owners. Where previously Buddhist monasteries were dependent on the donations and labour of the lay community, currently, with the accumulation of surplus wealth, many Buddhist leaders of prominent monasteries have begun flipping this donor system around. Throughout this article, I look at how Buddhist monastic leaders have invested surplus economic resources into philanthropic projects as a way to ‘give back’ to the wider community. I argue that the philanthropic initiatives by Buddhist leaders in Ladakh help to position Buddhist monastics as taking a leading role in the social and economic transformation of the region, thus working to push back against processes of secularization that threaten to decrease the influence of Buddhist monastic institutions.

Light-Independent Nitrogen Assimilation in Plant Leaves: Nitrate Incorporation into Glutamine, Glutamate, Aspartate, and Asparagine Traced by 15N

Although the nitrate assimilation into amino acids in photosynthetic leaf tissues is active under the light, the studies during 1950s and 1970s in the dark nitrate assimilation provided fragmental and variable activities, and the mechanism of reductant supply to nitrate assimilation in darkness remained unclear. 15N tracing experiments unraveled the assimilatory mechanism of nitrogen from nitrate into amino acids in the light and in darkness by the reactions of nitrate and nitrite reductases, glutamine synthetase, glutamate synthase, aspartate aminotransferase, and asparagine synthetase. Nitrogen assimilation in illuminated leaves and non-photosynthetic roots occurs either in the redundant way or in the specific manner regarding the isoforms of nitrogen assimilatory enzymes in their cellular compartments. The electron supplying systems necessary to the enzymatic reactions share in part a similar electron donor system at the expense of carbohydrates in both leaves and roots, but also distinct reducing systems regarding the reactions of Fd-nitrite reductase and Fd-glutamate synthase in the photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic organs.

Structural Investigation and Antibacterial Activity of Cu(II), Co(II), Ni(II) and Zn(II) Complexes of a Schiff Base Derived from Salicylaldehyde and Thiosemicarbazide

The metal (II) complexes, Na2[ML2] [M = Cu, Co, Ni, and Zn], of salicylaldehyde thiosemicarbazone (L) containing a trifunctional ONS-donor system have been synthesized and characterized on the basis of physicochemical data by elemental analysis, magnetic moment, molar conductance, and spectroscopic (electronic, IR and ESI-MS). The ligand functions as ONS tridentates producing octahedral complexes. All compounds showed significant antibacterial activity in different ranges against gram positive (Bacillus subtillus) and gram negative (Escherichia coli) bacteria.

Synthesis and investigation of the photophysical, electrochemical and theoretical properties of phenazine–amine based cyan blue-red fluorescent materials for organic electronics

We report a study of the effect of modulating the donor system fused with a central phenazine core to understand the tuning of the optoelectrochemical properties in the designed phenazine–amine derivatives.