I come from a family of Mormons, although perhaps somewhat unorthodox ones. Somewhere in England and what is today Romania, my father's ancestors heard man named Joseph Smith his vision God the Father His Son, Jesus Christ. They left Europe traveled with other devout Saints to Utah, settling Salt Lake City Vernal. Fast forward century or so father still practices Mormonism. I'm certain relation...

We present the interface diffraction method (IDM), an efficient technique to determine the response of planar photonic crystal waveguides and couplers containing arbitrary defects. Field profiles in separate regions of a structure are represented through two contrasting approaches: the plane wave expansion method in the cladding and a scattering matrix method in the core. These results are comb...

Gewidmet ist diese Arbeit meiner Mutter, die leider die Fertigstellung nicht mehr erleben durfte, und Hannah, die auch heute noch Geduld aufbringt, wenn ihre Mutter am Computer für ihre " Schule " arbeitet.

Tissue culture is a potent means for producing clonally propagated plants. However, genetically identical regenerants are of great concern due to their economic consequences. Therefore, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based molecular markers employed detect somaclonal variations. In this study, the genetic fidelity in vitro raised Philodendron bipinnatifidum clones, and mother plant was tested ...

Different kinds of plant-animal interactions are ordinarily studied in isolation, yet considering the combined fitness effects of mutualistic and antagonistic interactions is essential to understanding plant character evolution. Functional, structural, or phylogenetic associations between attractive and defensive traits may be nonadaptive or result from correlational selection on sets of herbiv...

BACKGROUND A pharmaco-chemical investigation of the Euphorbia cyparissias plant was justified by its known multiple therapeutic valences. Numerous components from extracts and latex of Euphorbiacae were identified, revealing a large plant family with a polyvalent therapeutic activity. MATERIALS AND METHODS The aim of the study was to assess the skin tolerance level to irritation on different ...