The ability of natural and synthetic hinokitiol, as well as a water soluble derivative (hinokitiol sodium salt), to protect wood against fungal attack was examined. Synthetic and natural hinokitiol provided similar protection. All three materials exhibited similar antifungal activity against Aspergillus niger and Penicillium citrinum on yellow poplar wafers at...
A new group of lead free piezoelectric perovskite solid solutions, (1-x)Bi(B'B")O₃-xABO₃, were obtained via solid-state processing techniques. The solubility of unstable perovskite Bi(B'B")O₃ compounds into stable perovskite compounds was found to be related to the tolerance factor of the ABO₃ perovskite endmembers. The morphotropic phase boundary (MBP) in perovskite solid...
An impediment to use of exotic and bioengineered trees in many places is their propensity for spread by pollen and/or seeds. Our laboratory has been using gene editing to induce mutations in floral genes as means to impart stable and reliable genetic containment when this is desirable from social (markets,...
High energy density ceramic capacitors with temperature stable permittivity across -150°C to 300°C are desired for a wide variety of electronic devices. Traditional dielectrics such as barium titanate provide a high permittivity but that permittivity is strongly temperature dependent over this specified temperature range. The goal of this work is...
The primary focus of this work is on examining structure-property relationships of interest for high-power nonlinear optical and laser crystals. An intuitive and simply illustrated method for assessing the nonlinear optical potential of structurally characterized noncentrosymmetric materials is introduced. This method is applied to materials including common quartz and tourmaline...
The ternary system (Bi₀.₅Na₀.₅)TiO₃-(Bi₀.₅K₀.₅)TiO₃-Bi(Mg₀.₅Ti₀.₅)O₃ (BNT-BKT-BMgT) was explored along the [75-(x 2) ]Bi₀.₅Na₀.₅TiO₃ - [25-(x 2)]Bi₀.₅K₀.₅TiO₃ - [x]Bi(Mg₀.₅Ti₀.₅)O₃ composition line. Thin films were fabricated using chelated mixing route solutions spin cast onto platinized silicon substrates. Processing parameters such as: excess cation molar%, solution molality, and crystallization temperatures, for composition where x=0,...
Within the past several years the technology of high-throughput sequencing has transformed the study of biology by offering unprecedented access to life's fundamental building block, DNA. With this transformation's potential a host of brand-new challenges have emerged, many of which lend themselves to being solved through computational methods. From de...
Hop (Humulus lupulus L. var. lupulus) is a diploid, dioecious plant with an extensive history of cultivation and use in brewing, as a textile, and for its therapeutic properties. Hop is prized for its ability to produce a variety of aromatic and flavor compounds, as well as compounds with anti-microbial...
This work investigates the effect of cation substitution on the properties of the lead-free, solid solution (Na₀.₅Bi₀.₅)TiO₃-BaTiO₃ (NBT-BT). Substitution into NBT-BT increases disorder and increases the relaxor ferroelectric properties. These relaxor ferroelectric materials show large piezoelectric strains that can be utilized in actuator applications. Ceramic samples were prepared using standard...
We explore the application of deep learning to the disparate fields of natural language processing and computational biology. Both the sentences uttered by humans as well as the RNA and protein sequences found within the cells of their bodies can be considered formal languages in computer science, as sets of...