Mercerization mediated modification of cellulosic fibers with NIPAAm and some compounds with antioxidant activity

A two step process was used for the modification of a cellulose/chitin mixed fibers: the first step was an alkali treatment with a NaOH solution (20 %), which was followed by the reaction with one of the reagents such as Nisopropylacrylamide, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, gallic acid, or eugenol. Both the samples activated with the alkali treatment and modified with chemicals were characterized by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and thermal analysis. Results revealed the morphological and structural changes of the fiber surface after the surface grafting, which significantly altered the cellulose/chitin mixed fiber properties. Thermal analysis results showed an increase in the thermal stability of the treated samples. Antioxidant activity of cellulose/chitin mixed fibers modified with phenolic compounds showed that the efficiency depends on the chemical nature of phenolic compound.     

Investigation of mealybug (hemiptera: Coccoidea: Pseudococcidae) species from Turkey by RAPD

Molecular markers are commonly used for determining the relationship between insect species. In this study, we investigated the relationship of six mealybug species,Planococcus citri (Risso),Planococcus ficus (Signoret),Planococcus vovae (Nasonov),Pseudococcus longispinus (Targioni Tozzetti),Pseudococcus viburni (Signoret) andPhenacoccus aceris (Signoret), sampled from Turkey, using randomly amplified polymorphic DNA-polymerase chain reaction (RAPD-PCR). Of the 50 RAPD primers tested, 18 identified a total of 256 fragments of which all were polymorphic. Sufficient discrimination betweenP. citri andP. ficus was provided by several RAPD primers. The genetic distance values calculated for each pair-wise comparison ranged from 0.156 to 0.504. Cluster analyses of RAPD data clearly separated the species into two groups. http://www.phytoparasitica.org posting May 4, 2007.