There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

A Text-book Of Quantitative Inorganic Analysis Ed.3rd

For up to 1 billion people worldwide, insufficient dietary intake of selenium (Se) is a serious health constraint. Cereals are the dominant Se source for those on low protein diets, as typified by the global malnourished population. With crop Se content constrained largely by underlying geology, regional soil Se variations are often mirrored by their locally grown staples. Despite this, the Se concentrations of much of the world's rice, the mainstay of so many, is poorly characterized, for both total Se content and Se speciation. In this study, 1092 samples of market sourced polished rice were obtained. The sampled rice encompassed dominant rice producing and exporting countries. Rice from the U.S. and India were found to be the most enriched, while mean average levels were lowest in Egyptian rice: approximately 32-fold less than their North American equivalents. By weighting country averages by contribution to either global production or export, modeled baseline values for both were produced. Based on a daily rice consumption of 300 g day(-1), around 75% of the grains from the production and export pools would fail to provide 70% of daily recommended Se intakes. Furthermore, Se localization and speciation characterization using X-ray fluorescence (micro-XRF) and X-ray absorption near edge structure (micro-XANES) techniques were investigated in a Se-rich sample. The results revealed that the large majority of Se in the endosperm was present in organic forms.

Selenium characterization in the global rice supply chain

Rare earth (RE) doped phosphors and their emerging applications: A review

Selenium (Se) is a naturally occurring metalloid element which occurs nearly in all environments. Se is considered as a finite and non-renewable resource on the Earth. The common sources of Se in earth’s crust occur in association with sulfide minerals such as metal selenide, whereas it is rarely found in elemental form (Se0). While there is no evidence of Se need for higher plants, several reports show that when Se added at low concentrations, Se exerts beneficial effects on plant growth. Se may act as quasi-essential micronutrient through altering different physiological and biochemical traits. Thus, plants vary considerably in their physiological and biochemical response to Se. This review focusses on the physiological importance of Se forms as well as different Se fertilizers for higher plants, especially plant growth, uptake, transport, and metabolism.

Selenium and nano-selenium in plant nutrition

Activation of dinitrogen plays an important role in daily anthropogenic life, and the processes by which this fixation occurs have been a longstanding and significant research focus within the comm...

Devender Singh

Papers

Rare earth (RE) doped phosphors and their emerging applications: A review

Activation of Dinitrogen by Polynuclear Metal Complexes.

Lanthanides β-diketonate complexes as energy-efficient emissive materials: A review

Recent Advancements in Luminescent Materials and Their Potential Applications

Electroluminescent materials: Metal complexes of 8-hydroxyquinoline - A review