Ministry of Supply

About: Ministry of Supply is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Polarography & Bacillus (shape). The organization has 416 authors who have published 355 publications receiving 8951 citations. The organization is also known as: MoS.

Flavin-adenine dinucleotide and diaphorase in resting and germinated spores, and vegetative cells of Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus megatherium

Abstract: The method described in the present work allows the purity of the solution under test for tocopherols to be assessed and also enables the separation of the commonly occurring a-, yand 8-tocopherols to be achieved. Applications of the method to the examination of several oils indicate the usefulness of the method. For example, the presence of 8tocopherol in soya-bean oil is readily ascertained, whereas its existence escaped detection by conventional methods for many years. In addition, the substance in cocksfoot grass which gives a colour with diazotized o-dianisidine is shown to be different from any of the known tocopherols in its behaviour on the chromatogram. Similarly, a non-tocopherol ferric-reducing substance which is not removed by the saponification, adsorption and crystallization processes is present in wheat-germ oil. Although the method will probably not be readily applicable to routine analysis, its value for reliably detecting the presence of naturally occurring tocopherols is apparent. Application of the method to the quantitative analysis of tocopherol mixtures is being undertaken and will be the subject ofa further communication.

A statistical theory of cascade multiplication

Abstract: The secondary emission electron multiplier is chosen to illustrate the phenomenon of ‘cascade multiplication’. A method is given for deriving the semi-invariants of the probability distribution for the number of output electrons after any number of identical stages of multiplication, in terms of the corresponding semi-invariants for a single stage. The output distribution is not, in general, either of the Poisson or Gaussian types, though it tends to a limiting shape as the number of stages becomes very large. The special case in which each stage replaces a single primary electron by a Poisson distribution of secondaries is considered. The overall output distribution after many stages is still not Gaussian unless the mean amplification per stage is large compared with unity.

Thermal Decomposition of Organic Nitrates

Abstract: The kinetics and mechanism of the thermal decomposition of organic mono- and poly-nitrates have been studied during recent years by Bawn and Wiseman1, A. J. B. Robertson2 and more extensively by me3. Studies on the overall decomposition in liquid and vapour phases suggest strongly that fission of O—N bonds with formation of NO2 is the primary process, while I have shown3 that during the very early stages of decomposition of a wide range of organic nitrates, in which the occurrence of secondary reactions is prevented, nitrogen is eliminated from the molecule wholly as NO2. These observations and the identification of aldehydes among the decomposition products indicate that, as suggested earlier by Bawn1, the mechanism postulated by Appin et al.4 for methyl nitrate applies to organic nitrates in general, namely: