Author
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Niedz, Randall |
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Evens, Terence |
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Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 3/9/2004 Publication Date: 5/21/2004 Citation: Niedz, R.P., Evens, T.J. 2004. The problem of anionic/cationic balance in the design of media formulations for mineral nutrition studies. Meeting Abstract. Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: Designing culture media for mineral nutrition studies is a complicated problem. A primary reason is that in order to change the concentration of a single anion or cation it is generally necessary to change the complementary cat-/anion of the salt complex, thereby making it difficult to devise media that differ only in the concentration of a single ion. Consequently, it often becomes necessary to simultaneously alter both the type and/or concentration of multiple salts to achieve a final set of media that differ only in the concentration of a single ion; when the objective is to alter the concentration of multiple ions the problem's complexity is increased considerably. The anion/cation balance problem is easily solved by linear programming (LP), a technique of applied mathematics devised specifically for solving a wide range of practical, complex, resource allocation problems such as scheduling, mixing, blending, and routing. The anionic/cationic balance problem, how it is easily solved using LP techniques, and a public domain software program designed for nutrient formulation research will be presented. |
