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Title: ARS-Media User Manual, Version 1.0

Author
item Evens, Terence
item Niedz, Randall

Submitted to: Electronic Publication
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/14/2006
Publication Date: 9/14/2006
Citation: Evens, T.J. and Niedz, R.P., 2006. ARS-Media User Manual, Version 1.0. Available: [URL].

Interpretive Summary: The mineral composition of a solution is one of the most fundamental aspects of biology and, determines if and how well an organism grows. However, in order to determine the optimal mineral nutrient composition for any biological response (e.g., plant growth) it is necessary to make solutions with precisely defined levels of specific ions. This is an extremely complex problem. The software application ARS-Media simplifies this problem by calculating the precise set of salts, acids, and bases required to make a specific ionic solution.

Technical Abstract: Understanding the ion-specific effects of mineral elements is a central theme of biology because these ions are fundamental to the composition and maintenance of life. However, experiments concerned with determining ion-specific effects are generally performed with salt, as opposed to ion, manipulations. This means that researchers have had to accept a co-variance in the co-ion of the salt used to manipulate the ion of interest. The result is that the effect of a single ion cannot be determined as it is confounded with the potential combined effects of the other ions that are co-varied. Because of this difficulty, the majority of research studies concerned with determining ion-specific effects exhibit ion confounding. The software application ARS-Media utilizes a linear programming optimization algorithm to determine the combination of salts, acids, and bases that satisfies any given target solution of ions. ARS-Media therefore allows researchers to construct experimental designs that use ions, as opposed to salts, as individual factors and, hence, experimentally determine ion-specific effects on biological responses relating to ion type, concentration, and proportion.