Accreditation of reference material producers: the example of IRMM's Reference Materials Unit

The potential approaches for third-party assessment of reference material producers are revisited and the activities of the Reference Materials (RM) Unit of the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) to obtain accreditation to ISO Guide 34 and ISO 17025 are described. Accreditation was related to the Unit as all matrix RM activities of the institute are concentrated there. A management system was established that allows sufficient flexibility to be applicable to a wide range of RMs while being precise enough to ensure compliance with ISO Guides 30, 31 and especially 34 and 35. Accreditation was achieved in 2004 with independent scopes for testing and RM production and was confirmed and extended in 2005. The key aspects of the RM Unit's management system for RM production are presented. Presented at BERM-10, April 2006, Charleston, SC, USA     

Two-Temperature Transport Coefficients in Argon–Hydrogen Plasmas—I: Elastic Processes and Collision Integrals

The calculation of two-temperature transport coefficients in an argon–hydrogen plasma at atmospheric pressure is performed using a new theory of two-temperature transport properties recently presented. The latter takes into account the coupling between electrons and heavy species, coupling neglected in the already existing theories of Devoto and Bonnefoi. Transport coefficients are calculated at two-temperatures, the kinetic temperature of electrons T_e being different from that of heavy species T_h. This paper is divided into two parts. The first one is related to elastic processes and its aim is to compare the results obtained with this new theory for viscosity , translational thermal conductivities ^tr _e and ^tr _h and electrical conductivity with the previous results of Bonnefoi. The composition is calculated with the modified equilibrium constant of van de Sanden et al. and the most recent interaction potential are discussed. As it could be expected the electron translational thermal conductivity and the electrical conductivity calculated when taking into account or not the coupling between electrons and heavy species show non-negligible discrepancies. Besides this comparison, the results also show the drastic influence of the non-equilibrium parameter =T_e/T_h on the values of , , ^tr _e, and ^tr _h.     

The search for a new model structure of β-Factor XIIa

We present the search for a new model of -factor XIIa, a blood coagulation enzyme, with an unknown experimental 3D-structure. We decided to build not one but three different models using different homologous proteins as well as different techniques and different modellers. Additional studies, including extensive molecular dynamics simulations on the solvated state, allowed us to draw several conclusions concerning homology modelling, in general, and -factor XIIa, in particular.     

The spectrum of a quasiperiodic Schrödinger operator

The spectrum (H) of the tight binding Fibonacci Hamiltonian (H _mn= _m,n+1+ _m+1,n + _m,n v(n),v(n)= ((n–1)), 1/ is the golden number) is shown to coincide with the dynamical spectrum, the set on which an infinite subsequence of traces of transfer matrices is bounded. The point spectrum is absent for any , and (H) is a Cantor set for 4. Combining this with Casdagli's earlier result, one finds that the spectrum is singular continuous for 16.On leave from the Central Research Institute for Physics, Budapest, Hungary     

Intersections of random hypersurfaces and visibility

Summary For a wide class of stationary random hypersurfaces in ^d the notion of the projection body is introduced. It turns out that this convex body, a very special case of which is Matheron's Steiner compact associated with a Poisson process of hyperplanes, contains most of the information concerning certain intersection properties of the random hypersurface, while its polar reciprocal set is closely connected with the behaviour of the random hypersurface in visibility problems. This enables one to give a unified treatment of several intersection and visibility problems for random hypersurfaces. A detailed investigation of the case where the random hypersurface is generated by a Poisson process is given separately.     

Incorporating the effect of ionic strength in free energy calculations using explicit ions

The incorporation of explicit ions to mimic the effect of ionic strength or to neutralize the overall charge on a system in free energy calculations using molecular dynamics simulations is investigated. The difference in the free energy of hydration between two triosephosphate isomerase inhibitors calculated at five different ion concentrations is used as an example. We show that the free energy difference can be highly sensitive to the presence of explicit ions even in cases where the mutation itself does not involve a change in the overall charge. The effect is most significant if the molecule carries a net charge close to the site mutated. Furthermore, it is shown that the introduction of a small number of ions can lead to very severe sampling problems suggesting that in practical calculations convergence can best be achieved by incorporating either no counterions or by simulating at high ionic strength to ensure sufficient sampling of the ion distribution.     

One-dimensional quantum description of the bending vibrations of HCN/CNH for high values of the total angular momentum

For high values of the quantum number of the total angular momentum J (up to J = 20), quantum mechanical eigenstates (eigenvalues and eigenfunctions) are calculated by the method of Gatti et al. (J. Mol. Spectrosc. 181 (1997) 403) for the bending deformations of HCN and CNH. In particular, we have examined the l-type resonances in highly excited rovibrational states within the framework of a one-dimensional model, i.e. along the reaction pathway for the isomerization reaction HCN/CNH. The potential energy surface used is that of Bowman et al. (J. Chem. Phys. 99 (1993) 308).     

The observation of a large gauche preference when 2-fluoroethylamine and 2-fluoroethanol become protonated

The energies of the gauche and anti conformers of 2-fluoroethylamine, 2-fluoroethanol and their protonated analogues are calculated using density functional theory. Unlike the non protonated systems, the protonated systems show a strong gauche effect where the C-F and the C-(+)NH(3) or C-F and C-(+)OH(2) bonds are gauche rather than anti to each other. Single crystal X-ray diffraction studies of 2-fluoroethylammonium compounds identify the same conformational preference.     

Reanalysis of Chiral Discrimination of Phenoxypropionic Acid Herbicides on a Teicoplanin Phase Using a Bi-Langmuir Approach

Summary The chiral discrimination of phenoxypropionic acid herbicides by reversed-phase chromatography on a teicoplanin phase has been re-examined using the perturbation method to calculate the solute distribution isotherms. The effects of both temperature and the methanol (organic modifier) content of the mobile phase on the chiral discrimination mechanism were well described by the bi-Langmuir model. The method confirmed a change in the mechanism of enantiomer retention at a critical temperature, T^*, and showed that the mechanism was independent of (i) herbicide molecular structure, i.e. the position of the chloro group on the phenol ring, and (ii) the absolute configuration of the carbon atom. Enantioselectivity was enhanced by increasing the mobile phase methanol content. Use of this approach also revealed that secondary sites on the teicoplanin surface were involved in the processes determining both retention and selectivity. It was clearly demonstrated that these secondary sites of low affinity were not affected by the temperature change and were not involved in the chiral recognition mechanism.     

Methyl cellulose-based edible films and coatings I. Effect of plasticizer content on water and 1-octen-3-ol sorption and transport

Edible films were prepared from methyl cellulose with various concentrations of poly(ethylene glycol) 400 (PEG400) used as a plasticizer. Water vapour and 1-octen-3-ol (an aroma compound) were selected as hydrophilic and hydrophobic volatile penetrants respectively. Their solubility and permeability through methyl cellulose-based edible films were studied using gas chromatography methods. Whatever penetrant was used, the flux increased with the PEG400 content. Transfer behaviour, i.e., the order of increased magnitude of the transfer rate, strongly depends on the nature of the volatile compound. However, water sorption only depends on the PEG400 content whereas the aroma compound sorption is affected by both the water and the PEG400 concentrations. Relationships between solubility and permeability can be partially explained by the plasticization phenomenon.