Ion‐Induced Fragmentation of Amino Acids: Effect of the Environment

In general, radiation‐induced fragmentation of small amino acids is governed by the cleavage of the C? C_α bond. We present results obtained with 300 keV Xe²⁰⁺ ions that allow molecules (glycine and valine) to be ionised at large distances without appreciable energy transfer. Also in the present case, the C? C_α bond turns out to be the weakest link and hence its scission is the dominant fragmentation channel. Intact ionised molecules are observed with very low intensities. When the molecules are embedded in a cluster of amino acids, a protective effect of the environment is observed. The fragmentation pattern changes: the C? C_α bond becomes more protected and stable amino acid cations are observed as fragments of the molecular clusters. Evidently, the molecular cluster acts as a “buffer” for the excess energy, capable of rapidly redistributing excess energy and charge.     

Shell model of turbulence perturbed by L��vy noise

In this work we prove the existence and uniqueness of the strong solution of the shell model of turbulence perturbed by Lévy noise. The local monotonicity arguments have been exploited in the proofs.     

Precision Measurement of the Charged Pion Mass by High Resolution X-Ray Spectroscopy

A new experiment for a high-precision measurement of the pion mass at a 1 ppm level is presented. It combines an improved cyclotron trap that produces pionic and muonic atoms in a small volume with a doubly focusing crystal spectrometer to measure the corresponding exotic X-ray transitions with high accuracy and a novel type of CCD detector. The muonic X-rays lines serve as highly accurate calibration lines. The measurement has been accomplished recently. A detailed analysis of the data is on the way. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Rapid extraction and quantitative detection of the herbicide diuron in surface water by a hapten-functionalized carbon nanotubes based electrochemical analyzer

A solid phase extraction micro-cartridge containing a non-polar polystyrene absorbent matrix was coupled with an electrochemical immunoassay analyzer (EIA) and used for the ultra-sensitive detection of the phenyl urea herbicide diuron in real samples. The EIA was fabricated by using carboxylated carbon nanotubes (CNTs) functionalized with a hapten molecule (an amine functionalized diuron derivative). Screen printed electrodes (SPE) were modified with these haptenized CNTs and specific in-house generated anti diuron antibodies were used for bio-interface development. The immunodetection was realized in a competitive electrochemical immunoassay format using alkaline phosphatase labeled secondary anti-IgG antibody. The addition of 1-naphthyl phosphate substrate resulted in the production of an electrochemically active product, 1-naphthol, which was monitored by using differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). The assay exhibited excellent sensitivity and specificity having a dynamic response range of 0.01 pg mL(-1) to 10 μg mL(-1) for diuron with a limit of detection of around 0.1 pg mL(-1) (n = 3) in standard water samples. The micro-cartridge coupled hapten-CNTs modified SPE provided an effective and efficient electrochemical immunoassay for the real-time monitoring of pesticides samples with a very high degree of sensitivity.     

Mixed finite element methods for the approximation of time-dependent problems

A given elliptic boundary problem can, in general, be approximated by several different mixed finite element methods, depending on what physical unknowns are most desired. The use of certain mixed methods for time-dependent problems has been proposed by Johnson and Thomee [5]. We analyze here some additional mixed methods for the time-dependent case which can be used to obtain direct approximations to alternate physical quantities of interest.     

Contribution of ion emission to sputtering of uranium dioxide by highly charged ions

Measurements of the cluster size (n) distribution of secondary (UOx)+n ions from sputtering of uranium dioxide (UO2) by Ne8+, Ar8+ and Xeq+ ions (q=10, 23) at fixed kinetic energy (81 keV) have been performed with a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The cluster ion yields Y follow a power law Y(n)n with -2.1<<-1.5. This is in contrast to a statistical recombination of the constituents upon ejection, but in agreement with the predictions of collective ejection models. Such a power law was also observed in the electronic stopping regime with MeV/uions. The exponent is found to decrease with increasing projectile mass (and thus total sputter yield) at fixed kinetic energy. The ratio of emitted ionic clusters to monomers varies from 3 to 4.5 depending on the projectile. The contribution of positive ions to the total sputtering yield amounts to about 0.03%.     

The versions of the finite element method for problems with boundary layers

We study the uniform approximation of boundary layer functions for , , by the and versions of the finite element method. For the version (with fixed mesh), we prove super-exponential convergence in the range . We also establish, for this version, an overall convergence rate of in the energy norm error which is uniform in , and show that this rate is sharp (up to the term) when robust estimates uniform in are considered. For the version with variable mesh (i.e., the version), we show that exponential convergence, uniform in , is achieved by taking the first element at the boundary layer to be of size . Numerical experiments for a model elliptic singular perturbation problem show good agreement with our convergence estimates, even when few degrees of freedom are used and when is as small as, e.g., . They also illustrate the superiority of the approach over other methods, including a low-order version with optimal ``exponential" mesh refinement. The estimates established in this paper are also applicable in the context of corresponding spectral element methods.

     

Electron-capture—Induced dissociation of protoporphyrin IX ions

Electron-capture induced dissociation of protoporphyrin cations and anions has been studied. The cations captured two electrons in two successive collisions and were converted to the corresponding even-electron anions. About one fifth of the ions lost a hydrogen atom to become radical anions but otherwise very little fragmentation was observed. The anions captured an electron to become dianions. No hydrogen loss occurred, and the only fragmentation channel observed was loss of CO2H, to give a doubly charged carbanion. Our results indicate that protoporphyrin ions are very efficient in accommodating one or even two electrons in the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital of the porphyrin macrocycle, and that electron capture induces only limited dissociation.