CE‐ESI‐TOF/MS for human growth hormone analysis

CE is a powerful analytical tool used to separate intact biomolecules such as proteins. The coupling of CE with TOF/MS produces a very promising method that can be used to detect and identify proteins in different matrices. This paper describes an efficient, rapid, and simple CE‐ESI‐TOF/MS procedure for the analysis of endogenous human growth hormone and recombinant human growth hormone without sample preparation. Operational factors were optimized using an experimental design, and the method was successfully applied to distinguish human growth hormone and recombinant human growth hormone in unknown samples.     

Chironomic stylization of intonation

Intonation stylization is studied using "chironomy," i.e., the analogy between hand gestures and prosodic movements. An intonation mimicking paradigm is used. The task of the ten subjects is to copy the intonation pattern of sentences with the help of a stylus on a graphic tablet, using a system for real-time manual intonation modification. Gestural imitation is compared to vocal imitation of the same sentences (seven for a male speaker, seven for a female speaker). Distance measures between gestural copies, vocal imitations, and original sentences are computed for performance assessment. Perceptual testing is also used for assessing the quality of gestural copies. The perceptual difference between natural and stylized contours is measured using a mean opinion score paradigm for 15 subjects. The results indicate that intonation contours can be stylized with accuracy by chironomic imitation. The results of vocal imitation and chironomic imitation are comparable, but subjects show better imitation results in vocal imitation. The best stylized contours using chironomy seems perceptually indistinguishable or almost indistinguishable from natural contours, particularly for female speech. This indicates that chironomic stylization is effective, and that hand movements can be analogous to intonation movements.     

Inverse problem approaches for stationary Fourier transform spectrometers

A design of a miniaturized stationary Fourier transform IR spectrometer has been developed that produces a two-dimensional interferogram. The latter is disturbed by effects like parasitic interferences or disparities in the cutoff wavelength of the pixels. Thus, a simple Fourier transform cannot be used to estimate the spectrum of the scene. However, as these defects are deterministic, they can be measured and taken into account by inversion methods. A regularization term can also be added. The first experimental results prove the efficiency of this processing methodology.     

Synthesis,characterization and anticancer activity of new palladacycles derived from chiral α‐diimines

Optically pure α‐diimines quantitatively obtained in solvent‐free conditions starting from 2,3‐butanedione and (S)‐(?)‐1‐phenylethylamine and (S)‐(?)‐1‐(4‐methylphenyl)ethylamine, respectively, yielded the new chiral mono‐Pd complexes 2a–b, which have been partly characterized by IR, ¹H‐ and ¹³C‐NMR spectroscopies along with MS‐FAB⁺ spectrometry. The crystal and molecular structure for palladacycle 2a has been fully confirmed by single‐crystal X‐ray studies. Studies in vitro of 2a–b have displayed growth inhibition against different classes of cancer: leukemia (K‐562 CML), colon cancer (HCT‐15), breast cancer (MCF‐7), central nervous system (U‐251 Glio) and prostate cancer (PC‐3) cell lines. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nonlinear and non-separable multiscale representations based on Lipschitz perturbation

In this Note, we present a new formalism for nonlinear and non-separable multiscale representations. The new formalism we propose brings about similarities between existing nonlinear multiscale representations and also allows us to alleviate the classical hypotheses made to prove the convergence of the multiscale representations.     

Some remarks on non-commutative principal ideal rings

We prove some algebraic results on the ring of matrix differential operators over a differential field in the generality of non-commutative principal ideal rings. These results are used in the theory of non-local Poisson structures.     

Screening of pesticides in blood with liquid chromatography–linear ion trap mass spectrometry

In clinical or forensic toxicology, general unknown screening procedures are used to identify as many xenobiotics as possible, belonging to numerous chemical classes. We present here a general unknown screening procedure based on liquid chromatography coupled with use of a single linear ion trap mass spectrometer, and focus on the identification of pesticides and/or metabolites in whole blood. After solid-phase extraction (SPE), the compounds of interest were separated using a reversed-phase column and identified by the mass spectrometer operated first in the full-scan mass spectrometry (MS) mode, in the positive and negative polarities, followed by MS² and MS³ scanning of ions selected in data-dependent acquisition. The total scan time was 2.45 s. Two mass spectral libraries (MS² and MS³), each of 450 spectra, were created for the 320 pesticides and metabolites detected after injection of pure solutions. Robustness of the spectra and matrix effects were studied and were satisfactory for the present application. Detection limits for the 320 compounds were studied by extracting 1 mL spiked blood at concentrations between 10 μg/L and 10 mg/L. If necessary, it was possible to decrease the detection limits of some compounds by 10–100-fold by scanning MS² in only one polarity, owing to a shorter total scan time. However, at the same time, the detection specificity decreased as no confirmation could be recorded in the following MS³ scan and no information could be registered in the other polarity. So, in these rare cases, confirmation by another method was required.