ASAXS study of styrene‐grafted sulfonated poly(vinylidene fluoride) membranes

Small‐angle and wide‐angle X‐ray scattering and anomalous small‐angle X‐ray scattering were used to investigate proton‐conducting membranes prepared by radiation‐induced styrene grafting and sulfonation of commercial poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF‐g‐PS) films. The membranes retain the lamellar and highly oriented structure of the original PVDF films even through excessive grafting and sulfonation. The sulfonate groups aggregate in the central part of the amorphous layers, where they form a weakly ordered structure that does not show any preferred orientation. This structure is suggested to be lamellar with alternate metal‐sulfonated hydrate and PVDF‐g‐PS layers. The lamellar period is 15.1 Å. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci B: Polym Phys 38: 1734–1748, 2000     

Gold chloride cluster ions generated by vacuum laser ablation

In this work, a simple way for study the possibility of formation a vapor cluster species of tetrachloroauric acid (HAuCl₄), using the laser ablation in the absence of a buffer or reactive atmosphere, and without a postablation supersonic expansion on a commercial matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer, is reported. Tetrachloroauric acid is known as precursor for the synthesis of gold nanostructures and the complex salts; therefore it is an important task to discover and quantify the species arising from HAuCl₄, in order to understand their role in the gold assisted reactions. Mass spectrum of HAuCl₄ in a reflector negative-ion mode contains the hydrated mono- and dinuclear gold clusters in the m/z range 286–436, and gold chloride clusters in the m/z range 447–795. In the first part of spectrum, m/z range 286–436, the hydrated gold cluster species of type Au _n ^? (H₂O)_m (n?=?1–2; m?=?1, 2, 5, 7, 8) and [Au_n(OH)_k]^?(H₂O)_m (n?=?1–2; k?=?1–2; m?=?1, 4–8) were found. Besides that, there are gold chloride clusters with general formula [AuH_r(HCl)₂]^?(H₂O)_m (m?=?1–5; 8–9; r?=?0–2) in this part of spectrum. In the second part of spectrum, the m/z range 447–795, only gold chloride clusters were obtained. Their general formulae can be written as [AuCl_t(HCl)_v]^?(H₂O)_m (t?=?1–4; v?=?5–8; m?=?2–4, 6–8) and [Au_n(HCl)_v]^?(H₂O)_m (n?=?1–2, v?=?4–5, m?=?1–2, 5, 7). The analysis of concentration effects on the LDI mass spectra of gold clusters reveals that the relative intensities of signals for the mono- and dinuclear Au clusters increase with decreasing the concentration of water HAuCl₄ solutions.     

Characterization of structural changes in aptamer films for controlled release nanodevices

The dimension of the conformational changes of DNA-aptamers which can be used as stimulus-responsive gate-keepers in controlled delivery nanodevices has been determined by acoustic wave-based sensors upon molecular recognition of a small-sized target, adenosine-5'-monophosphate (AMP).     

Secondary ion mass spectrometry and alpha-spectrometry of electrodeposited thorium films

The main aim of this work was the preparation of samples with thorium content on the steel discs by electrodeposition for determination of natural thorium isotope by alpha spectrometry and secondary ion mass spectrometry and finding out their possible linear correlation between these methods. The analysis of the composition of surface was other aim of study. Discs were measured by alpha spectrometer. After that, alpha spectrometry discs were analyzed by TOF-SIMS IV, which is installed in the International Laser Centre in Bratislava. The integral and normalized intensities of isotope of ²³²Th and intensities of ions of ThO⁺, ThOH⁺, ThO₂H⁺, Th₂O₄H⁺, ThO₂ ^?, ThO₃H^?, ThH₃O₃ ^? a ThN₂O₅H^? were measured. The linear correlation is between surface’s weights of Th and intensities of ions of Th⁺ from identified in SIMS spectra. We found out the chemical binding between thorium and oxygen and hydrogen on the surface of samples by SIMS method. Obtained intensities of ions ²³²ThO⁺, ²³²ThOH⁺, ²³²ThO₂H⁺ prove the presence of oxidized forms of thorium in the upper layers of surface. The oxidized ions predominate in univalent form of thorium up to deep about 3,000 nm.     

Estimates of approximation numbers and applications

In this study, the estimates of approximation numbers of embedding operators in weighted spaces have been analyzed. These estimates depend on orders of differential operators, dimensions of function spaces and weighted functions. This fact implies that the associated embedding operators belong to Schatten class of compact operators. By using these estimates, the discreetness of spectrum and completion of root elements relating to principal nonselfedjoint degenerate differential operators is obtained.     

C(X) in the weak topology

Some relations between cardinal invariants ofX andC(X) are established in the weak topology, whereC(X) is the space of continuous real-valued functions onX in the compact-open topology.     

Effects of acute gamma-irradiation on extracellular adenine nucleotide hydrolysis in developing rat brain

Cell membrane is highly sensitive to irradiation which, acting directly or indirectly, may disturb functions of constitutive proteins including membrane enzymes. Plasma membrane surface-located enzyme chain of ecto-nucleotide triphospho diphosphohydrolases (NTPDases) and 5′-nucleotidase are involved in termination of cell purinergic signalization by hydrolyzing extracellular, excitatory adenosine triphosphate (ATP), as well as nucleotide di-, and mono-phosphate (ADP and AMP) to neuroprotective adenosine. Extracellular ATP, ADP, and AMP hydrolyzes were examined in purified synaptic plasma membranes after whole-body acute irradiation. All measurements were done 24 h after irradiation of developing (15-, 30-day-old) and adult (90-day-old) rats with low (50 cGy) and high (2 Gy) dose of gamma-rays. Both, high and low doses inhibited nucleotide hydrolyses in 15-day-old rats; in 30-day-old rats low dose of radiation inhibited ADP and AMP hydrolyses while high dose inhibited only ATP hydrolyse. In adult rats high dose induced no effects, while low dose stimulated nucleotides hydrolyses. According to obtained results it was concluded that ecto-nucleotidases of young rats are more sensitive to irradiation, since even low dose induces inhibition of ecto-nucleotidases activities. Ionizing radiation, by decreasing brain nucleotide hydrolyses in developing rats, induces accumulation of ATP and decreases production of adenosine in synaptic cleft which could be neurocytotoxic. On the contrary, in adult rats low dose of radiation stimulates NTPDase and 5′-nucleotidase activity and protective adenosine production which indicates protective and adaptive mechanisms developed in adult brain neuronal cells. The article is published in the original.     

Transposition invariant string matching

Given strings A=a₁a₂…a_m and B=b₁b₂…b_n over an alphabet , where is some numerical universe closed under addition and subtraction, and a distance function d(A,B) that gives the score of the best (partial) matching of A and B, the transposition invariant distance is , where A+t=(a₁+t)(a₂+t)…(a_m+t). We study the problem of computing the transposition invariant distance for various distance (and similarity) functions d, including Hamming distance, longest common subsequence (LCS), Levenshtein distance, and their versions where the exact matching condition is replaced by an approximate one. For all these problems we give algorithms whose time complexities are close to the known upper bounds without transposition invariance, and for some we achieve these upper bounds. In particular, we show how sparse dynamic programming can be used to solve transposition invariant problems, and its connection with multidimensional range-minimum search. As a byproduct, we give improved sparse dynamic programming algorithms to compute LCS and Levenshtein distance.