Effects of final-state interaction and screening on strange- and heavy-quark production

Final-state interaction and screening have a great influence on $q\bar q$ production cross sections, which are important quantities in many problems in quark-gluon plasma physics. They lead to an enhancement of the cross section for a $q\bar q$ color-singlet state and a suppression for a color-octet state. The effects are large near the production threshold. The presence of screening gives rise to resonances for $q\bar q$ production just above the threshold at specific plasma temperatures. These resonances, especially $c\bar c$ and $b\bar b$ resonances, may be utilized to search for the quark-gluon plasma by studying the temperature dependence of heavy-quark pair production just above the threshold.     

Development of flow-injection liposome immunoanalysis (FILIA) for imazethapyr

Imazethapyr is the herbicide developed for use in leguminous crops. In this study, flow-injection liposome immunoanalysis (FILIA) has been shown to be capable of measuring imazethapyr in a buffered solution with a detection limit of 0.1 ppb through the optimization process. Protein A coated glass beads covalently conjugated with antibody were contained in a glass column, and this column was used as an immunoreactor. Liposomes which encapsulated a fluorescent dye, sulforhodamine B (SRB) or carboxyfluorescein (CF), generated the analytical signal. By loading larger volumes of sample onto the column, it was shown that the detection limit could be lowered. Liposomes containing carboxyfluorescein gave more sensitive response and a lower detection limit than those with sulforhodamine B. Also, improved response was obtained by using a smaller flow cell in the fluorescence detector due to the reduced dilution effect.     

Orthogonal array design (OAD) for the optimization of mercury extraction from soils by dilute acid with microwave heating

The use of dilute acid for mercury extraction from geological samples with microwave assisted heating was investigated. An orthogonal array design OA(16)(4(1)x2(12)) was applied to select the optimum conditions. The effects of the concentration of HNO(3), the additions of HCl and H(2)S0(4), the extraction time and their interactions were evaluated by the mixed-level orthogonal array design (OAD). The results indicated that the addition of small amount of HCl would improve significantly the extraction of mercury from soil matrices. From the study, it is seen that the mercury in the soil matrices could be extracted completely by 14% (v/v) HNO(3) with small quantity of HCl. The effects of the pressure within the digestion vessel and the sample mass were studied under the optimum conditions derived from the OAD. The extraction methods with optimum conditions were evaluated by determining mercury in NIST SRM 1645 River Sediment, NIES CRM No. 2 Pond Sediment and NRCC BCSS-1 Marine Sediment. Recoveries of 78-109% were achieved. Good mean recoveries of 95-98% were also obtained from real soil samples spiked with different species of mercury.