A novel method for serum lipoprotein profiling using high performance capillary isotachophoresis

A new capillary isotachophoresis (cITP) method for lipoprotein profiling with superior lipoprotein coverage compared to previous methods has been developed, resolving twice as many lipoprotein species (18 peaks/fractions) in serum or plasma in less than 9.5 min. For this, a novel mixture of 24 spacers, including amino acids, dipeptides and sulfonic acids, was developed and fine-tuned, using predictive software (PeakMaster) and testing of spiked serum samples. Lipoprotein peaks were identified by serum-spiking with reference lipoproteins. Compatibility with common lipophilic stains for selective lipoprotein detection with either UV/Vis or laser-induced fluorescence was demonstrated. A special new capillary with a neutral coating (combining water-compatible OV1701-OH deactivation and methylation) was used for the first time for electrodriven separations, allowing very stable separations in a pH 8.8–9.4 gradient system, being functional for more than 100 injections. Excellent reproducibility was achieved, with coefficients of variation lower than 2.6% for absolute migration times. Comparison was performed with human plasma samples analyzed by NMR, leading to similar results with cITP after multivariate statistics, regarding group-clustering and lipoprotein species correlation. The new cITP method was applied to the analysis of serum samples from a LDL receptor knock-out mice model fed either a normal diet or a western-type diet. Differences in the lipoprotein levels and in the sublipoprotein types were detected, showing a shift to more atherogenic particles due to the high cholesterol diet. In summary, this novel method will allow more detailed and informative profiling of lipoprotein particle subtypes for cardiovascular disease research.     

Anderson acceleration of the alternating projections method for computing the nearest correlation matrix

In a wide range of applications it is required to compute the nearest correlation matrix in the Frobenius norm to a given symmetric but indefinite matrix. Of the available methods with guaranteed convergence to the unique solution of this problem the easiest to implement, and perhaps the most widely used, is the alternating projections method. However, the rate of convergence of this method is at best linear, and it can require a large number of iterations to converge to within a given tolerance. We show that Anderson acceleration, a technique for accelerating the convergence of fixed-point iterations, can be applied to the alternating projections method and that in practice it brings a significant reduction in both the number of iterations and the computation time. We also show that Anderson acceleration remains effective, and indeed can provide even greater improvements, when it is applied to the variants of the nearest correlation matrix problem in which specified elements are fixed or a lower bound is imposed on the smallest eigenvalue. Alternating projections is a general method for finding a point in the intersection of several sets and ours appears to be the first demonstration that this class of methods can benefit from Anderson acceleration.     

Titanium dioxide doped with transition metals (MxTi1?xO2, M: Ni, Co): synthesis and characterization for its potential application as photoanode

This study presents the synthesis of TiO₂ doped with different amounts of Co and Ni, starting from a simple metallic titanium powder. A successful electrophoretic deposition of these materials on ITO electrodes was achieved for its potential application as photoanodes. EDX, diffuse reflectance UV–Vis spectroscopy, and XRD measurements gave information on the chemical composition of the material and the location of the Ni or Co within the crystal structure of TiO₂. Raman spectroscopy suggests that for a higher content of doping metal above a defined percentage, the formation of metal oxide is promoted. A preliminary study of photoelectrocatalytic orange dye degradation shows higher color removal efficiency as compared to the commercial TiO₂ material.     

The Tucson-Melbourne three-nucleon force in the automatized partial-wave decomposition

A recently developed procedure for a partial-wave decomposition of a three-nucleon force is applied to the p \pi -p \pi , p \pi -r \rho and r \rho -r \rho components of the Tucson-Melbourne three-nucleon potential. The resulting matrix elements for the p \pi -p \pi and p \pi -r \rho components are compared with the values obtained using the standard approach to the partial-wave decomposition, in which the p \pi -r \rho expressions for the matrix elements are also derived and presented. Several numerical tests and results for the triton binding energy and the correlation function prove the reliability and efficiency of the new method.     

On geodesic mappings of equidistant generalized Riemannian spaces

In this paper geodesic mappings of equidistant generalized Riemannian spaces are discussed. It is proved that each equidistant generalized Riemannian space of basic type admits non-trivial geodesic mapping with preserved equidistant congruence. Especially, there exists non-trivial geodesic mapping of equidistant generalized Riemannian space onto equidistant Riemannian space. An example of geodesic mapping of an equidistant generalized Riemannian spaces is presented.     

Simulación numérica de la agitación en tanques de almacenamiento de líquidos mediante una estrategia lagrangiana euleriana arbitraria

Sloshing of fluids with a free surface contained in liquid storage tanks is numerically simulated by an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation. The fluid is considered viscous and Newtonian, while the flow is assumed laminar and incompressible. A partitioned and distributed computational code is employed, which solves three instances each time step: (i) the determination of the fluid state, given by the Navier–Stokes equations; (ii) the displacement of the free surface; and (iii) the update of the position of the internal nodes of the mesh, that is deformed as a consequence of the free surface displacement. The purpose of the work is verifying the applicability of the method to sloshing problems with known solutions, as well as the resolution of some practical examples. Numerical examples include validations against analytical solutions, where the wave period and damping rate are well captured, comparisons with reference results from other authors and a sample of sloshing induced by seismic actions.