Detection of illicit material using neutron activation: weakness and solutions

Poisoning the illicit materials by a neutron absorber leads to false detection when the detection is relied on combined thermal neutron activation and fast neutron activation to identify the elements of interest. The use of adjacent transmission thermal neutron detector for verifying the presence of neutron poisons and to trigger an alarm was investigated experimentally and using MCNP calculations. The illicit material of high hydrogen content will affect the detector response in the presence or absence of poisons.     

Investigating neutron back scattering technique for the detection of oil water separation levels in horizontal gravity oil separators

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - Neutron backscattering technique is investigated as an alternative way for measuring the level of water in the horizontal oil gravity separators....     

Suspension bead array branch migration displacement assay for rapid STR analysis

STR analysis is commonly used in forensic and genetic studies. STRs are currently discriminated based on size, primarily by gel- and column-based approaches. Hybridization-based approaches have the potential to allow high-throughput analysis of STRs; however, development of such approaches has been limited by the difficulty in discriminating between STRs of similar length. We have recently described several innovations to enable STR analysis using an array-based hybridization approach for high- throughput STR analysis. Here we extend that approach by incorporating the array into microspheres and adding a discriminatory branch migration displacement step. This microsphere-based platform uses Luminex xMAP technology and improves the sensitivity, selectivity, and speed of the assay. We demonstrate the feasibility, speed, and reliability of the assay for STR detection by correctly analyzing two STR loci in 20 forensic DNA samples of known STR type. The multiplex, bead-based approach provides a high-throughput and more portable STR analysis.     

Development of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)-like fluorescence assay to investigate the interactions of glycosaminoglycans to cells

Sulfated glycosaminoglycans were labeled with biotin to study their interaction with cells in culture. Thus, heparin, heparan sulfate, chondroitin 4-sulfate, chondroitin 6-sulfate and dermatan sulfate were labeled using biotin-hydrazide, under different conditions. The structural characteristics of the biotinylated products were determined by chemical (molar ratios of hexosamine, uronic acid, sulfate and biotin) and enzymatic methods (susceptibility to degradation by chondroitinases and heparitinases). The binding of biotinylated glycosaminoglycans was investigated both in endothelial and smooth muscle cells in culture, using a novel time resolved fluorometric method based on interaction of europium-labeled streptavidin with the biotin covalently linked to the compounds. The interactions of glycosaminoglycans were saturable and number of binding sites could be obtained for each individual compound. The apparent dissociation constant varied among the different glycosaminoglycans and between the two cell lines. The interactions of the biotinylated glycosaminoglycans with the cells were also evaluated using confocal microscopy. We propose a convenient and reliable method for the preparation of biotinylated glycosaminoglycans, as well as a sensitive non-competitive fluorescence-based assay for studies of the interactions and binding of these compounds to cells in culture.     

Construction of 1,3-disubstituted 4-oxo-1,4-dihydroquinolines as a potential antibacterial agents

Research on Chemical Intermediates - A novel series of 1,3-disubstituted 4-oxo-1,4-dihydroquinolines as antimicrobial agents were designed and synthesized. Their structures have been confirmed...     

The stochastic energy-Casimir methodLa méthode d'énergie-Casimir stochastique

In this paper, we extend the energy-Casimir stability method for deterministic Lie–Poisson Hamiltonian systems to provide sufficient conditions for stability in probability of stochastic dynamical systems with symmetries. We illustrate this theory with classical examples of coadjoint motion, including the rigid body, the heavy top, and the compressible Euler equation in two dimensions. The main result is that stable deterministic equilibria remain stable in probability up to a certain stopping time that depends on the amplitude of the noise for finite-dimensional systems and on the amplitude of the spatial derivative of the noise for infinite-dimensional systems.     

Enhanced optical and hydrophilic properties of V and La co-doped ZnO thin films

V and La co-doped and undoped ZnO thin films were deposited on a glass substrate via the sol–gel method to investigate the structural, optical, and wettability of ZnO thin film by changing the V-doping concentration. Microstructure and water contact angles of the films were measured by SEM and contact angle goniometer, respectively. SEM studies revealed that the grain size and surface roughness of the film were changed by doping concentration. In addition, the contact angles were studied to find the possible effects of doping on the hydrophilicity of the film, indicating that the ZnO films were hydrophobic in nature. Finally, a good correlation was observed between the SEM micrographs and contact angle results, and the nature of ZnO film was found to be changed from hydrophobic to hydrophilic.     

Can be Azo Dyes Obtained by Grinding under Solvent‐Free Conditions?

The solid‐solid reactions of some electron‐donors with sulfanilic acid in the presence of solid sodium nitrite afford azo dyes by self‐catalyzed diazotization of sulfanilic acid (2) under solvent‐free conditions with moderate yields. Also the reactions of some electron‐donors with diazotization of o‐nitroaniline (5), m‐nitroaniline (6) and p‐nitroaniline (7) in the presence of solid sodium nitrite catalyzed by p‐toluenesulfonic acid (PTSA) afford azo dyes under solvent‐free conditions in good yields. This new method totally avoids the use of acids, alkalies, and toxic and/or expensive solvents in diazotization and diazo coupling reactions.     

Large-scale pyrosequencing of synthetic DNA: a comparison with results from Sanger dideoxy sequencing

Pyrosequencing is a relatively recent method for sequencing short stretches of DNA. Because both Pyrosequencing and Sanger dideoxy sequencing were recently used to characterize and validate DNA molecular barcodes in a large yeast gene-deletion project, a meta-analysis of those data allow an excellent and timely opportunity for evaluating Pyrosequencing against the current gold standard, Sanger dideoxy sequencing. Starting with yeast genomic DNA, parallel PCR amplification methods were used to prepared 4747 short barcode-containing constructs from 6000 Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene-deletion strains. Pyrosequencing was optimized for average read lengths of 25-30 bases, which included in each case a 20-mer barcode sequence. Results were compared with sequence data obtained by the standard Sanger dideoxy chain termination method. In most cases, sequences obtained by Pyrosequencing and Sanger dideoxy sequencing were of comparable accuracy, and the overall rate of failure was similar. The DNA in the barcodes is derived from synthetic oligonucleotide sequences that were inserted into yeast-deletion-strain genomic DNA by homologous recombination and represents the most significant amount of DNA from a synthetic source that has been sequenced to date. Although more automation and quality control measures are needed, Pyrosequencing was shown to be a fast and convenient method for determining short stretches of DNA sequence.     

Uniform Regularity for the Navier–Stokes Equation with Navier Boundary Condition

We prove that there exists an interval of time which is uniform in the vanishing viscosity limit and for which the Navier–Stokes equation with the Navier boundary condition has a strong solution. This solution is uniformly bounded in a conormal Sobolev space and has only one normal derivative bounded in L ^∞. This allows us to obtain the vanishing viscosity limit to the incompressible Euler system from a strong compactness argument.