An estimated quantitative lateral flow immunoassay for determination of artesunate using monoclonal antibody

There have been reports of fake artesunate (ART), which has led to deaths from untreated malaria in South East Asia. To rapidly screen for fake and adulterated ART products in the drug market, a lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) based on a colloidal gold–monoclonal antibody probe for detection of ART within samples was developed. With this method, the calibration curve for ART was determined by the intensity ratio of the test and control bands at various ART concentrations. The linearity range was 12.5–200 μg/ml of ART. Samples were tested by the developed LFIA and can be calculated for ART contents. The levels of ART in the samples were also confirmed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The results of the two methods were in good conformance. The proposed LFIA was demonstrated to be a simple and rapid analytical method for detecting ART in the pharmaceutical formulation.     

沙丘背风侧不同铁路结构形式对风沙环境的适应性分析

当铁路穿越大风沙漠地区时,风沙灾害会对铁路工程及其正常运营产生严重威胁,而设计一种合理的铁路结构形式能够减小风沙沉积对铁路工程的危害. 在本文中,以敦煌至格尔木铁路沙山沟段落为研究对象,采用多相流的方法对越过沙丘的风沙运动过程进行数值模拟,分别讨论了风沙运动对位于沙丘背风坡的铁路路基工程和桥梁工程的影响. 主要的模拟结果显示:路基工程明显降低了风速并且将沙丘后的回流区分成了两部分,而桥梁工程的导流效应则压缩了沙丘背风坡的回流区;轨道间的道碴增大了铁路表面的粗糙度,在轨道间有少量沙粒沉积,而路基工程两侧则有大量积沙;铁路表面的积沙量与摩阻风速呈现出非线性关系,随着摩阻风速的增大,路基工程沙粒沉积的增加速度大于风蚀能力的增加速度,而桥梁工程则正好相反. 在防止风沙危害铁路方面,设置桥梁工程明显优于路基工程. 本研究为风沙运动对铁路工程的影响提供了理论支持,也为今后的铁路工程设计提供了新的思路与研究工具.      

垂直旋转流场中单颗粒运动状态判别及受力分析

为研究单颗粒在旋转流场中的运动状态及受力情况,以毫米级球形颗粒为例,利用旋转流场颗粒运动装置,通过使用摄像机记录颗粒在流场中的运动轨迹以获取其运动参数,分析了不同转速和颗粒直径条件下颗粒的运动轨迹,拟合得到了颗粒运动状态判别公式以及颗粒运动轨迹公式,分析了颗粒在旋转流场中的受力情况。结果表明,颗粒在旋转流场平衡状态下运动状态主要分为两类,一类是未离开壁面保持静止,另一类是离开壁面保持稳定周向运动;颗粒进行周向运动的轨迹为椭圆形,并且圆心随着转速的增大靠近旋转中心,而随着粒径的增大靠近壁面;颗粒在旋转流场的运动过程中主要受到离心力和旋转科式力作用。     

Experimental study on age and gender differences in microscopic movement characteristics of students

Campus security has aroused many concerns from the whole society. Stampede is one of the most frequent and influential accidents in campus. Studies on pedestrian dynamics especially focusing on students are essential for campus security, which are helpful to improve facility design and emergency evacuation strategy. In this paper, primary and middle school students were recruited to participate in the single-file experiments. The microscopic movement characteristics,including walking speed, headway, gait characteristics(step length, step frequency and swaying amplitude) and their relations were investigated. Age and gender differences in the headway-speed diagram and space requirements were analyzed by statistical tests. The results indicated that the impacts of age and gender were significant. There were three stages for the influence of gender on the headway-speed diagram for both age groups. The impacts on students' space requirements were consistent for different age and gender groups. But the impacts of age and gender on free-flow speed were affected by each other. Due to the connection of walking speed and gait characteristics, the comparisons of gait characteristics between different ages and genders were performed to understand the corresponding differences in speed more deeply. The results showed that differences in step length and swaying amplitude between males and females were significant for both age groups. The effect of gender on step frequency was significant for primary students. But for middle school students,whether gender had significant impact on step frequency was not clear here because of the large P-value. Besides, the influence of age on gait characteristics changed with gender.     

Isolation,Detection, and Antigen‐Based Profiling of Circulating Tumor Cells Using a Size‐Dictated Immunocapture Chip

Even though the diagnostic and prognostic value of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) has been demonstrated, their clinical utility and widespread adoption have been limited. Herein, we describe a new device, size‐dictated immunocapture chip (SDI‐Chip), for efficient, sensitive, and spatially resolved capture and detection of CTCs. SDI‐Chip enables selective, frequent, and extended interaction of CTCs with hydrodynamically optimized immunocoated micropillar surfaces. CTCs with different antigen expression levels can be efficiently captured and spatially resolved around the micropillars. Capture efficiency greater than 92 % with a purity of 82 % was achieved with blood samples. CTCs were detected in non‐metastasis colorectal (CRC) patients, while none was detected from healthy volunteers. We believe that SDI‐Chip will facilitate the transition of tumor diagnosis from anatomical pathology to molecular pathology in localized CRC patients.     

Dual gold nanoparticle lateflow immunoassay for sensitive detection of Escherichia coli O157:H7

Two patterns of signal amplification lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA), which used anti-mouse secondary antibody-linked gold nanoparticle (AuNP) for dual AuNP-LFIA were developed. Escherichia coli O157:H7 was selected as the model analyte. In the signal amplification direct LFIA method, anti-mouse secondary antibody-linked AuNP (anti-mouse-Ab-AuNP) was mixed with sample solution in an ELISA well, after which it was added to LFIA, which already contained anti-E. coli O157:H7 monoclonal antibody-AuNP (anti-E. coli O157:H7-mAb-AuNP) dispersed in the conjugate pad. Polyclonal antibody was the test line, and anti-mouse secondary antibody was the control line in nitrocellulose (NC) membrane. In the signal amplification indirect LFIA method, anti-mouse-Ab-AuNP was mixed with sample solution and anti-E. coli O157:H7-mAb-AuNP complex in ELISA well, creating a dual AuNP complex. This complex was added to LFIA, which had a polyclonal antibody as the test line and secondary antibody as the control line in NC membrane. The detection sensitivity of both LFIAs improved 100-fold and reached 1.14 × 10³ CFU mL⁻¹. The 28 nm and 45 nm AuNPs were demonstrated to be the optimal dual AuNP pairs. Signal amplification LFIA was perfectly applied to the detection of milk samples with E. coli O157:H7 via naked eye observation.     

Rapid and sensitive lateral flow immunoassay method for determining alpha fetoprotein in serum using europium (III) chelate microparticles-based lateral flow test strips

Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), a primary marker for many diseases including various cancers, is important in clinical tumor diagnosis and antenatal screening. Most immunoassays provide high sensitivity and accuracy for determining AFP, but they are expensive, often complex, time-consuming procedures. A simple and rapid point-of-care system that integrates Eu (III) chelate microparticles with lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) has been developed to determine AFP in serum with an assay time of 15 min. The approach is based on a sandwich immunoassay performed on lateral flow test strips. A fluorescence strip reader was used to measure the fluorescence peak heights of the test line (H_T) and the control line (H_C); the H_T/H_C ratio was used for quantitation. The Eu (III) chelate microparticles-based LFIA assay exhibited a wide linear range (1.0–1000 IU mL⁻¹) for AFP with a low limit of detection (0.1 IU mL⁻¹) based on 5ul of serum. Satisfactory specificity and accuracy were demonstrated and the intra- and inter-assay coefficients of variation (CV) for AFP were both <10%. Furthermore, in the analysis of human serum samples, excellent correlation (n = 284, r = 0.9860, p < 0.0001) was obtained between the proposed method and a commercially available CLIA kit. Results indicated that the Eu (III) chelate microparticles-based LFIA system provided a rapid, sensitive and reliable method for determining AFP in serum, indicating that it would be suitable for development in point-of-care testing.     

Experimental analysis of sand particles'' lift-off and incident velocities in wind-blown sand flux

The probability distributions of sand particles' lift-off and incident velocities in a wind-blown sand flux play very important roles in the simulation of the wind-blown sand movement. In this paper, the vertical and the horizontal speeds of sand particles located at 1.0 mm above a sand-bed in a wind-blown sand flux are observed with the aid of Phase Doppler Anemometry (PDA) in a wind tunnel. Based on the experimental data, the probability distributions of not only the vertical lift-off speed but also the lift-off velocity as well as its horizontal component and the incident velocity as well as its vertical and horizontal components can be obtained by the equal distance histogram method. It is found, according to the results of the χ²-test for these probability distributions, that the probability density functions (pdf's) of the sand particles' lift-off and incident velocities as well as their vertical components are described by the Gamma density function with different peak values and shapes and the downwind incident and lift-off horizontal speeds, respectively, can be described by the lognormal and the Gamma density functions. These pdf's depend on not only the sand particle diameter but also the wind speed. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10532040) and the Hundred Talents Project, the Knowledge Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-304). The English text was polished by Keren Wang.     

Radiative and Thermal Dispersion Effects on Non-Darcy Natural Convection with Lateral Mass Flux for Non-Newtonian Fluid from a Vertical Flat Plate in a Saturated Porous Medium

The problem of natural convective heat transfer for a non-Newtonian fluid from an impermeable vertical plate embedded in a fluid-saturated porous medium has been analyzed. Non-Darcian, radiative and thermal dispersion effects have been considered in the present analysis. The governing boundary layer equations and boundary conditions are cast into a dimensionless form and simplified by using a similarity transformation. The resulting system of equations is solved by using a double shooting Runge–Kutta method. The effect of viscosity index n, the conduction–radiation parameter R, the non-Darcy parameter Gr*, the thermal dispersion parameter Ds and the suction/injection parameter f_w on the fluid velocities, temperatures and the local Nusselt number are discussed.     

剪切载荷下肋板的屈曲分析与优化

利用ANSYS有限元方法分析了一系列的肋板，研究了加强肋的作用，提出了 优化肋设计的限制条件. 结果表明，由横向肋板产生的栅格数目不能小于肋板的长宽比. 换 句话说，横向加强肋必须把平板的长度划分为小于等于宽度的段. 结果还显示，加强肋的优 化几何特性与板的屈曲从整体模态到局部模态转变点相应. 而且，所有具有相似长宽比和肋 数的肋板，具有一个特定的比值$EI_{s}/aD$, 此时抗剪应力最佳.