Effects of H2O and D2O on polyproline II helical structure

The interaction of solvent with a polypeptide chain is one of the primary factors controlling protein folding and stability. In biologically relevant systems, this solvent is most often water. Experimental estimates of the role of water in peptide folding can be obtained from solvent perturbation experiments. The simplest perturbant for H2O water is its isotopic D2O form. The solvation of peptides known to form PII helices with D2O versus H2O increases their propensity to adopt the PII conformation.     

Light quarks and instantons

Instantons and anti-instantons can profoundly influence the structure of a non-Abelian gauge theory involving N flavors of massless quarks. Interactions of the quarks with these pseudoparticles can spontaneously generate a quark mass, break the theory's SU(N) × SU(N) chiral symmetry and bind quark-antiquark pairs to form N² ? 1 Goldstone bosons. If the spontaneously generated quark mass is small, multipseudoparticle configurations can be treated in a dilute gas approximation.     

A study of correlation functions for the delta-function Bose gas

The Gel'fand-Levitan equation for the quantum nonlinear Schrödinger field theory is used to investigate the correlation functions of the delta-function Bose gas. Operator expressions are derived for the field and for nonlocal products of fields in terms of the quantized reflection operators which create and annihilate eigenstates of the Hamiltonian. For the two-point function, an explicit series expression is obtained in which the nth term is determined by well-defined n-body combinatorics in an infinite volume. The inductive properties of this series are discussed and used to express the temperature and chemical potential dependence of the correlation functions entirely in terms of previously known thermodynamic functions. The zero separation limit of the series for the two-point function reproduces the thermodynamics derived by Yang and Yang, while the infinite coupling limit gives the Fredholm determinant result of Schultz and Lenard. The latter is related to the Painlevé V equation by the monodromy arguments of Jimbo, Miwa, Mori, and Sato. The (1/c) correction to the large coupling limit is calculated from the Gel'fand-Levitan series and expressed in terms of solutions to Painlevé V. The asymptotic behavior of the relevant Painlevé function is discussed and related to the long range behavior of the correlation function.     

On using polynomial chaos for modeling uncertainty in acoustic propagation

The use of polynomial chaos for incorporating environmental variability into propagation models is investigated in the context of a simplified one-dimensional model, which is relevant for acoustic propagation when the random sound speed is independent of depth. Environmental variability is described by a spectral representation of a stochastic process and the chaotic representation of the wave field then consists of an expansion in terms of orthogonal random polynomials. Issues concerning implementation of the relevant equations, the accuracy of the approximation, uniformity of the expansion over the propagation range, and the computational burden necessary to evaluate different field statistics are addressed. When the correlation length of the environmental fluctuations is small, low-order expansions work well, while for large correlation lengths the convergence of the expansion is highly range dependent and requires high-order approximants. These conclusions also apply in higher-dimensional propagation problems.     

Diffusion, relaxation, and chemical exchange in casein gels: a nuclear magnetic resonance study

Water in protein/water mixtures can be described in terms of bound water and free water, by exchange between these two states, and by its exchange with appropriate sites on the protein. 1H-NMR diffusion and relaxation measurements provide insights into the mobility of these states. T2 relaxation-time dispersions (i.e., T2 relaxation times at different echo pulse spacings) reveal additional information about exchange. We present a comprehensive set of diffusion and T2 dispersion measurements on casein gels for which the protein/water ratio ranges from 0.25 to 0.5. The combination of these methods, taken in conjunction with concentration dependence, allows a good estimate of the parameters required to fit the data with Luz/Meiboom and Carver/Richards models for relaxation and chemical exchange. We compare the exchange (a) between water and protein and (b) between free water and bound water. Further, we attempt to distinguish chemical site exchange and diffusion/susceptibility exchange.     

RapidChek SELECT Salmonella enteritidis test system for the detection of Salmonella enteritidis in poultry house drag swabs, shell egg pools, and chicken carcass rinsates

The RapidChek SELECT Salmonella Enteritidis Test System was validated for the detection of Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) in poultry house drag swabs, shell egg pools, and chicken carcass rinsates. The method utilizes RapidChek SELECT Salmonella (AOAC PTM License No. 080601) proprietary primary and secondary enrichment media. Following enrichment, an immunochromatographic test strip is inserted into the tube containing the secondary enrichment broth, developed for 10 min, and interpreted. Salmonella Enteritidis-inoculated samples (1-5 CFU SE/analytical unit) were tested by the test method as well as the appropriate cultural reference method U.S. Food and Drug Administration-Bacteriological Analytical Manual (drag swabs and egg pools) or U.S. Department of Agriculture-Food Safety and Inspection Service (chicken carcass rinsates). A total of 80 samples were tested by both methods in the study. Fifty-two samples were positive by the RapidChek SELECT Salmonella Enteritidis method and 38 were found positive by the respective reference method. The sensitivity of the method was 100% and the specificity was 100%. The accuracy of the test method was 137%, indicating that the method was more sensitive than the reference method. The RapidChek SELECT Salmonella Enteritidis method was tested with 82 Salmonella Group D1 strains including 63 Salmonella Enteritidis strains as well as 32 non-Salmonella Group D1 strains representing 10 bacteria genera. The test method detected all 82 Group D1 strains (100% sensitivity). None of the non-Salmonella Group D1 or other genera of bacteria were detected, indicating a specificity of 100%. The method was shown to be highly robust and stable under control and accelerated stability conditions.     

Simulations of large acoustic scintillations in the straits of Florida

Using a full-wave acoustic model, Monte Carlo numerical studies of intensity fluctuations in a realistic shallow water environment that simulates the Straits of Florida, including internal wave fluctuations and bottom roughness, have been performed. Results show that the sound intensity at distant receivers scintillates dramatically. The acoustic scintillation index SI increases rapidly with propagation range and is significantly greater than unity at ranges beyond about 10 km. This result supports a theoretical prediction by one of the authors. Statistical analyses show that the distribution of intensity of the random wave field saturates to the expected Rayleigh distribution with SI= 1 at short range due to multipath interference effects, and then SI continues to increase to large values. This effect, which is denoted supersaturation, is universal at long ranges in waveguides having lossy boundaries (where there is differential mode attenuation). The intensity distribution approaches a log-normal distribution to an excellent approximation; it may not be a universal distribution and comparison is also made to a K distribution. The long tails of the log-normal distribution cause "acoustic intermittency" in which very high, but rare, intensities occur.     

Instanton induced interactions

Quarks interact under the influence of instantons. These interactions affect the wavefunctions of pions and nucleons and produce differences in the transverse momentum distributions of the up and down quarks within a nucleon.