Sediment Assessment of the Pchelina Reservoir,Bulgaria

The temporal dynamics of anthropogenic impacts on the Pchelina Reservoir is assessed based on chemical element analysis of three sediment cores at a depth of about 100–130 cm below the surface water. The ¹³⁷Cs activity is measured to identify the layers corresponding to the 1986 Chernobyl accident. The obtained dating of sediment cores gives an average sedimentation rate of 0.44 cm/year in the Pchelina Reservoir. The elements’ depth profiles (Ti, Mn, Fe, Zn, Cr, Ni, Cu, Mo, Sn, Sb, Pb, Co, Cd, Ce, Tl, Bi, Gd, La, Th and U_nat) outline the Struma River as the main anthropogenic source for Pchelina Reservoir sediments. The principal component analysis reveals two groups of chemical elements connected with the anthropogenic impacts. The first group of chemical elements (Mn, Fe, Cr, Ni, Cu, Mo, Sn, Sb and Co) has increasing time trends in the Struma sediment core and no trend or decreasing ones at the Pchelina sampling core. The behavior of these elements is determined by the change of the profile of the industry in the Pernik town during the 1990s. The second group of elements (Zn, Pb, Cd, Bi and U_nat) has increasing time trends in Struma and Pchelina sediment cores. The increased concentrations of these elements during the whole investigated period have led to moderate enrichments for Pb and U_nat, and significant enrichments for Zn and Cd at the Pchelina sampling site. The moderately contaminated, according to the geoaccumulation indexes, Pchelina Reservoir surface sediment samples have low ecotoxicity.     

Kinetic studies and analytical application of cholesterol oxidase and peroxidase immobilized to synthetic polymer

A method for individual and simultaneous covalent immobilization of cholesterol oxidase and peroxidase to copolymer of acrylonitrile with acrylamide is described. The effect of immobilization on the catalytic properties of the covalently bound enzymes was studied. The immobilized enzymes showed no change in pH optima and an increase in temperature optima, activation energy, and K _m , compared to data received from experiments with soluble enzymes. A small glass column packed with immobilized multienzyme complex was used to develop a method for manual determination of cholesterol in foodstuffs (e.g., in mayonnaise “Olinease”). The method was characterized by high analytical precision (coefficient of variation = 2.67%). The results show high correlation with those obtained by the Kageyama method (r=0.986). The method is economical (the enzyme-carrier conjugate may be used more than 300 times), precise, easy to perform, and less time-consuming than the manual methods utilizing soluble enzymes. The established manual method can be proposed for cholesterol determination in foodstuffs.     

Energy dependence of multiplicity in proton-nucleus collisions and models of multiparticle production

This is a continuation of our earlier investigation (Gurtuet al 1974Phys. Lett. 50 B 391) on multiparticle production in proton-nucleus collisions based on an exposure of emulsion stack to 200 GeV/c beam at the NAL. It is found that the ratioR _em = 〈n _s〉/〈n _ch〉, where 〈n _ch〉 is the charged particle multiplicity in pp-collisions, increases slowly from about 1 at 10 GeV/c to 1·6 at 68 GeV/c and attains a constant value of 1·71 ± 0·04 in the region 200 to 8000 GeV/c. Furthermore,R _em = 1·71 implies an effectiveA-dependence ofR _A =A ^0.18,i.e., a very weak dependence. Predictions ofR _em on various models are discussed and compared with the emulsion data. Data seem to favour models of hadron-nucleon collisions in which production of particles takes place through adouble step mechanism,e.g., diffractive excitation, hydrodynamical and energy flux cascade as opposed to models which envisage instantaneous production.     

Simultaneous immobilization of glucose oxidase and peroxidase to urea derivative of regenerated acetylcellulose granules

A method for simultaneous covalent immobilization of glucose oxidase and peroxidase with previously oxidized carbohydrate residues to urea derivative of regenerated acetylcellulose granules is described. The effect of immobilization on the catalytic properties of the separately immobilized enzymes are studied. The immobilized enzymes manifested no change in their pH and temperature optima and slight increase ofK _m x compared to data for the soluble enzymes. A column packed with simultaneously immobilized enzymes is used for manual glucose determination in blood sera. The results are in high correlation with those obtained by the Beckman Glucose Analyzer method (r = 0.976). The method is economic (the enzyme-carrier conjugate may be used more than 300 times), easy to perform, and less time consuming than the manual methods utilizing soluble enzymes. The established manual method can be proposed for emergency clinical analysis and smaller clinical laboratories.     

Activation of the pre-supplementary motor area but not inferior prefrontal cortex in association with short stop signal reaction time – an intra-subject analysis

Background  

Our previous work described the neural processes of motor response inhibition during a stop signal task (SST). Employing the race model, we computed the stop signal reaction time (SSRT) to index individuals' ability in inhibitory control. The pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA), which shows greater activity in individuals with short as compared to those with long SSRT, plays a role in mediating response inhibition. In contrast, the right inferior prefrontal cortex (rIFC) showed greater activity during stop success as compared to stop error. Here we further pursued this functional differentiation of preSMA and rIFC on the basis of an intra-subject approach.     

Total internal reflection imaging of microorganism adhesion using an oil immersion objective

In this paper, we report the results of total internal reflection microscopy investigations of the interaction of two types of microorganisms: Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Escherichia coli with substrates. It is shown that with this method qualitative and quantitative information about cells-substrate interaction can be obtained. One can easily make a difference between attached and non-attached as well as between dead and alive cells, and more generally can follow the dynamics of the process of cells' attachment to substrates. Quantitative information about the cell size and cell-substrate distance is obtained by using a model in which yeast cells and bacteria are approximated by ellipsoids, and multiple reflections of the evanescent waves between the cells and the substrate are neglected.     

Characterization of New Titanium Oxide Polymer Hybrid Membranes for Biofilm Formation

Abstract

Presently, there is great need to create new matrices for diverse applications particularly in the fields of biotechnology and food industry. Here, we report on the synthesis of new matrices based on a mixture of polymer cellulose acetate butyrate/copolymer polyacrylonitrile acrylamide/TiO₂. The characterization of the new matrices was performed using IR spectroscopy, QCM technology, and SEM. The tests revealed that when we use our polymers as carriers, there is a limit for the concentration of titanium of 5%. Further increasing of Ti concentration leads to precipitation processes. The QCM analyses show that a low concentration of Ti(OBu)₄ does not influence the viscosity of the matrices obtained, but their elasticity changes significantly. The membranes obtained were successfully applied for biofilm formation of Yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae.     

Plasmon microscopy and imaging ellipsometry of Artrobacter oxydans attached on polymer films

The attachment of Artrobacter oxydans 1,388 on a newly synthesized biodegradable copolymer of poly-(hexanlactam)-co-block-poly-(delta-valerolactone) is investigated by optical, microscopic and biochemical methods. The potentials of surface plasmon microscopy and imaging ellipsometry for detecting microorganisms when Al films are used to excite plasmons is assessed by comparing images obtained by these methods with dark field microscopy pictures. The experimental results demonstrate that in this case imaging ellipsometry and plasmon microscopy in transmission are promising methods and can be used in optical sensors for monitoring cell adhesion.