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Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Muonium in silicon tetrachloride

Muonium in liquid SiCl has been observed for the first time at low temperature (−65°C) The observed polarization of muonium is as much as 25% of the total spin polarization and shows a fast relaxation rate.     

Crystallization of Arthrobacter sp. strain 1C N-(1-D-carboxyethyl)-L-norvaline dehydrogenase and its complex with NAD+

The novel NAD+-linked opine dehydrogenase from a soil isolate Arthrobacter sp. strain 1C belongs to an enzyme superfamily whose members exhibit quite diverse substrate specificites. Crystals of this opine dehydrogenase, obtained in the presence or absence of co-factor and substrates, have been shown to diffract to beyond 1.8 ? resolution. X-ray precession photographs have established that the crystals belong to space group P21212, with cell parameters a = 104.9, b = 80.0, c = 45.5 ? and a single subunit in the asymmetric unit. The elucidation of the three-dimensional structure of this enzyme will provide a structural framework for this novel class of dehydrogenases to enable a comparison to be made with other enzyme families and also as the basis for mutagenesis experiments directed towards the production of natural and synthetic opine-type compounds containing two chiral centres.     

Replacement-Policy Development: A Case Study of Glove Replacement at a Nuclear Processing Facility

Individual/group replacement models were used to identify the minimum-cost policy for replacing protective gloves that are utilized in product fabrication at a nuclear processing facility. Since historical data on glove longevity were not available to determine the failure-rate distribution, the classical replacement model for items that fail was modified to consider glove life as a normally distributed variable. Moreover, the absence of replacement-cost required that the classical model be transformed to incorporate the ratio of single to unit-group replacement cost. Sensitivity analysis on these two input parameter values provided guidance for the development of an appropriate replacement policy.     

Improved limits on the mass of the tau neutrino

Several methods to determine (or set an upper bound on) the mass of the tau neutrino are described. The decay spectrum of \(\tau \to e\bar \nu _e \nu _\tau \) near the high center-of-mass electron-energy end is particularly sensitive to the tau-neutrino mass. It is shown that an upper bound of 20 MeV or lower may be feasible. In addition, improved limits on the mass and mixing angle of a heavy component of the tau-neutrino may be readily obtained. We also discuss the purely leptonic decays of theD andF mesons, and show how measurements of the ratiosB(D→τν_τ/B(D→μν_μ,B(F→τν_τ/B(D→μν_μ can be sensitive to tau-neutrino masses of 30 MeV or greater.     

Energy migration in novel pH-triggered self-assembled beta-sheet ribbons

Energy migration between tryptophan residues has been experimentally demonstrated in self-assembled peptide tapes. Each peptide contains 11 amino acids with a Trp at position 6. The peptide self-assembly is pH-sensitive and forms amphiphilic tapes, which further stack in ribbons (double tapes) and fibrils in water depending on the concentration. Fluorescence spectra, quenching, and anisotropy experiments showed that when the pH is lowered from 9 to 2, the peptide self-assembly buries the tryptophan in a hydrophobic and restricted environment in the interior of stable ribbons as expected on the basis of the peptide design. These fluorescence data support directly and for the first time the presence of such ribbons which are characterized by a highly packed and stable hydrophobic interior. In common with Trp in many proteins, fluorescence lifetimes are nonexponential, but the average lifetime is shorter at low pH, possibly due to quenching with neighboring Phe residues. Unexpectedly, time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy does not change significantly with self-assembly when in water. In highly viscous sucrose-water mixtures, the anisotropy decay at low pH was largely unchanged compared to that in water, whereas at high pH, the anisotropy decay increased significantly. We concluded that depolarization at low pH was not due to rotational diffusion but mainly due to energy migration between adjacent tryptophan residues. This was supported by a master equation kinetic model of Trp-Trp energy migration, which showed that the simulated and experimental results are in good agreement, although on average only three Trp residues were visited before emission.