Australian Synchrotron User Meeting 2014

Synchrotron users and experts from Australia, New Zealand, and further afield congregated in November for the Australian Synchrotron User Meeting 2014. Around 200 members of the synchrotron community attended the highly anticipated meeting held, in conjunction with the New User Symposium, at the Australian Synchrotron's National Centre for Synchrotron Science. Early career researchers played a prominent role at the meeting. Their achievements highlighted the promising capabilities of the region's next generation of synchrotron scientists.     

Ratiometric Detection of microRNA Using Hybridization Chain Reaction and Fluorogenic Silver Nanoclusters

miRNA (miR)-155 is a potential biomarker for breast cancers. We aimed at developing a nanosensor for miR-155 detection by integrating hybridization chain reaction (HCR) and silver nanoclusters (AgNCs). HCR serves as an enzyme-free and isothermal amplification method, whereas AgNCs provide a built-in fluorogenic detection probe that could simplify the downstream analysis. The two components were integrated by adding a nucleation sequence of AgNCs to the hairpin of HCR. The working principle was based on the influence of microenvironment towards the hosted AgNCs, whereby unfolding of hairpin upon HCR has manipulated the distance between the hosted AgNCs and cytosine-rich toehold region of hairpin. As such, the dominant emission of AgNCs changed from red to yellow in the absence and presence of miR-155, enabling a ratiometric measurement of miR with high sensitivity. The limit of detection (LOD) of our HCR-AgNCs nanosensor is 1.13 fM in buffered solution. We have also tested the assay in diluted serum samples, with comparable LOD of 1.58 fM obtained. This shows the great promise of our HCR-AgNCs nanosensor for clinical application.     

New procedure to generate multipliers in complex Neumann problem and effective Kohn algorithm

The purpose of this paper is threefold. (i) To explain the effective Kohn algorithm for multipliers in the complex Neumann problem and its difference with the full-real-radical Kohn algorithm, especially in the context of an example of Catlin-D’Angelo concerning the ineffectiveness of the latter. (ii) To extend the techniques of multiplier ideal sheaves for the complex Neumann problem to general systems of partial differential equations. (iii) To present a new procedure of generation of multipliers in the complex Neumann problem as a special case of the multiplier ideal sheaves techniques for general systems of partial differential equations.     

Hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography method for measuring the composition of aquatic humic substances

A hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) method was developed to measure the composition of humic substances from river, reservoir, and treated wastewater based on their physicochemical properties. The current method fractionates the humic substances into four well-defined groups based on parallel analyses with a neutral and a cationic HILIC column, using mobile phases of varied compositions and pH. The results indicate that: (i) the proportion of carboxylic acids in the humic substances from terrestrial origins is less than half of that from treated wastewater (Jeddah, KSA), (ii) a higher content of basic compounds was observed in the humic substances from treated wastewater and Ribou Reservoir (Cholet, France) than in the sample from Loire River (France), (iii) a higher percentage of hydrophobic macromolecules were found in the humic substances from Loire River than in the other samples, and (iv) humic substances of treated wastewater contained less ionic neutral compounds (i.e., pK_a 5–9) than the waters from terrestrial origins. The physicochemical property disparity amongst the compounds in each humic substances sample was also evaluated. The humic substances from the lightly humic Loire river displayed the highest disparity, whereas the highly humic Suwannee river (Georgia, USA) showed the most homogeneous humic substances.     

Heat transfer during dry spinning of fibers

Summary Heat transfer to fibers formed in dry spinning has been subjected to fundamental analysis. Solutions of the equation of energy have been derived and tested with experimental data. Results were deemed satisfactory in view of the accuracy of the experimental data. The present work is believed to yield a good representation of the heat transfer in the dry spinning process.Nomenclature h heat transfer coefficient, cal/cm² °C sec - k thermal conductivity, cal/cm °C sec - r radial distance, cm - t time, sec - Z axial distance, cm - A surface area, cm² - A _n or n-th root of - A ₀ energy required for solvent evaporation, cal/sec cm³ - C _p specific heat cal/gm °C - J ₀ Bessel function of first kind, order zero - J ₁ Bessel function of first kind, order one - J ₂ Bessel function of first kind, order two - N k/(R ² C _p V) - Q volumetric flow rate cm³/sec - R outside radius, cm - T point temperature, °C - T _S surface temperature °C - T ₀ initial fiber temperature °C - T ambient air temperature, °C - average fiber temperature, °C - ₁ average fiber temperature of preceding segment, °C - V average fiber velocity relative to air strean, cm/sec - V _r radial velocity component, cm/sec - V _z axial velocity components, cm/sec - V direction velocity component cm/sec - W weight of solvent evaporated in a given fiber segment, gms - _n a solution of the equation J ₀(X)=0 - heat of vaporization of solvent, cal/gm - dimension - r/R - density, gms/cc     

Nonexistence of <Emphasis Type="Italic">CW</Emphasis>(110, 100)

Using character theoretic methods, we settle the existence status of a circulant weighing matrix of order 110 with weight 100. This fills a missing entry in recent tables, thereby answering the existence of previously open CW (110,100) with answer “NO”.     

Structural Manipulation of Ruthenium(II) Polypyridine Nitrone Complexes to Generate Phosphorogenic Bioorthogonal Reagents for Selective Cellular Labeling

We report a new class of ruthenium(II) polypyridine complexes functionalized with a nitrone group as phosphorogenic bioorthogonal probes. These complexes were very weakly emissive owing to rapid C=N isomerization of the nitrone moiety, but exhibited significant emission enhancement upon strain‐promoted alkyne–nitrone cycloaddition (SPANC) reaction with bicyclo[6.1.0]nonyne (BCN)‐modified substrates. The modification of nitrone with a dicationic ruthenium(II) polypyridine unit at the α‐C‐position and a phenyl ring at the N‐position led to remarkably accelerated reaction kinetics, which are substantially greater (up to ≈278 fold) than those of other acyclic nitrone–BCN systems. Interestingly, the complexes achieved specific cell membrane/cytosol staining upon specific labeling of an exogenous substrate, BCN‐modified decane (BCN‐C10), in live cells. Importantly, the in situ generation of the more lipophilic isoxazoline adduct in the cytoplasm resulted in increased cytotoxicity, highlighting a novel approach to apply the SPANC labeling technique in drug activation.     

Bond pricing under a Markovian regime-switching jump-augmented Vasicek model via stochastic flows

In this article, we shall explore the state of art of stochastic flows to derive an exponential affine form of the bond price when the short rate process is governed by a Markovian regime-switching jump-diffusion version of the Vasicek model. We provide the flexibility that the market parameters, including the mean-reversion level, the volatility rate and the intensity of the jump component switch over time according to a continuous-time, finite-state Markov chain. The states of the chain may be interpreted as different states of an economy or different stages of a business cycle. We shall provide a representation for the exponential affine form of the bond price in terms of fundamental matrix solutions of linear matrix differential equations.