氯过氧化物酶活性中心结构域中Mn2+与酶催化行为的关系

通过乙二胺四乙酸二钠(EDTA)配位竞争反应结合石墨炉原子吸收及电感耦合等离子体发射检测结果,为氯过氧化物酶(CPO)活性中心血红素丙酸根与金属Mn2+配位结合提供了更直接的证据;基于Mn2+移除前后CPO的紫外特征吸收光谱、圆二色谱以及氯化活性和过氧化活性的变化,阐明了Mn2+的存在对于保持酶活性中心的结构域、稳定CPO的优势构象具有一定作用,是酶分子表现活力所必需的结构元素.本研究还发现移除Mn2+前后CPO血红素活性中心微环境的变化是一个可逆过程,重新引入Mn2+后活性可恢复,并且以外源性Ag+和Cr3+替代Mn2+后,CPO的氯化活性和过氧化活性分别比天然态的酶有所改善,为通过化学修饰提高CPO的催化活性提供了新的途径.     

A note on arbitrage and exogenous collateral

In this paper, we study the implications of the absence of arbitrage in a two-period incomplete markets economy with default and exogenous collateral.     

共振光散射法(RLS)研究外源刺激对CdSe/ZnS量子点/TiO_2纳米复合物与人血清白蛋白的相互作用的影响

近似生理条件下,采用共振光散射法研究了CdSe/ZnS量子点/TiO_2纳米复合物同人血清白蛋白的相互作用,通过分析影响二者相互作用的纳米复合物浓度、pH、NaCl浓度、反应温度、检测时间、共存离子、表面活性剂、加样顺序等外源刺激因素,结果表明:新形成的复合体系可能加强蛋白质的疏水腔,使在水溶液中形成的疏水界面趋于集中,从而导致其共振光散射强度增强;体系受pH的影响变化非常灵敏;适当的NaCl浓度可以提高体系的I_(RLS)值灵敏度;共存离子改变了体系的离子强度,从而导致体系的△I_(RLS)值的改变;反应时间为5 min时,体系I_(RLS)值基本稳定;同一种表面活性剂对于不同的体系的I_(RLS)值的作用不完全一致,带相反电荷的表面活性剂与纳米复合物有很强的静电作用;对于与HSA相互作用的多元复合体系,加样顺序的不同对体系的I_(RLS)值的影响很明显;体系的I_(RLS)值随温度的改变呈不完全单调增加的趋势。这些信息为纳米材料与生物大分子的相互作用机制提供理论支撑,有助于深入了解纳米材料的生物相容性和安全性。     

Fluctuations in Wikipedia access-rate and edit-event data

Internet-based social networks often reflect extreme events in nature and society by drastic increases in user activity. We study and compare the dynamics of the two major complex processes necessary for information spread via the online encyclopedia ‘Wikipedia’, i.e., article editing (information upload) and article access (information viewing) based on article edit-event time series and (hourly) user access-rate time series for all articles. Daily and weekly activity patterns occur in addition to fluctuations and bursting activity. The bursts (i.e., significant increases in activity for an extended period of time) are characterized by a power-law distribution of durations of increases and decreases. For describing the recurrence and clustering of bursts we investigate the statistics of the return intervals between them. We find stretched exponential distributions of return intervals in access-rate time series, while edit-event time series yield simple exponential distributions. To characterize the fluctuation behavior we apply detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA), finding that most article access-rate time series are characterized by strong long-term correlations with fluctuation exponents α≈0.9$\alpha \approx 0.9$. The results indicate significant differences in the dynamics of information upload and access and help in understanding the complex process of collecting, processing, validating, and distributing information in self-organized social networks.     

Using recurrence plot analysis to distinguish between endogenous and exogenous stock market crashes

Recurrence Plots are graphical tools based on Phase Space Reconstruction. Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) is a statistical quantification of RPs. RP and RQA are good at working with non-stationarity and noisy data, in detecting changes in data behavior, in particular in detecting breaks, like a phase transition and in informing about other dynamic properties of a time series. Endogenous Stock Market Crashes have been modeled as phase changes in recent times. Motivated by this, we have used RP and RQA techniques for detecting critical regimes preceding an endogenous crash seen as a phase transition and hence give an estimation of the initial bubble time. We have used a new method for computing RQA measures with confidence intervals. We have also used the techniques on a known exogenous crash to see if the RP reveals a different story or not. The analysis is made on Nifty, Hong Kong AOI and Dow Jones Industrial Average, taken over a time span of about 3 years for the endogenous crashes. Then the RPs of all time series have been observed, compared and discussed. All the time series have been first transformed into the classical momentum divided by the maximum Xmax of the time series over the time window which is considered in the specific analysis. RPs have been plotted for each time series, and RQA variables have been computed on different epochs. Our studies reveal that, in the case of an endogenous crash, we have been able to identify the bubble, while in the case of exogenous crashes the plots do not show any such pattern, thus helping us in identifying such crashes.     

Behavioral fractality in marine copepods: Endogenous rhythms versus exogenous stressors

The presence of endogenous rhythms in the swimming behavior of five common species of copepods (i.e. minute marine crustaceans) was investigated through comparisons of the scaling properties of their three-dimensional trajectories and cumulative probability distribution functions of move lengths recorded during the day and at night. Beside clear inter-specific differences in their behavioral scaling properties, the five species exhibited an increase in path tortuosity at night, consistent with an increase in food foraging activity. Given the absence of food under all experimental conditions, this suggests the presence of an endogenous swimming rhythm consistent with the widely reported pattern of ascent at dusk resulting in copepods entering the food-rich surface layer at night. The impact of the stress exerted on swimming behavior by changes in the light regime (i.e. light and dark conditions respectively experienced at night and during the day) and the related copepod behavioral adaptivity was also investigated. The low and high fractal dimensions respectively observed during daytime in the dark and during night-time under conditions of simulated daytime indicate that these organisms have the ability to adjust the complexity of their swimming path depending on exogenous factors, independent of their actual endogenous rhythms. The scaling exponents of the cumulative probability distribution function of move lengths exhibit a significant decrease during daylight hours under simulated night-time conditions and during the night under simulated daytime conditions, suggesting an increase in the stress levels experienced by the five species considered. It is finally shown that the stress exerted on endogenous behavioral diel variability by exogenous cues has a species-specific effect on copepods.     

Novel molecularly imprinted stir bar sorptive extraction based on an 8-electrode array for preconcentration of trace exogenous estrogens in meat

A novel 8-electrode array as stir bar was designed for selective extraction of trace level exogenous estrogens from food samples, followed by liquid desorption and HPLC-photodiode array detection. The array consisted of 8 screen-printed electrodes and each electrode was modified with Fe₃O₄@meso-/macroporous TiO₂ microspheres and molecularly imprinted film (m-TiMIF). The fabrication of the imprinted film coating was very simple without organic solvents and chemical grafting. Both bisphenol A (BPA) and diethylstilbestrol (DES) were employed as templates in m-TiMIF fabrication in order to enrich both targets simultaneously. Interestingly, the imprinted stir bar array showed higher extraction capacity and selectivity for BPA and DES than the non-imprinted counterpart. Meanwhile, it exhibited fast adsorption and desorption kinetics due to increased mass transport in the ultra-thin film. Importantly, the m-TiMIF coating was robust enough for at least 20 uses without obvious alteration in extraction performance. The main parameters affecting the extraction efficiency, including stir speeding, sample pH, ionic strength, extraction time, desorption solvent and time, were optimized. Under optimal experimental conditions, the limits of detection (S/N = 3) of the developed method were 0.28 and 0.47 μg L⁻¹ for BPA and DES respectively, with enrichment factors of 32.6 and 52.8-fold. The linear ranges were 3.0–1500 μg L⁻¹ and 4.0–1500 μg L⁻¹ for BPA and DES, respectively. The m-TiMIF-coating conferred better recovery and selectivity, compared with the commercial stir bar coating. The new method was successfully applied to assess BPA and DES in pork and chicken samples with satisfactory recovery.     

EXOGENOUS SHOCKS AND MARINE RESERVES

Abstract The impact on the value of a fishery from exogenous shocks is investigated. Part of the habitat is protected by a marine reserve, while the remaining fishery is managed by optimal, total allowable catch quotas. Shocks of different, spatial nature and with different probability distributions are investigated. The results suggest that reserves are of minor interest as a management tool when shocks affect the stock uniformly. Reserves may substantially enhance the value of the fishery when shocks are nonuniformly spatially distributed.     

Removal of exogenously bound elements from human hair by various washing procedures and determination by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

A review of the literature shows that a variety of washing procedures to remove external contamination from hair have been proposed, but as yet no standardised procedures are available. In this study, methods for the pre-treatment and determination of antimony, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and selenium in human hair by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) are developed.Investigations of various washing procedures to remove external contaminants show that in unexposed hair samples cadmium, lead and mercury are significantly removed from hair using a 0.1 M HCl wash, with 87, 73 and 5%, respectively being washed-off. The removal of antimony, arsenic and chromium from unexposed hair is, however, more efficient with 1% (v/v) sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS), with 43, 40 and 13% of each element, respectively being washed-off. Selenium is not removed from the hair by any of the washing methods studied. For the digestion of hair samples a digestion mixture of nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide is used.Experiments with simulated sweat spiked with each of these elements show that exogenously bound chromium, cadmium and lead are removed after washing with 0.1 M HCl. In contrast, antimony, arsenic, selenium and mercury irreversibly bind and, thus, are not removed with any of the washing solutions investigated. This work also compares hair levels of these elements in an unexposed and exposed group using the method developed.     

The fundamental theorem of asset pricing under default and collateral in finite discrete time

We consider a financial market where time and uncertainty are modeled by a finite event-tree. The event-tree has a length of N, a unique initial node at the initial date, and a continuum of branches at each node of the tree. Prices and returns of J assets are modeled, respectively, by a R2J×R2J-valued stochastic process . In this framework we prove a version of the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing which applies to defaultable securities backed by exogenous collateral suffering a contingent linear depreciation.