Anion-exchange separation of gallium from indium,thallium, aluminium and other elements in malonic acid

Summary Systematic studies of gallium on Dowex-21K in malonate media are reported. On the basis of the value of the elution constant (E) it was separated from large number of metal ions. By selective sorption it was separated from the alkalis, alkaline earths, bismuth, thallium (I), mercury (II), iron (II) and germanium (IV). With water as eluant it was separated from cobalt, nickel, zinc, manganese and palladium, with ammonium chloride it was possible to separate it from copper, iron and vanadium, and with a specific eluant it was separated from lead and zirconium. Finally the sequential separation of gallium from thallium, aluminium and indium was accomplished.     

Quasi-steady-state laws in enzyme kinetics

To understand how enzymes work is essential for understanding life processes. And, in enzyme kinetics, a fundamental assumption is the so-called Quasi-Steady-State Assumption, which has the history of more than 80 years and has been proven very fruitful in analyzing the equations of enzyme kinetics. Many experimental results and numerical results have shown the validity of the assumption. So, an important problem is if it is always true. If it is always true, then it should be a law, not only an assumption. In this paper, we prove mathematically rigorously that it is indeed always true. Hence, it is a law, and we name it the Quasi-Steady-State Law. Actually, more precisely, we have two Quasi-Steady-State Laws. In one of them quasi-steady state means that the concentration of the enzyme-substrate complex remains approximately constant, and in the other it means that the change rate of the concentration of enzyme-substrate complex is extremely tiny.     

The role of an independent laboratory association in the standards,metrology, quality assurance and accreditation environment

Whilst there can be no doubt as to the benefit that an independent 3rd party conformity assessment accreditation body plays in ensuring the competency of results, personnel and processes, it is often at the expense of an adversarial relationship with the laboratory community it serves. A significant improvement in this relationship can be obtained by the formation and active participation by an independent laboratory association. This paper describes such an organisation, how it was formed, what role and the functions it currently performs and, most importantly, how it interacts with the national accreditation body and the stakeholders who are its members.     

判断中国经济社会发展规划是否科学合理的标准

判断中国经济社会发展规划是否科学合理的标准包括：（1）是否体现以人民为中心的发展理念;（2）是否符合基本国情;（3）是否坚持公共利益优先;（4）是否发挥了市场在资源配置中的决定性作用;（5）是否旨在针对外部性（市场失灵）提供公共产品;（6）是否建立了中央政府和地方政府以及政府与民间激励相容机制;（7）是否将地方政府自由裁量权限定在了合理区间。以上七条不仅是判断中国以往包括“十三五”规划在内的各种经济社会发展规划是否科学合理的标准,同时也是今后制定新的经济社会发展规划特别是业已启动的“十四五”规划编制应遵循的基本原则。     

公共辩护的摇摆性—罗尔斯政治自由主义转向的内在困境

不少学者试图从公共辩护的视角捍卫罗尔斯从《正义论》到《政治自由主义》的转向。这种辩护有双重任务,一是在多元主义事实的前提下获得稳定性,二是不想放弃普遍性。为完成此双重任务,公共辩护使用的理性观是有争议的康德式实践理性观,由此出现了三个方面的摇摆性。第一,其达成标准摇摆于实然同意与应然同意之间;第二,它对公民道德能力的设定摇摆于高（为了优于一般辩护）与低（为了稳定性）之间;第三,其对多元主义合情理性的认定也是摇摆不定的：根据形成观念的过程,根据观念的持有者和根据观念的内容。困境的根源可能在于反思平衡方法,它要求纳入人们根深蒂固的直觉,而各种直觉之间经常是有冲突的。     

Can PF2OF exist?

G2 and G3 compound methods were used to explore the possibility that the covalent hypofluorite compound PF₂OF might exist as a stable compound. Calculations suggest that it may exist, making it a legitimate synthetic target. If it is isolable, it is likely to be very reactive, as the O-F bond is expected to be rather weak.     

Binding: A unifying notion or a pseudoconcept?

Communication between chemists and physicists working in different domains of physical chemistry may sound like a dream, but actually it must be established in order that the whole field may develop in a more efficient way. Binding is a unifying concept whose discussion may make it possible for specialists of different extractions to profit from each other's work. When different specialists speak of binding, they have some intuitive picture in mind. Does it correspond to a unique well-defined concept, or is it just a cover for ignorance? A tentative definition is proposed as a starting point for discussion, but it is also emphasized that only from an open-minded and thorough analysis of the various interpretations it should be possible to make real progress. An example showing very clearly the relationship between the various topics is that of biopolymers, whose understanding depends on the specification of the role of a variety of binding effects, from chemisorption to charge transfer to (one-dimensional) metallic binding.     

警惕锌剂治疗的毒性和副作用

临床实践证明某些疾病补锌治疗有效，但也发现1％左右的人出现副作用，人类对锌过量虽具有耐受性，但据报道不管是急性中毒量，治疗量，还是常用的自选补充量，均可出现中毒症状。原因是锌与其它元素间有相互作用，特别是与铜的拮抗作用，所以用锌剂一定要严格掌握适应症、剂量、疗程，以免引起不良反应，影响儿童健康。     

Baseline changes in an isothermal titration microcalorimeter

Summary Isothermal titration microcalorimeters are submerged in an ambience at constant temperature and, this is the reason why there should not be variations in the baseline; but the experimental measures show that, in some cases, it is produced a jump in the baseline after the liquid injection. In this paper, it is studied the origin of this variation of the baseline in order to avoid it, if it is possible, or correct it and thus, to determine with the minimum error the amounts of energy or power developed in the energetic process that is being studied. The experimental results that are shown support the hypothesis that states that the cause of the baseline jump in an isothermal microcalorimeter is the variation of the thermal coupling between the content of the mixture cell and the axis of the stirrer, which is coupled, at the same time, with an area with a temperature slightly lower (in this case) than the thermostat temperature. This jump is independent from the dissipation and it always has the same sign. The magnitude of the baseline jump is variable and it mainly depends on the volume that the liquid content in a cell reaches and the placement of the stirrer within the cell, that can be changed in the handling process.     

Pumping fluids in microfluidic systems using the elastic deformation of poly(dimethylsiloxane)

This paper demonstrates a methodology for storing and pumping fluids that provide a useful capability for microfluidic devices. It uses microfluidic screw valves to isolate fluids in poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) microcompartments, in which the pressure of the liquid is stored in the elastic deformation of the walls and ceiling of the compartments. Fluids can be stored under pressure in these structures for months. When the valves are opened, the walls and ceiling push the fluid out of the compartments into microfluidic channels. The system has five useful characteristics: (i) it is made using soft lithographic techniques; (ii) it allows multiple reagents to be preloaded in devices and stored under pressure without any additional user intervention; (iii) it makes it possible to meter out fluids in devices, and to control rates of flow of fluids; (iv) it prevents the user from exposure to potentially toxic reagents; and (v) it is hand-operated and does not require additional equipment or resources.     

On the definition of the excess permittivity of a fluid mixture

It is shown that under the assumption of no intermolecular interaction, the permittivity of a homogeneous linear and isotropic fluid mixture is the sum of the individual permittivities weighted with the mole fractions of the components. For definiteness, a proof is given for gasses under standard temperature and pressure; it is, however, easy to generalize it to other conditions, as well as to liquids, as long as the assumption of no intermolecular interaction is retained. Also, although the proof is given for a binary mixture, it is a simple exercise to extend it to any multicomponent mixture.     

Note on the correction of negative measured values if the measurand is nonnegative

Often, the concentration of a substance or the activity of radionuclides in a sample is measured indirectly as the difference between signal and noise, i.e. the difference between the measured value obtained at the sample and that obtained at a sample not containing the substance or the radionuclides (blank sample). The difference can be negative, especially if the concentration or the activity is low. Since a negative measurement result for a nonnegative measurand does not make sense, measured values must be corrected to nonnegative measurement results. Weise et al. and Korun/Maver Modec use a Bayesian approach in order to obtain a nonnegative estimate of the nonnegative measurand. Their estimate is the mean of the posterior distribution. Korun and Zorko modify this estimate slightly and obtain a less biased estimate. In this paper, it is proposed to use the mode of the posterior distribution instead of the mean. The resulting estimate is equal to the measured value if it is nonnegative and 0 if it is negative. This estimate has three advantages: it is extremely easy to calculate, it is less biased than the posterior mean proposed in the other papers, and it does not use the known standard deviation, i.e. it can also be used if the standard deviation is unknown.     

Der Wittelsbacher und der Hope‐Diamant

Diamonds are formed from carbon at high pressures and high temperatures in the inner part of the earth. Doping with very small amounts of boron leads to diamonds with blue colour. Two of the most famous historical blue diamonds, the Wittelsbach and Hope Diamond, were found in the Indian Kollur mine. The latter was brought to Europe by the French gem merchant Tavernier. Today it is displayed in the Smithsonian Institute. The Wittelsbach Diamond was for a long time in the possession of the House Wittelsbach until it was secretly sold in Antwerp in 1951. In 2008, it was purchased by auction by the jeweller Graff who recut the gem. In 2011, it was sold to an unknown buyer. As the Wittelsbach and the Hope diamond share origin and colour, it was assumed for a long time that both are pieces from a larger crystal. By optical investigation it was now shown that they have indeed some similar optical properties, but differ strikingly in other ones. Hence, they cannot originate from the same crystal.     

An operational research model for pattern recognition

The operational research model is based on a facility location problem and is solved by using heuristic and branch-and-bound methods. The method is particularly useful for clustering because it contains an algorithm that permits a conclusion about the significance of a cluster, without imposing a priori conditions. The method is also applied to supervised learning, for which it is not expected to be better than existing methods. However, it could be an interesting aid to those methods because it allows reduction of large data sets. The application of the method is illustrated with a few examples.     

Wavepacket Splitting and Two‐Pathway Deactivation in the Photoexcited Visual Pigment Isorhodopsin

Isorhodopsin is the visual pigment analogue of rhodopsin. It shares the same opsin environment but it embeds 9‐cis retinal instead of 11‐cis. Its photoisomerization is three times slower and less effective. The mechanistic rationale behind this observation is revealed by combining high‐level quantum‐mechanical/molecular‐mechanical simulations with ultrafast optical spectroscopy with sub‐20 fs time resolution and spectral coverage extended to the near‐infrared. Whereas in rhodopsin the photoexcited wavepacket has ballistic motion through a single conical intersection seam region between the ground and excited states, in isorhodopsin it branches into two competitive deactivation pathways involving distinct conical intersection funnels. One is rapidly accessed but unreactive. The other is slower, as it features extended steric interactions with the environment, but it is productive as it follows forward bicycle pedal motion.     

Photolysis of benzophenone with two-step two-laser excitation

The first laser excites a molecule to a lower triplet state and another sequential laser excites it resonantly to higher triplet states or makes it ionization. This two-step two-laser method provides a novel way to study the electron transfer or charge transfer of excited molecules. The higher excited benzophenone and its radical cation can be observed under the time-resolved absorption method when it was excited to lower triplet state by one laser and another one exciting it to higher triplet states resonantly. The higher excited benzophenone molecules undergoing inter-molecular hydrogen abstraction with iso-propylalcohol molecules are faster than the lower ones.     

Essai de stabilisation du polychlorure de vinyle par un système totalement organique

Owing to its Lewis acid character, dichloromaleic anhydride (DCAM) has been tried as a thermal stabilizer of polyvinylchloride (PVC), in association with nucleophilic oxiranes; comparative experiments have been carried out using maleic anhydride and maleic acid. Chlorohexene was used as model compound for labile allylic chloride in dichlorobutane solution at 80°. Experiments with plasticized PVC were carried out at 180°. DCAM in an efficient catalyst for the production of the intermediate carbocation, although it is less efficient than organostannic chlorides; it causes oxirane polymerization and other secondary reactions more than nucleophilic substiution on the carbocation. Moreover it is not an efficient dienophilic agent for conjugated polyene, although it gives with them a strongly coloured complex. For these reasons, it cannot be used as a major component of a stabilizer recipe for PVC.     

Biomolecular interaction analysis under electrophoretic flow conditions

Combining the advantages of electrophoresis with the advantages of biomolecular interaction analysis (BIA) enables the biospecific detection of separated molecules; for example it permits differentiation between a complementary single-stranded DNA and a single nucleotide polymorphism. In order to integrate these two techniques, it is necessary to investigate whether it is possible to detect a biomolecular interaction under electrophoretic flow conditions. To this end a novel detection system was developed for electrophoresis that utilizes a label-free and time-resolved detection technique: reflectometric interference spectroscopy (RIfS). The biological functions of important analytes were investigated using this system. Although RIfS can be used as a postcolumn detector, it is also possible to use it to detect relevant substances under electrophoretic flow conditions. DNA–LNA, biotin–streptavidin and protein–protein interactions were detected using this coupled electrophoresis–RIfS set-up.     

Single-step synthesis and stabilization of metal nanoparticles in aqueous pluronic block copolymer solutions at ambient temperature

A single-step synthesis of gold nanoparticles with an average diameter of approximately 10 nm from hydrogen tetrachloroaureate(III) hydrate (HAuCl4.3H2O) has been achieved in air-saturated aqueous solutions that contain poly(ethylene oxide)-poly(propylene oxide)-poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO-PPO-PEO) block copolymers but not any other reducing agent. These amphiphilic block copolymers act as both reductants and colloidal stabilizers and prove very efficient in both functions. The formation of gold nanoparticles is controlled by the overall molecular weight and relative block length of the block copolymer. The synthesis procedure reported here is environmentally benign and economic, as it involves the minimum possible number of components: it uses water as the solvent, it uses commercially available polymers, it proceeds fast to completion, and it results in a "ready-to-use" product.