Nanoparticle adsorption and stabilisation of surfactant-free emulsions

The formation of particle-stabilised emulsions by adding partially hydrophobised silica particles to surfactant-free oil-in-water emulsions (average drop diameter approximately 700 nm) stabilised by hydroxide ions adsorbed at the oil-water interface has been investigated. Nanoparticles (average particle diameter 18 nm) adsorbed onto the drops under alkaline conditions to produce particle-stabilised emulsions with the same drop size distribution as the surfactant-free emulsions. Unlike the surfactant-free emulsions, the particle-stabilised emulsions were stable even in acidic conditions. Strongly flocculated nanoparticles (average particle diameter 150 nm) adsorbed onto the drop surfaces under acidic conditions where the emulsions were destabilised, forming coarser particle-stabilised emulsions with micron-sized drops.     

Raman microscopy for the chemometric analysis of tumor cells

Raman spectroscopy is recognized as a tool for chemometric analysis of biological materials due to the high information content relating to specific physical and chemical qualities of the sample. Thirty cells belonging to two different prostatic cell lines, PNT1A (immortalized normal prostate cell line) and LNCaP (malignant cell line derived from prostate metastases), were mapped using Raman microscopy. A range of spectral preprocessing methods (partial least-squares discriminant analyses (PLSDAs), principal component analyses (PCAs), and adjacent band ratios (ABRs)) were compared for input into linear discriminant analysis to model and classify the two cell lines. PLSDA and ABR were able to correctly classify 100% of cells into benign and malignant groups, while PLSDA correctly classified a greater proportion of individual spectra. PCA was used to image the distribution of various biochemicals inside each cell and confirm differences in composition/distribution between benign and malignant cell lines. This study has demonstrated that PLSDAs and ABRs of Raman data can identify subtle differences between benign and malignant prostatic cells in vitro.     

On the number of types of finite dimensional Hopf algebras

For an odd prime p we construct an infinite class of non-isomorphic Hopf algebras of dimension p ⁴ over an infinite field containing primitive p-th roots of unity, answering in the negative a long standing conjecture of Kaplansky. Oblatum 6-XI-1997 / Published online: 12 November 1998     

Direct absorption measurement of the spin—orbit splitting of the ground state in atomic fluorine

We have measured the three hyperfine components of the spin—orbit split (²P_{$\text{3}\text{2}$} → ²P_{$\text{1}\text{2}$}) ground state in atomic fluorine by diode laser absorption spectroscopy. The measurement improves the accuracy of the two lines previously reported (404.175 and 403.969 cm^?1), with the third line at 404.210 cm^?1. This confirms the spacing of the hyperfine components measured by EPR, and establishes diode laser absorption as a viable technique for determining F-atom concentrations.     

Synthesis and Diels-Alder Reactions of a New Kind of Chiral Dienophiles: Cyclic Vinyl-p-tolylsulfilimines

A new kind of chiral dienophiles, cyclic vinyl-p-tolylsulfilimines (2a and 2b), were obtained from the corresponding (Z)-sulfinylacrylonitriles with HBF(4) and methanol. The asymmetric Diels-Alder reaction of optically pure 2a with cyclopentadiene under mild thermal or catalyzed conditions afforded only the endo-4a adduct with complete endo and pi-facial selectivities. The ability of the sulfilimine moiety to enhance the dienophilic reactivity of the double bond is similar to that of the sulfinyl group.     

The oscillographic polarography of noble metal complexes

The polarographic behaviour of complexes of the noble metals was studied by oscillographic polarography. A method was developed for the polarographic determination of copper, gold and palladium; silver and nickel do not interfere. Applications to the analysis of dental alloys proved successful.     

Galerkin eigenvector approximations

How close are Galerkin eigenvectors to the best approximation available out of the trial subspace? Under a variety of conditions the Galerkin method gives an approximate eigenvector that approaches asymptotically the projection of the exact eigenvector onto the trial subspace--and this occurs more rapidly than the underlying rate of convergence of the approximate eigenvectors. Both orthogonal-Galerkin and Petrov-Galerkin methods are considered here with a special emphasis on nonselfadjoint problems, thus extending earlier studies by Chatelin, Babuska and Osborn, and Knyazev. Consequences for the numerical treatment of elliptic PDEs discretized either with finite element methods or with spectral methods are discussed. New lower bounds to the of a pair of operators are developed as well.