Enhanced immunodetection of blotted house dust mite protein allergens on nitrocellulose following blocking with Tween 20

The effect of blocking nitrocellulose membranes with the nonionic detergent Tween 20 on the detection, by protein blotting, of IgE-binding to house dust mite Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus allergens has been investigated. Tween blocking led to enhanced immunodetection of allergens despite removal of proteins from the membrane when compared to protein blocking agents which did not displace transferred components. The enhancement varied with the different mite components and, for one in particular, antigen Der p II, an increase of more than 100-fold in IgE antibody binding occurred despite a concurrent loss of more than 90% of Der p II from the membrane. Both the enhancement of binding and loss of components from the membrane were dependent upon the time course of blocking and the concentration of Tween used.     

Convergence of Ginzburg–Landau Functionals in Three-Dimensional Superconductivity

In this paper we consider the asymptotic behavior of the Ginzburg–Landau model for superconductivity in three dimensions, in various energy regimes. Through an analysis via Γ-convergence, we rigorously derive a reduced model for the vortex density and deduce a curvature equation for the vortex lines. In the companion paper (Baldo et al. Commun. Math. Phys. 2012, to appear) we describe further applications to superconductivity and superfluidity, such as general expressions for the first critical magnetic field H _c1, and the critical angular velocity of rotating Bose–Einstein condensates.     

A note on the Hodge theory for functionals with linear growth

We study the Hodge decomposition of L ¹-(and measure-) differential forms over a compact manifold without boundary, giving positive results and counterexamples. The theory is then applied to the relaxation and minimization, in cohomology classes, of convex functionals with linear growth. This corresponds to a non-linear version of the Hodge theory, in the spirit of L. M. Sibner and R. J. Sibner [SS]. Received: 19 November 1997 / Revised version: 18 May 1998     

Amperometric monitoring of bacteria-induced milk acidity using a platinum disc microelectrode.

The acidity induced by the action of bacteria in milk samples was monitored amperometrically by using a platinum microelectrode. The measurements were performed directly on commercial packs of milk, stored at 32 degrees C, and were continued for 9-10 d after inoculation. The data were compared with those obtained by measuring the pH of the samples and the results are discussed on the basis of the metabolism of each bacterial species. The effects of the following bacteria were examined: Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Streptococcus faecalis, Bacillus subtilis, Aeromonas, and Corynebacterium.     

An approach to nuclear theory including shell-model conditions and particle correlations: Scattering amplitudes and photonuclear cross sections

A recently proposed new approach to the study of nuclear structure is explicitly extended to the continuum in order to describe nuclear reaction processes. Numerical results are obtained for the cross sections of the elastic and inelastic scattering of neutrons by ¹⁵N and of the (γ, n) reaction on ¹⁶O, in the giant-dipole resonance region. The results show strong effects due to the presence of correlations. In particular the fine structure of the giant resonance is satisfactorily accounted for.     

Investigation of products arising from enzymatic digestion of advanced glycated albumin by high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry.

The structural investigation of the products arising from 28 days incubation of albumin with high glucose concentration and further enzymatic hydrolysis has been carried out by means of high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS) under plasmaspray conditions. By this approach many different compounds have been detected, and for most of them, possible structures have been proposed on the basis of literature data and molecular weight assignments.     

Toward a microscopic description of molecular electronic systems

The many-body perturbation theory is reformulated within the dielectric function method presented in the preceding paper [12]. The self-energy effects are explicitly considered. These corrections turn out to be important and are calculated to the same level of approximation as the corresponding local-field terms. The method is at the moment applicable to π-electron systems within the zero differential overlap approximation. Explicit calculations of the excitation energies for the benzene molecule, using different parametrizations, are presented. Comparison is made with the results obtained in the random phase approximation (RPA ) and other schemes.     

Dimensional and geometrical effects on the electronic structure of polycyclic hydrocarbons

In the framework of the SCF -RPA scheme and ppp approximation we studied the excitation spectrum of pyrene, coronene, ovalene, and hexabenzocoronene. The triplet stability matrix of the corresponding Hartree–Fock solution was also studied for each molecule. At variance with the case of long linear polyacenes [M. Baldo, G. Piccitto, R. Pucci, and P. Tomasello, Phys. Lett. 95A , 201 (1983)], all these molecules do not display Hartree–Fock triplet instability. Furthermore, the theoretical analysis indicates that the electronic structure of the molecular series can be characterized by a dimensionality intermediate between one and two, with a smooth transition between the two limits. The transition is essentially determined by the molecular shape. The analysis is supported by the fairly good agreement of the theoretical spectra with the available experimental data.