Quantitative Aspects of Electrochemical Detection of Amyloid‐β Aggregation

The tyrosine based electrochemical analysis of synthetic amyloid‐β (Aβ) peptide – an analog of natural peptide implicated in Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis – was applied for a quantitative estimation of peptide aggregation in vitro. The analysis was carried out by square wave voltammetry (SWV) on carbon screen printed electrodes (SPE). The electrooxidation peak current (I_p) for Aβ42 peptide in different aggregation states was directly compared with the size and structure of Aβ42 aggregates occurring in the analyzed sample. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) and thioflavin T (ThT) based fluorescence assay were employed to estimate the size and structure of Aβ42 aggregates. The I_p was found to decrease in a linear fashion when the average diameter of aggregates and the relative ThT fluorescence in Aβ42 solutions exceeded 35 nm and 3, respectively, while being nearly constant below these values. It was suggested that the electrooxidation current is mostly generated by peptide monomers and that a depletion of the monomer pool due to inclusion of Aβ42 molecules in aggregates is responsible for the decrease of electrooxidation current. The direct electrochemistry is emerging as a method complementary to methods based on aggregates’ detection and commonly employed for monitoring Aβ aggregation. The work further enlarges the basis for application of the cost‐effective and rapid electrochemical techniques, such as SWV on carbon SPE, to in vitro studies of Aβ aggregation.     

Interactions of D-Maltose and Sucrose with Some Amino Acids in Aqueous Solutions

Calorimetric titrations have been performed at 298.15 K in aqueous solutions to derive the stability constants and thermodynamic parameters of the interactions of D-maltose and sucrose with some amino acids (glycine, DL-alanine, DL-leucine, and L-serine). The apparent molal volumes of the disaccharides in dilute aqueous solutions of the amino acids have been determined from density measurements at 298.15 K. In contrast to D-maltose, sucrose was found to associate with the amino acids and these associated species are preferentially entropy stabilized. These results are interpreted in terms of the influence of the nature of the solutes, their specific conformations, and hydration, on the ability of the disaccharides to form associated complexes with the amino acids.     

ML-Based Analysis of Particle Distributions in High-Intensity Laser Experiments: Role of Binning Strategy

When entering the phase of big data processing and statistical inferences in experimental physics, the efficient use of machine learning methods may require optimal data preprocessing methods and, in particular, optimal balance between details and noise. In experimental studies of strong-field quantum electrodynamics with intense lasers, this balance concerns data binning for the observed distributions of particles and photons. Here we analyze the aspect of binning with respect to different machine learning methods (Support Vector Machine (SVM), Gradient Boosting Trees (GBT), Fully-Connected Neural Network (FCNN), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)) using numerical simulations that mimic expected properties of upcoming experiments. We see that binning can crucially affect the performance of SVM and GBT, and, to a less extent, FCNN and CNN. This can be interpreted as the latter methods being able to effectively learn the optimal binning, discarding unnecessary information. Nevertheless, given limited training sets, the results indicate that the efficiency can be increased by optimizing the binning scale along with other hyperparameters. We present specific measurements of accuracy that can be useful for planning of experiments in the specified research area.     

Coordination versatility of pyridine-functionalized N-heterocyclic carbenes: a detailed study of the different activation procedures. Characterization of new Rh and Ir compounds and study of their catalytic activity

Three different reaction procedures for the coordination of N-n-butyl-N'-(2-pyridylmethyl)imidazolium salt have produced new N-heterocyclic complexes of Rh and Ir. The direct reaction of the imidazolium salt with [IrCl(cod)](2) provides a NHC-Ir(III)-H complex, while transmetalation from a silver-NHC complex and deprotonation with NEt(3) give new NHC complexes of M(I) and M(III) when reacting with [MCl(cod)](2) or [MCl(coe)(2)](2) (M = Rh, Ir). The crystal structures of the biscarbene Rh(III) and Ir(III) complexes are described. The catalytic properties of the compounds obtained have been tested in the hydrosilylation of acetylenes, the cyclization of acetylenic carboxylic acids, and hydrogen transfer to ketones.     

Peculiarities of chromium electrodeposition from water − dimethylformamide solutions

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - Electrodeposition of chromium from both CrCl2- and CrCl3-containing dimethylformamide (DMF)–water solutions is studied. It is found that the process...     

Structure factor of ferrofluids with chain aggregates: Theory and computer simulations

In this paper we present theoretical and simulation results on the structure factor of mono- and bidisperse ferrofluids with chain aggregates, both with and without an applied external magnetic field. Chain distribution is obtained by the density functional theory (DFT). The radial distribution function (RDF) is calculated directly on the basis of the chain distribution and Fourier transformed to calculate the structure factor. An extensive comparison of the theoretical predictions to the results of the molecular dynamics computer simulations is provided. The proposed combined approach allows to elucidate the connection between experimentally observed small angle neutron scattering (SANS) images and the ferrofluid microstructure.     

Imaging the Magnetic Reversal of Isolated and Organized Molecular‐Based Nanoparticles using Magnetic Force Microscopy

In the race towards miniaturization in nanoelectronics, magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have emerged as potential candidates for their integration in ultrahigh‐density recording media. Molecular‐based materials open the possibility to design new tailor‐made MNPs with variable composition and sizes, which benefit from the intrinsic properties of these materials. Before their implementation in real devices is reached, a precise organization on surfaces and a reliable characterization and manipulation of their individual magnetic behavior are required. In this paper, it is demonstrated how molecular‐based MNPs are accurately organized on surfaces and how the magnetic properties of the individual MNPs are detected and tuned by means of low‐temperature magnetic force microscopy (LT‐MFM) with variable magnetic field. The magnetization reversal on isolated and organized MNPs is investigated; in addition, the temperature dependence of their magnetic response is evaluated.     

Combination of virtual and experimental 2DE together with ESI LC‐MS/MS gives a clearer view about proteomes of human cells and plasma

Virtual and experimental 2DE coupled with ESI LC‐MS/MS was introduced to obtain better representation of the information about human proteome. The proteins from HEPG2 cells and human blood plasma were run by 2DE. After staining and protein spot identification by MALDI‐TOF MS, the protein maps were generated. The experimental physicochemical parameters (pI/Mw) of the proteoforms further detected by ESI LC‐MS/MS in these spots were obtained. Next, the theoretical pI and Mw of identified proteins were calculated using program Compute pI/Mw ( http://web.expasy.org/compute_pi/pi_tool‐doc.html ). Accordingly, the relationship between theoretical and experimental parameters was analyzed, and the correlation plots were built. Additionally, virtual/experimental information about different protein species/proteoforms from the same genes was extracted. As it was revealed from the plots, the major proteoforms detected in HepG2 cell line have pI/Mw parameters similar to theoretical values. In opposite, the minor protein species have mainly very different from theoretical pI and Mw parameters. A similar situation was observed in plasma in much higher degree. It means that minor protein species are heavily modified in cell and even more in plasma proteome.     

Insight into lattice thermal impedance via equilibrium molecular dynamics: case study on Al

Using results of equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation in conjunction with the Green–Kubo formalism, we present a general treatment of thermal impedance of a crystal lattice with a monatomic unit cell. The treatment is based on an analytical expression for the heat current autocorrelation function which reveals, in a monatomic lattice, an energy gap between the origin of the phonon states and the beginning of the energy spectrum of the so-called acoustic short-range phonon modes. Although, we consider here the f.c.c. Al model as a case example, the analytical expression is shown to be consistent for different models of elemental f.c.c. crystals over a wide temperature range. Furthermore, we predict a frequency ‘window’ where the thermal waves can be generated in a monatomic lattice by an external periodic temperature perturbation.     

On the Efficiency of a Global Non-differentiable Optimization Algorithm Based on the Method of Optimal Set Partitioning

The examined algorithm for global optimization of the multiextremal non-differentiable function is based on the following idea: the problem of determination of the global minimum point of the function f(x) on the set (f(x) has a finite number of local minima in this domain) is reduced to the problem of finding all local minima and their attraction spheres with a consequent choice of the global minimum point among them. This reduction is made by application of the optimal set partitioning method. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on a set of well-known one-dimensional, two-dimensional and three-dimensional test functions. Recommendations for choosing the algorithm parameters are given.