Profiling and sequencing of gangliosides from human caudate nucleus by chip‐nanoelectrospray mass spectrometry

Gangliosides (GGs), sialic acid‐containing glycosphingolipids are involved in many brain functions at the cell and molecular level. Compositional and structural elucidation of GGs in mixtures extracted from human brain is essential for correlating their profile with the specialized function of each brain area in health and disease. As a part of our ongoing study on GG expression and structure in different healthy and diseased brain regions, in this work, a preliminary investigation of GGs in a specimen of human caudate nucleus (CN) was carried out using an advanced mass spectrometry (MS) technique. By chip‐nanoelectrospray MS performed on a NanoMate robot coupled to a high capacity ion trap instrument, 81 GG components were detected in human CN in only 1.5 min of signal acquisition. Although the native GG mixture from CN was found dominated by mono‐, di‐ and trisialylated GGs with a slight dominance of disialylated forms (GD), four tetrasialylated structures (GQ) and two pentasialylated (GP) species were also identified. Additionally, species with unusually long fatty acid chains, exceeding 30 carbon atoms in their ceramide (Cer) composition, and several glycoforms modified by fucosyl (Fuc), O‐acetyl (O‐Ac) and/or lactonization were discovered. By tandem MS (MS²) using collision‐induced dissociation, two atypical mono and disialylated species with long‐chain fatty acids in their Cer could be confirmed and structurally characterized. These results may be a starting point for new GG‐based approaches in the study of CN functions and ethiopathogenesis of CN‐related neurodegenerative disorders. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gas protection optimization during Nd:YAG laser welding

Many laser processes, such as welding or surface treatments are associated with an undesired phenomenon, which is oxidation. The solution commonly employed to solve this problem approaches the shielding gas and/or the shielding gas device. What we propose in this paper is a methodology with the goal to optimize the protection gas device design as well as the gas flow in the case of laser welding and surface treatments. The pressure created by the gas flow on the sample surface is recorded and analysed together with the operating parameters influence in order to reach the objectives. The nozzle system designed and presented below assures the protection against material oxidation using minimal gas flow rates and increases the welding penetration in the case of high-power Nd:YAG laser welding.     

Modifiziertes Statistisches Atommodell

Zusammenfassung Die statistische Atomtheorie nach Thomas und Fermi liefert ein fehlerhaftes Verhalten der Elektronendichte bei kleinen Kernabständen. Es wird eine modifizierte statistische Besetzungsvorschrift vorgeschlagen, die hier zu einer Verbesserung führt. Während die einfache Fermi-Statistik nur das Pauliprinzip berücksichtigt, befriedigt die modifizierte Statistik auch die Heisenbergsche Unschärfe-Relation, indem für stark lokalisierte Elektronen Phasenraum-Bereiche mit kleinen Impulsen verboten sind. Die modifizierte Statistik erfordert eine Neubehandlung des statistischen Austauschpotentials. Dichteverteilungen und verschiedene Erwartungswerte werden mit dem neuen Atommodell berechnet und mit exakten Werten verglichen.

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Modified stasistical atom model

The statistical atom model of Thomas and Fermi leads to a wrong behaviour of electron density near the nucleus. A modified statistical occupation rule has been suggested, which improves this weakness of the model. Whereas the simple statistics of Fermi only satisfy the Pauli exclusion principle, the modified statistics allows for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, too, by excluding small momentum domains of the phase space from occupation by spatially localized electrons. The modified statistics necessitate a redetermination of the statistical exchange potential. Atomic charge distributions and expectation values are calculated by the new model and compared with HF-results.

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Résumé Le modèle statistique de l'atome de Thomas et Fermi conduit à un comportement erroné de la densité électronique au voisinage du noyau. On suggère une règle d'occupation modifiée qui remédie à cette faiblesse du modèle. Alors que la simple statistique de Fermi ne satisfait qu'au principe d'exclusion de Pauli, la statistique modifiée satisfait aussi au principe d'incertitude de Heisenberg, en excluant de l'occupation par des électrons localisés dans l'espace de petits domaines de moment dans l'espace des phases. La statistique modifiée nécessite une nouvelle évaluation du potentiel d'échange statistique. Les distributions de charge atomiques et les valeurs moyennes sont calculées à l'aide de ce nouveau modèle et comparées aux résultats Hartree-Fock.