Crystallographic recognition controls peptide binding for bio-based nanomaterials

The ability to control the size, shape, composition, and activity of nanomaterials presents a formidable challenge. Peptide approaches represent new avenues to achieve such control at the synthetic level; however, the critical interactions at the bio/nano interface that direct such precision remain poorly understood. Here we present evidence to suggest that materials-directing peptides bind at specific time points during Pd nanoparticle (NP) growth, dictated by material crystallinity. As such surfaces are presented, rapid peptide binding occurs, resulting in the stabilization and size control of single-crystal NPs. Such specificity suggests that peptides could be engineered to direct the structure of nanomaterials at the atomic level, thus enhancing their activity.     

Phase behaviour of lyotropic liquid crystals in external fields and confinement

This mini-review discusses the influence of external fields on the phase behaviour of lyotropic colloidal liquid crystals. The liquid crystal phases reviewed, formed in suspensions of highly anisotropic particles ranging from rod- to board- to plate-like particles, include nematic, smectic and columnar phases. The external fields considered are the earth gravitational field and electric and magnetic fields. For electric and magnetic fields single particle alignment, collective reorientation behaviour of ordered phases and field-induced liquid crystal phase transitions are discussed. Additionally, liquid crystal phase behaviour in various confining geometries, e.g. slit-pore, circular and spherical confinement will be reviewed.     

Moment inequalities and central limit properties of isotropic convex bodies

The object of our investigations are isotropic convex bodies , centred at the origin and normed to volume one, in arbitrary dimensions. We show that a certain subset of these bodies – specified by bounds on the second and fourth moments – is invariant under forming ‘expanded joinsrsquo;. Considering a body K as above as a probability space and taking , we define random variables on K. It is known that for subclasses of isotropic convex bodies satisfying a ‘concentration of mass property’, the distributions of these random variables are close to Gaussian distributions, for high dimensions n and ‘most’ directions . We show that this ‘central limit property’, which is known to hold with respect to convergence in law, is also true with respect to -convergence and -convergence of the corresponding densities. Received: 21 March 2001 / in final form: 17 October 2001 / Published online: 4 April 2002     

Distribution of Global Measures of Deviation Between the Empirical Distribution Function and Its Concave Majorant

We investigate the distribution of some global measures of deviation between the empirical distribution function and its least concave majorant. In the case that the underlying distribution has a strictly decreasing density, we prove asymptotic normality for several L _k -type distances. In the case of a uniform distribution, we also establish their limit distribution together with that of the supremum distance. It turns out that in the uniform case, the measures of deviation are of greater order and their limit distributions are different.     

Modulus Semigroups and Perturbation Classes for Linear Delay Equations in <Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis><Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis></Subscript>

In this paper we study C₀-semigroups on X × L_p( − h, 0; X) associated with linear differential equations with delay, where X is a Banach space. In the case that X is a Banach lattice with order continuous norm, we describe the associated modulus semigroup, under minimal assumptions on the delay operator. Moreover, we present a new class of delay operators for which the delay equation is well-posed for p in a subinterval of [1,∞). Dedicated to the memory of H. H. Schaefer