Investigation of the Doughnut Effect in Cy3-Labeled Protein Microarrays using Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscope

We demonstrate the fluorescence mapping of protein microarrays by the technique of scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) and confocal microscopy. Micron sized spots (300 μm) of human Immunoglobulin G (hIgG) protein with and without a Cy3 dye labeling have been fabricated on glass substrates by an immobilization method which makes use of calixcrown derivatives termed Prolinker. We have also tried to probe into the well-known “doughnut effect” observed in fluorescence images of proteins using the SNOM technique. The topographic and fluorescence SNOM images revealed that the number of proteins at the boundary of the spot were more than at the center in the case of the microarray spot which showed brighter luminescence at the edge than at the center in the confocal image.     

A pair of orthogonal frames

We start with a characterization of a pair of frames to be orthogonal in a shift-invariant space and then give a simple construction of a pair of orthogonal shift-invariant frames. This is applied to obtain a construction of a pair of Gabor orthogonal frames as an example. This is also developed further to obtain constructions of a pair of orthogonal wavelet frames.     

Moments of claims in a Markovian environment

This paper considers discounted aggregate claims when the claim rates and sizes fluctuate according to the state of the risk business. We provide a system of differential equations for the Laplace–Stieltjes transform of the distribution of discounted aggregate claims under this assumption. Using the differential equations, we present the first two moments of discounted aggregate claims in a Markovian environment. We also derive simple expressions for the moments of discounted aggregate claims when the Markovian environment has two states. Numerical examples are illustrated when the claim sizes are specified.     

Recurrent solar wind streams

A new approach to investigating the statistical relationship between certain solar features and recurrent wind streams is presented. This approach is based, on a comparative analysis of the distributions of lifetimes of a set of solar features, recurrent geomagnetic disturbances, and geomagnetic “calms.” Correlation coefficients of 0.81, 0.85, 0.79, and 0.77 are found for the distributions of several solar features—filaments, large-scale magnetic fields, coronal features, and coronal holes, respectively—and recurrent geomagnetic disturbances. A correlation factor of 0.97 between the distributions of geomagnetic “calms” and active regions is found. The combined evidence indicates that no specific type of solar feature is responsible for the recurrent stream activity. Rather, the configuration of the large-scale magnetic field of the Sun appears to control the permanently existing corpuscular activity. Since prominences trace polarity division lines of the large-scale magnetic field structure of the Sun, they have been checked as a possible general predictor of recurrent corpuscular activity; their parameters could present the most reliable indices that relate closely with trends in geomagnetic disturbances. A comparative analysis of cyclic variations of sunspot numbers, the total number of prominences, the relative number of low-height (<-20″) prominences, and recurrent geomagnetic storms is made for solar cycle N16. The relative number of low-height prominences is found to correlate broadly (0.83) with recurrent wind streams. P. K. Shternberg State Astronomical Institute, Moscow, Russia; National Solar Observatory, Sacramento Peak, U.S. Published in Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 145–151, February, 1998.     

Hyperfunctional Weights for Orthogonal Polynomials

The Chebychev polynomials associated to any given moments μ_{n ∞} ⁰ are formally orthogonal with respect to the formal δ-series $$w(x)= {\sum^\infty_0}(- 1)^{n}\mu_{{n}}\delta^{(n)}(x)/n!.$$ We show that this formal weight can be a true hyperfunctional weight if its Fourier transform is a slowly increasing holomorphic function in some tubular neighborhood of the real line. It provides a unifying treatment of real and complex orthogonality of Chebychev polynomials including all classical examples and characterizes Chebychev polynomials having Bessel type orthogonality.