Determination of boron in silicon by SIMS with the matrix ion species ratio method

Summary In quantitative SIMS, the oxygen content of the sample surface proves to be a very important analytical parameter. The matrix ion species ratio method (MISR) was used to investigate the influence of the presence of oxygen on the determination of boron in silicon. By analysing standard samples at conditions of different oxygen coverage, the relation between the sensitivity of boron and the oxygen content of the sample surface, as indexed by the SiO⁺/Si³⁺ matrix ion species ratio, was established. The influence of the primary ion current density on this relation was investigated. The MISR procedure proves to be a suitable method to perform quantitative determinations (relative error < 10%) in conditions of changing oxygen content on the sample surface.

---

Bestimmung von Bor in Silicium durch SIMS mit der Matrix Ion Species Ratio Method

     

Inhibition of dextransucrase by α-D-Glucose derivatives

alpha-D-Glucopyranosyl fluoride was modified at positions 2, 3, or 5 and these analogs were tested as substrates and inhibitors of dextransucrase from Leuconostoc mesenteroides B-512F. The analogs studied were 2-deoxy-2-fluoro-alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluoride, 3-deoxy-3-fluoro-alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluoride, 3-deoxy-3-thio-alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluoride, and 5-thio-alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluoride. Kinetic constants for alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluoride were also determined. None of the alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluorides were accepted as substrates for dextransucrase. 2-Deoxy-2-fluoro-alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluoride, 3-deoxy-3-fgluoro-alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluoride, and 3-deoxy-3-thio-alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluoride were competitive inhibitors with Ki values of 63, 93, and 53 mM, respectively. The Km for alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluoride was found to be 26 mM. The data indicate that the hydroxyl groups at C2 and C3 are important for proper binding of alpha-D-glucopyranosyl fluoride for the active site of dextransucrase and that the C3-hydroxyl probably acts as a hydrogen-bond donor.     

Structured pseudospectra for nonlinear eigenvalue problems

In this paper we introduce structured pseudospectra for nonlinear eigenvalue problems and derive computable formulae. The results are applied to the sensitivity analysis of the eigenvalues of a second-order system arising from structural dynamics and of a time-delay system arising from laser physics. In the former case, a comparison is made with the results obtained in the framework of random eigenvalue problems.     

Restoration of MR-induced artifacts in simultaneously recorded MR/EEG data

During a Magnetic Resonance sequence, simultaneously acquired ElectroEncephaloGraphy (EEG) data are compromised by severe pollution due to artifacts originating from the switching of the magnetic field gradients. In this work, it is shown how these artifacts can be strongly reduced or even removed through application of an adaptive artifact restoration scheme. The method has proved to be fully automatic and to retain high frequency EEG information, which is indispensable for many EEG applications.     

Rapid assessment of the stability of DNA duplexes by impedimetric real-time monitoring of chemically induced denaturation

In this article, we report on the electronic monitoring of DNA denaturation by NaOH using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in combination with fluorescence imaging as a reference technique. The probe DNA consisting of a 36-mer fragment was covalently immobilized on nanocrystalline-diamond electrodes and hybridized with different types of 29-mer target DNA (complementary, single-nucleotide defects at two different positions, and a non-complementary random sequence). The mathematical separation of the impedimetric signals into the time constant for NaOH exposure and the intrinsic denaturation-time constants gives clear evidence that the denaturation times reflect the intrinsic stability of the DNA duplexes. The intrinsic time constants correlate with calculated DNA-melting temperatures. The impedimetric method requires minimal instrumentation, is label-free and fast with a typical time scale of minutes and is highly reproducible. The sensor electrodes can be used repetitively. These elements suggest that the monitoring of chemically induced denaturation at room temperature is an interesting approach to measure DNA duplex stability as an alternative to thermal denaturation at elevated temperatures, used in DNA-melting experiments and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis.     

Calculating the minimal/maximal eigenvalue of symmetric parameterized matrices using projection

In applications of linear algebra including nuclear physics and structural dynamics, there is a need to deal with uncertainty in the matrices. We focus on matrices that depend on a set of parameters ω and we are interested in the minimal eigenvalue of a matrix pencil ( A , B ) with A , B symmetric and B positive definite. If ω can be interpreted as the realization of random variables, one may be interested in statistical moments of the minimal eigenvalue. In order to obtain statistical moments, we need a fast evaluation of the eigenvalue as a function of ω . Because this is costly for large matrices, we are looking for a small parameterized eigenvalue problem whose minimal eigenvalue makes a small error with the minimal eigenvalue of the large eigenvalue problem. The advantage, in comparison with a global polynomial approximation (on which, e.g., the polynomial chaos approximation relies), is that we do not suffer from the possible nonsmoothness of the minimal eigenvalue. The small‐scale eigenvalue problem is obtained by projection of the large‐scale problem. Our main contribution is that, for constructing the subspace, we use multiple eigenvectors and derivatives of eigenvectors. We provide theoretical results and document numerical experiments regarding the beneficial effect of adding multiple eigenvectors and derivatives.