Influence of the Brownian step size in off-lattice Monte Carlo simulations of irreversible particle aggregation

The influence of the Brownian step size in off-lattice Monte Carlo simulations of the aggregation and gelation of spheres is studied. It is found that the kinetics are strongly influenced if the step size is larger than the mean smallest distance between the sphere surfaces. The structure of the clusters and the gels is influenced, but only over length scales smaller than the step size. Using large step sizes leads to a narrower size distribution of the clusters. Implications of the present results are discussed for simulations reported in the literature in which the Brownian step size was chosen equal to the sphere diameter.     

Depletion from a hard wall induced by aggregation and gelation

Diffusion-limited cluster aggregation and gelation of hard spheres is simulated using off-lattice Monte Carlo simulations. A comparison is made of the wall-particle correlation function with the particle-particle correlation function over a range of volume fractions, both for the initial system of randomly distributed spheres and for the final gel state. For randomly distributed spheres the correlation functions are compared with theoretical results using the Ornstein-Zernike equation and the Percus-Yevick closure. At high volume fractions (φ > 40%) gelation has little influence on the correlation function, but for φ < 10% it is a universal function of the distance normalized by correlation length (ξ) of the bulk. The width of the depletion layer is about 0.5ξ. The concentration increases as a power law from the wall up to r ≈ ξ, where it reaches a weak maximum before decreasing to the bulk value.     

Characterization of gallotannins and benzophenone derivatives from mango (Mangifera indica L. cv. 'Tommy Atkins') peels, pulp and kernels by high-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

Polyphenolics were extracted from peels, pulp and kernels of mango fruits (Mangifera indica L. cv. 'Tommy Atkins') and characterized by high-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. In the peel 18 gallotannins and five benzophenone derivatives were detected which were tentatively identified as galloylated maclurin and iriflophenone glucosides. Twenty-one and eight gallotannins were found in the kernels and pulp, respectively, whereas no evidence for the presence of benzophenone derivatives was obtained. Gallotannins quantified by the rhodanine assay amounted to 1.4 mg/g dm in the peels (expressed as gallic acid), while only small amounts (0.2 mg/g dm) were found in the pulp. In contrast, mango kernels contained 15.5 mg/g dm and thus proved to be a rich source of gallotannins.     

Monte Carlo simulation of particle aggregation and gelation: I. Growth,structure and size distribution of the clusters

The application of a statistical method, the local polynomial regression method, (LPRM), based on a nonparametric estimation of the regression function to determine the critical micelle concentration (cmc) is presented. The method is extremely flexible because it does not impose any parametric model on the subjacent structure of the data but rather allows the data to speak for themselves. Good concordance of cmc values with those obtained by other methods was found for systems in which the variation of a measured physical property with concentration showed an abrupt change. When this variation was slow, discrepancies between the values obtained by LPRM and others methods were found.Received: 2 October 2003, Published online: 25 March 2004PACS: 02.50.-r Probability theory, stochastic processes, and statistics - 82.70.-y Disperse systems; complex fluids     

Probing the Conformational Stability of Two Different Copper Proteins: A Dynamic Fluorescence Study on Azurin and Ascorbate Oxidase

Tryptophan fluorescence is extremely useful to monitor structural conformational transitions in proteins. Denaturant-induced unfolding of azurin and ascorbate oxidase has been studied by dynamic fluorescence measurements in the frequency domain and the results have been interpreted in terms of continuous distribution of lifetimes. The data add new information on the unfolding mechanism that was previously analyzed by steady-state emission spectroscopy. In particular, the existence of multiple, parallel unfolding pathways may be envisaged and correlated, in both cases, to the two protein structures. The effect of metal depletion has been also characterized by fluorescence lifetime measurements. In the case of azurin, a monomeric protein, the data demonstrate that copper removal yields a totally different unfolding pathways with respect to the holo protein, indicating that metal ion plays a fundamental structural role in the wild type, native protein. In the case of ascorbate oxidase a dimer of 140 kDa, only minor effects have been detected by copper removal. However, the analysis of the fluorescence decay in presence of different amounts of guanidinium hydrochloride gives new important insights on the unfolding intermediates. In particular the data support the hypothesis of a partial exposure of an outer layer of dimer at intermediate denaturant concentration. This ability of dynamic fluorescence to pinpoint the presence of structural micro-heterogeneity in the unfolding pathways of proteins demonstrates the greater power of this technique compared to the most commonly used steady-state measurements.     

Maximal gauged supergravity in three dimensions

We construct maximally supersymmetric gauged N = 16 supergravity in three dimensions, thereby obtaining an entirely new class of anti--de Sitter supergravities. These models apparently cannot be derived from any known higher-dimensional theory and point to the existence of a new type of supergravity beyond D = 11. One of their noteworthy features is a non-Abelian generalization of the duality between scalar and vector fields in three dimensions. Among the possible gauge groups, SO(8) x SO(8) is distinguished as the maximal compact gauge group, but there are also more exotic possibilities such as F(4(-20)) x G2.     

Random Skew Plane Partitions and the Pearcey Process

We study random skew 3D partitions weighted by q ^vol and, specifically, the q → 1 asymptotics of local correlations near various points of the limit shape. We obtain sine-kernel asymptotics for correlations in the bulk of the disordered region, Airy kernel asymptotics near a general point of the frozen boundary, and a Pearcey kernel asymptotics near a cusp of the frozen boundary.