Integration of a membrane-based desalting step in a microfabricated disposable polymer injector for mass spectrometric protein analysis

A simple desalting procedure for the coupling of a polymer microchip injector to mass spectrometry is proposed. The overall process is based on the adsorption of proteins on a poly(vinylidene difluoride) (PVDF) membrane, which are then directly eluted in the spraying solution. This microchip-based approach has been successfully applied to small drugs, peptides and proteins originally diluted in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). Moreover, when eluting the retained proteins in small volumes, a preconcentration is obtained. The combination of single-use, mass-produceable, low-sample-consumption, easy-to-automate, miniaturized polymer injectors with easy-to-handle solution-exchange membranes makes this system particularly amenable to screening applications.     

A pyrrolo-tetrathiafulvalene cage: synthesis and X-ray crystal structure

[reaction: see text] A novel type of tetrathiafulvalene-cage 4 containing three monopyrrolo-tetrathiafulvalene units has been prepared employing a general and efficient synthetic approach. X-ray crystal structure analysis revealed that the cage is able to accommodate solvent molecules within a cavity in the solid state.     

Changes in orcine muscle water characteristics during growth--an in vitro low-field NMR relaxation study

This study investigates the effects of developmental stage and muscle type on the mobility and distribution of water within skeletal muscles, using low-field (1)H-NMR transverse relaxation measurements in vitro on four different porcine muscles (M. longissimus dorsi, M. semitendinosus, M. biceps femoris, M. vastus intermedius) from a total of 48 pigs slaughtered at various weight classes between 25 kg and 150 kg. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed effects of both slaughter weight and muscle type on the transverse relaxation decay. Independent of developmental stage and muscle type, distributed exponential analysis of the NMR T(2) relaxation data imparted the existence of three distinct water populations, T(2b), T(21), and T(22), with relaxation times of approximately 1-10, 45-120, and 200-500 ms, respectively. The most profound change during muscle growth was a shift toward faster relaxation in the intermediate time constant, T(21). It decreased by approx. 24% in all four muscle types during the period from 25 to 150 kg live weight. Determination of dry matter, fat, and protein content in the muscles showed that the changes in relaxation time of the intermediate time constant, T(21), during growth should be ascribed mainly to a change in protein content, as the protein content explained 77% of the variation in the T(21) time constant. Partial least squares (PLS) regression revealed validated correlations in the region of 0.58 to 0.77 between NMR transverse relaxation data and muscle development for all the four muscle types, which indicates that NMR relaxation measurements may be used in the prediction of muscle developmental stage.     

On the left regular representation of a separable locally compact group

For an arbitrary separable locally compact group G we exhibit a canonical Borel subset $\text{G}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{\Delta }}$ of the quasi-dual $\text{G}\text{?}\text{of}\text{G}$ (with the Mackey Borel structure), such that $\text{G}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{\Delta }}$ is a standard Borel space in the induced Borel structure, and such that the canonical measure for the left regular representation λ_Gof G is concentrated on $\text{G}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{\Delta }}$. On the basis of this we discuss the (non-unimodular) “Plancherel theorem.”     

Practical and theoretical aspects concerning the use of salt bridges in electrochemistry

The emf of electrochemical cells containing various sorts of salt bridges between various concentrations has been measured. The net diffusion potential over a salt bridge has been treated theoretically. An expression to calculate the net diffusion potential has been derived and tested on values estimated from the emf measurements. A merit factor has been calculated for a saturated KCl bridge separating two HCl solutions and compared with the merit factor estimated from emf measurements on the cell:Pt|Ag|AgCl, HCl(c₁)|KCl(sat)|HCl(c₂), AgCl|Ag|Pt The practical performance of two commonly used reference electrodes with salt bridges has been tested on emf measurements on KBr solutions.     

A relative Shafarevich theorem

Suppose given a Galois étale cover YX of proper non-singular curves over an algebraically closed field k of prime characteristic p. Let H be its Galois group, and G any finite extension of H by a p-group P. We give necessary and sufficient conditions on G to be the Galois group of an étale cover of X dominating YX.in final form: 16 September 2003     

The lattice of closed ideals in the Banach algebra of operators on certain Banach spaces

Very few Banach spaces E are known for which the lattice of closed ideals in the Banach algebra of all (bounded, linear) operators on E is fully understood. Indeed, up to now the only such Banach spaces are, up to isomorphism, Hilbert spaces and the sequence spaces c₀ and ?_p for 1?p<∞. We add a new member to this family by showing that there are exactly four closed ideals in for the Banach space E?(⊕?₂ⁿ)_c0, that is, E is the c₀-direct sum of the finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces ?₂¹,?₂²,…,?₂ⁿ,… .     

Predicting thermal displacements in modular tool systems

In the last decade, there has been an increasing interest in compensating thermally induced errors to improve the manufacturing accuracy of modular tool systems. These modular tool systems are interfaces between spindle and workpiece and consist of several complicatedly formed parts. Their thermal behavior is dominated by nonlinearities, delay and hysteresis effects even in tools with simpler geometry and it is difficult to describe it theoretically. Due to the dominant nonlinear nature of this behavior the so far used linear regression between the temperatures and the displacements is insufficient. Therefore, in this study we test the hypothesis whether we can reliably predict such thermal displacements via nonlinear temperature-displacement regression functions. These functions are estimated first from learning measurements using the alternating conditional expectation (ACE) algorithm and then tested on independent data sets. First, we analyze data that were generated by a finite element spindle model. We find that our approach is a powerful tool to describe the relation between temperatures and displacements for simulated data. Next, we analyze the temperature-displacement relationship in a silent real experimental setup, where the tool system is thermally forced. Again, the ACE algorithm is powerful to estimate the deformation with high precision. The corresponding errors obtained by using the nonlinear regression approach are 10-fold lower in comparison to multiple linear regression analysis. Finally, we investigate the thermal behavior of a modular tool system in a working milling machine and again get promising results. The thermally induced errors can be estimated with 1-2 microm accuracy using this nonlinear regression analysis. Therefore, this approach seems to be very useful for the development of new modular tool systems.