Luminescent energy transfer between cadmium telluride nanoparticle and lanthanide(III) chelate in competitive bioaffinity assays of biotin and estradiol

Fluorescence resonance energy transfer has been studied between lanthanide(III) chelates as donors and protein-coupled CdTe semiconductor nanoparticles as acceptors. Wide excitation spectra and large Stokes shift of semiconductor nanoparticles and timeresolved fluorescence detection were shown to provide a combination for successful energy transfer assay. Different intrinsically fluorescent europium(III) and terbium(III) chelates coupled to single biotin molecules were studied for optimal energy transfer with streptavidin labeled semiconductor nanoparticles. No significant differences between the studied chelates were observed. The strength of the methodology was demonstrated in a clinically relevant competitive and separation-free immunoassay of estradiol, where subnanomolar limit of detection was achieved with the coefficient of variation 2-11%. The data suggested that relatively short distance was needed to obtain adequate energy transfer. Therefore, biomolecules were coupled onto the semiconductor nanoparticles without any spacers.     

Mechanistic studies of UV assisted [4 + 2] cycloadditions in synthetic efforts toward vibsanin E

Quantum chemical DFT calculations at the B3LYP/6-31G(d) level have been used to study the stereochemical course of the photochemical cycloaddition of enone 9 with dienes. The observed products of this photochemically induced cycloaddition showed a stereoselectivity, which is opposite to what would be expected by FMO considerations. The quantum chemical calculations revealed that the unusual stereoselectivity of the reaction can be rationalized by assuming a stereospecific photochemical cis-trans isomerization of enone 9 to trans isomer 9a followed by a thermal Diels-Alder reaction of the diene onto the highly reactive trans enone. The photochemical reaction step involves the selective formation of a twisted triplet intermediate, which accounts for the selectivity of the reaction.     

Products of conjugacy classes in Chevalley groups I. Extended covering numbers

This paper is concerned with products of conjugacy classes in Chevalley groups. We prove that in any quasisimple Chevalley groupG proper or twisted, over any field, the extended covering number is bounded above linearly in terms of the rank ofG, that is, for some constante, for any Chevalley groupG, the product of anye · rank(G) non-central classes covers all ofG. We give estimates for the constante in different cases. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of EPSRC through a Visiting Fellowship number GR/M58542 and a Research grant number GR/L92174.     

Resolvent Tests for Similarity to a Normal Operator

The main result of this paper is the resolvent similarity criterionwhich says that linear growth of the resolvent towards the spectrumis sufficient for a Hilbert space contraction with finite rankdefect operators and spectrum not covering the unit disc tobe similar to a normal operator. Similar results are provedfor operators having a spectral set bounded by a Dini-smoothJordan curve; in particular, a dissipative operator with finiterank imaginary part is similar to a normal operator if and onlyif its resolvent grows linearly towards the spectrum. Relevantresults on the insufficiency of linear resolvent growth notaccompanied by smallness of defect operators are presented.Also it is proved that there is no restriction on the spectrum,other than finiteness, which together with linear resolventgrowth implies similarity to a normal operator. The constructionof corresponding examples depends on a characterization of well-knownAhlfors curves as curves of linear length growth with respectto linear fractional transformations. 1991 Mathematics SubjectClassification: 11D25, 11G05, 14G05.     

Linear optics controlled-phase gate made simple

Linear optics quantum logic gates are the best tool to generate multiphoton entanglement. Simplifying a recent approach, we were able to implement the conditional phase gate with only one second-order interference at a polarization dependent beam splitter, thereby significantly increasing its stability. The improved quality of the gate is evaluated by analyzing its entangling capability and by performing full process tomography. The achieved results ensure that this device is well suited for implementation in various multiphoton quantum information protocols.     

Fixed point formula for holomorphic functions

We show a Lefschetz fixed point formula for holomorphic functions in a bounded domain with smooth boundary in the complex plane. To introduce the Lefschetz number for a holomorphic map of , we make use of the Bergman kernel of this domain. The Lefschetz number is proved to be the sum of the usual contributions of fixed points of the map in and contributions of boundary fixed points, these latter being different for attracting and repulsing fixed points.

     

Regenerative amplification of femtosecond laser pulses in Ti:sapphire at multikilohertz repetition rates

We have generated and applied noncoherent x-ray radiation in an all-solid-state laser system operating at repetition rates up to 20 kHz. Based on a model that takes into account the strong thermal loading of the Ti:sapphire rod, a laser cavity with low sensitivity to thermal lensing was chosen. With a maximum pump power of 80 W, an output power as high as 27 W was obtained in gain-switched operation, and, with a seeding from a femtosecond oscillator, 60-fs, 0.8-mJ (8-W) pulses at 10 kHz and 0.32-mJ (6.5-W) pulses at 20 kHz were generated. High power femtosecond output was used to generate x-ray continuum radiation up to 5 keV from a liquid-gallium jet target.     

Behavior of the Bergman Kernel Near Smooth Convex Boundary Points

The nontangential behavior of the Bergman metric near a smooth convex boundary point of a bounded pseudoconvex domain D ⁿ is studied in terms of its multitype.Received January 25, 2002; in revised form June 20, 2002 Published online November 18, 2002     

Optimal Ternary Linear Rate 1/2 Codes

In this paper, we classify all optimal linear[n, n/2] codes up to length 12. We show that thereis a unique optimal [10, 5, 5] code up to equivalence.     

Gaussian Limiting Behavior of the Rescaled Solution to the Linear Korteweg–de Vries Equation with Random Initial Conditions

We analyze the asymptotic behavior of the rescaled solution to the linear Korteweg–de Vries equation when the initial conditions are supposed to be random and weakly dependent. By means of the method of moments we prove the Gaussianity of the limiting process and we present its correlation function. The same technique is applied to the analysis of another third-order heat-type equation.