Long-range alignment of gold nanorods in electrospun polymer nano/microfibers

In this study, a scalable fabrication technique for controlling and maintaining the nanoscale orientation of gold nanorods (GNRs) with long-range macroscale order has been achieved through electrospinning. The volume fraction of GNRs with an average aspect ratio of 3.1 is varied from 0.006 to 0.045 in aqueous poly(ethylene oxide) solutions to generate electrospun fibers possessing different GNR concentrations and measuring 40-3000 nm in diameter. The GNRs within these fibers exhibit excellent alignment with their longitudinal axis parallel to the fiber axis n. According to microscopy analysis, the average deviant angle between the GNR axis and n increases modestly from 3.8 to 13.3° as the fiber diameter increases. Complementary electron diffraction measurements confirm preferred orientation of the {100} GNR planes. Optical absorbance spectroscopy measurements reveal that the longitudinal surface plasmon resonance bands of the aligned GNRs depend on the polarization angle and that maximum extinction occurs when the polarization is parallel to n.     

Quantum chromodynamics results from HERA and JLAB

Recent QCD results from electron?Cproton interactions at HERA and JLAB are presented. Inclusive cross-section measurements as well as studies of the hadronic final state like jet production or the production of heavy quarks are discussed. The results are compared with perturbative QCD predictions and their impact on the determination of the parton density functions of the proton as well as of the strong coupling ?? _s is discussed.     

Transparent Rule Based CAS to Support Formalization of Knowledge

The complexity of computer algebra systems hinders many students to develop an adequate mental model of such a system. As a result, they are often suspicious about the results and the didactical benefit is limited. The paper suggests that it is possible to design a transparent version of a computer algebra system that gives students a transparent access to the inner working of such a system. Didactical uses of such a system are discussed.     

High throughput sonication: evaluation for compound solubilization

Dissolution of organic compounds in DMSO in HTS plate or tube format is a difficult problem as users move to higher compression plate formats. Precipitation of compounds from DMSO screening stocks is a recognized problem in the HTS materials management process. The adverse effect of freeze thaw cycles on DMSO stock solutions stored in plate format as a result of cherry picking operations has led to the gradual replacement of plate-based storage with tube-based storage so as to minimize the number of freeze thaw cycles. Compound solubility in DMSO is markedly decreased by uptake of small quantities of water. We attribute this effect to the non ideal properties of DMSO water mixtures such that cavity formation in solvent, a necessary step in dissolution, is more difficult in wet DMSO than in dry DMSO or in pure water. We report here that efficient compound dissolution is possible even in 384 well format by the use of in-well plate-based sonication. Surprisingly, compounds precipitated from DMSO stocks either by water uptake or repeated freeze thaw cycles can be re-dissolved by low energy sonication. Finally, we demonstrate that precipitation of compound from DMSO stock solutions is synergistically enhanced by water uptake into DMSO compound stock solutions as well as by increasing the number of freeze thaw cycles.     

Confirmation of primary active substances from high throughput screening of chemical and biological populations: a statistical approach and practical considerations

Many biologically important substances are discovered through screening of relevant chemical or biological libraries. The ability to find the active substances ("hits") from any random collection is largely determined by the quality of the assay and screening conditions. When a large population is screened for a specific characteristic, each member of that population is usually tested only once. Errors in the measurements require additional follow-up tests to confirm that each hit from the primary screen is truly active. In this report, we present a statistical model system that predicts the reliability of hits from a primary test as affected by the error in the assay and the choice of the hit threshold (hit limit). The hit confirmation rate, as well as false positive (representing substances that initially fall above the hit limit but whose true activity are below the hit limit) and false negative (representing substances that initially fall below the hit limit but whose true activity are in fact greater than the hit limit) rates have been analyzed with this model by computational simulation. This model can also be used in screen validation and post-screening data analysis. The statistical analysis presented here has broad implications and is applicable to screening of any large population for any specific characteristic. Obvious applications include drug discovery, gene chip analysis, population biology, directed molecular evolution, biological panning, and combinatorial material sciences.     

Optimization of Discrete-Continuous Dynamic Systems Based on Disjunctive Programming

In this contribution, a novel approach for the modeling and optimization of discrete-continuous dynamic systems based on a disjunctive problem formulation is proposed. It will be shown that a disjunctive model representation, which constitutes an alternative to mixed-integer model formulations, provides a very flexible and intuitive way to formulate discrete-continuous dynamic optimization problems. Moreover, the structure and properties of the disjunctive process models can be exploited for an efficient and robust numerical solution by applying generalized disjunctive programming techniques. The proposed modeling and optimization approach will be illustrated by means of an optimal control problem that embeds a linear discretecontinuous dynamic system. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)