Simultaneous determination of betamethasone and dexamethasone residues in bovine liver by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry

In this study a new method for the simultaneous confirmation of betamethasone and dexamethasone residues in bovine liver is presented. A Quattro LCZ triple quadrupole mass spectrometer, equipped with an atmospheric pressure ionization (API) source, was coupled to a high performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) system. Spiked liver samples were first extracted with acetonitrile, and the extracts were purified on C-18 columns. LC separations were performed on a Hypercarb column, with acetonitrile/water (90:10, v/v, +0.3% formic acid) as the mobile phase. Retention times for dexa- and betamethasone were 6.60 and 8.50 min, respectively. Fluorometholone had a retention time of 6.70 min and was used as the internal standard. The detection of the analytes was performed in the multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The assay was linear over the range of 0.5 to 8 microg/kg for both analytes. The estimated determination limits were 0.2 microg/kg for both beta- and dexamethasone and the quantification limits were 0.4 microg/kg for dexamethasone and 0.3 microg/kg for betamethasone. Analysis precision at 1, 2 and 4 microg/kg was lower than 6.1% (relative standard deviation, RSD) and accuracy was at least 97.5%. Recoveries at 1, 2 and 4 microg/kg ranged between 56 and 69%.     

\alpha-decay spectroscopy of light odd-odd Bi isotopes - II: 186Bi and the new nuclide 184Bi

Alpha-decay of the new nuclide ¹⁸⁴Bi has been studied in the complete-fusion reaction ⁹³Nb(⁹⁴Mo, 3n)¹⁸⁴Bi at the velocity filter SHIP. The evaporation residues were separated in-flight and subsequently identified on the basis of recoil- , recoil- - analysis and excitation functions measurements. Two -decaying isomeric states in ¹⁸⁴Bi with half-life values of 13(2) ms and 6.6(1.5) ms were identified. The -branching ratio of ¹⁸⁰Tl was deduced for the first time as . Improved data on the fine-structure -decay of ¹⁸⁶Bi were obtained in the ⁹³Nb(⁹⁵Mo, 2n)¹⁸⁶Bi reaction. A similarity of the decay energies and half-life values of ^184,186Bi is pointed out and a possible explanation for this effect is suggested.Received: 14 March 2003, Revised: 29 April 2003, Published online: 2 September 2003PACS: 23.60.+e decay - 27.70.+q - 27.80.+w K. Heyde: Present address: EP-ISOLDE, CERN, CH-1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland.     

Charge density: A probe for the nuclear interaction in microscopic transport models

The transport properties of the ³⁶Ar +⁵⁸Ni system at measured with the INDRA array, are studied within the BNV kinetic equation. A general protocol of comparison between the N-body experimental fragment information and the one-body distribution function is developed using global variables, with a special focus on charge density. This procedure avoids any definition of sources and any use of an afterburner in the simulation. We shall discuss the feasibility of such an approach and the distortions induced by the finite detection efficiency and the completeness requirements of the data selection. The sensitivity of the different global observables to the macroscopic parameters of the effective nuclear interaction will be studied in detail.Received: 21 January 2003, Published online: 5 August 2003PACS: 25.70.-z Low and intermediate energy heavy-ion reactions - 24.10.-i Nuclear reaction models and methodsN. Le Neindre: Permanent address: Institut de Physique Nuclaire, IN2P3-CNRS, F-91406 Orsay cedex, France.     

Energy-weighted sum rules,y-scaling and duality

The phenomena of scaling and Bloom-Gilman duality are examined in the context of simple nonrelativistic and relativistic quantum-mechanical models. These models are shown to scale and to show the qualitative features of Bloom-Gilman duality. This suggests that these phenomena do not necessarily require the properties of QCD.Received: 1 November 2002, Published online: 15 July 2003PACS: 12.40.Nn Regge theory, duality, absorptive/optical models - 12.39.Ki Relativistic quark model - 13.60.Hb Total and inclusive cross-sections (including deep-inelastic processes)     

Eigenvalues of Random Power law Graphs

Many graphs arising in various information networks exhibit the "power law" behavior -the number of vertices of degree k is proportional to k^-# for some positive #. We show that if # > 2.5, the largest eigenvalue of a random power law graph is almost surely(1+ o(1))?m (1+ o(1))\sqrt{m} where m is the maximum degree. Moreover, the klargest eigenvalues of a random power law graph with exponent # have power law distribution with exponent 2# if the maximum degree is sufficiently large, where k is a function depending on #, mand d, the average degree. When 2<#< 2.5, the largest eigenvalue is heavily concentrated at cm^3-# for some constant c depending on # and the average degree. This result follows from a more general theorem which shows that the largest eigenvalue of a random graph with a given expected degree sequence is determined by m, the maximum degree, and [(d)\tilde] \tilde{d} , the weighted average of the squares of the expected degrees. We show that the k-th largest eigenvalue is almost surely (1+ o(1))?{m_k} (1+ o(1))\sqrt{m_k} where m_k is the k-th largest expected degree provided m_k is large enough. These results have implications on the usage of spectral techniques in many areas related to pattern detection and information retrieval.     

Benchmarking state-of-the-art classification algorithms for credit scoring

In this paper, we study the performance of various state-of-the-art classification algorithms applied to eight real-life credit scoring data sets. Some of the data sets originate from major Benelux and UK financial institutions. Different types of classifiers are evaluated and compared. Besides the well-known classification algorithms (eg logistic regression, discriminant analysis, k-nearest neighbour, neural networks and decision trees), this study also investigates the suitability and performance of some recently proposed, advanced kernel-based classification algorithms such as support vector machines and least-squares support vector machines (LS-SVMs). The performance is assessed using the classification accuracy and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Statistically significant performance differences are identified using the appropriate test statistics. It is found that both the LS-SVM and neural network classifiers yield a very good performance, but also simple classifiers such as logistic regression and linear discriminant analysis perform very well for credit scoring.     

On Uniform Laws of Large Numbers for Ergodic Diffusions and Consistency of Estimators

Consider a regular diffusion process X with finite speed measure m. Denote the normalized speed measure by μ. We prove that the uniform law of large numbers holds if the class has an envelope function that is μ-integrable, or if is bounded in L _p(μ) for some p>1. In contrast with uniform laws of large numbers for i.i.d. random variables, we do not need conditions on the ‘size’ of the class in terms of bracketing or covering numbers. The result is a consequence of a number of asymptotic properties of diffusion local time that we derive. We apply our abstract results to improve consistency results for the local time estimator (LTE) and to prove consistency for a class of simple M-estimators. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Limiter Biasing Experiments in TEXTOR-94

Particle collection by the ALT-II belt limiter in the TEXTOR-94 tokamak is exclusively limited to the parallel outflux because the scoop walls that are oriented parallel to the field lines obstruct the poloidal E×B mass flow. With normal B _tor direction (E×B towards the scoops), a threefold decrease of plenum pressure is measured during negative biasing, while with reversed B _tor (E×B away from the scoops), a 60% pressure increase is observed. This behaviour is exactly opposite to that observed in X-point divertors. A simple fluid model explains this apparent contradiction, and gives good quantitative agreement with measurements of the parallel Mach number in the SOL. The essential physics is governed by the Bohm-Chodura criterion.