Nanocomposite Carbon‐PDMS Material for Chip‐Based Electrochemical Detection

This paper presents an alternative approach to create low‐cost and patternable carbon electrodes suitable for microfluidic devices. The fabrication and the electrochemical performances of electrodes made of Polydimethylsiloxane doped with commercially available carbon black (C‐PDMS) are described. Conductivity and electrochemical measurements performed on various carbon to PDMS ratios showed that electrodes with suitable electrochemical properties were obtained with a ratio of 25 %.     

Ensembles of engineered cardiac tissues for physiological and pharmacological study: heart on a chip

Traditionally, muscle physiology experiments require multiple tissue samples to obtain morphometric, electrophysiological, and contractility data. Furthermore, these experiments are commonly completed one at a time on cover slips of single cells, isotropic monolayers, or in isolated muscle strips. In all of these cases, variability of the samples hinders quantitative comparisons among experimental groups. Here, we report the design of a "heart on a chip" that exploits muscular thin film technology--biohybrid constructs of an engineered, anisotropic ventricular myocardium on an elastomeric thin film--to measure contractility, combined with a quantification of action potential propagation, and cytoskeletal architecture in multiple tissues in the same experiment. We report techniques for real-time data collection and analysis during pharmacological intervention. The chip is an efficient means of measuring structure-function relationships in constructs that replicate the hierarchical tissue architectures of laminar cardiac muscle.     

Gold-catalyzed oxidative acyloxylation of arenes

A variety of nonactivated hindered aromatic rings are acyloxylated (22 examples, up to 83% yield) in the presence of PPh(3)AuCl as the catalyst and di(acetoxy)iodobenzene as the oxidant. The reaction proceeds at 110 °C in an acid media and allows the formation of both hindered acetoxy and acyloxy derivatives. This methodology nicely complements the Pd-catalyzed arene acyloxylation reaction, which is not operating on hindered substrates and allows the Au-catalyzed unprecedented acyloxylation reaction of arenes, implying various carboxylic acids.     

Sample amount alternatives for data adjustment in comparative cyanobacterial metabolomics

Here we describe an integrative protocol for metabolite extraction and the measurement of three cellular constituents, chlorophyll a, total protein, and glycogen from the same small volume of cyanobacterial cultures that can be used as alternative sample amount parameters for data adjustment in comparative metabolome studies. We conducted recovery experiments to assess the robustness and reproducibility of the measurements obtained for the cellular constituents. Also, we have chosen three profile-intrinsic parameters derived from gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) data in order to test their utility for spectral data adjustment. To demonstrate the relevance of these six parameters, we analyzed three cyanobacteria with greatly different morphologies, comprising a unicellular, a filamentous, and a filamentous biofilm-forming strain. Comparative analysis of GC/MS data from cultures grown under standardized conditions indicated that adjustment of the corresponding metabolite profiles by any of the measured cellular constituents or chosen intrinsic parameters led to similar results with respect to sample cohesion and strain separation. Twenty-one metabolites significantly enriched for the carbohydrate and amine superclasses are mainly responsible for strain separation, with a majority of the remaining metabolites contributing to sample group cohesion. Therefore, we conclude that any of the parameters tested in this study can be used for spectral data adjustment of cyanobacterial strains grown under controlled conditions. However, their use for the differentiation between different stresses or physiological states within a strain remains to be shown. Interestingly, both the adjustment approaches and statistical tests applied effected the detection of metabolic differences and their patterns among the analyzed strains.     

Information aggregation in multicandidate elections under plurality rule and runoff voting

I consider a model in which imperfectly informed voters with common interests participate in a multicandidate election decided by either plurality rule or a runoff. Prior to the election, each voter receives a private signal corresponding to the candidate the voter thinks is best. Voters are relatively more likely to think a given candidate is best if the candidate is a relatively better candidate. I show that there is a sequence of equilibrium strategies for the voters such that, as the number of voters goes to infinity, the probability that the best candidate is elected goes to 1. I further show that all candidates receive significant vote shares in any equilibrium in which information fully aggregates under plurality rule and that voters do at least as well when the election is decided by a runoff as they do when the election is decided by plurality rule.     

Palladium(II) and platinum(II) bind strongly to an engineered blue copper protein

Studies of palladium(II) and platinum(II) binding to well-characterized proteins contribute to understanding the influence of these metals in the environment and body. The well-characterized apoprotein of azurin has a soft-metal binding site that may be exposed to solvent by mutation of a coordinating His-117 residue to glycine (H117G). Palladium(II) and platinum(II) form strong 1:1 adducts with the apo form of H117G azurin. A combination of UV-vis, circular dichroism, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry techniques suggests that the metal binds specifically at His-46 and Cys-112 of the protein.     

PAs3S3 cage as a new building block in copper halide coordination polymers

First examples of the coordination chemistry of the PAs(3)S(3) cage were obtained from solutions of PAs(3)S(3)·W(CO)(5) (1) in CH(2)Cl(2) or CH(2)Cl(2)/toluene and CuX (X = Cl, Br, I) in MeCN through interdiffusion techniques. Crystals of [Cu(PAs(3)S(3))(4)]X (2, X = Cl; 3, X = Br) and [(Cu(2)I)(PAs(3)S(3))(3)]I (4) were obtained and characterized by Raman spectroscopy (2) and single-crystal X-ray crystallography. The solid-state structures reveal an unexpected coordination versatility of the PAs(3)S(3) ligand: apical phosphorus and bridging sulfur atoms interact with copper, while As···X interactions determine the dimensionality of the frameworks. The structures of 2 and 3 contain tetrahedral [(PAs(3)S(3))(4)Cu](+) cations as secondary building units (SBUs), which are arranged by interactions with Cl(-) or Br(-) anions into two- and three-dimensional substructures. These interpenetrate into a (2D + 3D) polycatenane. Compound 4 is built up by a one-dimensional [(Cu(2)I)(PAs(3)S(3))(3)](n)(n+) ribbon with PAs(3)S(3) cages as P,S-linkers. The As atoms of the exo PAs(3)S(4) linkers interact with iodide counterions (3.35 < d(As-I) < 3.59 ?). The resulting two-dimensional layer is organized by weak As···I interactions (d(As-I = 3.87 ?) into a 3D network.     

Kinetic and mechanistic study of the reactions of atomic chlorine with CH3CH2Br, CH3CH2CH2Br, and CH2BrCH2Br

A laser flash photolysis-resonance fluorescence technique has been employed to investigate the reactions of atomic chlorine with three alkyl bromides (R-Br) that have been identified as short-lived atmospheric constituents with significant ozone depletion potentials (ODPs). Kinetic data are obtained through time-resolved observation of the appearance of atomic bromine that is formed by rapid unimolecular decomposition of radicals generated via abstraction of a β-hydrogen atom. The following Arrhenius expressions are excellent representations of the temperature dependence of rate coefficients measured for the reactions Cl + CH(3)CH(2)Br (eq 1 ) and Cl + CH(3)CH(2)CH(2)Br (eq 2 ) over the temperature range 221-436 K (units are 10(-11) cm(3) molecule(-1) s(-1)): k(1)(T) = 3.73?exp(-378/T) and k(2)(T) = 5.14?exp(+21/T). The accuracy (2σ) of rate coefficients obtained from the above expressions is estimated to be ±15% for k(2)(T) and +15/-25% for k(1)(T) independent of T. For the relatively slow reaction Cl + CH(2)BrCH(2)Br (eq 3 ), a nonlinear ln k(3) vs 1/T dependence is observed and contributions to observed kinetics from impurity reactions cannot be ruled out; the following modified Arrhenius expression represents the temperature dependence (244-569 K) of upper-limit rate coefficients that are consistent with the data: k(3)(T) ≤ 3.2 × 10(-17)T(2)?exp(-184/T) cm(3) molecule(-1) s(-1). Comparison of Br fluorescence signal strengths obtained when Cl removal is dominated by reaction with R-Br with those obtained when Cl removal is dominated by reaction with Br(2) (unit yield calibration) allows branching ratios for β-hydrogen abstraction (k(ia)/k(i), i = 1,2) to be evaluated. The following Arrhenius-type expressions are excellent representations of the observed temperature dependences: k(1a)/k(1) = 0.85?exp(-230/T) and k(2a)/k(2) = 0.40 exp(+181/T). The accuracy (2σ) of branching ratios obtained from the above expressions is estimated to be ±35% for reaction 1 and ±25% for reaction 2 independent of T. It appears likely that reactions 1 and 2 play a significant role in limiting the tropospheric lifetime and, therefore, the ODP of CH(3)CH(2)Br and CH(3)CH(2)CH(2)Br, respectively.