Development of a Novel Ultrasonic Spectroscopy Method for Estimation of Viscosity Change during Milk Clotting

Ultrasonic testing is an emerging non-destructive testing technology with high repeatability and precision. Milk is a very complex liquid and the change of its viscosity is a highly relevant property throughout conversion into other dairy products. In the following paper, we propose a novel method for the monitoring of viscosity during enzymatic milk clotting by ultrasonic spectroscopy. An ultrasonic transducer–receiver couple with a 250 kHz nominal frequency was submerged in the samples and an enveloped sweep (“chirp”) signal was applied in a through-transmission mode. Simultaneously, the change in viscosity was measured with a rotational viscometer at a constant shearing speed. The data were analyzed with an algorithm developed by the authors for spectral ultrasonic testing. Estimations yielded a high adjusted R² (0.963–0.998) and low cross-validated estimation error (RPD: 4.38–14.22), suggesting that the method is suitable for industrial use given the right instrumentation.     

微波等离子体原子发射光谱法(MP-AES)测定果汁中的常量元素

介绍了使用配有Agilent 4107氮气发生器的Agilent 4200微波等离子体原子发射光谱法(MPAES)分析果汁样品中的钙、镁、钠和钾等常量元素的分析方法,在分析两种质量控制(QC)测试材料时,加标回收率在90%~110%,6h中所有四种元素的相对标准偏差(RSD)均小于4%。与火焰原子吸收光谱法(FAAS)相比,MP-AES的等离子体源在检出限和线性动态范围等性能方面有所改善,MP-AES无需使用可燃性气体,也无需使用昂贵又费时的改性剂和电离抑制剂,对标准物质的测定结果与标准值基本一致。4200 MP-AES将是替代火焰原子吸收仪器的理想选择。     

Highly Porous Hydroxyapatite/Graphene Oxide/Chitosan Beads as an Efficient Adsorbent for Dyes and Heavy Metal Ions Removal

Dye and heavy metal contaminants are mainly aquatic pollutants. Although many materials and methods have been developed to remove these pollutants from water, effective and cheap materials and methods are still challenging. In this study, highly porous hydroxyapatite/graphene oxide/chitosan beads (HGC) were prepared by a facile one-step method and investigated as efficient adsorbents. The prepared beads showed a high porosity and low bulk density. SEM images indicated that the hydroxyapatite (HA) nanoparticles and graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets were well dispersed on the CTS matrix. FT-IR spectra confirmed good incorporation of the three components. The adsorption behavior of the obtained beads to methylene blue (MB) and copper ions was investigated, including the effect of the contact time, pH medium, dye/metal ion initial concentration, and recycle ability. The HGC beads showed rapid adsorption, high capacity, and easy separation and reused due to the porous characteristics of GO sheets and HA nanoparticles as well as the rich negative charges of the chitosan (CTS) matrix. The maximum sorption capacities of the HGC beads were 99.00 and 256.41 mg g⁻¹ for MB and copper ions removal, respectively.     

Effect of Cholesterol Molecules on Aβ1-42 Wild-Type and Mutants Trimers

Alzheimer’s disease displays aggregates of the amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptide in the brain, and there is increasing evidence that cholesterol may contribute to the pathogenesis of the disease. Though many experimental and theoretical studies have focused on the interactions of Aβ oligomers with membrane models containing cholesterol, an understanding of the effect of free cholesterol on small Aβ42 oligomers is not fully established. To address this question, we report on replica exchange with a solute tempering simulation of an Aβ42 trimer with cholesterol and compare it with a previous replica exchange molecular dynamics simulation. We show that the binding hot spots of cholesterol are rather complex, involving hydrophobic residues L17–F20 and L30–M35 with a non-negligible contribution of loop residues D22–K28 and N-terminus residues. We also examine the effects of cholesterol on the trimers of the disease-causing A21G and disease-protective A2T mutations by molecular dynamics simulations. We show that these two mutations moderately impact cholesterol-binding modes. In our REST2 simulations, we find that cholesterol is rarely inserted into aggregates but rather attached as dimers and trimers at the surface of Aβ42 oligomers. We propose that cholesterol acts as a glue to speed up the formation of larger aggregates; this provides a mechanistic link between cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease.     

Low-cost and versatile analytical tool with purpose-made capillary electrophoresis coupled to contactless conductivity detection: Application to antibiotics quality control in Vietnam

In this study, the development of our purpose-made capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (C⁴D) for CE is reported. These systems have been employed as a simple, versatile, and cost-effective analytical tool. CE-C⁴D devices, whose principle is based on the control of the ion movements under an electrical field, can be constructed even with a modest financial budget and limited infrastructure. A featured application was developed for quality control of antimicrobial drugs using CE-C⁴D, with most recent work on determination of aminoglycoside and glycopeptide antibiotics being communicated. For aminoglycosides, the development of CE-C⁴D methods was adapted to two categories. The first one includes drugs (liquid or powder form) for intravenous injection, containing either amikacin, streptomycin, kanamycin A, or kanamycin B. The second one covers drugs for eye drops (liquid or ointment form), containing either neomycin, tobramycin, or polymyxin. The CE-C⁴D method development was also made for determination of some popular glycopeptide antibiotics in Vietnam, including vancomycin and teicoplanin. The best detection limit achieved using the developed CE-C⁴D methods was 0.5 mg/L. Good agreement between results from CE-C⁴D and the confirmation method (HPLC- Photometric Diode Array ) was achieved, with their result deviations less than 8% and 13% for aminoglycoside and glycopeptide antibiotics, respectively.     

Reduced basis approximation and a posteriori error estimation for Stokes flows in parametrized geometries: roles of the inf-sup stability constants

In this paper we review and we extend the reduced basis approximation and a posteriori error estimation for steady Stokes flows in affinely parametrized geometries, focusing on the role played by the Brezzi’s and Babu?ka’s stability constants. The crucial ingredients of the methodology are a Galerkin projection onto a low-dimensional space of basis functions properly selected, an affine parametric dependence enabling to perform competitive Offline-Online splitting in the computational procedure and a rigorous a posteriori error estimation on field variables. The combinatiofn of these three factors yields substantial computational savings which are at the basis of an efficient model order reduction, ideally suited for real-time simulation and many-query contexts (e.g. optimization, control or parameter identification). In particular, in this work we focus on (i) the stability of the reduced basis approximation based on the Brezzi’s saddle point theory and the introduction of a supremizer operator on the pressure terms, (ii) a rigorous a posteriori error estimation procedure for velocity and pressure fields based on the Babu?ka’s inf-sup constant (including residuals calculations), (iii) the computation of a lower bound of the stability constant, and (iv) different options for the reduced basis spaces construction. We present some illustrative results for both interior and external steady Stokes flows in parametrized geometries representing two parametrized classical Poiseuille and Couette flows, a channel contraction and a simple flow control problem around a curved obstacle.     

On a nonlinear volterra-hammerstein integral equation in two variables

Using a fixed point theorem of Krasnosel'skii type, this article proves the existence of asymptotically stable solutions for a Volterra-Hammerstein integral equation in two variables.     

Photoelectron spectroscopy and the electronic structure of the uranyl tetrachloride dianion: UO(2)Cl(4) (2-)

The uranyl tetrachloride dianion (UO(2)Cl(4) (2-)) is observed in the gas phase using electrospray ionization and investigated by photoelectron spectroscopy and relativistic quantum chemical calculations. Photoelectron spectra of UO(2)Cl(4) (2-) are obtained at various photon energies and congested spectral features are observed. The free UO(2)Cl(4) (2-) dianion is found to be highly stable with an adiabatic electron binding energy of 2.40 eV. Ab initio calculations are carried out and used to interpret the photoelectron spectra and elucidate the electronic structure of UO(2)Cl(4) (2-). The calculations show that the frontier molecular orbitals in UO(2)Cl(4) (2-) are dominated by the ligand Cl 3p orbitals, while the U-O bonding orbitals are much more stable. The electronic structure of UO(2)Cl(4) (2-) is compared with that of the recently reported UO(2)F(4) (2-) [P. D. Dau, J. Su, H. T. Liu, J. B. Liu, D. L. Huang, J. Li, and L. S. Wang, Chem. Sci. 3 1137 (2012)]. The electron binding energy of UO(2)Cl(4) (2-) is found to be 1.3 eV greater than that of UO(2)F(4) (2-). The differences in the electronic stability and electronic structure between UO(2)Cl(4) (2-) and UO(2)F(4) (2-) are discussed.     

Cyclotron-resonance line-width due to electron-LO-phonon interaction in cylindrical quantum wires

The absorption power due to the electron-LO-phonon interaction in a cylindrical quantum wire (CQW) in the presence of a magnetic field is calculated. The dependence of absorption power on the photon energy is computationally calculated and graphically plotted for a specific CQW. From graphs of the absorption power, we determine cyclotron-resonance line-width (CRLW) as profiles of the curves. The numerical results show that the CRLW increases with increasing of the temperature and magnetic field, and CRLW decreases with increasing of the wire’s radius. The present results are in qualitative agreement with the existing theoretical and experimental results.