Uncertainty of chemical oxygen demand determination in wastewater samples

 The measurement uncertainty of the result of chemical oxygen demand determination in wastewater was evaluated. The major sources of uncertainty of the result of measurement were identified as the purity of reagents, volumetric operations, gravimetric operations, bias, and the repeatability of the method. Identification and evaluation of uncertainty sources was followed by combined uncertainty calculations. The combined uncertainty was compared to the experimentally determined variation and good agreement was found, indicating that the major uncertainty sources had been identified. The results show that the major sources of uncertainty arose from repeatability at high concentration level and volumetric steps at low concentration level, thus revealing the target operations for reducing the measurement uncertainty of this determination. Received: 5 August 2002 Accepted: 5 November 2002 Acknowledgements This research was supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia (Project Z2–3530). Presented at CERMM-3, Central European Reference Materials and Measurements Conference: The function of reference materials in the measurement process, May 30–June 1, 2002, Rogaška Slatina, Slovenia Correspondence to A. Drolc     

Functional Characterization of an Arabidopsis Profilin Protein as a Molecular Chaperone under Heat Shock Stress

Profilins (PFNs) are actin monomer-binding proteins that function as antimicrobial agents in plant phloem sap. Although the roles of Arabidopsis thaliana profilin protein isoforms (AtPFNs) in regulating actin polymerization have already been described, their biochemical and molecular functions remain to be elucidated. Interestingly, a previous study indicated that AtPFN2 with high molecular weight (HMW) complexes showed lower antifungal activity than AtPFN1 with low molecular weight (LMW). These were bacterially expressed and purified to characterize the unknown functions of AtPFNs with different structures. In this study, we found that AtPFN1 and AtPFN2 proteins have LMW and HMW structures, respectively, but only AtPFN2 has a potential function as a molecular chaperone, which has never been reported elsewhere. AtPFN2 has better protein stability than AtPFN1 due to its higher molecular weight under heat shock conditions. The function of AtPFN2 as a holdase chaperone predominated in the HMW complexes, whereas the chaperone function of AtPFN1 was not observed in the LMW forms. These results suggest that AtPFN2 plays a critical role in plant tolerance by increasing hydrophobicity due to external heat stress.     

Untersuchung von Fischkonserven und Frischhaltungsmitteln

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Σatomic states and the nucleon distribution in Pb

The analyses of (K^-,π) and (π^-, K⁺) reactions indicate that the nuclear potential of the Σ-hyperon is repulsive inside the nucleus, in agreement with the prediction of model F of the Nijmegen baryon-baryon interaction. This is consistent with the recent calculation of the strong-interaction shifts and widths of the observed levels of Σ^- atoms, including the precise data on the Σ^-Pb atom. In this paper, the sensitivity of this calculation to the neutron and proton density distributions is used to determine these densities in ²⁰⁸Pb.     

Kinetics of decomposition pathways of an energetic GZT molecule

This investigation uses the Gaussian 98 program, density functional theory (DFT) B3LYP/6‐31G(d,p), and ab initio MP2/6‐31G(d,p) and HF/6‐31G(d) methods to model energetic diguanidinium 5,5′‐azotetrazolate (GZT) ionic species in order to determine their decomposition mechanisms. GZT was initially cracked into two guanidinium cations (G⁺) and a 5,5′‐azotetrazolate anion (ZT^2?). Three routes—the elimination of a hydronium ion (H⁺), the elimination of a hydrogen radical (H·), and the elimination of an amine radical (·NH₂)—are suggested for the decomposition of the G⁺ cation, and three routes—single ring opening, double ring opening and N? N bond cleavage outside the ring—are proposed for the further decomposition of the ZT^2? anion. Fourteen decomposition species were obtained on splitting both the cation and anion. This result reveals the reliability of the aforementioned decomposition mechanisms. The transition state species were also obtained using a two‐structure or three‐structure synchronous transit‐guided quasi‐Newton (STQN) between the Cartesian coordinates of related particles at specific decomposition stages in this research. The corresponding activation energies in all decomposition stages were considered to infer the most feasible pathways of GZT decomposition. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2008     

Solid phase synthesis of benzamidine and butylamine-derived hydantoin libraries

We have constructed a number of benzamidine- and butylamine-based hydantoin compounds by means of an efficient route using solid phase synthesis in which neat diisopropylamine was employed for a novel cyclization/traceless cleavage step. All library compounds were obtained in excellent yield and high purity. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.