A Comparative Study of the Effect of Water and Organic Solvents on 1,3-Dipolar Cycloaddition Reactions of Mesitonitrile Oxide with C-Sulfonyl- and Sulfanyl-Dithioformates

1,3-Dipolar cycloadditions of the C-sulfonylated- and sulfanylated-dithioformates with mesitonitrile oxide occurred smoothly in organic and aqueous media to afford 1,4,2-oxathiazoles in good yields. The structures of these cycloadducts have been established via the analysis of NMR data and elemental analyses.     

Label-free, arrayed sensing of immune response to influenza antigens

Periodic outbreaks of pandemic influenza have been a devastating cause of human mortality over the past century. More recently, an avian influenza strain, designated H5N1, has been identified as having the potential to cause a zoogenic pandemic in humans, and a current outbreak of a new H1N1 influenza variant hypothesized to be of swine origin is of considerable concern. In order to facilitate surveillance and the rapid assessment and comparison of vaccination efforts, a high-throughput assay is highly desirable to supplement standard methods, which require high biosafety-level facilities. In this paper, we describe the design, production, and preliminary evaluation of an antigen array incorporating a panel of hemagglutinins as a platform for the detection and rapid quantification of influenza-specific antibodies in human serum by Arrayed Imaging Reflectometry (AIR), a label-free optical biosensor.     

Application of a probabilistic double-fibre structure model to diffusion-weighted MR images of the human brain

A Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm has been reported which is capable of determining the probabilistic orientation of two-fibre populations from high angular resolution diffusion-weighted data (HARDI). We present and critically discuss the application of this algorithm to in vivo human datasets acquired in clinically realistic times. We show that by appropriate model selection areas of multiple fibre populations can be identified that correspond with those predicted from known anatomy. Quantitative maps of fibre orientation probability are derived and shown for one- and two-fibre models of neural architecture. Fibre crossings in the pons, the internal capsule and the corona radiata are shown. In addition, we demonstrate that the relative proportion of anisotropic signal may be a more appropriate measure of anisotropy than summary measures derived from the tensor model such as fractional anisotropy in areas with multi-fibre populations.     

Using clathrate hydrates for gas storage and gas-mixture separations: experimental and computational studies at multiple length scales

ABSTRACT

Clathrate hydrates have characteristic properties that render them attractive for a number of industrial applications. Of particular interest are the following two cases: (i) the incorporation of large amounts of gas molecules into the solid structure has resulted in considering hydrates as possible material for the storage/transportation of energy or environmental gases, and (ii) the selective incorporation of guest molecules into the solid structure has resulted in considering hydrates for gas-mixture separations. For the proper design of such industrial applications, it is essential to know accurately a number of thermodynamic, structural and transport properties. Such properties can either be measured experimentally or calculated at different scales that span the molecular scale-up to the continuum scale. By using clathrate hydrates as a particular case study, we demonstrate that performing studies at multiple length scales can be utilised in order to obtain properties that are essential to process design.