Sublimation of a vibrated granular monolayer: coexistence of gas and solid

The fluidization of a monolayer of glass beads in a horizontally and vertically vibrated annular container is studied. At peak forcing accelerations between 1.1 and 1.5 g, a solidlike and a gaslike domain coexist. The solid fraction decreases with increasing acceleration and shows hysteresis. The sharp boundaries between the two regions travel around the channel faster than the particles are transported. Complementary to our experimental studies, a molecular dynamics simulation is used to extract local granular temperature and number density. It is found that the number density in the solid phase is several times that in the gas, while the temperature is orders of magnitude lower.     

Ex Situ Prepared Antimony Film Electrode for Electrochemical Stripping Measurement of Heavy Metal Ions

The antimony film electrode (SbFE) was prepared ex situ for anodic and adsorptive stripping voltammetric measurement of selected heavy metal ions. The electrode revealed good linearity for Cd(II) and Pb(II) in a nondeaerated solution of 0.01 M HCl in the examined concentration range from 25 to 80 μg L^?1 with limits of detection of 1.1 μg L^?1 for Cd(II) and 0.3 μg L^?1 for Pb(II) and an excellent reproducibility. The preplated SbFE was also preliminary tested for measuring low levels of Ni(II) using adsorptive stripping voltammetry exhibiting good linearity and sensitivity in combination with only a 30 s deposition step.     

Comparison and improvement of commonly applied statistical approaches for identification of plant species from IR spectra

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) has been studied many times in the context of identification of plant, fungal and bacterial species. Infrared spectra are commonly analyzed using multivariate statistical methods such as cluster analysis (CA), principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares analysis (PLS) and discriminant analysis (DA). In this study, a univariate statistical method for analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to reduce the number of variables before applying the multivariate methods. Analyzing variables using ANOVA or a combination of ANOVA with CA produced better results. Here, experiments were carried out by performing ANOVA using the first derivative of the spectra instead of the original spectra or its second derivative because using the first‐derivative variables led to improved distinction between species. Different results were obtained by applying different validation methods. The leave‐one‐out validation method gave higher results than the validation‐with‐training and validation sample sets, thus indicating the non‐objectivity of the leave‐one‐out validation method. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The pharmacological properties and therapeutic use of apomorphine

Apomorphine (APO) is an aporphine derivative used in human and veterinary medicine. APO activates D?, D(2S), D(2L), D?, D?, and D? receptors (and is thus classified as a non-selective dopamine agonist), serotonin receptors (5HT(1A), 5HT(2A), 5HT(2B), and 5HT(2C)), and α-adrenergic receptors (α(1B), α(1D), α(2A), α(2B), and α(2C)). In veterinary medicine, APO is used to induce vomiting in dogs, an important early treatment for some common orally ingested poisons (e.g., anti-freeze or insecticides). In human medicine, it has been used in a variety of treatments ranging from the treatment of addiction (i.e., to heroin, alcohol or cigarettes), for treatment of erectile dysfunction in males and hypoactive sexual desire disorder in females to the treatment of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Currently, APO is used in patients with advanced PD, for the treatment of persistent and disabling motor fluctuations which do not respond to levodopa or other dopamine agonists, either on its own or in combination with deep brain stimulation. Recently, a new and potentially important therapeutic role for APO in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease has been suggested; APO seems to stimulate Aβ catabolism in an animal model and cell culture, thus reducing the rate of Aβ oligomerisation and consequent neural cell death.     

Parallel synthesis of 3-amino-4H-quinolizin-4-ones, fused 3-amino-4H-pyrimidin-4-ones, and fused 3-amino-2H-pyran-2-ones

On the basis of the enaminone methodology, libraries of 3-amino-4H-quinolizin-4-ones, fused 3-amino-4H-pyrimidin-4-ones, and fused 3-amino-2H-pyran-2-ones were synthesized by the solid-phase and by the solution-phase parallel synthesis. The solution-phase approach turned out to be advantageous over the solid-phase approach. The solution-phase synthesis afforded, in most cases, analytically pure products in high yields, whereas the solid-phase approach gave products in poor yields and in low purity.     

Spatial tuning curves from apical, middle, and basal electrodes in cochlear implant users

Forward-masked psychophysical spatial tuning curves (fmSTCs) were measured in 15 cochlear-implant subjects, 10 using monopolar stimulation and 5 using bipolar stimulation. In each subject, fmSTCs were measured at several probe levels on an apical, middle, and basal electrode using a fixed-level probe stimulus and variable-level maskers. Tuning curve slopes and bandwidths did not change significantly with probe level for electrodes located in the apical, middle, or basal region although a few subjects exhibited dramatic changes in tuning at the extremes of the probe level range. Average tuning curve slopes and bandwidths did not vary significantly across electrode regions. Spatial tuning curves were symmetrical and similar in width across the three electrode regions. However, several subjects demonstrated large changes in slope and/or bandwidth across the three electrode regions, indicating poorer tuning in localized regions of the array. Cochlear-implant users exhibited bandwidths that were approximately five times wider than normal-hearing acoustic listeners but were in the same range as acoustic listeners with moderate cochlear hearing loss. No significant correlations were found between spatial tuning parameters and speech recognition; although a weak relation was seen between middle electrode tuning and transmitted information for vowel second formant frequency.     

Coefficient conditions for existence of an optimal control for systems of differential equations

For systems of ordinary differential equations, we obtain some sufficient conditions of existence of an optimal control in terms of their right-hand sides and the cost functional with the use of compactness methods. In the theorems proven, either the time interval is finite and a solution belongs to some domain or the time interval coincides with the semiaxis.     

Investigation of zirconium phosphate Zr<Subscript>3</Subscript>(PO<Subscript>4</Subscript>)<Subscript>4</Subscript> during heating

Zirconium phosphate Zr₃(PO₄)₄ has been synthesized by the sol-gel technique and investigated using X-ray powder diffraction, IR spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry. It has been established that the symmetry of the unit cell, R \(\bar 3\) c, which is characteristic of the NaZr₂(PO₄)₃ (NZP) family, is lowered to P \(\bar 3\) c. The behavior of the zirconium phosphate during heating has been examined using high-temperature X-ray diffraction at temperatures ranging from 25 to 575°C. It has been revealed that the structure of the zirconium phosphate is hardly subjected to expansion due to heating in the temperature ranges 25–125°C (α _a < 1 × 10^?6 K^?1, α _c < 1 × 10^?6 K^?1, Δα < 1 × 10^?6 K^?1) and 325–575°C (α _a = ?1.4 × 10^?6 K^?1, α _c < 1 × 10^?6 K^?1, Δα < ?2.4 × 10^?6 K^?1). In the temperature range 125–325°C, the synthesized compound undergoes a second-order phase transition (upon heating), which is accompanied by the contraction of the structure along all crystallographic directions. Upon cooling in the range from 75 to 25°C, the phase transition is accompanied by the expansion of the structure.     

Lattice Shrinkage by Incorporation of Recombinant Starmaker-Like Protein within Bioinspired Calcium Carbonate Crystals

The biological mediation of mineral formation (biomineralization) is realized through diverse organic macromolecules that guide this process in a spatial and temporal manner. Although the role of these molecules in biomineralization is being gradually revealed, the molecular basis of their regulatory function is still poorly understood. In this study, the incorporation and distribution of the model intrinsically disordered starmaker-like (Stm-l) protein, which is active in fish otoliths biomineralization, within calcium carbonate crystals, is revealed. Stm-l promotes crystal nucleation and anisotropic tailoring of crystal morphology. Intracrystalline incorporation of Stm-l protein unexpectedly results in shrinkage (and not expansion, as commonly described in biomineral and bioinspired crystals) of the crystal lattice volume, which is described herein, for the first time, for bioinspired mineralization. A ring pattern was observed in crystals grown for 48 h; this was composed of a protein-enriched region flanked by protein-depleted regions. It can be explained as a result of the Ostwald-like ripening process and intrinsic properties of Stm-l, and bears some analogy to the daily growth layers of the otolith.