Using bicellar mixtures to form supported and suspended lipid bilayers on silicon chips

Bicellar mixtures, planar lipid bilayer assemblies comprising long- and short-chain phosphatidylcholine lipids in suspension, were used to form supported lipid bilayers on flat silicon substrate and on nanotextured silicon substrates containing arrays of parallel troughs (170 nm wide, 380 nm deep, and 300 nm apart). Confocal fluorescence and atomic force microscopies were used to characterize the resulting lipid bilayer. Formation of a continuous biphasic undulating lipid bilayer membrane, where the crests and troughs corresponded to supported and suspended lipid bilayer regions, is demonstrated. The use of interferometric lithography to fabricate nanotexured substrates provides an advantage over other nanotextured substrates such as nanoporous alumina by offering flexibility in designing different geometries for suspending lipid bilayers.     

Mean-field lattice trees

We introduce a mean-field model of lattice trees based on embeddings into ^d of abstract trees having a critical Poisson offspring distribution. This model provides a combinatorial interpretation for the self-consistent mean-field model introduced previously by Derbez and Slade [9], and provides an alternative approach to work of Aldous. The scaling limit of the meanfield model is integrated super-Brownian excursion (ISE), in all dimensions. We also introduce a model of weakly self-avoiding lattice trees, in which an embedded tree receives a penaltye ^– for each self-intersection. The weakly self-avoiding lattice trees provide a natural interpolation between the mean-field model (=0), and the usual model of strictly self-avoiding lattice tress (=) which associates the uniform measure to the set of lattice trees of the same size.     

Spatial energy estimates in dynamical problems for a semi-infinite piezoelectric beam

The behaviour of the total energy for a semi-infinite piezoelectricbeam, with uniform or variable cross-section, in dynamical conditionsis investigated. Precisely, we obtain some estimates in termsof the data for the energy of the portion of the body at distancegreater than z from the base and for its norm in L¹(0,t) (wheret is an arbitrary positive time). We obtain some estimates whichdepend on the initial data if t z/V (where V is a computablepositive material constant); if t > z/V, by using also theKorn inequality, we show that the bounds depend on all the data.Under mild hypotheses on the initial data we derive the asymptoticbehaviour of the energy as z +. All possible combinations ofboundary conditions are examined and the kind of the estimateis formally the same for all the problems whether the beam isa cylinder or not.     

The Scaling Limit of the Incipient Infinite Cluster in High-Dimensional Percolation. I. Critical Exponents

This is the first of two papers on the critical behavior of bond percolation models in high dimensions. In this paper, we obtain strong joint control of the critical exponents and for the nearest neighbor model in very high dimensions d6 and for sufficiently spread-out models in all dimensions d>6. The exponent describes the low-frequency behavior of the Fourier transform of the critical two-point connectivity function, while describes the behavior of the magnetization at the critical point. Our main result is an asymptotic relation showing that, in a joint sense, =0 and =2. The proof uses a major extension of our earlier expansion method for percolation. This result provides evidence that the scaling limit of the incipient infinite cluster is the random probability measure on ^d known as integrated super-Brownian excursion (ISE), in dimensions above 6. In the sequel to this paper, we extend our methods to prove that the scaling limits of the incipient infinite cluster's two-point and three-point functions are those of ISE for the nearest neighbor model in dimensions d6.     

Spiroiminodihydantoin as an oxo-atom transfer product of 8-oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine oxidation by chromium(V)

Oxidation of the DNA lesion 8-oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine by the two electron oxidants N,N'-ethylenebis(salicylideneanimato)oxochromium(V) (Cr(V)-salen) and bis(2-ethyl-2-hydroxybutyrato)oxochromium(V) (Cr(V)-ehba) at neutral pH forms spiroiminodihydantoin by an oxo-atom transfer mechanism. The chromium complexes are models of a DNA oxidation pathway caused by the carcinogen chromate.     

Copper-free click--a promising tool for pre-targeted PET imaging

The copper-free click (CFC) reaction has been evaluated for its potential application to in vivo pre-targeting for PET imaging. A promising biodistribution profile is demonstrated when employing [(18)F]2-fluoroethylazide ([(18)F]1) and optimisation of the CFC reaction with a series of cyclooctynes shows that reactions proceed efficiently with tantalizing opportunities for application-specific tuning.     

An alkaline polymer electrochemical interface: a breakthrough in application of alkaline anion-exchange membranes in fuel cells

A novel alkaline polymer has been developed as an interfacial material for use in the preparation of metal-cation-free alkaline membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) for all-solid-state alkaline fuel cells (AFCs) with long-term performance stability.