Versatile bio-ink for covalent immobilization of chimeric avidin on sol-gel substrates

A bio-ink for covalent deposition of thermostable, high affinity biotin-binding chimeric avidin onto sol-gel substrates was developed. The bio-ink was prepared from heterobifunctional crosslinker 6-maleimidohexanoic acid N-hydroxysuccinimide which was first reacted either with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane or 3-aminopropyldimethylethoxysilane to form silane linkers 6-maleimide-N-(3-(triethoxysilyl)propyl)hexanamide or -(ethoxydimethylsilyl)propyl)-hexanamide. C-terminal cysteine genetically engineered to chimeric avidin was reacted with the maleimide group of silane linker in methanol/PBS solution to form a suspension, which was printed on sol-gel modified PMMA film. Different concentrations of chimeric avidin and ratios between silane linkers were tested to find the best properties for the bio-ink to enable gravure or inkjet printing. Bio-ink prepared from 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane was found to provide the highest amount of active immobilized chimeric avidin. The developed bio-ink was shown to be valuable for automated fabrication of avidin-functionalized polymer films.     

Defects in H implanted GaAs studied by ion-beam and low-energy positron techniques

Ion-beam and low-energy positron-beam techniques have been used to study damage and implanted ion distributions and their annealing behavior in semi-insulating GaAs after the room temperature implantation of 3 × 10¹⁵−1 × 10¹⁷ 60 keV H⁺ cm^-2. The redistribution of the implanted H during annealing was observed to be connected to the migration of implantation-induced defect-complexes. A huge increase in the displaced atom concentration in the region of the H concentration was observed after annealings. A monovacancy overlayer, dissociation of H-vacancy complexes, and formation of stable vacancy-H agglomerates were observed in the different parts of the slowing-down region of the implanted H.     

A New Proof for the Equivalence of Weak and Viscosity Solutions for the p-Laplace Equation

In this paper, we give a new proof for the fact that the distributional weak solutions and the viscosity solutions of the p-Laplace equation ?div(|Du| ^p?2 Du) = 0 coincide. Our proof is more direct and transparent than the original proof of Juutinen et al. [8 Juutinen , P. , Lindqvist , P. , Manfredi , J.J. ( 2001 ). On the equivalence of viscosity solutions and weak solutions for a quasi-linear equation . SIAM J. Math. Anal. 33 : 699 – 717 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], which relied on the full uniqueness machinery of the theory of viscosity solutions. We establish a similar result also for the solutions of the non-homogeneous version of the p-Laplace equation.     

Diffusion of Tracer in Altered Tonalite: Experiments and Simulations with Heterogeneous Distribution of Porosity

Numerical time-domain-diffusion simulations were used for studying the diffusion behavior of tracer molecules in rock matrix with homogeneous and heterogeneous porosity. As the heterogeneous sample in these simulations, a 3D tomographic image of altered tonalite was used, in which the mineral components and the pores resolved by X-ray microtomography were represented by their respective intragranular porosities determined previously by the ¹⁴C-PMMA method. The apparent diffusion coefficient of a tracer in altered tonalite was determined experimentally, and was then used in the simulations. In the altered tonalite analyzed, inclusion of heterogeneity in the porosity increased the diffusion coefficient by 16 %. Altered and pristine feldspar was the main mineral component in the sample (72 %), and it also provided the dominant contribution to tracer diffusion, explaining alone 52 % of the diffusion coefficient. The large pores resolved by microtomography (6 %) and altered and pristine mica (22 %) gave an equal contribution to the diffusion coefficient. The simulation method applied was also validated by comparing the results to both an analytical and a numerical solution to the diffusion equation in a homogenous medium. In addition, the method was compared to discrete-time random-walk simulations in the case of randomly placed overlapping spheres.     

Comparison of methods for detecting nondeterministic BOLD fluctuation in fMRI

Functional MR imaging (fMRI) has been used in detecting neuronal activation and intrinsic blood flow fluctuations in the brain cortex. This article is aimed for comparing the methods for analyzing the nondeterministic flow fluctuations. Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT), cross correlation (CC), spatial principal component analysis (sPCA), and independent component analysis (sICA) were compared. 15 subjects were imaged at 1.5 T. Three quantitative measures were compared: (1) The number of subjects with identifiable fluctuation, (2) the volume, and (3) mean correlation coefficient (MCC) of the detected voxels. The focusing on cortical structures and the overall usability were qualitatively assessed. sICA was spatially most accurate but time consuming, robust, and detected voxels with high temporal synchrony. The CC and FFT were fast suiting primary screening. The CC detected highest temporal synchrony but the subjective detection for reference vector produced excess variance of the detected volumes. The FFT and sPCA were not spatially accurate and did not detect adequate temporal synchrony of the voxels.     

Ab initio structural and vibrational investigation of sulfuric acid monohydrate

We employ ab initio methods to find stable geometries and to calculate potential energy surfaces and vibrational wavenumbers for sulfuric acid monohydrate. Geometry optimizations are carried out with the explicitly correlated coupled-cluster approach that includes single, double, and perturbative triple excitations (CCSD(T)-F12a) with a valence double-ζ basis set (VDZ-F12). Four different stable geometries are found, and the two lowest are within 0.41 kJ mol(-1) (or 34 cm(-1)) of each other. Vibrational harmonic wavenumbers are calculated at both the density-fitted local spin component scaled second-order M?ller-Plesset perturbation theory (DF-SCS-LMP2) with the aug-cc-pV(T+d)Z basis set and the CCSD-F12/VDZ-F12 level. Water O-H stretching vibrations and two highly anharmonic large-amplitude motions connecting the three lowest potential energy minima are considered by limiting the dimensionality of the corresponding potential energy surfaces to small two- or three-dimensional subspaces that contain only strongly coupled vibrational degrees of freedom. In these anharmonic domains, the vibrational problem is solved variationally using potential energy surfaces calculated at the CCSD(T)-F12a/VDZ-F12 level.     

Emission studies of InGaN layers and LEDs grown by plasma-assisted MBE

We prepared InGaN layers on GaN/sapphire substrates using rf-MBE. Photoluminescence (PL) from these layers, grown at different temperatures T_S, shows that there is a strong tendency of GaN to form a separate phase as T_S is increased from 600°C to 650°C. Concomitant with the phase separation, the PL from the InGaN phase broadens, which indicates that indium composition in this phase becomes increasingly non-uniform. Indium compositions measured by Rutherford backscattering (RBS) are consistent with these results. We also observed an increase in PL intensity for InGaN layers grown at higher temperatures. In this paper, we also report on preparing a top-contact InGaN/GaN light emitting diode. The device was operated at 447 nm and had the emission line width of 37 nm with no observable impurity related features. The turn-on voltage was 3.0 V. The output power was 20 μW at 60 mA drive current.     

Positivity of second order linear recurrent sequences

We give a decision method for the Positivity Problem for second order recurrent sequences: it is decidable whether or not a recurrent sequence defined by u_n=au_n-1+bu_n-2 has only nonnegative terms.     

A time-domain approach to estimating the plucking point of guitar tones obtained with an under-saddle pickup

A method for estimating the plucking point of guitar tones is proposed. The algorithm is based on investigating the time lag between two consecutive pulses arriving at the bridge of the guitar. The signal is detected with an under-saddle pickup attached to the bridge. The method determines the minimum of the autocorrelation function for one period of the signal. The time lag of the minimum can be converted into the distance from the bridge where the string was plucked. The results obtained with the method are good, the error remains smaller than one centimetre, except for a few outliers. The algorithm is easy to implement and can be used to analyse playing styles. The efficiency of the method gives the potential to also use it in real-time computer music applications.