Light and heavy dansyl reporter groups in food chemistry: amino acid assay in beverages

5-Dimethylamino-1-sulfonyl naphthalene (DNS, commonly referred as dansyl) is a functionality, bearing well-established properties in directing the fragmentation, by mass spectrometry (MS), of the corresponding ionized sulfonylated derivatives. This property is shared also by its labeled analogs. The use of d(0)/d(6) DNS derivatives is now exploited in the application of the well-established isotope dilution mass spectrometric approach in the assay of complex mixtures. A new method for the quantitation of amino acids (AAs) in beverages is therefore presented, which relies on liquid chromatographic separation of their N-dansylated derivatives followed by comparative electrospray tandem MS/MS of the d(0)/d(6) isobaric mixtures. Labeled and unlabeled DNS derivatives of the selected AAs are readily available by microwave-assisted synthetic protocols. The novelty of the method is represented by the use of heavy and light DNS-isotopologue providing suitable reporter groups. Multiple-reaction monitoring has been applied in the assay of AAs in wine, pineapple juice and bergamot juice with good-to-excellent results as proved by both relative standard deviation, lower than 15%, and by the accuracy values in the range 90-110%.     

A High Revolution Speed Noncontact Ultrasonic Motor Driven by a Non-Symmetrical Electrode

A noncontact ultrasonic motor based on a non-symmetrical electrode is proposed. This motor has the advantages of using a simple driving electrode and having a high revolution speed. The revolution speed of its three-blade rotor can reach 5100rpm under a driving voltage of 20 V. A method operated easily is proposed to measure the output torque,     

Charmed-meson decay constants in three-flavor lattice QCD

We present the first lattice QCD calculation with realistic sea quark content of the D+-meson decay constant f(D+). We use the MILC Collaboration's publicly available ensembles of lattice gauge fields, which have a quark sea with two flavors (up and down) much lighter than a third (strange). We obtain f(D+)=201+/-3+/-17 MeV, where the errors are statistical and a combination of systematic errors. We also obtain f(Ds)=249+/-3+/-16 MeV for the Ds meson.     

使用PTB7作为阳极修饰层提高有机发光二极管的性能

采用poly[[4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy]benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b’]dithiophene-2,6-diyl][3-?uoro-2-[(2-ethylhexyl)carbonyl]thieno[3,4-b]thiophenediyl]](PTB7)作为有机发光二极管器件的阳极修饰层,制备了结构为indium tin oxide(ITO)/PTB7(不同浓度)/N,N’-Bis(naphthalen-1-yl)-N,N’-bis(phenyl)benzidine(NPB,40 nm)/8-hydroxyquinoline(Alq3,60 nm)/LiF(1 nm)/Al的系列器件,同时研究了不同浓度的PTB7对器件性能的影响.PTB7的最佳浓度为0.25 mg/mL,器件性能得到明显的改善,起亮电压为4.3 V.当驱动电压为14.6 V时,最大亮度为45800 cd/m2,最大电流效率为9.1 cd/A.与没有PTB7修饰的器件相比,其起亮电压降低了1.9 V,最高亮度提升了78.5%.器件性能提高归因于PTB7的插入使得空穴注入和传输能力大大改善.     

Microstructures and impedance studies of Bi<Subscript>3.15</Subscript>Nd<Subscript>0.85</Subscript>Ti<Subscript>3</Subscript>O<Subscript>12</Subscript> thin films

Microstructures and impedance characteristics of chemical-solution-derived Bi_3.15Nd_0.85Ti₃O₁₂ thin films were studied as functions of temperature. A dielectric anomaly was found at around 450°C, corresponding to the paraelectric to ferroelectric transition. Via complex impedance studies, grain and grain boundary contributions to the impedance were separated. The resistance of grain and grain boundaries is found governed by the same kind of space charge with an activation energy around 1.1 eV, close to that of oxygen vacancies in perovskite ferroelectrics. The low temperature ac conductance of BNdT thin films shows a frequency dispersion, which can also be ascribed to space charges mainly due to oxygen vacancies. The results were compared with SrBi₂Ta₂O₉ in terms of oxygen vacancy conductivity.     

Revealing Bell’s nonlocality for unstable systems in high energy physics

Entanglement and its consequences—in particular the violation of Bell inequalities, which defies our concepts of realism and locality—have been proven to play key roles in Nature by many experiments for various quantum systems. Entanglement can also be found in systems not consisting of ordinary matter and light, i.e. in massive meson–antimeson systems. Bell inequalities have been discussed for these systems, but up to date no direct experimental test to conclusively exclude local realism was found. This mainly stems from the fact that one only has access to a restricted class of observables and that these systems are also decaying. In this Letter we put forward a Bell inequality for unstable systems which can be tested at accelerator facilities with current technology. Herewith, the long awaited proof that such systems at different energy scales can reveal the sophisticated “dynamical” nonlocal feature of Nature in a direct experiment gets feasible. Moreover, the role of entanglement and CP\mathcal{CP} violation, an asymmetry between matter and antimatter, is explored, a special feature offered only by these meson–antimeson systems.     

Properties of asymmetrically evolved community networks

This paper studies a simple asymmetrically evolved community network with a combination of preferential attachment and random properties. An important issue about community networks is to discover the different utility increments of two nodes, where the utility is introduced to investigate the asymmetrical effect of connecting two nodes. On the other hand, the connection of two nodes in community networks can be classified as two nodes belonging to the same or to different communities. The simulation results show that the model can reproduce a power-law utility distribution P(u)～u^-σ, σ = 2 + 1/p, which can be obtained by using mean-field approximation methods. Furthermore, the model exhibits exponential behaviour with respect to small values of a parameter denoting the random effect in our model at the low-utility region and a power-law feature with respect to big values of this parameter at the high-utility region, which is in good agreement with theoretical analysis. This kind of community network can reproduce a unique utility distribution by theoretical and numerical analysis.     

The far infrared spectrum of trans-formic acid: An extension up to 175 cm−1

The far infrared spectrum of HCOOH was recorded at a high resolution (0.0009 cm^?1) and long path length (72 m) at the far-infrared beamline, Canadian Light Source. Spectra were recorded in the region 62–300 cm^?1, showing transitions from the trans-isomer.Ground state rotational transitions with K_a up to 30, were identified up to 175 cm^?1, extending the observation reported in the literature. A total of 3321 transitions were assigned and fitted together with previous (4149) published data. An improved set of rotational parameters was obtained adopting the symmetric top (A) reduction of the rotational Hamiltonian in the I^r representation. The newly measured far infrared transitions allowed the determination of all diagonal and off diagonal 8th order parameters L and of some of the diagonal 10th order parameters P.     

The case of RIB at intermediate energies: Isospin effects on nuclear dynamics

In the reaction dynamics of intermediate-energy radioactive beams we can probe highly asymmetric nuclear matter in compressed as well as dilute phases. In this report some predictions are presented, based on analytical results as well as on reaction simulations. We suggest a series of experiments with RIB aimed to shed light on isospin properties of nuclear interactions in the medium. Received: 1 May 2001 / Accepted: 4 December 2001     

Relative position determination of a lunar rover using high-accuracy multi-frequency same-beam VLBI

Multi-frequency same-beam VLBI means that two explorers with a small separation angle are simultaneously observed with the main beam of receiving antennas. In the same-beam VLBI, the differential phase delay between two explorers and two receiving telescopes can be obtained with a small error of several picoseconds. The differential phase delay, as the observable of the same-beam VLBI, gives the separation angular information of the two explorers in the celestial sphere. The two-dimensional relative position on the plane-of-sky can thus be precisely determined with an error of less than 1 m for a distance of 3.8×105 km far away from the earth, by using the differential phase delay obtained with the four Chinese VLBI stations. The relative position of a lunar rover on the lunar surface can be determined with an error of 10 m by using the differential phase delay data and the range data for the lander when the lunar topography near the rover and the lander can be determined with an error of 10 m.