New universal primers facilitate Pyrosequencing

A cost-driving factor in Pyrosequencing is the need for single-stranded PCR products that are usually obtained by biotin-labeling of one primer. We designed new universal primers that allow the introduction of biotin during the specific PCR at either the forward or the reverse primer in a single reaction. When converting five human single nucleotide polymorphism assays from the standard format into the universal format, we obtained pyrograms of similar good quality. Although the universal nonhuman sequences are unlikely to form loop structures, we mostly failed to establish assays without using the proprietary software from Biotage AB. Nevertheless, our universal primer pair adds flexibility to the process of assay design due to optional strand selection and contributes to the reduction of genotyping costs.     

A convergence analysis of the price of anarchy in atomic congestion games

Mathematical Programming - We analyze the convergence of the price of anarchy (PoA) of Nash equilibria in atomic congestion games with growing total demand T. When the cost functions are...     

Sound generation in a flow near a compliant wall

The generation of sound near an infinite compliant wall is studied, with account taken of a uniform mean flow. Stable and unstable configurations are looked at. It is shown that a possible influence of the wall on the sound generation occurs only via a modification of the turbulence if hydrodynamic non-linearities are responsible for the levelling-off of the instabilities. Then no fundamentally more efficient sound sources are found. An increase of the radiated sound may be possible because of the mirror sources and because of their possibly reduced compactness.     

Hadronic energy density in the dual parton model with formation zone intranuclear cascade

We study the evolution of the hadronic energy and particle density during central nucleus-nucleus collisions at various energies with a Monte Carlo version of the dual parton model. We find at RHIC and at LHC energies energy densities well in the range where the formation of quark gluon plasma is expected.     

Elastic electron scattering by mercury atoms

Zeitschrift für Physik A Hadrons and nuclei - The cross section and Mott asymmetry function of elastic electron scattering by mercury atoms have been calculated for energies of 46, 79, 100,...     

On tunnelling with dissipation

Tunnelling with dissipation is studied in a model describing the sub-barrier scattering of a particle coupled to an environment of oscillators. The influence functional formulation of Feynman's path integral approach is used. The appearance of advanced forces in the semiclassical treatment of the process as well as other specific features due to the interplay between tunnelling and dissipation are discussed.     

A Computational Study on Bounding the Makespan Distribution in Stochastic Project Networks

Due to the practical importance of stochastic project networks (PERT-networks), many methods have been developed over the past decades in order to obtain information about the random project completion time. Of particular interest are methods that provide (lower and upper) bounds for its distribution, since these aim at balancing efficiency of calculation with accuracy of the obtained information.We provide a thorough computational evaluation of the most promising of these bounding algorithms with the aim to test their suitability for practical applications both in terms of efficiency and quality. To this end, we have implemented these algorithms and compare their behavior on a basis of nearly 2000 instances with up to 1200 activities of different test-sets. These implementations are based on a suitable numerical representation of distributions which is the basis for excellent computational results. Particularly a distribution-free heuristic based on the Central Limit Theorem provides an excellent tool to evaluate stochastic project networks.     

QCL-based TDLAS sensor for detection of NO toward emission measurements from ovarian cancer cells

The development of a sensitive sensor for detecting nitric oxide (NO) emissions from biological samples is reported. The sensor is based on tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) using a continuous wave, thermoelectrically cooled quantum cascade laser (QCL) and a 100-m astigmatic Herriot cell. A 2f-wavelength modulation spectroscopy technique was used to obtain QCL-based TDLAS NO emission measurements with an optimum signal-to-noise ratio. An absorption line at 1,900.076 cm^?1 was targeted to measure NO with a minimum detection limit of 124 ppt. Positive control measurements with the NO donor DETA NONOate were performed to determine and optimize the sensor performance for measurements of biological samples. Our measurements with NO donor show the potential suitability of the sensor for monitoring NO emission from cancer cells for biological investigations.     

Projectile break-up with two outgoing intermediate-mass fragments in 26 AMeV32S+197Au

Correlations between two intermediate-mass fragments resulting from 840 MeV³²S projectiles interacting with¹⁹⁷Au were measured. The angular correlations and absolute two-fragment cross sections agree with predictions of a semi-microscopic model for direct dynamic projectile break-up. This suggests a predominantly direct mechanism for the production of intermediate-mass fragment pairs. It is argued that the intensity of such a channel which, compared to decays yieldingα particles, is much larger than observed for the sequential decay of corresponding primary excited nuclei, supports the direct-break-up interpretation. The model mechanism yields also strongly damped projectile fragments of intermediate mass.