Quantitative Resonance Raman Spectroscopy

Abstract

Determination of organic species at low concentration levels, particularly the simultaneous determination of a number of related compounds, challenges the ingenuity of the analyst. Measurements for nonvolatile and thermally labile compounds in the complex materials derived from the environment and living systems are especially difficult, and existing techniques aremostly ill-suited to this task. Resonance Raman spectroscopy provides an appropriate basis for such analyses.     

低能质子辐照活体细胞的能量沉积特性

为了研究带电粒子与活体细胞的相互作用,利用能量为2,2.5,3 MeV的质子外束,在室温环境下对厚约50 nm的氮化硅支持膜上的毕赤酵母菌进行辐照,并用金硅面垒探测器测量其透射能谱,通过对能量沉积特性的分析,表明质子外束穿过毕赤酵母菌后能损随入射能的增大而减小,但能量歧离随入射能的增大而增大。To study the interaction of charged particles with biological living cells,we delivered 2,2.5 and 3 MeV protons outside vacuum as external beam at room temperature to irradiate yeast Pichia cells which are supported by 50 nm thick silicon nitride film and the transmission energy spectrum were measured by an Au-Si surface barrier detector to analyze energy deposition properties.The results demonstrate that the energy loss decreases with the incident protons energy increase,but the energy straggling increases with incident protons energy increase.     

Constructing backbone network by using tinker algorithm

Revealing how a biological network is organized to realize its function is one of the main topics in systems biology. The functional backbone network, defined as the primary structure of the biological network, is of great importance in maintaining the main function of the biological network. We propose a new algorithm, the tinker algorithm, to determine this core structure and apply it in the cell-cycle system. With this algorithm, the backbone network of the cell-cycle network can be determined accurately and efficiently in various models such as the Boolean model, stochastic model, and ordinary differential equation model. Results show that our algorithm is more efficient than that used in the previous research. We hope this method can be put into practical use in relevant future studies.     

Pathway identification using parallel optimization for a complex metabolic system in microbial continuous culture

The bio-dissimilation of glycerol to 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PD) by Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) is a complex bioprocess due to the multiple inhibitions of substrate and products onto the cell growth. In consideration of the fact that both the inhibition mechanisms of 3-hydroxypropionaldehyde (3-HPA) onto the cell growth and the transport systems of glycerol and 1,3-PD across the cell membrane are still unclear, we consider 72 possible metabolic pathways, and establish a novel mathematical model which is represented by an eight-dimensional nonlinear dynamical system. The existence, uniqueness, continuous dependence of solutions to the system and the compactness of the solution set are explored. On the basis of biological robustness, we give a quantitative definition of robustness index of the intracellular substances. Taking the robustness index of the intracellular substances together with the relative error between the experimental data and the computational values of the extracellular substances as a performance index, a parameter identification model is proposed for the nonlinear dynamical system, in which 43848 continuous variables and 1152 discrete variables are involved. A parallel particle swarm optimization — pathways identification algorithm (PPSO-PIA) is constructed to find the optimal pathway and parameters under various experiments conditions. Numerical results show that the optimal pathway and the corresponding dynamical system can describe the continuous fermentation reasonably.     

Complex metabolic network of glycerol fermentation by Klebsiella pneumoniae and its system identification via biological robustness

The bioconversion of glycerol to 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PD) by Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) can be characterized by an intricate metabolic network of interactions among biochemical fluxes, metabolic compounds, key enzymes and genetic regulation. Since there are some uncertain factors in the fermentation, especially the transport mechanisms of substances across cell membrane, the metabolic network contains multiple possible metabolic systems. In this paper, we establish a complex metabolic network and the corresponding nonlinear hybrid dynamical system aiming to determine the most possible metabolic system. The existence, uniqueness and continuity of solutions are discussed. We quantitatively describe biological robustness and present a system identification model on the basis of robustness performance. The identification problem is decomposed into two subproblems and a procedure is constructed to solve them. Numerical results show that it is most possible that both glycerol and 1,3-PD pass the cell membrane by active transport coupling with passive diffusion under substrate-sufficient conditions, whereas, under substrate-limited conditions, glycerol passes cell membrane by active transport coupling with passive diffusion and 1,3-PD by active transport.     

Large enhancement and uniform distribution of optical near field through combining periodic bowtie nanoantenna with rectangular nanoaperture array

We present a novel (to the best of our knowledge) composite nanostructure composed of bowtie nanoantennas (BNAs) and rectangular nanoapertures, which provides a new way to improve the ability of the nanostructure to enhance the optical near field and obtain uniform near-field distribution in the z direction. It is specifically engineered to not only confine the incident light in the nanoscale but also to generate large localized near-field enhancement about 25 times larger than that of solitary BNAs. It also shows a more uniform near-field distribution in the z direction than that of solitary BNAs. The mechanisms of the large enhancement and the uniform near field are also discussed.     

Optimal Contract Design of Supplier-Led Outsourcing Based on Pontryagin Maximum Principle

This paper provides a supplier-led outsourcing model to maximize the supplier’s profits based on a principal-agent framework with both asymmetric cost information and uncertain market demand information described by continuous random variables. The salvage value of the unsold product is processing-cost dependent. By converting the proposed model, which is a dynamic optimization problem, to an optimal control problem, we obtain the analytical form of the optimal supplier outsourcing contract composed of the wholesale price and the transfer payment by applying Pontryagin’s maximum principle. It is shown that the optimal contract is directly related to the supplier’s beliefs about the manufacturer’s unit cost and the salvage value function. The Pontryagin’s maximum principle-based solution method serves as a powerful tool to support the decision making for the best sourcing strategy, and it provides analytical insights for outsourcing management. Finally, numerical examples are presented to illustrate the validness of the theoretical results.     

In Situ Probing and Identification of Electrochemical Reaction Intermediates by Floating Electrolytic Electrospray Mass Spectrometry

The in-depth study of electrochemical (EC) synthesis can require a powerful mass spectrometry (MS) analytical platform which can discover and identify fleeting intermediates in EC reactions. Here we report a floating electrolytic electrospray ionization (FE-ESI) strategy that can perform EC processes in a floating electrolytic cell and monitor intermediates by high-resolution MS. Compared with previous EC-MS methods, a significant advantage of FE-ESI-MS is that it allows one to modulate the electrolytic and electrospray process individually, ensuring its high sensitivity in discovering intermediates and universality to investigate redox reactions in different scenarios. This powerful platform has been successfully used to investigate the EC reductive coupling of p-tolylboronic acid and p-nitrotoluene. A series of nitrene intermediates were discovered and identified by FE-ESI-MS, indicating that a hidden mechanism involving nitrene formation might play a key role in EC reductive coupling process.