Photostablity and amplified spontaneous emission in dye-activated new organic-inorganic hybrid material

This paper reports on the lasing action of some dyes (pyrromethene 597, pyrromethene 567 and Rhodamin B) incorporated into a new organic-inorganic hybrid material. The amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) was studied under 532 nm, laser excitation in transverse pumping configuration for the prepared rod samples. The influence of the dye concentration on the amplified spontaneous emission peak wavelengths, the output energies, the gain and the energy conversion efficiencies were studied. Relatively high efficiencies (up to ∼64%) were obtained with good photostabilities where a decrease to ∼30% of the initial amplified spontaneous emission output energy were observed after pumping by 60,000 shots at relatively high repetition rate (10 Hz) and energy (15 mJ).     

Proteomic analysis of pancreatic ductal carcinoma cells treated with 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine

A pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell line (PaCa44), which contains, among other alterations, a methylated p16 promoter, was treated with a chemoterapeutic agent, 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine (DAC), in order to evaluate the effect of this drug on cell growth and protein expression. Cell proliferation was strongly inhibited by a 24 h DAC treatment and this inhibition lasted for at least 10 days. Master maps of control and treated PaCa44 cells were generated by analysis with the PDQuest software. The comparison between such maps showed up- and downregulation of 45 polypeptide chains, of which 32 were downregulated and 13 upregulated, out of a total of 700 spots detected by a medium-sensitivity stain, micellar Coomassie Brilliant Blue. Fingerprinting by mass spectrometry analysis enabled the identification of 36 of these spots. Among the major changes in DAC-treated cells: cofilin and profilin 1 are silenced; coactosin, peptidyl-propyl cis-trans isomerase A and cystatin B are decreased by 22, 16- and 15-fold, respectively; stress-70 protein, superoxide dismutase and protein disulfide isomerase A3 are increased by 13-, 11-, and 5-fold, respectively. The significance of some of these major changes is discussed.     

Investigating the reaction of a number of gel electrophoresis cross-linkers with beta-lactoglobulin by matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry

A number of cross-linkers that are commonly used in polyacrylamide gels have been incubated with bovine beta-lactoglobulin B and the resulting reaction mixtures were examined by matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry. At concentrations of 0.1, 1, and 20 mM of each cross-linker incubated for 1 h with 50 pmol/microL of the protein, a reactivity scale can be expressed as polyethylene glycol diacrylate > N,N'-bisacrylylcystamine > bisacrylyl piperazine > N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide > N,N'-diallyltartardiamide (PEGDA>BAC>BAP>Bis>DATD). Relatively short incubation times indicated one of the five Cys residues as the target of reaction, which was confirmed by post-source decay measurements. Longer incubation times (24 h) with bisacrylamide extended the reaction to all five Cys residues and a number of Lys residues. A second consequence of longer reaction time is the involvement of both terminals of the cross-linker in the observed reaction. This experimental evidence is the first to demonstrate a different reactivity of both ends of one of the most commonly used cross-linkers. Investigation of solutions containing a cross-linker and acrylamide monomers provided useful information on the competition between the two identities for reaction with the protein. Possible implications of these experimental observations for isoelectric focusing separations in polyacrylamide gels are discussed.     

Understanding and tuning the catalytic bias of hydrogenase

When enzymes are optimized for biotechnological purposes, the goal often is to increase stability or catalytic efficiency. However, many enzymes reversibly convert their substrate and product, and if one is interested in catalysis in only one direction, it may be necessary to prevent the reverse reaction. In other cases, reversibility may be advantageous because only an enzyme that can operate in both directions can turnover at a high rate even under conditions of low thermodynamic driving force. Therefore, understanding the basic mechanisms of reversibility in complex enzymes should help the rational engineering of these proteins. Here, we focus on NiFe hydrogenase, an enzyme that catalyzes H(2) oxidation and production, and we elucidate the mechanism that governs the catalytic bias (the ratio of maximal rates in the two directions). Unexpectedly, we found that this bias is not mainly determined by redox properties of the active site, but rather by steps which occur on sites of the proteins that are remote from the active site. We evidence a novel strategy for tuning the catalytic bias of an oxidoreductase, which consists in modulating the rate of a step that is limiting only in one direction of the reaction, without modifying the properties of the active site.     

Theoretical calculation of the low-lying sextet electronic states of CrF molecule

The potential energy curves have been investigated for the 12 lowest sextet electronic states in the ^2s+1Λ^(±)${}^{2s+1}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{(\pm )}$ representation below 53,000 cm⁻¹ of the molecule CrF via CASSCF and MRCI (single and double excitation with Davidson correction) calculations. Seven electronic states have been studied theoretically for the first time. The harmonic frequency ω_e, the internuclear distance R_e, the rotational constant B_e, the electronic energy with respect to the ground state T_e, and the permanent dipole moment μ have been calculated. By using the canonical functions approach, the eigenvalues E_v, the rotational constant B_v and the abscissas of the turning points R_min and R_max have been calculated for the considered electronic states up to the vibrational level v = 39. The comparison of these values to the theoretical and experimental results available in the literature shows a good agreement.     

Modeling and study of dynamic performance of a valveless micropump

This work presents an approximate nonlinear analytical model for the problem of fluid-structural interaction in a valveless micropump. The model is constructed using the lumped-mass approach and takes into account the inertial force and time variation of mass density of the working fluid within the micropump chamber, pressure viscous losses of the flow through the diffuser/nozzle elements and the structural geometric nonlinearity due to the membrane mid-plane stretching. It consists of a set of coupled partial integro-differential equations which is reduced to a third order nonlinear coupled fluid-plate vibration equation by using the assumed mode method to approximate the plate dynamic deflection. An approximate analytical solution for the nonlinear vibration model is carried out using the harmonic balance method and is used to investigate the effect of various system parameters on the performance of the micropump. The obtained model and approximate analytical results are compared with those available in the open literature. The approximate analytical results show that, depending on the micropump physical parameters and membrane driving frequency, the working fluid stiffness, which arise in the present model as a result of taking into account the variation of the fluid density with time, and the membrane geometric nonlinearity can have significant effects on the predicted micropump performance and can lead to a complex nonlinear dynamic behavior. The accuracy of these results is subject to a future numerical validation of the presented approximate theoretical model.     

Filling an area discretely and continuously

The literature dealing with student understanding of integration in general and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus in particular suggests that although students can integrate properly, they understand little about the process that leads to the definite integral. The definite integral is naturally connected to the antiderivative, the area under the curve and the limit of Riemann sums; these three conceptualizations of the definite integral are useful in different contexts and provide students with what it takes to interpret the definite integrals. Research shows that students rarely invoke the multiplicatively-based summation conception of the definite integral although it is essential for evaluating line integrals, surface integrals and volumes. This paper describes a teaching module that promotes understanding as well as activating all three conceptualizations of the definite integral through motivating the accumulation area function and the results in the Fundamental Theorems of Calculus.