Common Trends and Differences in Antioxidant Activity Analysis of Phenolic Substances Using Single Electron Transfer Based Assays

Numerous assays were developed to measure the antioxidant activity, but each has limitations and the results obtained by different methods are not always comparable. Popular examples are the DPPH and ABTS assay. Our aim was to study similarities and differences of these two assay regarding the measured antioxidant potentials of 24 phenolic compounds using the same measurement and evaluation methods. This should allow conclusions to be drawn as to whether one of the assays is more suitable for measuring specific subgroups like phenolic acids, flavonols, flavanones, dihydrochalcones or flavanols. The assays showed common trends for the mean values of most of the subgroups. Some dihydrochalcones and flavanones did not react with the DPPH radical in contrast to the ABTS radical, leading to significant differences. Therefore, to determine the antioxidant potential of dihydrochalcone or flavanone-rich extracts, the ABTS assay should be preferred. We found that the results of the flavonoids in the DPPH assay were dependent on the Bors criteria, whereas the structure–activity relationship in the ABTS assay was not clear. For the phenolic acids, the results in the ABTS assay were only high for pyrogallol structures, while the DPPH assay was mainly determined by the number of OH groups.     

Quantification of Volatile Aldehydes Deriving from In Vitro Lipid Peroxidation in the Breath of Ventilated Patients

Exhaled aliphatic aldehydes were proposed as non-invasive biomarkers to detect increased lipid peroxidation in various diseases. As a prelude to clinical application of the multicapillary column–ion mobility spectrometry for the evaluation of aldehyde exhalation, we, therefore: (1) identified the most abundant volatile aliphatic aldehydes originating from in vitro oxidation of various polyunsaturated fatty acids; (2) evaluated emittance of aldehydes from plastic parts of the breathing circuit; (3) conducted a pilot study for in vivo quantification of exhaled aldehydes in mechanically ventilated patients. Pentanal, hexanal, heptanal, and nonanal were quantifiable in the headspace of oxidizing polyunsaturated fatty acids, with pentanal and hexanal predominating. Plastic parts of the breathing circuit emitted hexanal, octanal, nonanal, and decanal, whereby nonanal and decanal were ubiquitous and pentanal or heptanal not being detected. Only pentanal was quantifiable in breath of mechanically ventilated surgical patients with a mean exhaled concentration of 13 ± 5 ppb. An explorative analysis suggested that pentanal exhalation is associated with mechanical power—a measure for the invasiveness of mechanical ventilation. In conclusion, exhaled pentanal is a promising non-invasive biomarker for lipid peroxidation inducing pathologies, and should be evaluated in future clinical studies, particularly for detection of lung injury.     

V掺杂ZnO透明导电薄膜研究

本文分别采用磁控溅射技术与基于密度泛函理论的平面波赝势方法两种方式, 对高价态差元素V掺杂ZnO薄膜进行研究. 实验研究结果表明: V的掺入并未改变ZnO的生长方式, 所制备的薄膜都呈(002)择优生长; 随着衬底温度增加, VZO薄膜的结晶质量逐步改善, 当衬底温度超过280 ℃时薄膜的结晶质量恶化; 在280 ℃时获得的VZO薄膜电阻率最低3.8×10^-3 Ω·m, 500-2000 nm平均透过率高于85%. 理论模拟结果表明: V以替位形式掺入ZnO六角纤锌矿晶格结构中, 费米能级进入导带, 材料表现出n 型半导体的特性, 导电电子主要由V 3d及O 2p电子轨道提供. 理论计算结果与实验结果的一致性, 表明VZO薄膜具有作为高效Si基薄膜太阳电池透明导电薄膜的应用潜力.     

Progress of Jinping Underground laboratory for Nuclear Astrophysics (JUNA)

Jinping Underground laboratory for Nuclear Astrophysics(JUNA) will take the advantage of the ultra-low background of CJPL lab and high current accelerator based on an ECR source and a highly sensitive detector to directly study for the first time a number of crucial reactions occurring at their relevant stellar energies during the evolution of hydrostatic stars. In its first phase, JUNA aims at the direct measurements of~(25)Mg(p,γ)~(26)Al,~(19)F(p,α)~(16)O,~(13)C(α,n)~(16)O and ~(12)C(α,γ)~(16)O reactions. The experimental setup,which includes an accelerator system with high stability and high intensity, a detector system, and a shielding material with low background, will be established during the above research. The current progress of JUNA will be given.     

Theory of swimming filaments in viscoelastic media

Motivated by our desire to understand the biophysical mechanisms underlying the swimming of sperm in the non-Newtonian fluids of the female mammalian reproductive tract, we examine the swimming of filaments in the nonlinear viscoelastic upper convected Maxwell model. We obtain the swimming velocity and hydrodynamic force exerted on an infinitely long cylinder with prescribed beating pattern. We use these results to examine the swimming of a simplified sliding-filament model for a sperm flagellum. Viscoelasticity tends to decrease swimming speed, and changes in the beating patterns due to viscoelasticity can reverse swimming direction.     

Interplay between spinodal decomposition and glass formation in proteins exhibiting short-range attractions

We investigate the competition between spinodal decomposition and dynamical arrest using aqueous solutions of the globular protein lysozyme as a model system for colloids with short-range attractions. We show that quenches below a temperature Ta lead to gel formation as a result of a local arrest of the protein-dense phase during spinodal decomposition. The rheological properties of these gels allow us to use centrifugation experiments to determine the local densities of both phases and to precisely locate the gel boundary and the attractive glass line close to and within the unstable region of the phase diagram.     

Crossover in the slow decay of dynamic correlations in the lorentz model

The long-time behavior of transport coefficients in a model for spatially heterogeneous media in two and three dimensions is investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. The behavior of the velocity autocorrelation function is rationalized in terms of a competition of the critical relaxation due to the underlying percolation transition and the hydrodynamic power-law anomalies. In two dimensions and in the absence of a diffusive mode, another power-law anomaly due to trapping is found with an exponent -3 instead of -2. Further, the logarithmic divergence of the Burnett coefficient is corroborated in the dilute limit; at finite density, however, it is dominated by stronger divergences.     

Long-lived mesoscopic entanglement outside the Lamb-Dicke regime

We create entangled states of the spin and motion of a single 40Ca+ ion in a linear ion trap. We theoretically study and experimentally observe the behavior outside the Lamb-Dicke regime, where the trajectory in phase space is modified and the motional coherent states become squeezed. We directly observe the modification of the return time of the trajectory, and infer the squeezing. The mesoscopic entanglement is observed up to Deltaalpha=5.1 with coherence time 170 micros and mean phonon excitation n = 16.     

Measurements of wave-breaking radiation from a laser-wakefield accelerator

Spectral analysis of radiation emitted transverse to laser propagation in laser-wakefield acceleration experiments shows broadband emission when electrons are accelerated to relativistic energies. The region over which emission occurs is short compared with the overall interaction length. The energy of the emission and location along the interaction length both vary with plasma density. A model for the radiation from self-trapped electrons indicates that the emission is a signature of the violent initial acceleration, and hence can be used as a diagnostic of the self-injection mechanism.