Comparative Quantum-Chemical Analysis of the Electronic Structures of the Valence Regions of Active Sites in Cytochromes f and c.

A comparative analysis of densities of states has been carried out for the valence regions of the hemes and clusters of cytochromes f and c using the ZINDO1 semiempirical quantum-chemical method. The molecular orbitals of these structures are formed from the p atomic orbitals of nitrogen and carbon of the porphyrin ring, making equal contributions. For systems with negative charges, more than half of all added electrons are distributed over the porphyrin parts of the molecules. The molecular orbital energies of the valence regions of the corresponding clusters and hemes are nearly the same. In iron porphyrin, as well as in heme f and cytochrome cluster f, the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital is doubly degenerate. In heme c and cytochrome cluster c, the degeneracy is lifted because of the asymmetry of the nearest aminoacid environment and substituents in the porphyrin ring.     

Kinetic study of thermal decomposition of CoOOH

The kinetics of the thermal decomposition of CoOOH powder has been studied isothermally in a temperature range of 260—310°C in air. The reaction was found to proceed by the advance of a two-dimensional reaction interface. The kinetics results indicate that there are two phases in the decomposition in this temperature range: up to 280°C with an activation energy E₁ = 34.75 kcal mol⁻¹ and above 280°C with E₂ = 18.91 kcal mol⁻¹. A reaction mechanism is proposed to account for these observations.     

Thermal stability of the amorphous system Ge20As14(SexS1−x)52I14

Results of thermal investigations of the amorphous five-component chalcogenide system Ge₂₀As₁₄(Se_xS_1?x)₅₂I₁₄ are presented. Differential thermal analysis (DTA), derivative differential thermal analysis (DDTA), and dilatometry were employed to determine the temperatures of softening and partial crystallization of the samples. Thermal treatment of the samples at 1000°C and recording of the corresponding thermogravimetric (TG) and derivative thermogravimetric (DTG) curves allowed an elucidation of the full mechanism of their decomposition, which proceeds via seven characteristic phase transitions.     

Potential energy surfaces of SimOn cluster formation and isomerization

The reaction paths for formation and isomerization of a set of silica SimOn (m = 2,3, n = 1-5) nanoclusters have been investigated using second-order perturbation theory (MP2) with the 6-31G(d) basis set. The MP2/6-31G(d) calculations have predicted singlet ground states for all clusters excluding Si3O2. The total energies of the most important points on the potential energy surfaces (PES) have been determined using the completely renormalized (CR) singles and doubles coupled cluster method including perturbative triples, CR-CCSD(T) with the cc-pVTZ basis set. Although transition states have been located for many isomerization reactions, only for Si3O3 and Si3O4 have some transition states been found for the formation of a cluster from the separated reactants. In all other cases, the process of formation of SimOn clusters appears to proceed without potential energy barriers.     

Nucleation from supersaturated water vapors onn-dodecane substrate: A reverse Wilson chamber (RWC) method study

The reverse Wilson chamber method (RWC), developed for heterogencous nucleation investigation is applied to critical supersaturation measurements and determination of the surface concentration of nuclei (droplets) vs. supersaturation dependence in the case of nucleation from supersaturated water vapors onn-dodecane substrate. The experimental results obtained are interpreted in terms of the classical (Volmer) theory of heterogeneous nucleation as well as in the framework of the theory of barrierless nucleation. The several times lower critical supersaturations measured at four different temperatures, covering the range between 20° and 35° C, are explained by taking into account the effect of the negative line tension of three-phase contact. The temperature dependence of line tension for the three-phase systemn-dodecane/water/water vapor is extracted from the data to fir the theory. The results obtained are in complete disagreement with those ones obtained by Wu and Maa for the same system using jet-tensimeter technique, however, in another temperature interval. This discrepancy is discussed in detail in the text.     

Endogenous synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy (SFS) of basal cell carcinoma-initial study

The human skin is a complex, multilayered and inhomogeneous organ with spatially varying optical properties. Analysis of cutaneous fluorescence spectra could be a very complicated task; therefore researchers apply complex mathematical tools for data evaluation, or try to find some specific approaches, that would simplify the spectral analysis. Synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy (SFS) allows improving the spectral resolution, which could be useful for the biological tissue fluorescence characterization and could increase the tumour detection diagnostic accuracy.     

Non-equilibrium viscosity and activation energy

This article considers the break in viscosity curves that appears in the glass transition region. It demonstrates that the only possibility to interpret properly the break within the frameworks of the activation energy theory is to assume that at least several independent processes are taking place. Single process cannot explain the break. This assumption was already developed in details in the jump frequency model of Avramov and Milchev.     

Investigation of relations between skin cancer lesions’ images and their fluorescent spectra

This investigation is based on images obtained from healthy tissue and skin cancer lesions and their fluorescent spectra of cutaneous lesions derived after optical stimulation. Our analyses show that the lesions’ spectra of are different of those, obtained from normal tissue and the differences depend on the type of cancer. We use a comparison between these “healthy” and “unhealthy” spectra to define forms of variations and corresponding diseases. However, the value of the emitted light varies not only between the patients, but also depending on the position of the tested area inside of one lesion. These variations could be result from two reasons: different degree of damaging and different thickness of the suspicious lesion area. Regarded to the visible image of the lesion, it could be connected with the chroma of colour of the tested area and the lesion homogeneity that corresponds to particular disease. For our investigation, images and spectra of three non-melanoma cutanous malignant tumors are investigated, namely—basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and keratoacanthoma. The images were processed obtaining the chroma by elimination of the background—healthy tissue, and applying it as a basic signal for transformation from RGB to Lab colorimetric model. The chroma of the areas of emission is compared with the relative value of fluorescence spectra. Specific spectral features are used to develop hybrid diagnostic algorithm (including image and spectral features) for differentiation of these three kinds of malignant cutaneous pathologies.     

Bias voltage dependence of tunneling magnetoresistance in granular C60–Co films with current-perpendicular-to-plane geometry

Voltage-dependence of the tunneling magnetoresistance effect in the granular C₆₀–Co films has been investigated for the samples with the current-perpendicular-to-plane geometry. The transport measurements under this geometry demonstrate that the granular C₆₀–Co films show an unusual exponential bias voltage dependence of the magnetoresistance ratio down to zero voltage. Small characteristic energies of less than 10's meV are derived from the temperature dependences of the characteristic voltage in the exponential relationship. Considering the magnitudes of the voltage drop between Co nanoparticles and also the effect of cotunneling on the energy values, the characteristic energies for the voltage-induced degradation of the spin polarization are found to show a satisfactory agreement with that for the thermally-induced one. It can be reasonably expected that the onset of magnetic disorder to the localized d-electron spins at the interface region of the C₆₀-based matrix (C₆₀–Co compound) with Co nanoparticles leading to the unusual voltage and temperature dependence of the magnetoresistance ratio and the spin polarization at low temperatures.