Interlaboratory study of the Charm ROSA Safe Level Aflatoxin M1 Quantitative lateral flow test for raw bovine milk

An interlaboratory study of 21 public health, state agriculture, and industry laboratories in the United States tested raw commingled bovine milk containing aflatoxin M1 using the Charm Rapid One Step Assay (ROSA) Safe Level Aflatoxin M1 Quantitative lateral flow method. Blind coded sample pairs were fortified with 0, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500, and 550 parts per trillion (ppt) aflatoxin M1. A ROSA reader quantitatively interpreted test strips with ppt readings. Readings < or = 400 ppt were interpreted as negative, and readings >400 ppt were interpreted as positive. Initial positive samples were subsequently assayed 2 additional times. If both retest results were >400 ppt, the sample was called positive/ actionable relative to U.S. and Codex levels, 500 ppt. The concentration of 400 ppt was chosen for the positive/negative interpretation to provide 90% sensitivity with 95% confidence at the 500 ppt legislative level. The combined false negative rate was <5% (4 of 83) for samples at 500 and 550 ppt. The false violatives at 0, 300, 350, 400, and 450 ppt (n = 42 at each level) were 0, 0, 21, 14, and 93%, respectively. The 90% positive concentration with 95% confidence was 503 ppt by probit analysis. The average intralaboratory repeatability was 11% and average interlaboratory reproducibility was 13% for the fortified sample pairs. High-performance liquid chromatography analysis of the study samples by 5 laboratories showed 38% false negatives with the 500 and 550 ppt samples, and a 0% false-violative rate with samples less than the 500 ppt action level.     

Experimental and theoretical investigation on the microstructure of aluminum alloys during extrusion

The purpose of this work is the investigation of the material behavior of aluminum alloys during extrusion and cooling. In particular, the alloys of the 6000 series (Al–Mg–Si) and 7000 series (Al–Zn–Mg) are relevant here. Under the corresponding conditions, their behavior is controlled mainly by dynamic recovery during the extrusion and static recrystallization during cooling. For the development of a suitable material model EBSD measurements are done on different parts of an extruded Al6060 specimen. For this sample a microstructure picture is generated and a statistical analysis is performed. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Thermodynamic model formulation for viscoplastic solids as general equations for non-equilibrium reversible–irreversible coupling

Thermodynamic models for viscoplastic solids are often formulated in the context of continuum thermodynamics and the dissipation principle. The purpose of the current work is to show that models for such material behavior can also be formulated in the form of a General Equation for Non-Equilibrium Reversible–Irreversible Coupling (GENERIC), see, e.g., Grmela and Öttinger (Phys Rev E, 56:6620–6632, 1997), Öttinger and Grmela (Phys Rev E, 56:6633–6655, 1997), Grmela (J Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech, 165:980–986, 2010). A GENERIC combines Hamiltonian-dynamics-based modeling of time-reversible processes with Onsager–Casimir-based modeling of time-irreversible processes. The result is a model for the approach of non-equilibrium systems to thermodynamic equilibrium. Originally developed to model complex fluids, it has recently been applied to anisotropic inelastic solids in Eulerian (Hütter and Tervoort, in J Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech, 152:45–52, 2008; Hütter and Tervoort, in J Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech, 152:53–65, 2008; Hütter and Tervoort, in Adv Appl Mech, 42:254–317, 2008) and Lagrangian (Hütter and Svendsen, in J Elast 104:357–368, 2011) settings, as well as to damage mechanics. For simplicity, attention is focused in the current work on the case of thermoelastic viscoplasticity. Central to this formulation is a GENERIC-based form for the viscoplastic flow rule. A detailed comparison with the formulation based on continuum thermodynamics and the dissipation principle is given.     

Observation of Light Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid Migration in Aggregated Soil Using Image Analysis

Physical model experiments were conducted to observe the migration of light non-aqueous phase liquids (LNAPL) in a double-porosity soil medium. The double-porosity characteristics of the soil were simulated through aggregation of kaolin which resulted in well-defined intra-aggregate and inter-aggregate pores. Digital images were collected to monitor LNAPL (modeled by toluene) migration. A special experimental setup was developed to enable the instantaneous capture of the LNAPL migration around the whole soil column using a single digital camera. An image processing module was applied to the captured images and the results plotted using a surface mapping programme. Events observed during the duration of the experiments were discussed. It was found that the LNAPL flowed much faster in the aggregated soil as compared to a single-porosity soil. The wettability of the fluid and the capillary pressure characteristics were demonstrated to be influential factors in immiscible fluids migration when the soil fabric showed highly contrasting porosity values.     

Thermodynamic and critical properties of an antiferromagnetically stacked triangular Ising antiferromagnet in a field

We study a stacked triangular lattice Ising model with both intra- and inter-plane antiferromagnetic interactions in a field, by Monte Carlo simulation. We find only one phase transition from a paramagnetic to a partially disordered phase, which is of second order and 3D XY universality class. At low temperatures we identify two highly degenerate phases: at smaller (larger) fields the system shows long-range ordering in the stacking direction (within planes) but not in the planes (stacking direction). Nevertheless, crossovers to these phases do not have a character of conventional phase transitions but rather linear-chain-like excitations.     

Application of proteomics to hordein screening in the malting process

This study was undertaken to investigate the effect of the malting process on hordein composition. For this purpose, combination of sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) and the method of isotopic peptides labeling iTRAQ was used. Barley proteins are essential components determining the quality of both malt and beer. Since hordeins represent the most abundant proteins accounting for about 40-50% of total protein fraction of mature barley grain, our research was focused on them. In this respect, the proteins of interest were extracted from milled samples of barley grain, germinated barley grain (samples collected at different time intervals), green malt and malt, respectively. Particular hordein extracts were firstly fractionated via SDS- PAGE, which was used as a relatively rapid and reliable technique providing information about hordein profile of analyzed samples. Then, separated proteins were in-gel digested and resulting peptides were measured by mass spectrometry. In addition, the chosen proteins, after in-gel digestion, were subjected to the iTRAQ method and the screening of proteins during malting process was evaluated. Our results have revealed that most of the hordein components present in the barley grain can be found in all stages of the malting process as well as in the final malt. The amount of hordeins decreases during the malting process; in the case of C hordein, the protein decrease is approximately 65%. On the other hand, significant degradation of D hordein was detected. The suggested procedure can be used to follow the development of the hordein profile during germination, which is of great technological importance in beer production.     

Ghost circles in lattice Aubry–Mather theory

Monotone lattice recurrence relations such as the Frenkel–Kontorova lattice, arise in Hamiltonian lattice mechanics, as models for ferromagnetism and as discretization of elliptic PDEs. Mathematically, they are a multi-dimensional counterpart of monotone twist maps.Such recurrence relations often admit a variational structure, so that the solutions $x:{\mathbb{Z}}^d\to \mathbb{R}$ are the stationary points of a formal action function $W(x)$. Given any rotation vector $\omega \in {\mathbb{R}}^d$, classical Aubry–Mather theory establishes the existence of a large collection of solutions of $\mathrm{?}W(x)=0$ of rotation vector ω. For irrational ω, this is the well-known Aubry–Mather set. It consists of global minimizers and it may have gaps.In this paper, we study the parabolic gradient flow $\frac{dx}{dt}=?\mathrm{?}W(x)$ and we will prove that every Aubry–Mather set can be interpolated by a continuous gradient-flow invariant family, the so-called ‘ghost circle’. The existence of these ghost circles is known in dimension $d=1$, for rational rotation vectors and Morse action functions. The main technical result of this paper is therefore a compactness theorem for lattice ghost circles, based on a parabolic Harnack inequality for the gradient flow. This implies the existence of lattice ghost circles of arbitrary rotation vectors and for arbitrary actions.As a consequence, we can give a simple proof of the fact that when an Aubry–Mather set has a gap, then this gap must be filled with minimizers, or contain a non-minimizing solution.     

Sedimentation equilibria of ferrofluids: II. Experimental osmotic equations of state of magnetite colloids

The first experimental osmotic equation of state is reported for well-defined magnetic colloids that interact via a dipolar hard-sphere potential. The osmotic pressures are determined from the sedimentation equilibrium concentration profiles in ultrathin capillaries using a low-velocity analytical centrifuge, which is the subject of the accompanying paper I. The pressures of the magnetic colloids, measured accurately to values as low as a few pascals, obey Van 't Hoff's law at low concentrations, whereas at increasing colloid densities non-ideality appears in the form of a negative second virial coefficient. This virial coefficient corresponds to a dipolar coupling constant that agrees with the coupling constant obtained via independent magnetization measurements. The coupling constant manifests an attractive potential of mean force that is significant but yet not quite strong enough to induce dipolar chain formation. Our results disprove van der Waals-like phase behavior of dipolar particles for reasons that are explained.     

Random benzotrithiophene-based donor-acceptor copolymers for efficient organic photovoltaic devices

A series of benzotrithiophene-containing random terpolymers for polymer solar cells is reported. Through variations of the two other components in the terpolymers, the absorption profile and the frontier energy levels are optimized and maximum power conversion efficiencies are nearly doubled (5.14%) relative to the parent alternating copolymer.     

Synthesis of novel thieno[3,2-b]thienobis(silolothiophene) based low bandgap polymers for organic photovoltaics

Thieno[3,2-b]thienobis(silolothiophene), a new electron rich hexacyclic monomer has been synthesized and incorporated into three novel donor-acceptor low-bandgap polymers. By carefully choosing the acceptor co-monomer, the energy levels of the polymers could be modulated and high power conversion efficiencies of 5.52% were reached in OPV devices.