Antibacterial effect of silver nanoparticles deposited on corona‐treated polyester and polyamide fabrics

The possibility of using a corona treatment (electrical discharge at atmospheric pressure) for fiber surface activation, which can facilitate the loading of silver nanoparticles (NPs) from colloids onto the polyester (PES) and polyamide (PA) fabrics and thus improve their antibacterial properties, was studied. Bactericidal efficiency and its laundering durability on silver‐loaded fabrics for Gram‐positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus and Gram‐negative bacterium Escherichia coli were evaluated. The fiber morphology after corona treatment and subsequent loading of silver NPs was followed by SEM. Corona‐treated fabrics loaded with silver NPs exhibited better antibacterial properties in comparison with untreated fabrics. In order to obtain acceptable laundering durability, it is necessary to use highly concentrated silver colloids. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Design of branched and chiral solvatochromic probes: toward quantifying polarity gradients in dendritic macromolecules

[reaction: see text] A pair of chiral, branched monomer building blocks, consisting of a solvatochromic probe and a spectroscopically inactive volume dummy, has been developed. The probe can selectively be excited, and its fluorescence characteristics provide information about local polarity. Incorporation of these monomers into high-generation polyester dendrimers should enable a detailed investigation of the polarity/density profile in dendritic architectures and ultimately allow for the realization of energy gradients from one chromophore building block only.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">SU</Emphasis>(3)-Instantons and <Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis><Subscript>2</Subscript>,<Emphasis Type="Italic">Spin</Emphasis>(7)-Heterotic String Solitons

Necessary and sufficient conditions to the existence of a hermitian connection with totally skew-symmetric torsion and holonomy contained in SU(3) are given. A formula for the Riemannian scalar curvature is obtained. Non-compact solution to the supergravity-type I equations of motion with non-zero flux and non-constant dilaton is found in dimension 6. Non-conformally flat non-compact solutions to the supergravity-type I equations of motion with non-zero flux and non-constant dilaton are found in dimensions 7 and 8. A Riemannian metric with holonomy contained in G₂ arises from our considerations and Hitchin’s flow equations, which seems to be new. Compact examples of SU(3),G₂ and Spin(7) instanton satisfying the anomaly cancellation conditions are presented.     

Simplified batch equilibration for D/H determination of non‐exchangeable hydrogen in solid organic material

Hydrogen isotopic analysis of organic materials has been widely applied in studies of paleoclimate, animal migration, forensics, food and flavor authentication, and the origin and diagenesis of organic matter. Hydrogen bound to carbon (C‐H) generally retains isotopic information about the water present during organic matter synthesis and associated biosynthetic fractionations, but hydrogen bound to other elements (O, S, or N) can readily exchange with atmospheric water vapor and reflects recent exposure to water or vapor. These two pools must be separated to obtain meaningful information from isotope ratios of organic materials. Previously published analytical methods either replace exchangeable H chemically or control its isotopic composition, usually by equilibration with water or waters of known isotopic composition. In addition, the fraction of H that is exchangeable can vary among samples and is itself of scientific interest. Here we report an improved and automated double‐equilibration approach. Samples are loaded in a 50‐position autosampler carousel in an air‐tight aluminum equilibration chamber. Water vapor of known isotopic composition is pumped through the chamber at 115°C for at least 6 h. After flushing with dry N₂ and being cooled, the carousel is rapidly transferred from the equilibration chamber to a He‐purged autosampler attached to a pyrolysis elemental analyzer connected to an isotope ratio mass spectrometer. By equilibrating two aliquots of each sample with two isotopically distinct waters, it is possible to calculate both (1) the D/H ratio of non‐exchangeable H, and (2) the fraction of H that is exchangeable. Relative to previous double‐equilibration techniques, this approach offers significant reductions in sample size and labor by allowing simultaneous equilibration of several tens of samples. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gaussian interval quadrature formula

Summary. We prove the existence of a Gaussian quadrature formula for Tchebycheff systems, based on integrals over non-overlapping subintervals of arbitrary fixed lengths and the uniqueness of this formula in the case the subintervals have equal lengths. Received July 6, 1999 / Published online August 24, 2000     

Recent trends in image evaluation of HPTLC chromatograms

Abstract

In the current article, an overview of recent applications and opportunities of image evaluation of high-performance thin-layer chromatograms (HPTLC) in food analysis and natural product research is presented. The article shortly covers the aspects of specialized software packages for image analysis, image post-correction, signal acquisition, and preprocessing. Contemporary aspects of image-based HPTLC fingerprinting, quantification of target compounds, and advanced chemometric modeling were reviewed. Special attention was dedicated to freely available software packages. Advantages and disadvantages of each one were discussed in terms of abilities to obtain chromatographic profiles and perform crucial steps in signal manipulation, such as background subtraction, denoising, and background detrending. The most frequently applied techniques for signal manipulation have been discussed and recommendation provided. In that sense, the article aims to provide a valuable guideline for readers dealing with the application of HPTLC image analysis in food and natural products research, especially in connection with the most frequently used chemometric techniques, in domains of pattern recognition, classification, and regression.     

Solutions of mKdV in Classes of Functions Unbounded at Infinity

Using P. Lax’s concept of a Lax pair we prove global existence and uniqueness for solutions of the initial value problem for mKdV in classes of smooth functions which can be unbounded at infinity, and in particular, may tend to infinity with respect to the space variable. Moreover, we establish the invariance of the spectrum and the unitary type of the Schrödinger operator under the KdV flow and the invariance of the spectrum and the unitary type of the impedance operator under the mKdV flow for potentials in these classes.     

Sharp Riesz-Fejér Inequality for Harmonic Hardy Spaces

Potential Analysis - We prove sharp version of Riesz-Fejér inequality for functions in harmonic Hardy space $h^{p}(\mathbb {D})$ on the unit disk $\mathbb {D}$ , for p &gt;?1, thus...