Portable capillary electrophoresis system for identification of cattle breeds based on DNA mobility

A portable CE system was developed for the identification of cattle breeds. The system had a width of 44 cm, depth of 27 cm, height of 13 cm, and a weight of only ∼8 kg and included an LIF detector, with everything integrated into a small box. The specific sizes of genes were quickly separated and detected with a high sensitivity based on the difference in the DNA mobility using a diode‐pumped solid‐state LIF detector. Using this system, the 100‐bp DNA ladder was analyzed under a 1.0% PVP (M_r=300 000) sieving gel matrix in a fused silica capillary with LODs of 4.4–13.0 pg/μL (S/N=3) for 100–3000 bp DNAs, which indicates ten times improved value than other commercialized portable CE system. The migration times and the peak areas showed good reproducibilities with relative standard deviations that were less than 0.49 and 1.3% (n=5), respectively. Based on the difference in the DNA mobility of the microsatellite and SNP markers, Korean cattle and Holstein were exactly identified as the model cattle breeds within 32 and 3.5 min, respectively.     

Towards the experimental clarification of quarkonium polarization

We highlight issues which are often underestimated in the experimental analyses on quarkonium polarization: the relation between the parameters of the angular distributions and the angular momentum composition of the quarkonium, the importance of the choice of the reference frame, the interplay between observed decay and production kinematics, and the consequent influence of the experimental acceptance on the comparison between experimental measurements and theoretical calculations. Given the puzzles raised by the available experimental results, new measurements must provide more detailed information, such that physical conclusions can be derived without relying on model-dependent assumptions. We describe a frame-invariant formalism which minimizes the dependence of the measurements on the experimental acceptance, facilitates the comparison with theoretical calculations, and probes systematic effects due to experimental biases. This formalism is a direct and generic consequence of the rotational invariance of the dilepton decay distribution and is independent of any assumptions specific to particular models of quarkonium production. The use of this improved approach, which exploits the intrinsic multidimensionality of the problem, will significantly contribute to a faster progress in our understanding of quarkonium production, especially if adopted as a common analysis framework by the LHC experiments, which will soon perform analyses of quarkonium polarization in proton-proton collisions.     

Optimization of surface coating condition using vapor form of alkanethiol on Cu nano powders for the application of oxidation prevention

There has been a growing interest in metal nano powders recently, and researches on Copper (Cu) nano particles are actively pursued due to its good electrical conductivity and its low prices. However, its easiness to oxidation and corrosion has delayed its research progress in Cu nano particles to be applied in inkjet printed electronics and other related research area. To overcome these problems, new surface coating method on Cu nano particles has been developed using dry process instead of conventional wet coating method. Octanethiol was used as a dry coating material because it has sulfur at the end of monolayer to chemically bond to the surface of fresh non-oxidized Cu nano particles to prevent oxidation. Octanethiol does not bond to oxidized surface of Cu nano particles. Previously, bonding between octanethiol and Cu nano particles, more specifically bonding between Cu surface and Sulfur (S) was analyzed using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). As a result, S peak was detected on the coated Cu nano particles, indicating that octanethiol chain has been successfully coated on the surface of Cu nano particles.In this study, optimization of dry coating condition was studied by varying coating time and cycles. XPS was used to analyze the composition of coated material to monitor the change in amount of S and O peaks for each condition. It was found that as the amount of Sulfur increased, the amount of Oxygen decreased and vice versa. This finding indicates that dry coating has suppressed the formation of oxygen on the surface of Cu nano powders by surrounding Cu surface with Sulfur end of octanethiol chain. Based on these experiments, the optimum coating condition for suppressing Cu oxidation was found to be 5 min and 6 cycles. For future work, the lifetime of octanethiol layer on the surface of Cu surface needs to be studied.     

Investigation of the breakdown temperature in capillary discharge plasmas

We developed a simple way to estimate the breakdown temperature Tb of plasma electrons in a capillary, which is based on measurement of the electrical breakdown voltage Vb. The result shows that the breakdown temperature Tb decreases with increasing pressure. The thermal equilibrium electron temperature Te in the capillary plasma after the electrical discharge is also measured by using the optical emission spectroscopy method.     

High power LiCoO2 cathode materials with ultra energy density for Li-ion cells

Hydrothermally prepared 100 nm-sized LiCoO₂ with a plate morphology packed in a crucible resulted in 40 μm-sized particles that consisted of aggregated < 1 micron-sized particles after annealing at 900 °C for 3 h. In the condition where the optimized electrode pore volume was 20%, 4.1 g/cc of electrode density was obtained, which corresponded to 3 Wh/cc, which is the highest value among the cathode materials. Furthermore, the LiCoO₂ showed excellent capacity retention of 78% after 290 cycles in a Li-ion cell under 7 C rate cycling.     

Development of a multiresidue method for the determination of multiclass pesticides in soil using GC

The principal objective of the present study was to develop a multiresidue analytical method for 62 pesticides in a soil matrix. Soil samples were fortified with known quantities of pesticides at two different concentration levels (0.1 and 0.01 μg/g) and the analytes were extracted via a liquid–solid extraction method. The pesticides were separated on an HP5 capillary column and were detected by gas chromatography coupled to an electron capture detector (GC‐ECD). The method was validated, considering its good linearities (r² = 0.978–0.999), specificity and recovery characteristics. Recoveries were found between 70.3 and 113.4% for all pesticides except edifenphos (67.5%) and dichlobenil (69.5%) spiked at a 0.1 μg/mL concentration level and 74.5–117% except ethalfluralin (63.3%) and dichlobenil (51.9%) spiked at a concentration of 0.01 μg/mL. The developed method could be utilized as a simple and cost‐effective method for the routine analysis of 62 pesticides in soil samples. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.