Screening and determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in seafoods using QuEChERS-based extraction and high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection

A rapid, sensitive, and accurate method for the screening and determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in edible seafood is described. The method uses quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS)-based extraction and HPLC with fluorescence detection (FLD). The method was developed and validated in response to the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Rapid and highly sensitive PAH screening methods are critical tools needed for oil spill response; they help to assess when seafood is safe for harvesting and consumption. Sample preparation involves SPE of edible seafood portions with acetonitrile, followed by the addition of salts to induce water partitioning. After centrifugation, a portion of the acetonitrile layer is filtered prior to analysis via HPLC-FLD. The chromatographic method uses a polymeric C18 stationary phase designed for PAH analysis with gradient elution, and it resolves 15 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency priority parent PAHs in fewer than 20 min. The procedure was validated in three laboratories for the parent PAHs using spike recovery experiments at PAH fortification levels ranging from 25 to 10 000 microg/kg in oysters, shrimp, crab, and finfish, with recoveries ranging from 78 to 99%. Additional validation was conducted for a series of alkylated homologs of naphthalene, dibenzothiophene, and phenanthrene, with recoveries ranging from 87 to 128%. Method accuracy was further assessed based on analysis of National Institute of Standards and Technology Standard Reference Material 1974b. The method provides method detection limits in the sub to low ppb (microg/kg) range, and practical LOQs in the low ppb (microg/kg) range for most of the PAH compounds studied.     

Modified LACIF filtering in background disjoint noise

This work deals with pattern recognition methods based on correlations for images in the presence of noise. We propose a modification of the nonlinear Locally Adaptive Contrast Invariant Filter (LACIF) that yields correlation peaks that are invariant to linear intensity changes of the target but that has some limitations in the presence low variance nonoverlapping background noise. The modification of the filter implies a normalization by a global variance of several distributions. The estimation of the variance distributions is done locally by means of correlations. Experimental results as well as comparisons with the classical matched filter and the common LACIF are given.     

Towards photonic ink (P-ink): a polychrome,fast response metallopolymer gel photonic crystal device

We demonstrate here a new kind of planarized and oriented colloidal photonic crystal device whose optical stop-band position, width and intensity can be reversibly redox and solvent tuned over a broad wavelength range by an anisotropic expansion of the photonic lattice. The material is composed of silica microspheres in a matrix of crosslinked polyferrocenylsilane^[1], a metallopolymer network with a continuously variable state of oxidation^[2]. Optical data was fitted using a scalar wave approximation, with a congruence to experimental data, allowing facile extraction of information concerning polymer swelling behaviour. The chemomechanical polychrome optical response of the material was exceptionally fast, attaining its fully swollen state from the dry shrunken state on a sub-second time-scale.