Reactive surface micropatterning by wet stamping

Hydrogel stamps are used to reactively micropattern various types of substrates. The method, called reactive wet stamping (r-WETS), is general in nature and overcomes several limitations of conventional soft-lithographic techniques. Illustrative applications of r-WETS in surface wettability modification, deposition of metallic microstructures, preparation of supports for electrostatic self-assembly, and multistep reactive patterning are discussed.     

Combined solid-phase extraction and 2D LC–MS for characterization of the neuropeptides in rat-brain tissue

A comprehensive two-dimensional capillary liquid chromatographic (2D LC) method has been established for determination of neuropeptides in rat brain tissue. Rats were exposed to different levels of stress before sacrificing and the aim of this study was to design a powerful separation and detection technique capable of characterizing differences between cerebral neuropeptide expression as a function of stress level. Rat brain samples were homogenized and subjected to clean-up by solid-phase extraction (SPE) on both a reversed-phase (C₁₈) and a weak cation-exchange (CBA) cartridge. The samples were divided in two fractions (A and B) depending on retention on the CBA column. Subsequently, 50 L of the sample were injected on to a strong cation exchanger (SCX) at a mobile phase pH of 3, which enabled preconcentration of positively charged compounds. The trapped compounds were eluted using step gradients of ammonium formate in water–ACN (90:10, v/v). Before enrichment in the second dimension, the eluate from the first dimension was diluted with water containing 0.1% TFA. The compounds eluting from the first dimension were trapped in the second dimension using a dual precolumn system consisting of two short capillary columns packed with Kromasil C₁₈, 10 m particles. Subsequently, the trapped compounds were backflushed on to a 10 cm long, 320 m I.D. analytical column packed with Kromasil C₁₈ 3.5 m particles, on which they were efficiently separated. Detection was performed using an ion-trap mass spectrometer (ITMS) in both the MS and the MS–MS mode. Comparison of base-peak chromatograms (BPC) from MS analysis of stressed and non-stressed rats clearly revealed several differences in neuropeptide expression. The MS–MS data obtained combined with Mascot software were employed for peptide identification.     

Adhesion of membranes with active stickers

We consider a theoretical model for membranes with adhesive receptors, or stickers, that are actively switched between two conformational states. In their "on" state, the stickers bind to ligands in an apposing membrane, whereas they do not interact with the ligands in their "off" state. We show that the adhesiveness of the membranes depends sensitively on the rates of the conformational switching process. This dependence is reflected in a resonance at intermediate switching rates, which can lead to large membrane separations and unbinding. Our results may provide insights into novel mechanisms for the controlled adhesion of biological or biomimetic membranes.     

Dynamic thermoviscoelastic thermistor problem with contact and nonmonotone friction

Abstract

The paper studies the evolution of the thermomechanical and electric state of a thermoviscoelastic thermistor that is in frictional contact with a reactive foundation. The mechanical process is dynamic, while the electric process is quasistatic. Friction is modeled with a nonmonotone relation between the tangential traction and tangential velocity. Frictional heat generation is taken into account and so is the strong dependence of the electric conductivity on the temperature. The mathematical model for the process is in the form of a system that consists of dynamic hyperbolic subdifferential inclusion for the mechanical state coupled with a nonlinear parabolic equation for the temperature and an elliptic equation for the electric potential. The paper establishes the existence of a weak solution to the problem by using time delays, a priori estimates and a convergence method.     

Littlewood–Paley Theory for Triangle Buildings

For the natural two-parameter filtration \(\left( {\mathcal {F}_\lambda }: {\lambda \in P}\right) \) on the boundary of a triangle building, we define a maximal function and a square function and show their boundedness on \(L^p(\Omega _0)\) for \(p \in (1, \infty )\). At the end, we consider \(L^p(\Omega _0)\) boundedness of martingale transforms. If the building is of \({\text {GL}}(3, \mathbb {Q}_p)\), then \(\Omega _0\) can be identified with p-adic Heisenberg group.     

Triangle-Free Geometric Intersection Graphs with Large Chromatic Number

Several classical constructions illustrate the fact that the chromatic number of a graph may be arbitrarily large compared to its clique number. However, until very recently no such construction was known for intersection graphs of geometric objects in the plane. We provide a general construction that for any arc-connected compact set $X$ X in $\mathbb{R }^2$ R 2 that is not an axis-aligned rectangle and for any positive integer $k$ k produces a family $\mathcal{F }$ F of sets, each obtained by an independent horizontal and vertical scaling and translation of $X$ X , such that no three sets in $\mathcal{F }$ F pairwise intersect and $\chi (\mathcal{F })>k$ χ ( F ) > k . This provides a negative answer to a question of Gyárfás and Lehel for L-shapes. With extra conditions we also show how to construct a triangle-free family of homothetic (uniformly scaled) copies of a set with arbitrarily large chromatic number. This applies to many common shapes, like circles, square boundaries or equilateral L-shapes. Additionally, we reveal a surprising connection between coloring geometric objects in the plane and on-line coloring of intervals on the line.     

Base‐Free Iron Catalyzed Transfer Hydrogenation of Esters Using EtOH as Hydrogen Source

Herein, we report on the use of the iron pincer complex Iron‐MACHO‐BH, in the base‐free transfer hydrogenation of esters with EtOH as a hydrogen source. More than 20 substrates including aromatic and aliphatic esters and lactones were reduced affording the desired primary alcohols and diols with moderate to excellent isolated yields. It is also possible to reduce polyesters to the diols with this method, enabling a novel way of plastic recycling. Reduction of the renewable substrate methyl levulinate proceeds to form 1,4‐pentanediol directly. The yields are largely governed by the equilibrium between the alcohol and the ethyl ester.     

Stable patterns of membrane domains at corrugated substrates

Multicomponent membranes such as ternary mixtures of lipids and cholesterol can exhibit coexistence regions between two liquid phases. When such membranes adhere to a corrugated substrate, the phase separation process strongly depends on the interplay between substrate topography, bending rigidities, and line tension of the membrane domains as we show theoretically via energy minimization and Monte Carlo simulations. For sufficiently large bending rigidity contrast between the two membrane phases, the corrugated substrate truncates the phase separation process and leads to a stable pattern of membrane domains. Our theory is consistent with recent experimental observations and provides a possible control mechanism for domain patterns in biological membranes.