Graphene-supported hemin as a highly active biomimetic oxidation catalyst

Well supported: stable hemin-graphene conjugates formed by immobilization of monomeric hemin on graphene, showed excellent catalytic activity, more than 10 times better than that of the recently developed hemin-hydrogel system and 100 times better than that of unsupported hemin. The catalysts also showed excellent binding affinities and catalytic efficiencies approaching that of natural enzymes.     

Structural Characterization of a Macrocyclic Peptide Modulator of the PD-1/PD-L1 Immune Checkpoint Axis

The clinical success of PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint targeting antibodies in cancer is followed by efforts to develop small molecule inhibitors with better penetration into solid tumors and more favorable pharmacokinetics. Here we report the crystal structure of a macrocyclic peptide inhibitor (peptide 104) in complex with PD-L1. Our structure shows no indication of an unusual bifurcated binding mode demonstrated earlier for another peptide of the same family (peptide 101). The binding mode relies on extensive hydrophobic interactions at the center of the binding surface and an electrostatic patch at the side. An interesting sulfur/π interaction supports the macrocycle-receptor binding. Overall, our results allow a better understanding of forces guiding macrocycle affinity for PD-L1, providing a rationale for future structure-based inhibitor design and rational optimization.     

Neoclassical transport caused by collisionless scattering across an asymmetric separatrix

Plasma loss due to apparatus asymmetries is a ubiquitous phenomenon in magnetic plasma confinement. When the plasma equilibrium has locally trapped particle populations partitioned by a separatrix from one another and from passing particles, the asymmetry transport is enhanced. The trapped and passing particle populations react differently to the asymmetries, leading to the standard 1/ν and sqrt[ν] transport regimes of superbanana orbit theory as particles collisionally scatter from one orbit type to another. However, when the separatrix is itself asymmetric, particles can collisionlessly transit from trapped to passing and back, leading to enhanced transport.     

Observation of Ficoll charge using size-exclusion chromatography

The retention volumes of Ficoll samples of varying molecular weight were determined on porous glass and Superose columns, and compared with those of Pullulan. The retention of Ficoll is pH- and ionic strength-dependent, indicating that it bears a weak negative charge at moderate pH. Comparisons were made with similar charge repulsion effects for proteins on Superose to provide an estimate of the extent of charge on Ficoll, with the conclusion that only a few charges exist per molecule at neutral pH.     

Dilute solution properties of poly(dimethyldiallylammonium chloride) in aqueous sodium chloride solutions

MW fractions of poly(dimethyldiallylammonium chloride) (PDMDAAC) were prepared by preparative size-exclusion chromatography and characterized by static and dynamic light scattering, viscometry, size-exclusion chromatography, and electrophoretic light scattering, in 0.50M NaCl solution. The behavior of fractions with MW < 2 × 10⁵ was as expected for a strong polyelectrolyte in a good solvent, with a Mark-Houwink exponent of ca. 0.8, and MW-dependencies of the hydrodynamic radius and the radius of gyration of corresponding magnitude. At higher MW, curvature appears in the MW-dependencies, which can be best explained by the presence of branching. While this notably lowers the intrinsic viscosity at high MW, the electrophoretic mobility is unchanged regardless of molar mass. Thus, the branched polymers display the electrophoretic free-draining behavior characteristic of linear polyelectrolytes. ©1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Floating-potential dielectrophoresis-controlled fabrication of single-carbon-nanotube transistors and their electrical properties

We present a floating-potential dielectrophoresis method used for the first time to achieve controlled alignment of an individual semiconducting or metallic single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) between two electrical contacts with high repeatability. This result is significantly different from previous reports, in which bundles of SWCNTs were aligned between electrode arrays by a conventional dielectrophoresis process where the results were only collected from the control electrode regions. In this study, our alignment focus is not only on the regions of the control electrodes but also on those of the floating electrodes. Our results indicate that bundles of carbon nanotubes along with impurities were first moved into the region between two control electrodes while individual nanotubes without impurities were straightened and aligned between two floating electrodes. The measurements for the back-gated nanotube transistors made by this method displayed an on-off ratio and transconductance of 10(5) and 0.3 microS, respectively. These output and transport properties are comparable with those of nanotube transistors made by other methods. Most importantly, the findings in this study show an effective way to separate individual nanotubes from bundles and impurities and advance the processes for site-selective fabrication of single-SWCNT transistors and related electrical devices.     

Rapid heating of a strongly coupled plasma near the solid-liquid phase transition

Between 10(4) and 10(6) 9Be+ ions were trapped in a Penning trap and laser cooled to approximately 1 mK, where they formed a crystalline plasma. We measured the ion temperature as a function of time after turning off the laser cooling and observed a rapid temperature increase as the plasma underwent the solid-liquid phase transition at T approximately 10 mK (Gamma approximately 170). We present evidence that this rapid heating is due to a sudden release of energy from weakly cooled degrees of freedom involving the cyclotron motion of trapped impurity ions. This equilibration of cyclotron motion with motion parallel to the magnetic field is more than 10 orders of magnitude faster than that predicted by currently available theory, which is valid only in the absence of correlations (Gamma<1).     

Eine volumetrische Methode zur bestimmung des Gesamtschwefels im Harn

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