Determination of cluster composition in heteroaggregation of binary particle systems by flow cytometry

Cluster composition in aggregation processes of multiple particle species can be dynamically determined by flow cytometry if particle populations are fluorescently labeled. By flow cytometric single particle analysis, aggregates can be characterized according to the exact amount of constituent particles, allowing the detailed and separate quantification of homo- and heteroaggregation. This contribution demonstrates the application of flow cytometry for the experimental detection of heteroaggregation in a binary particle mixture of oppositely charged polystyrene (PS) particles and Rhodamine-B labeled melamine-formaldehyde (MF-RhB) particles. Experiments with different particle concentration, temperature, mixing mode, ionic strength and particle mixing ratio are presented. Aggregation kinetics are enhanced with increasing particle concentration and temperature as well as by increased shear of mixing. These results represent well-known behavior published in previous investigations and validate the performance of flow cytometry for probing heteroaggregation processes. Physical insight with a novel level of detail is gained by the quantification of de- and restabilization phenomena. At low ionic strength, "raspberry"-type aggregates with PS cores are formed by primary heteroaggregation. At moderate particle number ratios, these aggregates are electrostatically destabilized and form more complex aggregates in a secondary heteroaggregation process. At high particle number ratios (> or =50:1), the raspberry-type aggregates are electrostatically restabilized and secondary heteroaggregation is prevented. The dynamic change of aggregate charge was verified by zeta-potential measurements. The elevation of salt concentration over several orders of magnitude retards aggregation dynamics, since attractive interparticle forces are diminished by an electrostatic double layer. This indicates that heteroaggregation induced by attractive interparticle forces is faster than aggregation due to random Brownian motion. Destabilization at high ionic strength is facilitated by charged ions and no longer by MF-RhB coverage. This results in a species independent one step aggregation process.     

Alternative Synthesis and Structures of C‐monoacetylenic Phosphaalkenes

An alternative synthesis of C‐monoacetylenic phosphaalkenes trans‐Mes*P=C(Me)(C≡CR) (Mes* = 2, 4, 6‐^tBu₃Ph, R = Ph, SiMe₃) from C‐bromophosphaalkenes cis‐Mes*P=C(Me)Br using standard Sonogashira coupling conditions is described. Crystallographic studies confirm cis‐trans isomerization of the P=C double bond during Pd‐catalyzed cross coupling, leading exclusively to trans‐acetylenic phosphaalkenes. Crystallographic studies of all synthesized compounds reveal the extend of π‐conjugation over the acetylene and P=C π‐systems.     

An Alternative Approach for the Synthesis of Sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerol

Sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerol (SQDG) is a glycolipid ubiquitously found in photosynthetically active organisms. It has attracted much attention in recent years due to its biological activities. Similarly, the increasing demand for vegan and functional foods has led to a growing interest in micronutrients such as sulfolipids and their physiological influence on human health. To study this influence, reference materials are needed for developing new analytical methods and providing enough material for model studies on the biological activity. However, the availability of these materials is limited by the difficulty to isolate and purify sulfolipids from natural sources and the unavailability of chemical standards on the market. Consequently, an alternative synthetic route for the comprehensive preparation of sulfolipids was established. Here, the synthesis of a sulfolipid with two identical saturated fatty acids is described exemplarily. The method opens possibilities for the preparation of a diverse range of interesting derivatives with different saturated and unsaturated fatty acids.     

The golden number and Fibonacci sequences in the design of voting structures

Some distinguished types of voters, as vetoes, passers or nulls, as well as some others, play a significant role in voting systems because they are either the most powerful or the least powerful voters in the game independently of the measure used to evaluate power. In this paper we are concerned with the design of voting systems with at least one type of these extreme voters and with few types of equivalent voters. With this purpose in mind we enumerate these special classes of games and find out that its number always follows a Fibonacci sequence with smooth polynomial variations. As a consequence we find several families of games with the same asymptotic exponential behavior except for a multiplicative factor which is the golden number or its square. From a more general point of view, our studies are related with the design of voting structures with a predetermined importance ranking.     

Bulk gas-phase acidity

The capability of a gaseous Br?nsted acid HB to deliver protons to a base is usually described by the gas-phase acidity (GA) value of the acid. However, GA values are standard Gibbs energy differences and refer to individual gas pressures of 1?bar for acid HB, base B(-), and proton H(+). We show that the GA value is not suited to describe the bulk acidity of a gaseous acid. Here the pressure dependence of the activities of HB, H(HB)(n)(+), and B(HB)(m)(-) that result from gaseous autoprotolysis have to be considered. In this work, the pressure-dependent absolute chemical potential of the proton in the representative gaseous proton acids CH(4), NH(3), H(2)O, HF, and HCl was worked out and the general theory to describe bulk gas phase acidity--that can directly be compared with solution acidity--was developed.     

Efficient large scale electromagnetic simulations using dynamically adapted meshes with the discontinuous Galerkin method

A framework for performing dynamic mesh adaptation with the discontinuous Galerkin method (DGM) is presented. Adaptations include modifications of the local mesh step size (h$h$-adaptation) and the local degree of the approximating polynomials (p$p$-adaptation) as well as their combination. The computation of the approximation within locally adapted elements is based on projections between finite element spaces (FES), which are shown to preserve an upper limit of the electromagnetic energy. The formulation supports high level hanging nodes and applies precomputation of surface integrals for increasing computational efficiency. Error and smoothness estimates based on interface jumps are presented and applied to the fully hp$hp$-adaptive simulation of two examples in one-dimensional space. A full wave simulation of electromagnetic scattering from a radar reflector demonstrates the applicability to large scale problems in three-dimensional space.