A Second Main Theorem on ℙ<Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis></Superscript> for difference operator

The main result of this article is an extension of the Second Main Theorem, of Halburd and Korhonen, for meromorphic functions of finite order. Their result replaces the counting function of the ramification divisor N _ramf(r) in the classical Second Main Theorem by the counting function of a finite difference divisor N _pair(r). In this article, the Second Main Theorem of Halburd and Korhonen is extended to the case of holomorphic maps into ℙ ⁿ of finite order.     

Solution-grown zinc oxide nanowires

We review two strategies for growing ZnO nanowires from zinc salts in aqueous and organic solvents. Wire arrays with diameters in the nanoscale regime can be grown in an aqueous solution of zinc nitrate and hexamethylenetetramine. With the addition of poly(ethylenimine), the lengths of the wires have been increased to 25 mum with aspect ratios over 125. Additionally, these arrays were made vertical by nucleating the wires from oriented ZnO nanocrystals. ZnO nanowire bundles have been produced by decomposing zinc acetate in trioctylamine. By the addition of a metal salt to the solution, the ZnO wires can be doped with a range of transition metals. Specifically, ZnO nanowires were homogeneously doped with cobalt and showed a marked deviation from paramagnetic behavior. We conclude by highlighting the use of these solution-grown nanowire arrays in dye-sensitized solar cells. The nanowire cells showed an improvement in the charge collection efficiency over traditional nanoparticle cells.     

The Knoevenagel reaction: analysis and recycling of the ionic liquid medium

A study involving the scope of substrate in the Knoevenagel reaction in an IL medium has been conducted. Reactivity trends favor formation of the condensation product using electron deficient aryl aldehydes. Use of electron rich aldehydes and ketones lead to lower levels of conversion and no measurable amounts of condensation products, respectively. A recycling study confirmed that the reaction medium could be used multiple times affording, with each run, the desired condensation product 1a in excess of 90% conversion. Post-run analyses of the IL documented that the IL medium was unaltered upon reuse.     

Determination of tobramycin in human serum by capillary electrophoresis with contactless conductivity detection

A study on the determination of the antibiotic tobramycin by CE with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection is presented. This method enabled the direct quantification of the non-UV-absorbing species without incurring the disadvantages of the indirect approaches which would be needed for optical detection. The separation of tobramycin from inorganic cations present in serum samples was achieved by optimizing the composition of the acetic acid buffer. Field-amplified sample stacking was employed to enhance the sensitivity of the method and a detection limit of 50 microg/L (S/N = 3) was reached. The RSDs obtained for migration time and peak area using kanamycin B as internal standard were typically 0.12 and 4%, respectively. The newly developed method was validated by measuring the concentration of tobramycin in serum standards containing typical therapeutic concentrations of 2 and 10 mg/L. The recoveries were 96 and 97% for the two concentrations, respectively.     

Sensor placement method for dynamic response reconstruction

Structural dynamic response reconstruction can be conducted by transforming the measured responses into responses at other selected locations of a structure. The quality of the reconstructed responses strongly depends on the quality of the measured response data, which further depends on the number and location of sensors in the structure. A new sensor placement method is proposed in this paper for better prediction of the dynamic response reconstruction.     

Divalent metal phosphonate coordination polymers constructed from a dipiperidine-based bisphosphonate ligand

The ligand 4,4'-dipiperidine-N,N'-bis(methylenephosphonic acid), H(4)L, has been reacted with divalent metal salts under solvothermal conditions to yield seven new metal phosphonate coordination polymers. The compounds have been characterized by elemental analyses and their structures determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Zn(2)(L)(H(2)O)(2) and Co(2)(L)(H(2)O)(2) have (different) layered structures, while Mn(2)(L)(H(2)O)(3) has a chain motif. In these compounds, the N atoms of the ligand bind to the metal ions. α-Co(2)Cl(2)(H(2)L), formed from CoCl(2)·6H(2)O and H(4)L in ethanol, is also layered but the N atoms of the ligand are protonated. The Co atoms are tetrahedral, coordinated by three phosphonate oxygen atoms and a chloride ion. A polymorph of this compound, β-Co(2)Cl(2)(H(2)L), was obtained from a mixed ionic liquid under microwave irradiation. The primary difference between the polymorphs is the orientation of the phosphonate group relative to the dipiperidine. When reacted hydrothermally with Sn(II)C(2)O(4), H(4)L partially decomposes, producing phosphate ions which are incorporated into the structure of Sn(6)O(2)(H(2)L)(PO(4))(2)·4H(2)O. In this compound, the N atoms of the ligand are protonated, and two oxide anions are incorporated for charge balance. A second phase is obtained from the same reaction, which was determined to be Sn(7)O(L)(3). This compound has a layered structure which contains relatively large voids within the inorganic portion of the layer. These structures are discussed, as well as factors influencing the state of protonation in the final compounds. The choice of solvent and temperature were found to have a significant influence on the type of structure obtained.     

Sizing of Reverse Micelles in Microemulsions using NMR Measurements of Diffusion

This paper reports the size of reverse micelles (RMs) in AOT/octane/H(2)O and CTAB/hexanol/H(2)O microemulsions using magnetic resonance (MR) pulsed field gradient (PFG) measurements of diffusion. Diffusion data were measured using the pulsed gradient stimulated echo (PGSTE) experiment for surfactant molecules residing in the RM interface. Inverse Laplace transformation of these data generated diffusion coefficients for the RMs, which were converted into hydrodynamic radii using the Stokes-Einstein relation. This technique is complementary to those previously used to size RMs, such as dynamic light scattering (DLS) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), but also offers several advantages, which are discussed. RM sizes, determined using the PGSTE method, in the AOT (sodium bis(2-ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate) and CTAB (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide) microemulsions were compared with previous DLS and SAXS data, showing good agreement. Methods for determining number distributions from the PGSTE data, through the use of scaling factors, were investigated.     

Molecularly imprinted aptamers of gold nanoparticles for the enzymatic inhibition and detection of thrombin

We prepared thrombin-binding aptamer-conjugated gold nanoparticles (TBA-Au NPs) through a molecularly imprinted (MP) approach, which provide highly efficient inhibition activity toward the polymerization of fibrinogen. Au NPs (diameter, 13 nm), 15-mer thrombin-binding aptamer (TBA(15)) with different thymidine linkers, and 29-mer thrombin-binding aptamer (TBA(29)) with different thymidine linkers (Tn) in the presence of thrombin (Thr) as a template were used to prepare MP-Thr-TBA(15)/TBA(29)-Tn-Au NPs. Thrombin molecules were then removed from Au NPs surfaces by treating with 100 mM Tris-NaOH (pH ca. 13.0) to form MP-TBA(15)/TBA(29)-Tn-Au NPs. The length of the thymidine linkers and TBA density on Au NPs surfaces have strong impact on the orientation, flexibility, and stability of MP-TBA(15)/TBA(29)-Tn-Au NPs, leading to their stronger binding strength with thrombin. MP-TBA(15)/TBA(29)-T(15)-Au NPs (ca. 42 TBA(15) and 42 TBA(29) molecules per Au NP; 15-mer thymidine on aptamer terminal) provided the highest binding affinity toward thrombin with a dissociation constant of 5.2 × 10(-11) M. As a result, they had 8 times higher anticoagulant (inhibitory) potency relative to TBA(15)/TBA(29)-T(15)-Au NPs (prepared in the absence of thrombin). We further conducted thrombin clotting time (TCT) measurements in plasma samples and found that MP-TBA(15)/TBA(29)-T(15)-Au NPs had greater anticoagulation activity relative to four commercial drugs (heparin, argatroban, hirudin, and warfarin). In addition, we demonstrated that thrombin induced the formation of aggregates from MP-TBA(15)-T(15)-Au NPs and MP-TBA(29)-T(15)-Au NPs, thereby allowing the colorimetric detection of thrombin at the nanomolar level in serum samples. Our result demonstrates that our simple molecularly imprinted approach can be applied for preparing various functional nanomaterials to control enzyme activity and targeting important proteins.     

Flame speed and self-similar propagation of expanding turbulent premixed flames

In this Letter we present turbulent flame speeds and their scaling from experimental measurements on constant-pressure, unity Lewis number expanding turbulent flames, propagating in nearly homogeneous isotropic turbulence in a dual-chamber, fan-stirred vessel. It is found that the normalized turbulent flame speed as a function of the average radius scales as a turbulent Reynolds number to the one-half power, where the average radius is the length scale and the thermal diffusivity is the transport property, thus showing self-similar propagation. Utilizing this dependence it is found that the turbulent flame speeds from the present expanding flames and those from the Bunsen geometry in the literature can be unified by a turbulent Reynolds number based on flame length scales using recent theoretical results obtained by spectral closure of the transformed G equation.