Interaction of pyrene-end-capped poly(ethylene oxide) with bovine serum albumin and human serum albumin in aqueous buffer medium: a fluorometric study

The photophysical behavior of a hydrophobically tailored water-soluble polymer, pyrene-end-capped poly(ethylene oxide) (PYPY), has been studied in aqueous buffered bovine serum albumin (BSA) and human serum albumin (HSA) media. In buffered aqueous solution the polymer shows dual emission corresponding to the monomer and the excimer of pyrene moiety. The relative intensity of the monomer to the excimer emission shows interesting variation with the addition of BSA and HSA and is indicative of significant interaction of these albumin proteins with the polymer. The binding interaction has been shown to have a prominent role on the steady state fluorescence anisotropy of the two emission bands. Attempt has been made to determine the micropolarities of the protein microenvironments from a comparison of the variation of the monomer to excimer relative fluorescence intensities of the probe in water–dioxane mixtures with varying composition.     

A bifunctional molecule that displays context-dependent cellular activity

The cell-permeable dihydrofolate reductase inhibitor methotrexate was covalently linked to a ligand for the protein FKBP to create a bifunctional molecule called MTXSLF. The covalent tether between the two ligands was designed to be prohibitively short, so that unfavorable protein-protein interactions between DHFR and FKBP preclude formation of a trimeric complex. In vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrate that MTXSLF is an effective inhibitor of human DHFR, but that efficacy is decreased in the presence of human FKBP due to the high concentration of FKBP and its tight affinity for MTXSLF. MTXSLF also inhibits Plasmodium falciparum DHFR in vitro, but a low concentration of the weaker binding Plasmodium FKBP has no effect on the inhibitory potency of MTXSLF in vivo. These studies illustrate a potentially general strategy for modulating the biological activity of synthetic molecules that depends on the ligand-binding properties of a nontarget protein.     

Solid-supported synthesis of polymerizable lanthanide-ion chelating lipids for protein detection

Usually, lipids are synthesized employing solution-phase organic synthesis techniques. Though successful, the purifications can be difficult to accomplish due to the amphiphilic nature of the molecules. Herein, we demonstrate the advantages of a solid-phase approach for preparing a variety of metal-chelating lipids. A number of saturated and polymerizable metal-chelating lipids were prepared using this methodology. This approach requires one chromatographic purification after cleaving the lipids from the solid support. We also demonstrate that the resulting polymerized liposomes (containing Eu3+) possess the appropriate luminescence properties for the qualitative and quantitative determination of proteins.     

Estimation of rubidium in coconut palm leaves by neutron activation analysis

A simple and rapid method is described for the estimation of the rubidium in coconut palm leaves by neutron activation analysis. The method is found suitable for the estimation of stable Rb used as a tracer in root distribution studies. The average of five determinations is 5.15 μg, which varies between 5.07 μg and 5.26 μg at 95% confidence limit.     

Radioanalytical chemistry in India

A short survey on the development of the radioanalytical chemistry in India, including 130 references is given.     

Crack detection in existing structures using noise-contaminated dynamic responses

Crack detection is existing structures using measured dynamic response information is presented in this paper. The general area of health assessment of existing structures in the presence of uncertainty in modeling the structure, characteristics of sensors, and the dynamic response information collected by the sensors is emphasized. A time domain system identification-based procedure is proposed to assess health of a structure at the finite element level in the presence of all major sources of uncertainty. It is denoted as the GILS-EKF-UI method. The method does not require information on excitation that caused the response and the noise-contaminated response information needs not be available at all dynamic degrees of freedom. The method is verified using computer generated analytical and actual measured response information emphasizing three items: (1) identification of the defect-free frame, (2) detection of location of a crack accurately within a defective element, and (3) detection of a crack using limited response information using the GILS-EKF-UI method.     

Effect of Electron Beam Irradiation on the Kinetics of Non-isothermal Crystallization of Nylon 66

The non-isothermal crystallization kinetics was studied by differential scanning calorimetric analysis on nylon 66 and e-beam irradiated nylon 66 at different cooling rates. The Modified Avrami equation, the Ozawa equation and the Combined Avrami-Ozawa equation were applied to study the kinetics of non-isothermal crystallization of nylon 66. The crystallization behavior of pristine nylon 66 polymer was compared with that of e-beam irradiated nylon 66 and observed that the kinetics of non-isothermal crystallization of nylon66 was affected largely upon e-beam irradiation. E-beam irradiation not only decreased the crystallization temperature of nylon 66, but influenced the mechanism of nucleation and crystal growth and reduced the overall crystallization rate of nylon 66 also. The crystallization activation energy calculated by the Kissinger method for irradiated nylon 66 was lower than that of pristine nylon 66.     

热辐射对粘性流体流过多孔非线性收缩平面时的MHD流动和热传导的影响

研究热辐射对多孔非线性收缩平面上磁流体动力学(MHD)流动和热传导的影响.假设收缩平面的速度和横向磁场,按离原点距离的幂函数而变化;又假设粘性按与其有关的温度的反函数变化,热传导率按温度的线性函数变化.通过广义相似变换,将偏微分方程的控制方程,简化为耦合的非线性常微分方程,然后通过有限差分法进行数值求解.在不同的参数取值下,得到速度和温度分布,以及多孔平面上表面摩擦因数和热传导率的数值结果.