Control of Nanoscale Environment to Improve Stability of Immobilized Proteins on Diamond Surfaces

Immunoassays for detection of bacterial pathogens rely on the selectivity and stability of bio-recognition elements such as antibodies tethered to sensor surfaces. The search for novel surfaces that improve the stability of biomolecules and assay performance has been pursued for a long time. However, the anticipated improvements in stability have not been realized in practice under physiological conditions because the surface functionalization layers on commonly used substrates, silica and gold, are themselves unstable on time scales of days. In this paper, we show that covalent linking of antibodies to diamond surfaces leads to substantial improvements in biological activity of proteins as measured by the ability to selectively capture cells of the pathogenic bacterium Escherichia coli O157:H7 even after exposure to buffer solutions at 37 °C for extended periods of time, approaching 2 weeks. Our results from ELISA, XPS, fluorescence microscopy, and MD simulations suggest that by using highly stable surface chemistry and controlling the nanoscale organization of the antibodies on the surface, it is possible to achieve significant improvements in biological activity and stability. Our findings can be easily extended to functionalization of micro and nanodimensional sensors and structures of biomedical diagnostic and therapeutic interest.     

Stretching a Curved Surface in a Viscous Fluid

This work is concerned with the viscous flow due to a curved stretching sheet. The similarity solution of the problem is obtained numerically by a shooting method using the Runge-Kutta algorithm. The physical quantities of interest like the fluid velocity and skin friction coefficient are obtained and discussed under the influence of dimensionless curvature. It is evident from the results that dimensionless curvature causes an increase in boundary layer thickness and a decrease in the skin friction coefficient.     

Use of Enzymatic Digestion and Chemical Methylation Followed by Matrix-assisted Laser Desorption/Ionisation (MALDI) Mass Spectrometry to Sequence a 60kDa Commercial Fraction of Cellulose Acetate

Cellulose acetate was characterized by using enzyme in both digestion and chemical derivation and acetolysis. The fragments were normalised and compared on an anhydroglucose scale, using mass spectrometry to identify the different sized fragments. It was determined that at least two sub-populations for cellulose acetate existed within the parent. The macroscopic effect of this variation in the degree of acetylation will be a modification of the structural properties of the polymer chains. It was found that through comparison with enzyme-based degradation, an estimation of the acetylation topography of the cellulose acetate fraction could be made. Enzyme degradation produced a number of oligosaccharides of more than 10 glucose units, presumably resistant to enzyme degradation because they contained acetate groups. Chemical hydrolysis gave a random ladder of short sequences of mainly 3–4 glucose units some of which had a high methyl ether content, that were analysed by mass and converted to an anhydroglucose mass scale. This approach could be used to demonstrate differences between large biopolymers of cellulose acetate that previously gave an overall average rather than a specific ladder average.     

MHD stagnation-point flow of an upper-convected Maxwell fluid over a stretching surface

The present analysis comprises the steady two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic flow of an upper-convected Maxwell fluid near a stagnation-point over a stretching surface. The governing non-linear partial differential equation for the flow are reduced to an ordinary differential equation by using similarity transformations. The analytic solution of nonlinear system is constructed in the series form using Homotopy analysis method. Convergence of the obtained series is discussed explicitly. The effects of the sundry parameters on the velocity profile is shown through graphs. The values of skin-friction coefficient for different parameters is tabulated.     

Analytic solution for MHD Transient rotating flow of a second grade fluid in a porous space

This article looks into the unsteady rotating magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of an incompressible second grade fluid in a porous half space. The flow is induced by a suddenly moved plate in its own plane. Both the fluid and plate rotate in unison with the same angular velocity. Analytic solution of the governing flow problem is obtained by using Fourier sine transform. Based on the modified Darcy's law, expression for velocity is obtained. The influence of pertinent parameters on the flow is delineated and appropriate conclusions are drawn. Several existing solutions of Newtonian fluid have been also deduced as limiting cases.     

Advanced Biometric Pen System for Recording and Analyzing Handwriting

Handwriting dynamics which reflect fine motor skills of writers can be recorded with pen based writing systems. They are generally equipped with a diversity of sensors, such as pen tip pressure and tilt-acceleration sensors mounted inside the pen or pen tip x-y position sensors integrated on a specific graphic tablet. Such writing systems are essentially applied for biometric personal identification or handwriting recognition. In this paper, an advanced biometric pen based system for capturing and analyzing handwriting dynamics of a person is presented. Features of the device as well as evaluation of its sensor data are discussed. The system actually comprises a standard WACOM graphic tablet where its input pen is equipped additionally with a sensor to measure the grip pressure of fingers holding the pen. By combining x-y position data of the tablet and grip pressure data of the pen an improvement of performance in handwriting and person recognition is achieved. The experimental results have shown that among the single sensors, the grip sensor data gives best recognition accuracy and improves the recognition rates of handwritten PINs or persons by about 1%, when fused with x-y position data. It shows excellent accuracy in handwriting recognition and depicts detailed information about fine motor skill which is primarily because of data sampled by the finger grip pressure sensor. The enhanced input device has great promise not only for biometrics but also for biomedical applications.