Spectral Properties of Thioflavin T and Its Complexes with Amyloid Fibrils

Comparative analysis of the absorption and fluorescence spectra and fluorescence excitation spectra of thioflavin T (ThT) in various solvents and in the composition of amyloid fibrils has shown that ThT, when excited in the region of the long-wavelength absorption band, fluoresces in the spectral region with a maximum at 478–484 nm. The appearance in aqueous and alcohol solutions of a fluorescence band with a maximum near 440 nm has been attributed to the presence in the composition of the ThT preparations of an impurity with an absorption band in the 340–350-nm range. The literature data showing that in glycerol ThT has a wide fluorescence spectrum with two maxima are due to the artifact connected with the use of a high concentration of the dye. It has been suggested that the cause of the low quantum yield of ThT aqueous and alcohol solutions is the breakage of the system of conjugated bonds due to the reorientation of the benzothiozole and benzaminic rings of ThT in the excited state with respect to one another. The main factor determining the high quantum yield of fluorescence of ThT incorporated in fibrils is the steric restriction of the rotation of the rings about one another under these conditions. The suggestions made have been verified by the quantum-chemical calculation of the ThT molecule geometry in the ground and excited states.     

Scalar and axial-vector mesons

Almost thirty years ago, Penny G. Estabrooks asked “Where and what are the scalar mesons?” (P. Estabrooks, Phys. Rev. D 19, 2678 (1979)). The first part of her question can now be confidently responded (E. van Beveren et al., Z. Phys. C 30, 615 (1986)). However, with respect to the “What” many puzzles remain unanswered. Scalar and axial-vector mesons form part of a large family of mesons. Consequently, though it is useful to pay them some extra attention, there is no point in discussing them as isolated phenomena. The particularity of structures in the scattering of --basically-- pions and kaons with zero angular momentum is the absence of the centrifugal barrier, which allows us to “see” strong interactions at short distances. Experimentally observed differences and similarities between scalar and axial-vector mesons on the one hand, and other mesons on the other hand, are very instructive for further studies. Nowadays, there exists an abundance of theoretical approaches towards the mesonic spectrum, ranging from confinement models of all kinds, i.e., glueballs, and quark-antiquark, multiquark and hybrid configurations, to models in which only mesonic degrees of freedom are taken into account. Nature seems to come out somewhere in the middle, neither preferring pure bound states, nor effective meson-meson physics with only coupling constants and possibly form factors. As a matter of fact, apart from a few exceptions, like pions and kaons, Nature does not allow us to study mesonic bound states of any kind, which is equivalent to saying that such states do not really exist. Hence, instead of extrapolating from pions and kaons to the remainder of the meson family, it is more democratic to consider pions and kaons mesonic resonances that happen to come out below the lowest threshold for strong decay. Nevertheless, confinement is an important ingredient for understanding the many regularities observed in mesonic spectra. Therefore, excluding quark degrees of freedom is also not the most obvious way of describing mesons in general, and scalars and axial-vectors in particular.     

Systems of generalized quasivariational inclusions problems with applications to variational analysis and optimization problems

In this paper, we study an existence theorem of systems of generalized quasivariational inclusions problem. By this result, we establish the existence theorems of solutions of systems of generalized equations, systems of generalized vector quasiequilibrium problem, collective variational fixed point, systems of generalized quasiloose saddle point, systems of minimax theorem, mathematical program with systems of variational inclusions constraints, mathematical program with systems of equilibrium constraints and systems of bilevel problem and semi-infinite problem with systems of equilibrium problem constraints. This research was supported by the National Science Council of the Republic of China.     

含腔电大尺寸导体目标电磁散射的一体化数值模拟

应用等效原理，通过引入口面上等效磁流将含腔导电目标电磁散射简化为腔内、外两个等效 问题. 腔内问题分段求解并应用级联法获得口面等效导纳矩阵；腔内外的耦合关系应用近似 边界元方法描述并由此获得口面等效磁流；最后，这一具有混合源的腔体内外一体化散射问 题则应用所提出的广义混合场积分方程方法建立电磁模型，并用多层快速多极子方法实现高 效数值求解. 实例计算结果与测试结果具有很好的一致性. 关键词： 含腔目标 电磁散射 混合场积分方程 数值分析     

弱混强平稳序列随机容量、随即秩次序统计量的极限分布律

设W(1n)W2(n)…W(nn)是严平稳随即序列{Xn,n 1}的前几个变量的顺序统计量,Nn Mn是两正整值r.v,n 1.在较弱一些的混合条件下,本文给出了W(NMn)n标准化后的极限分布,从而使一些提法更趋一般化,主要结果推进了Rao(1984)和张国胜(1993)的工作.由于混合条件的减弱,使得对m-相关和正态平稳过程的具体应用讨论更加充分.     

X-ray metrology for advanced silicon processes

X-ray reflectivity (XRR), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) techniques are used to the monitoring of Cu/porous low κ processes, which are developed for the next generation (≤65 nm) integrated circuits. Sensitivity of XRR and XRF is sufficient to detect drifts of the copper barrier layer, copper seed layer and Cu CMP (chemical-mechanical polishing) processes. Their metrology key parameters comply with production requirements. SAXS allows determining the pore structure of low κ films: average pore size and pore size distribution.     

Phosphonate electrochemical recognition by molecularly imprinted deposited film

In this paper, thin films of titanium oxide imprinted with O,O-dimethyl-(2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetoxyl)(3′-nitrobenyl) methinephosphonate (Phi-NO₂) were prepared via liquid phase deposition (LPD) method on a glassy carbon electrode. The imprinted molecular in the films was removed by treatment with immersion in CH₂Cl₂. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and electrochemical methods were introduced to show the evidence of the molecular imprinting phenomenon. It was also found that the recognition ability of the sensor depended on the substituents associated with tridimensional structures of the nitro-compounds. Under the optimized condition, the sensor showed better sensitivity, selectivity and reproducibility to the imprinted molecule and the linear relationship between the current and the concentration of analyte in the range of 0.1-50 μM was obtained. LPD proved to be a powerful method for imprinting titanium oxide thin sense films.     

Nanophotonics and nanometrology with planar X-ray waveguide-resonator

The mechanism of X-ray waveguide-resonance propagation or the radiation superstream model, which can become the ground of X-ray nanophotonics, is discussed briefly. Some attention is devoted to features consideration of the simplest devices characterized by the waveguide-resonance transportation of X-ray beams. The experimental data showing the user possibilities of a simplest waveguide-resonators application for diffractometry are presented. We discuss the main reasons to improve the metrological characteristics for total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) analytical method in case when the target exciting beam is formed by a waveguide-resonator. Some problems appearing during the waveguide-resonator application are formulated.     

Comparison of detection efficiencies of negatively charged gold-alkanethiolate-, gold-sulfur- and gold-clusters in ToF-SIMS

In order to improve quantification of high mass ions, the influence of cluster composition on detection efficiencies has been studied using a TOF-SIMS IV with the extended capability of postaccelerating ions up to 20 keV. In this experimental study, we focus on the comparison of detection efficiencies for three types of negatively charged secondary cluster ions: gold-alkanethiolate-clusters (Au_xM_y), gold-sulfur-clusters (Au_xS_y) and gold-clusters (Au_x). The clusters were sputtered from self-assembled monolayers of hexadecanethiols on gold substrates using 10 keV Ar⁺ primary ions. The detection efficiencies were derived on the basis of a function for the secondary electron yield and a fourth-order approximated Poisson probability distribution for electron propagation and amplification within the microchannel plate.In addition to the well-known dependence of detection efficiencies on ion mass and energy, which has already been studied for positively charged ions, we were able to show a similar behaviour for the investigated negatively charged secondary ions. We have observed major variations among the three types of clusters at similar mass and energy as predicted in a theoretical approach. The observed differences are due to the different composition of the investigated clusters which has a major influence on the kinetic ion induced electron emission within the microchannel plate. For the first time it was possible to experimentally verify these predictions for detection efficiencies.