ESEM-EDS: In vivo characterization of the Ni hyperaccumulator Noccaea caerulescens

Environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) permits to analyze samples in their native-hydrated state, allowing a broad spectrum of biological applications. In this study, ESEM equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS) was used as a fast method to analyze tissue morphology and to investigate metal distribution in the Ni hyperaccumulator Noccaea caerulescens, an established model to study the adaptation of plants to metalliferous soils. The low vacuum and wet mode operative conditions required the proper choice of experimental parameters both for morphological and compositional characterization of plant tissues. The calibration strategy for semi-quantitative analysis involved the use of Ni fortified agar as standard and signal normalization respect to endogenous carbon, chosen as internal standard. The obtained results are in accordance with present literature, showing a preferential Ni distribution in the epidermal cells respect to near the stomata for leaves and in the cotyledon epidermidis respect to cotyledon parenchyma area for seeds. Thanks to the absence of any time consuming sample treatment steps, ESEM-EDS technique can be proposed as valid strategy for in vivo high-throughput analysis of plant tissues and for a rapid screening and identification of other hyperaccumulator plants in a selected contaminated area.     

A macroscopic model for an intermediate state between type‐I and type‐II superconductivity

A vectorial nonlocal and nonlinear parabolic problem on a bounded domain for an intermediate state between type‐I and type‐II superconductivity is proposed. The domain is for instance a multiband superconductor that combines the characteristics of both types. The nonlocal term is represented by a (space) convolution with a singular kernel arising in Eringen's model. The nonlinearity is coming from the power law relation by Rhyner. The well‐posedness of the problem is discussed under low regularity assumptions and the error estimate for a semi‐implicit time‐discrete scheme based on backward Euler approximation is established. In the proofs, the monotonicity methods and the Minty–Browder argument are used. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 31: 1551–1567, 2015     

Catalytic and kinetic spectrophotometric method for determination of vanadium(V) by 2,3,4-trihydroxyacetophenonephenylhydrazone

A new catalytic and kinetic spectrophotometric method for the determination of vanadium(V) was studied using 2,3,4-trihydroxyacetophenonephenylhydrazone (THAPPH) as an analytical reagent. The present method was developed on the catalytic effect of vanadium on oxidation of THAPPH by hydrogen peroxide in hydrochloric acid–potassium chloride buffer (pH = 2.8) at the 20th minute. The metal ion has formed 1:2 (M:L) complex with THAPPH. Beer’s law was obeyed in the range 20–120 ng/mL of V(V) at λ_max 390 nm. The sensitivity of the method was calculated in terms of molar absorptivity (1.999 × 10⁵ L mol⁻¹cm⁻¹) and Sandell’s sensitivity (0.000254 μg cm⁻²), shows that this method is more sensitive. The standard deviation (0.0022), relative standard deviation (0.56%), confidence limit (±0.0015) and standard error (0.0007) revealed that the developed method has more precision and accuracy. The stability constant was calculated with the help of Asmu’s (9.411 × 10⁻¹¹) and Edmond’s & Birnbaum’s (9.504 × 10⁻¹¹) methods at room temperature. The interfering effect of various cations and anions was also studied. The present method was successfully applied for the determination of vanadium(V) in environmental and alloy samples. The method’s validity was checked by comparing the results obtained with atomic-absorption spectrophotometry and also by evaluation of results using F-test.     

Sample Preparation Methods for Lipidomics Approaches Used in Studies of Obesity

Obesity is associated with alterations in the composition and amounts of lipids. Lipids have over 1.7 million representatives. Most lipid groups differ in composition, properties and chemical structure. These small molecules control various metabolic pathways, determine the metabolism of other compounds and are substrates for the syntheses of different derivatives. Recently, lipidomics has become an important branch of medical/clinical sciences similar to proteomics and genomics. Due to the much higher lipid accumulation in obese patients and many alterations in the compositions of various groups of lipids, the methods used for sample preparations for lipidomic studies of samples from obese subjects sometimes have to be modified. Appropriate sample preparation methods allow for the identification of a wide range of analytes by advanced analytical methods, including mass spectrometry. This is especially the case in studies with obese subjects, as the amounts of some lipids are much higher, others are present in trace amounts, and obese subjects have some specific alterations of the lipid profile. As a result, it is best to use a method previously tested on samples from obese subjects. However, most of these methods can be also used in healthy, nonobese subjects or patients with other dyslipidemias. This review is an overview of sample preparation methods for analysis as one of the major critical steps in the overall analytical procedure.     

A PIECEWISE–LINEARIZED METHOD FOR ORDINARY DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS: TWO–POINT BOUNDARY–VALUE PROBLEMS

Piecewise-linearized methods for the solution of two-point boundary value problems in ordinary differential equations are presented. These problems are approximated by piecewise linear ones which have analytical solutions and reduced to finding the slope of the solution at the left boundary so that the boundary conditions at the right end of the interval are satisfied. This results in a rather complex system of non-linear algebraic equations which may be reduced to a single non-linear equation whose unknown is the slope of the solution at the left boundary of the interval and whose solution may be obtained by means of the Newton–Raphson method. This is equivalent to solving the boundary value problem as an initial value one using the piecewise-linearized technique and a shooting method. It is shown that for problems characterized by a linear operator a technique based on the superposition principle and the piecewise-linearized method may be employed. For these problems the accuracy of piecewise-linearized methods is of second order. It is also shown that for linear problems the accuracy of the piecewise-linearized method is superior to that of fourth-order-accurate techniques. For the linear singular perturbation problems considered in this paper the accuracy of global piecewise linearizat ion is higher than that of finite difference and finite element methods. For non-linear problems the accuracy of piecewise-linearized methods is in most cases lower than that of fourth-order methods but comparable with that of second-order techniques owing to the linearization of the non-linear terms.     

气相色谱和原子荧光联用测定生物和沉积物样品中甲基汞

提出了一种气相色谱和原子荧光在线联用测定甲基汞的方法。对气相色谱和原子荧光的在线联用进行了设计,优化了进样口温度、载气流速、尾吹气流量及氩气流量等实验条件。在最佳仪器条件下,甲基汞(MMC)和乙基汞(EMC)的绝对检出限(3σ)可达0.005 ng。对于10 ng·mL-1 MMC和EMC标准溶液,连续5次进样测得精密度(RSD)分别为2.5％和1.3％。对标准参考物(DORM-2)的分析结果与标准值一致。两个沉积物中甲基汞的加标回收率分别为70％和77％。方法准确、灵敏,可应用于生物和沉积物样品中甲基汞的分析。     

基于奇异值分解的数字波前拟合算法

提出了基于奇异值分解、采用泽尼克多项式拟合干涉波前的算法,该算法直接从线性方程组入手,对矩阵进行奇异值分解分解,在求解逆矩阵的过程中,采用阈值法对奇异值的倒数进行非常规的置换(∞→0),可直接得到系数向量。理论分析和实验证明,相对于传统的格拉姆施密特正交法,该算法可首先通过求解条件数判断线性方程矩阵是否奇异,对于解决病态方程组或奇异矩阵的最小二乘问题,有很好的稳定性,避免了由最小二乘构造的法方程组出现病态而引入的计算误差,且易于编程。     

含非完整界面的功能梯度压电材料Ⅲ型裂纹问题

本文研究了含非完整界面的功能梯度压电复合材料的Ⅲ型裂纹问题．此裂纹垂直于非完整界面,采用弹簧型力电耦合界面模型模拟非完整界面．界面两侧材料的性质,如弹性模量、压电常数和介电常数均假定呈指数函数形式且沿着裂纹方向变化．运用积分变换法将裂纹面条件转换为奇异积分方程,并使用Gauss-Chebyshev方法对其进行数值求解．根据算例结果讨论了一些退化问题并分析了裂纹尖端强度因子与材料的非均匀系数和非完整界面参数的关系．     

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes as a solid-phase extraction adsorbent for the determination of chlorophenols in environmental water samples

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNs) are used as adsorbent for solid-phase extraction (SPE) of several chlorophenols (CPs). CPs were adsorbed on MWCNs cartridge, then desorbed with pH 10.0 methanol, finally determined by HPLC. Under the optimized conditions, detection limits of 0.08-0.8 ng mL(-1) were obtained. The method had been applied to analyze the five CPs in tap water and river water.     

环境样品中五氯苯酚分析方法的研究进展

本文概述了国内外环境样品中五氯苯酚(PCP)测定方法的研究状况,包括分光光度法、HPLC法、GC法和免疫分析法等。重点介绍了PCP的提取、衍生化过程,同时总结了各种方法的优缺点。引用文献19篇。