Direct analysis of anabolic steroids in urine using Leidenfrost phenomenon assisted thermal desorption-dielectric barrier discharge ionization mass spectrometry

Rapid detection of trace level anabolic steroids in urine is highly desirable to monitor the consumption of performance enhancing anabolic steroids by athletes. The present article describes a novel strategy for identifying the trace anabolic steroids in urine using Leidenfrost phenomenon assisted thermal desorption (LPTD) coupled to dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) ionization mass spectrometry. Using this method the steroid molecules are enriched within a liquid droplet during the thermal desorption process and desorbed all-together at the last moment of droplet evaporation in a short time domain. The desorbed molecules were ionized using a dielectric barrier discharge ion-source in front of the mass spectrometer inlet at open atmosphere. This process facilitates the sensitivity enhancement with several orders of magnitude compared to the thermal desorption at a lower temperature. The limits of detection (LODs) of various steroid molecules were found to be in the range of 0.05–0.1 ng mL⁻¹ for standard solutions and around two orders of magnitude higher for synthetic urine samples. The detection limits of urinary anabolic steroids could be lowered by using a simple and rapid dichloromethane extraction technique. The analytical figures of merit of this technique were evaluated at open atmosphere using suitable internal standards. The technique is simple and rapid for high sensitivity and high throughput screening of anabolic steroids in urine.     

STABILITY OF EQUILIBRIA OF NEMATIC LIQUID CRYSTALLINE POLYMERS

We provide an analytical study on the stability of equilibria of rigid rodlike nematic liquid crystalline polymers (LCPs) governed by the Smoluchowski equation with the Maier-Saupe intermolecular potential. We simplify the expression of the free energy of an orientational distribution function of rodlike LCP molecules by properly selecting a coordinate system and then investigate its stability with respect to perturbations of orientational probability density. By computing the Hessian matrix explicitly, we are able to prove the hysteresis phenomenon of nematic LCPs: when the normalized polymer concentration b is below a critical value b*(6.7314863965), the only equilibrium state is isotropic and it is stable; when b*< b < 15/2, two anisotropic (prolate) equilibrium states occur together with a stable isotropic equilibrium state. Here the more aligned prolate state is stable whereas the less aligned prolate state is unstable. When b > 15/2, there are three equilibrium states: a stable prolate state, an unstable isotropic state and an unstable oblate state.     

Ergodic BSDEs under weak dissipative assumptions

In this paper we study ergodic backward stochastic differential equations (EBSDEs) dropping the strong dissipativity assumption needed in Fuhrman et al. (2009) [12]. In other words we do not need to require the uniform exponential decay of the difference of two solutions of the underlying forward equation, which, on the contrary, is assumed to be non-degenerate.We show the existence of solutions by the use of coupling estimates for a non-degenerate forward stochastic differential equation with bounded measurable nonlinearity. Moreover we prove the uniqueness of “Markovian” solutions by exploiting the recurrence of the same class of forward equations.Applications are then given for the optimal ergodic control of stochastic partial differential equations and to the associated ergodic Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations.     

An overshoot approach to recurrence and transience of Markov processes

We develop criteria for recurrence and transience of one-dimensional Markov processes which have jumps and oscillate between +∞ and −∞. The conditions are based on a Markov chain which only consists of jumps (overshoots) of the process into complementary parts of the state space.In particular, we show that a stable-like process with generator −(−Δ)^α(x)/2 such that α(x)=α for x<−R and α(x)=β for x>R for some R>0 and α,β∈(0,2) is transient if and only if α+β<2, otherwise it is recurrent.As a special case, this yields a new proof for the recurrence, point recurrence and transience of symmetric α-stable processes.     

卷积算子的Gibbs现象

本文建立了一般卷积算子在函数的第一类间断点处有Gibbs现象的刻画定理,并且给出了某些例子.     

Coquet-type formulas for the rarefied weighted Thue–Morse sequence

Newman proved for the classical Thue–Morse sequence, ((−1)^s(n))_n≥0, that for all N∈N with real constants satisfying c₂>c₁>0 and λ=log3/log4. Coquet improved this result and deduced , where F(x) is a nowhere-differentiable, continuous function with period 1 and η(N)∈{−1,0,1}. In this paper we obtain for the weighted version of the Thue–Morse sequence that for the sum a Coquet-type formula exists for every r∈{0,1,2} if and only if the sequence of weights is eventually periodic. From the specific Coquet-type formulas we derive parts of the weak Newman-type results that were recently obtained by Larcher and Zellinger.     

求m阶递推数列通项公式的两种方法

利用分析中的解析函数方法和代数中的矩阵方法,得到了m阶常系数齐次线性递推数列通项公式的解析表达式,是对已有结果的完善和推广.     

Regularity for obstacle problems without structure conditions

This paper deals with the Lipschitz regularity of minimizers for a class of variational obstacle problems with possible occurrence of the Lavrentiev phenomenon. In order to overcome this problem, the availment of the notions of relaxed functional and Lavrentiev gap is needed. The main tool used here is a crucial Lemma which reveals to be needed because it allows us to move from the variational obstacle problem to the relaxed-functional-related one. This is fundamental in order to find the solutions’ regularity that we intended to study. We assume the same Sobolev regularity both for the gradient of the obstacle and for the coefficients.     

Some Indeterminate Moment Problems and Freud-Like Weights

We study two indeterminate Hamburger moment problems and the corresponding orthogonal polynomials. The coefficients in their recurrence relations are of exponential growth or are polynomials of degree 2. The entire functions in the Nevanlinna parametrization are found. The orthogonal polynomials with polynomial recurrence coefficients resemble the Freud polynomials with a = 1/2 . Inequalities are given for the largest zero and the asymptotic behavior of the largest zero is established. April 24, 1996. Date revised: March 3, 1997.