Simultaneous determination of radionuclides separable into natural decay series by use of time-interval analysis

A delayed coincidence method, time-interval analysis (TIA), has been applied to successive – decay events on the millisecond time-scale. Such decay events are part of the ²²⁰Rn²¹⁶Po (T_1/2 145 ms) (Th-series) and ²¹⁹Rn²¹⁵Po (T_1/2 1.78 ms) (Ac-series). By using TIA in addition to measurement of ²²⁶Ra (U-series) from -spectrometry by liquid scintillation counting (LSC), two natural decay series could be identified and separated. The TIA detection efficiency was improved by using the pulse-shape discrimination technique (PSD) to reject -pulses, by solvent extraction of Ra combined with simple chemical separation, and by purging the scintillation solution with dry N₂ gas. The U- and Th-series together with the Ac-series were determined, respectively, from alpha spectra and TIA carried out immediately after Ra-extraction. Using the ²²¹Fr²¹⁷At (T_1/2 32.3 ms) decay process as a tracer, overall yields were estimated from application of TIA to the ²²⁵Ra (Np-decay series) at the time of maximum growth. The present method has proven useful for simultaneous determination of three radioactive decay series in environmental samples.     

THPep: A machine learning-based approach for predicting tumor homing peptides

In the present era, a major drawback of current anti-cancer drugs is the lack of satisfactory specificity towards tumor cells. Despite the presence of several therapies against cancer, tumor homing peptides are gaining importance as therapeutic agents. In this regard, the huge number of therapeutic peptides generated in recent years, demands the need to develop an effective and interpretable computational model for rapidly, effectively and automatically predicting tumor homing peptides. Therefore, a sequence-based approach referred herein as THPep has been developed to predict and analyze tumor homing peptides by using an interpretable random forest classifier in concomitant with amino acid composition, dipeptide composition and pseudo amino acid composition. An overall accuracy and Matthews correlation coefficient of 90.13% and 0.76, respectively, were achieved from the independent test set on an objective benchmark dataset. Upon comparison, it was found that THPep was superior to the existing method and holds high potential as a useful tool for predicting tumor homing peptides. For the convenience of experimental scientists, a web server for this proposed method is provided publicly at http://codes.bio/thpep/.     

Importance of the choice of assumptions and models in the estimation of analytical quality specifications

The validity of any model depends on its ability to imagine the situation or problem to which it is applied. Further, the assumptions made in relation to the model are determining for the actual outcome. Within the field of clinical biochemistry a lot of models for analytical quality specifications, based on a variety of concepts and ’clinical settings’, have been proposed. A hierarchical structure for application of these approaches and models has been agreed on at several occasions in 1999. In this hierarchy, the highest rank is given to evaluation of analytical quality specifications based on ’clinical settings’/’clinical outcome’ models, followed by specifications based on biological variation and on ’clinicians opinions’. This contribution, deals with the problems of combining random and systematic errors and the implications of application of different models to a variety of clinical settings. Received: 1 June, 2002 Accepted: 17 July 2002 Presented at the European Conference on Quality in the Spotlight in Medical Laboratories, 7–9 October 2001, Antwerp, Belgium     

STUDY ON 1-HEXENE POLYMERIZATION BASED ON ZIEGLER-NATTA CATALYSTS WITH DOPED SUPPORT

A series of Ti/Mg supported catalysts are prepared by using ball-milled mixtures of MgCl2-ethanol adducts and NaCl as supports, and 1-hexene polymerizations catalyzed by the novel catalysts are studied. It is found that the molecular weight distribution of poly(1-hexene) becomes apparently narrower when catalysts with doped supports are used, indicating that changing the structure of the support is an effective way to regulate the active center distribution of heterogeneous Ziegler-Natta catalyst.     

Analysis of RNA sequence structure maps by exhaustive enumeration I. Neutral networks

Summary Global relations between RNA sequences and secondary structures are understood as mappings from sequence space into shape space. These mappings are investigated by exhaustive folding of allGC andAU sequences with chain lengths up to 30. The computed structural data are evaluated through exhaustive enumeration and used as an exact reference for testing analytical results derived from mathematical models and sampling based on statistical methods. Several new concepts of RNA sequence to secondary structure mappings are investigated, among them that ofneutral networks (being sets of sequences folding into the same structure). Exhaustive enumeration allows to test several previously suggested relations: the number of (minimum free energy) secondary structures as a function of the chain length as well as the frequency distribution of structures at constant chain length (commonly resulting in generalized forms ofZipf's law).

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Analyse der Beziehungen zwischen RNA-Sequenzen und Sekundärstrukturen durch vollständige Faltung, 1. Mitt. Faltung, Neutrale Netzwerke

Zusammenfassung Die globalen Benziehungen zwischen RNA-Sequenzen und Sekundärstrukturen werden als Abbildungen aus einem Raum aller Sequenzen in einen Raum aller Strukturen aufgefaßt. Diese Abbildungen werden durch Falten aller binären Sequenzen desGC-undAU-Alphabets mit Kettenlängen bis zun=30 untersucht. Die berechneten Strukturdaten werden durch vollständiges Abzählen ausgewertet und als eine exakte Referenz zum Überprüfen analytischer Resultate aus mathematischen Modellen sowie zum Testen statistisch erhobener Proben verwendet. Einige neuartige Konzepte zur Beschreibung der Beziehungen zwischen Sequenzen und Strukturen werden eingehend untersucht, unter ihnen der Begriff derneutralen Netzwerke. Ein neutrales Netzwerk besteht aus allen Sequenzen, die eine bestimmte Struktur ausbilden. Vollständiges Abzählen ermöglicht beispielsweise die Bestimmung aller Strukturen minimaler freier Energie in Abhängigkeit von der Kettenlänge ebenso wie die Bestimmung der Häufigkeitsverteilungen der Strukturen bei konstanten Kettenlängen. Die letzteren folgen einer verallgemeinerten FormZipfschen Gesetzes.

     

Approximation of enthalpy of formation by Fourier series

A possible approximation of the enthalpy of formation of C,H,N,O-containing compounds by trigonometric Fourier series has been shown.Translated fromIzvestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 8, pp. 1389–1390, August, 1994.     

Large cycles in random generalized Johnson graphs

This paper studies thresholds in random generalized Johnson graphs for containing large cycles, i.e. cycles of variable length growing with the size of the graph. Thresholds are obtained for different growth rates.     

带有随机初值的复值Ginzburg-Landau方程的弱平均动力学*

本文研究了无界域上的带有随机初值的复值Ginzburg-Landau方程.首先, 基于解过程的全局适定性, 建立了带有随机初值的Ginzburg-Landau方程的平均随机动力系统.然后, 证明了弱拉回平均随机吸引子的存在唯一性以及随机吸引子的周期性,并将其进一步推广到加权空间L²(?, L²_σ(R)).     

Spectra of graphs and fractal dimensions II

This paper continues the study of exponentsd(x), d (x), d _R (x) andd (x) for graphG; and the nearest neighbor random walk {X _n } _nN onG, if the starting pointX ₀=x is fixed. These exponents are responsible for the geometric, resistance, diffusion and spectral properties of the graph. The main concern of this paper is the relation of these exponents to the spectral density of the transition matrix. A series of new exponentse, e ,e _R ,e are introduced by allowingx to vary along the vertices. The results suggest that the geometric and resistance properties of the graph are responsible for the diffusion speed on the graph.     

Exact results for the asymmetric simple exclusion process with a blockage

We present new results for the current as a function of transmission rate in the one-dimensional totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP) with a blockage that lowers the jump rate at one site from one tor<1. Exact finitevolume results serve to bound the allowed values for the current in the infinite system. This proves the existence of a nonequilibrium phase transition, corresponding to an immiscibility gap in the allowed values of the asymptotic densities which the infinite system can have in a stationary state. A series expansion inr, derived from the finite systems, is proven to be asymptotic for all sufficiently large systems. Padé approximants based on this series, which make specific assumptions about the nature of the singularity atr=1, match numerical data for the infinite system to 1 part in 10⁴.