Development of Resin Membranes as a Sensitive Indicator of Heavy Metal Toxicity in the Soil Environment

Abstract

Ion exchange resins in contact with soil can act as a sink for metal cations, thereby simulate the action of plant roots. Ion exchange resins in membrane form offer additional advantages in ease of use and handling. A procedure was developed to assess the bioavailability of four heavy metals Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb via direct in soil burial. A growth chamber experiment with three representative crops (oats, radish and lettuce) was set up to determine the phytotoxic levels of the four heavy metals. The critical levels varied widely from crop to crop, and soil to soil. Lettuce was most sensitive to high concentration of metals. The toxic effects are more pronounced on sandier textured soils.     

Development of a one-step immunochromatographic strip test for the rapid detection of nevirapine (NVP), a commonly used antiretroviral drug for the treatment of HIV/AIDS

Currently, high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) methods are mainly used to measure antiretroviral plasma concentrations in HIV-infected patients. Although the utility of routine therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) as an additional tool to optimize long-term antiretroviral therapy is unclear, if TDM is to be widely used, the availability of simple, cheap and reliable methods for the measurement of antiretroviral drug levels are needed, particularly in resource-limited settings. In this study, an immunochromatograhic (IC) strip test to detect the presence of nevirapine (NVP) in body fluids has been developed. Antiserum to NVP was first raised in rabbits by immunization against NVP chemically conjugated with bovine serum albumin, and subsequently validated by Western immunoblotting and competitive indirect ELISA. The partially purified anti-NVP antibodies were conjugated with colloidal gold particles. The conjugation of the colloidal gold and polyclonal antibodies was monitored by UV-vis spectroscopy, while transmission electron microscopy images were used to characterize the particle size and shape of the conjugates. The resulting colloidal gold conjugates were used for the production of an IC strip test to detect nevirapine in human plasma. Preliminary assessment suggests no-cross reactivity of the NVP polyclonal antibodies but assessment of plasma samples from HIV-infected patients receiving HAART needs to be conducted. This assay could potentially be used for drug monitoring as part of the clinical care of HIV infected patients.     

Evaluation of hybrid laser-cut and cast miniature fracture specimens

This paper presents a new hybrid laser-cutting method for producing fracture test specimens from thermosetting materials. The hybrid approach combines casting of a sheet of material with subsequent laser-cutting of the test specimens. The new approach was compared to the traditional casting method using a fracture toughness test. For this study, a compact version of the tapered double cantilever beam (cTDCB) was used as a specimen geometry for both manufacturing methods. The cTDCB specimen is crack length independent, and crack length investigations were performed to ensure the crack length independence of the cTDCB specimens. The specimens that were made by the hybrid laser-cut method were found to be comparable to the specimens obtained by the traditional casting method. Moreover, the laser-cut method provides a fast and accurate method to make a significant number of samples in a reasonable time. These tests show that the hybrid laser-cut method could be a good alternative to the traditional casting method.     

Synthesis,antibacterial evaluation and survey on the thermophysical characteristics of novel medically applicable polyamides containing pharmaceutically outstanding triazole moieties

There are many different strategies to decrease the incidence of infection of medical device and food related containers. One way to prevent infection is by modifying the polymers used in making the devices and containers. Incorporation of antimicrobial agents in the bulk material or in formulations of medical devices production has been considered a viable alternative for systemic application of antibiotics. In this article, preparation of a series of triazole containing polymers, poly(triazole-amide-imide)s (PTAI)s and poly(triazole-amide) (PTA)s, and their monomers are reported. These polymers were readily soluble in a variety of organic solvents, showed significant thermal properties and also viscosities in the range of 0.55–0.66 dL/g. They have been tested against a range of Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens. The results indicated that these novel polymers containing triazole moiety in their repeating units can effectively control Gram-positive and negative pathogens and their physic-chemical properties besides their antibacterial characteristics make them unique candidate for using in the manufacturing of the medical devices.     

Phenanthroline-fluorescein molecular hybrid as a ratiometric and selective fluorescent chemosensor for Cu2+ via FRET strategy: synthesis,computational studies and in vitro applications

A FRET-based chemosensor L containing donor phenanthroline and acceptor fluorescein moiety was designed, synthesised and characterised for the ratiometric fluorescent detection of Cu²⁺ in organo-aqueous solution. Probe L showed high selectivity and excellent sensitivity towards Cu²⁺ ions by exhibiting both colorimetric and fluorometric changes due to opening of the spirolactum ring of fluorescein upon complexation with Cu²⁺. In presence of Cu²⁺ ions, probe L formed L-Cu²⁺ complex in 1:1 stoichiometric fashion which is established on the basis of Job’s plot and mass spectroscopy. We also performed DFT computational studies to know the binding nature and coordination feature of the complex. Furthermore, fluorescence imaging studies revealed that probe L was cell permeable and could be used to detect intracellular Cu²⁺ in living cells.     

基于主成分分析下候选基因关联检验的数学模型

对候选基因的关联检验,都是针对性状在候选基因内使用多个SNP标记,并通过检验SNP单倍型来完成的,众所周知,多标记单倍型方法往往要比单标记方法表达出更多的信息,但是,单倍型的数量往往会随着所标记的SNP的数目增多而急剧的增加,这又会大大增加检验统计量的自由度,使用统计学中的主成分分析法来降低单倍型空间的维数,并构造关联检验来检验一个数量性状与多个单倍型的关联情况,模拟结果显示,此检验方法是较合理的.     

Computing test rank for a free solvable group

It is proved that test rank of a free solvable non-Abelian group of finite rank is 1 less than the rank of that group. This gives the answer to Question 14.88 posed in the Kourovka Notebook by Fine and Shpilrain, asking whether or not a free solvable group of rank 2 and solvability index n ≥ 3 has test elements. Supported by RFBR grant No. 05-01-00292. __________ Translated from Algebra i Logika, Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 447–457, July–August, 2006.     

Predicting initial erosion during the hole erosion test by using turbulent flow CFD simulation

CFD simulation with enhanced modeling of turbulence and near-wall treatment is used to model water–clay mixtures flowing through a cylindrical pipe domain. Effects on the wall-shear stress resulting from varying water clay content and applied hydraulic gradient are analyzed. Various parametric studies were performed and had shown that the two-dimensional modelling introduced in the present study does not yield a uniform wall-shear stress along the pipe wall and that clay concentration affects significantly the wall-shear stress value. This is in contrast with the common hypothesis used in one-dimensional modeling approaches where this stress is assumed constant and which gives rise to uniform erosion along the pipe wall. The obtained results had enabled predicting more realistically erosion amount and had allowed for understanding the irregular eroded hole wall shape as observed experimentally after performing the standard hole erosion test.     

Testing for linearity

A nonparametric large sample test is proposed for testing the linearity of a regression model with independent and identically distributed errors satisfying only a very mild tail condition. The statistic is based on the functional least squares estimator of the slope vector. The test is applied to the stack loss data.     

柯尔莫哥洛夫检验在混凝土强度检测中的应用

回弹法是检测混凝土强度的一种常用方法,回弹法的测量精度依赖于数据本身的真实性。本文提出了一种利用柯尔莫哥洛夫检验控制测量数据误差的方法。