A list-sequential sampling scheme with applications in financial auditing

External auditors have the responsibility of estimating thelevel of error in accounts presented to them by their clients,and establishing whether or not this exceeds materiality. Usuallythe large volume of accounts necessitates the use of sampleinformation to estimate the error amount, which is obtainedby randomly choosing a subset of the line items for auditing.Since the account amounts may vary considerably, it is desirableto select them with probability proportional to the book valuesize, and while numerous such procedures exist, most have implementationproblems which prevent their widespread application to practicalsituations: some select items with replacement, others becometoo complex when the sample size is large, and yet others returna variable sample size. This paper presents a selection methodthat mitigates these problems. It returns a fixed-size sampleof distinct line items, and is easy to implement no matter howlarge the sample. The results of a series of simulation experimentswith a variety of audit conditions indicate that the new methodprovides reliable bound estimates of the total error amount,which are more precise than methods currently in use.     

电阻型高分子湿敏元件的光辐射改性研究

电阻型高分子湿敏元件在氦氖激光、太阳光、紫外光辐照一定的时间后，用在不同湿度下测量辐照前后的电阻值来分析元件性能的变化，在较长的时间内跟踪测量来观察其长期稳定性。结果表明，湿敏元件在氦氖激光照射一定时间后，其感湿特征量的线性和长期稳定性匀变好。     

典型类型气溶胶吸收光学厚度的定标规律

利用云和气溶胶粒子的光学特性软件包(OPAC)对陆地型、海洋型、沙漠型和极地型四种典型类型气溶胶的吸收光学厚度进行了计算统计分析,根据每一种类型气溶胶成分的差异,分析了气溶胶吸收光学厚度随波长及相对湿度变化的规律,建立了四种典型类型气溶胶吸收光学厚度与波长、相对湿度的定标关系。气溶胶吸收光学厚度随波长的幂指数衰减规律并不是在所有波长范围内均满足,不同类型的气溶胶,其适用的范围不同;气溶胶吸收光学厚度随波长和相对湿度的变化主要受气溶胶成分影响,相对湿度的增大会导致气溶胶吸收特性的降低,并会对吸收Angstrom指数造成影响。根据建立的气溶胶吸收光学厚度的定标关系,可由气溶胶激光雷达等设备实测的某一波长的光学参量计算光电系统对应波长、不同相对湿度情况下的光学特性。     

How do the substituents affect and regulate the relative retention times of polychlorinated biphenyls during gas chromatography?

The effects and regulatory actions of the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) substituent characteristics on their relative retention times (RRTs) during gas chromatography were analyzed based on known experimental RRTs of 209 PCB congeners and biphenyl; the substituent characteristics used for this analysis included the total amount of substituents, the similarity between two phenyl rings in a single PCB congener, the substituents distribution in single phenyl ring, the main/second‐order interactions effects at each position, and the combined effect of two phenyl rings. At last, the universality of regulation was validated on other experimental conditions. Among them, the full factorial experimental design included 10 factors correlated with each substituent position and two levels (0, 1) were initially applied to the domains of the substituent characteristics. The obtained results have revealed that increasing the total amount of substituents can increase the RRTs of PCBs linearly, but similarities between the two rings cannot control the RRTs effectively. Meanwhile, the more compact the substituent distributions on a single phenyl ring are, the bigger the RRTs of PCBs are. Based on a full factorial experimental design, the overall important trend for each position is as follows: para > meta > ortho and the main regulatory substituents for the second‐order interaction effects are distributed in the same phenyl ring in the following sequence: N_o > N_m > N_p. The congener with two perpendicular phenyl rings exhibits a milder combined effect on RRTs and smaller RRT relatively. The regulation has a good universality among different experimental conditions, revealing the dominant effect of substituent characteristics on RRTs of PCBs. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quantitation of low concentrations of polysorbates in high protein concentration formulations by solid phase extraction and cobalt-thiocyanate derivatization

A spectrophotometric method was developed to quantify low polysorbate (PS) levels in biopharmaceutical formulations containing high protein concentrations. In the method, Oasis HLB solid phase extraction (SPE) cartridge was used to extract PS from high protein concentration formulations. After loading a sample, the cartridge was washed with 4 M guanidine HCl and 10% (v/v) methanol, and the retained PS was eluted by acetonitrile. Following the evaporation of acetonitrile, aqueous cobalt-thiocyanate reagent was added to react with the polyoxyethylene oxide chain of polysorbates to form a blue colored PS–cobaltothiocyante complex. This colored complex was then extracted into methylene chloride and measured spectrophotometrically at 620 nm. The method performance was evaluated on three products containing 30–40 mg L⁻¹ PS-20 and PS-80 in ≤70 g L⁻¹ protein formulations. The method was specific (no matrix interference identified in three types of protein formulations), sensitive (quantitation limit of 10 mg L⁻¹ PS) and robust with good precision (relative standard deviation ≤6.4%) and accuracy (spike recoveries from 95% to 101%). The linear range of the method for both PS-20 and PS-80 was 10 to 80 mg L⁻¹ PS. By diluting samples with 6 M guanidine HCl and/or using different methylene chloride volumes to extract the colored complexes of standards and samples, the method could accurately and precisely quantify 40 mg L⁻¹ PS in up to 300 g L⁻¹ protein formulations.     

The use of coenzyme Q0 as a template in the development of a molecularly imprinted polymer for the selective recognition of coenzyme Q10

In this work, a novel molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) for use as a solid phase extraction sorbent was developed for the determination of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) in liver extract. CoQ10 is an essential cofactor in mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and a powerful antioxidant agent found in low concentrations in biological samples. This fact and its high hydrophobicity make the analysis of CoQ10 technically challenging. Accordingly, a MIP was synthesised using coenzyme Q0 as the template, methacrylic acid as the functional monomer, acetonitrile as the porogen, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as the crosslinker and benzoyl peroxide as the initiator. Various parameters affecting the polymer preparation and extraction efficiency were evaluated. Morphological characterisation of the MIP and its proper comparison with C18 as a sorbent in solid phase extraction were performed. The optimal conditions for the molecularly imprinted solid phase extraction (MISPE) consisted of 400 μL of sample mixed with 30 mg of MIP and 600 μL of water to reach the optimum solution loading. The loading was followed by a washing step consisting of 1 mL of a 1-propanol solution (1-propanol:water, 30:70,v/v) and elution with 1 mL of 1-propanol. After clean-up, the CoQ10 in the samples was analysed by high performance liquid chromatography. The extraction recoveries were higher than 73.7% with good precision (3.6–8.3%). The limits of detection and quantification were 2.4 and 7.5 μg g⁻¹, respectively, and a linear range between 7.5 and 150 μg g⁻¹ of tissue was achieved. The new MISPE procedure provided a successful clean-up for the determination of CoQ10 in a complex matrix.     

Laminar flow mediated continuous single-cell analysis on a novel poly(dimethylsiloxane) microfluidic chip

A novel microfluidic chip with simple design, easy fabrication and low cost, coupled with high-sensitive laser induced fluorescence detection, was developed to provide continuous single-cell analysis based on dynamic cell manipulation in flowing streams. Making use of laminar flows, which formed in microchannels, single cells were aligned and continuously introduced into the sample channel and then detection channel in the chip. In order to rapidly lyse the moving cells and completely transport cellular contents into the detection channel, the angle of the side-flow channels, the asymmetric design of the channels, and the number, shape and layout of micro-obstacles were optimized for effectively redistributing and mixing the laminar flows of single cells suspension, cell lysing reagent and detection buffer. The optimized microfluidic chip was an asymmetric structure of three microchannels, with three microcylinders at the proper positions in the intersections of channels. The microchip was evaluated by detection of anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) uptake and membrane surface P-glycoprotein (P-gp) expression in single leukemia K562 cells. An average throughput of 6–8 cells min⁻¹ was achieved. The detection results showed the cellular heterogeneity in DOX uptake and surface P-gp expression within K562 cells. Our researches demonstrated the feasibility and simplicity of the newly developed microfluidic chip for chemical single-cell analysis.     

The relative energies of polypeptide conformers predicted by linear scaling second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory

We describe an implementation of the cluster-in-molecule(CIM) resolution of the identity(RI) approximation second-order M?ller–Plesset perturbation theory(CIM-RI-MP2), with the purpose of extending RI-MP2 calculations to very large systems. For typical conformers of several large polypeptides, we calculated their conformational energy differences with the CIM-RI-MP2 and the generalized energy-based fragmentation MP2(GEBF-MP2) methods, and compared these results with the density functional theory(DFT) results obtained with several popular functionals. Our calculations show that the conformational energy differences obtained with CIM-RI-MP2 and GEBF-MP2 are very close to each other. In comparison with the GEBF-MP2 and CIM-RI-MP2 relative energies, we found that the DFT functionals(CAM-B3LYP-D3, LC-?PBE-D3, M05-2X, M06-2X and ?B97XD) can give quite accurate conformational energy differences for structurally similar conformers, but provide less-accurate results for structurally very different conformers.     

Class of tight bounds on the Q‐function with closed‐form upper bound on relative error

In this paper, we propose a novel class of parametric bounds on the Q‐function, which are lower bounds for 1 ≤ a < 3 and x > x_t = (a (a‐1) / (3‐a))^1/2, and upper bound for a = 3. We prove that the lower and upper bounds on the Q‐function can have the same analytical form that is asymptotically equal, which is a unique feature of our class of tight bounds. For the novel class of bounds and for each particular bound from this class, we derive the beneficial closed‐form expression for the upper bound on the relative error. By comparing the bound tightness for moderate and large argument values not only numerically, but also analytically, we demonstrate that our bounds are tighter compared with the previously reported bounds of similar analytical form complexity.     

基于前方交会的5点相对定向

5点相对定向是摄影测量与机器视觉的经典问题,传统的5点相对定向方法采用多项式求解技术,导致了解的多样性。为此,研究了基于前方交会约束的5点相对定向方法,建立包含前方交会约束的同名像点共面条件方程,推导求解5点相对定向问题的最优化目标函数,并采用最小二乘广义逆法求解。非量测相机Nikon D80的8组5点相对定向实验结果表明,该方法仅利用5个同名像点即可获得两张像片的相对位置(相对定向)立体模型,在测量长度为0.92 m的标尺三维(3D)长度时,其误差的标准不确定度为0.28±0.24 mm,与现有的5点算法相比,该方法无需排解即可确保5对同名射线对对相交,并且求解精度高,稳健性好,有实用价值。