Isolating and Probing the Hot Spot Formed between Two Silver Nanocubes

Out of the frying pan : Hot spots can greatly increase the sensitivity of surface‐enhanced Raman scattering, but they remain poorly understood. A new strategy based on plasma etching (see picture) can be used to isolate and exclusively probe the SERS‐active molecules adsorbed in the hot‐spot region between two silver nanocubes.

     

Analytical approach to the metallomic of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) liver tissue by SRXRF and FAAS after 2D-PAGE separation: Preliminary results

An investigation was made into calcium, iron and zinc in protein spots in samples of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) liver tissue obtained after protein separation by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE) and subsequent qualitative and quantitative evaluation by synchrotron radiation X-ray fluorescence (SRXRF) and Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (FAAS). An analysis of the fluorescence spectra indicated the presence of calcium, iron and zinc in 12, 6 and 8 liver protein spots, respectively. The metal ions found were distributed mainly in proteins with a molar mass of less than 40.00 kDa and more than 12.00 kDa, with pI in the range of 4.70-9.40. The only exception was a spot presenting protein with a molar mass of 10.10 kDa. In addition to calcium, iron and zinc, sulfur and phosphorus - which are non-metals that may be part of the protein structure, were also detected. After microwave-assisted acid mineralization of the proteins spots, a FAAS estimation of the concentration of calcium, iron and zinc ions bound to these proteins indicated a range of 1.08-5.80 mg g⁻¹, 2.02-8.03 mg g⁻¹ and 1.60-8.55 mg g⁻¹, respectively.     

Fully automated liquid extraction‐based surface sampling and ionization using a chip‐based robotic nanoelectrospray platform

A fully automated liquid extraction‐based surface sampling device utilizing an Advion NanoMate chip‐based infusion nanoelectrospray ionization system is reported. Analyses were enabled for discrete spot sampling by using the Advanced User Interface of the current commercial control software. This software interface provided the parameter control necessary for the NanoMate robotic pipettor to both form and withdraw a liquid microjunction for sampling from a surface. The system was tested with three types of analytically important sample surface types, viz., spotted sample arrays on a MALDI plate, dried blood spots on paper, and whole‐body thin tissue sections from drug dosed mice. The qualitative and quantitative data were consistent with previous studies employing other liquid extraction‐based surface sampling techniques. Published in 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Surface‐enhanced Raman scattering‐based approach for DNA detection at low concentrations via polyvinyl alcohol‐protected silver grasslike patterns

A simple method is demonstrated to detect DNA at low concentrations on the basis of surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) via polyvinyl alcohol‐protected silver grasslike patterns (PVA‐Ag GPs) grown on the surface of the common Al substrate. By the SERS measurements of sodium citrate and thymine, the PVA‐Ag GPs are shown to be an excellent SERS substrate with good activity, stability and reproducibility. With the use of the tested molecule of thymine, the enhancement factor of the PVA‐Ag GPs is up to ~1.4 × 10⁸. The PVA‐Ag GPs are also shown to be an excellent SERS substrate with good biocompatibility for DNA detection, and the detection limit is down to ~10⁻⁵ mg/g. Meanwhile, the assignations of the Raman bands and the adsorption behaviors of the DNA molecules are also analyzed. In this work, the geometry optimization and the wavenumber analysis of adenine–Ag and guanine–Ag complexes for the ground states are performed using density functional theory, B3LYP functional and the LanL2DZ basis set. The transition energies and the oscillator strengths of adenine–Ag and guanine–Ag for the lowest six singlet excited states were calculated by using the time‐dependent density functional theory method with the same functional and basis set. The results show that the charge transfer in the adenine–Ag and guanine–Ag complexes should be the chemical factor for the SERS of the DNA molecules. Lastly, this method may be employed in large‐scale preparation of substrates that have been widely applied in the Raman analysis of DNA because the fabrication process is simple and inexpensive. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

铜焊盘与锡合金焊点界面物相分析及可靠性探讨

Sn60Pb40焊料与铜焊盘的焊接界面中金属间化合物Cu6Sn5的形成与长大以及在热循环过程中的组织粗化是影响焊点可靠性的重要因素。作者根据SMT工艺的实际情况，使用Au—Sn共晶焊料、Sn60Pb40焊料分别涂覆在铜合金基板表面，并分别在320℃、240℃下保温1min，冷却形成焊点，利用X射线研究分析了两种不同焊盘基材与Sn60Pb40钎料、Au—Sn共晶钎料的钎焊界面的物相。运用经典相变理论、低周疲劳失效的机理以及“柯肯达尔”效应，就优异焊点的形成、物相产生、温度循环后组织粗化与增加Ni阻挡层，对提高焊接接点的温度循环可靠性的作用进行了分析与探讨。     

消除AlN陶瓷基片色斑

ＡｌＮ基片的色斑会影响外观，引起用户对基片性能的疑虑。通过ＸＰＳ、热力学分析等方法，证实了碳的金属化合物是造成氮化铝陶瓷色斑的根源；采取控制氮化铝粉质量、改进排胶和烧结工艺、疏通气路等措施，可消除色斑。     

The Two Hyperplane Conjecture

We introduce a conjecture that we call the Two Hyperplane Conjecture, saying that an isoperimetric surface that divides a convex body in half by volume is trapped between parallel hyperplanes. The conjecture is motivated by an approach we propose to the Hots Spots Conjecture of J. Rauch using deformation and Lipschitz bounds for level sets of eigenfunctions. We will relate this approach to quantitative connectivity properties of level sets of solutions to elliptic variational problems, including isoperimetric inequalities, Poincar′e inequalities, Harnack inequalities, and NTA(non-tangentially accessibility). This paper mostly asks questions rather than answering them, while recasting known results in a new light. Its main theme is that the level sets of least energy solutions to scalar variational problems should be as simple as possible.     

Hot spot computational identification: Application to the complex formed between the hen egg white lysozyme (HEL) and the antibody HyHEL‐10

The definition and comprehension of the hot spots in an interface is a subject of primary interest for a variety of fields, including structure‐based drug design. Therefore, to achieve an alanine mutagenesis computational approach that is at the same time accurate and predictive, capable of reproducing the experimental mutagenesis values is a major challenge in the computational biochemistry field. Antibody/protein antigen complexes provide one of the greatest models to study protein–protein recognition process because they have three fundamentally features: specificity, high complementary association and a small epitope restricted to the diminutive complementary determining regions (CDR) region, while the remainder of the antibody is largely invariant. Thus, we apply a computational mutational methodological approach to the study of the antigen–antibody complex formed between the hen egg white lysozyme (HEL) and the antibody HyHEL‐10. A critical evaluation that focuses essentially on the limitations and advantages between different computational methods for hot spot determination, as well as between experimental and computational methodological approaches, is presented. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2007