A piezoelectric immunosensor for the detection of cortisol

A piezoelectric crystal immunosensor has been developed for the detection and determination of cortisol. Cortisol antibody was layered onto the gold electrodes of a 10 MHz piezoelectric crystal which was pre-coated with either protein A or gluteraldehyde. Crystals pre-coated with protein A showed the best results with respect to stability and sensitivity. The sensor was successfully used for the determination of cortisol in standard solutions from 36-3628 micrograms/L (part per billion). The advantages of the proposed sensor include simplicity, short analysis time, cost effectiveness and selectivity. The results demonstrate the feasibility of cortisol assay in clinical testing and in drug monitoring.     

Efficient shooting method for solving two point boundary value problems

We present an efficient shooting method for solving two point boundary value problems. The Adomian decomposition method will be utilized to obtain a series solution of the initial value problems involved. Numerical examples and comparison of the work of others will also be done.     

Molar extinction coefficients of some carbohydrates in aqueous solutions

Molar extinction coefficients of some carbohydrates viz. l-arabinose (C₅H₁₀O₅), d-glucose (C₆H₁₂O₆), d-mannose (C₆H₁₂O₆), d-galactose (C₆H₁₂O₆), d(-) fructose (C₆H₁₂O₆) and maltose (C₁₂H₂₄O₁₂) in aqueous solutions have been determined at 81, 356, 511, 662, 1173 and 1332 keV by gamma ray transmission method in a narrow beam good geometry set-up. These coefficients have been found to depend upon the photon energy following a 4-parameter polynomial. These extinction coefficients for different sugars having the same molecular formula have same values varying within experimental uncertainty. Within concentration ranges studied, Beer-Lambert law is obeyed very well.     

Electric field gradient in bixbyite rare-earth oxides R2O3 (R=Tl,Eu, Lu,Tm) measured by perturbed angular correlation

The electric field gradient (EFG) at ¹¹¹Cd nuclei dilutely substituting the cation site in bixbyite rare-earth oxides Tl₂O₃, Eu₂O₃, Lu₂O₃ and Tm₂O₃ has been measured using perturbed angular correlation technique. The ¹¹¹In(EC) ¹¹¹Cd probe nuclei were introduced into the samples by thermal diffusion. The experimental EFG values are compared with those calculated using the point charge model (PCM). The results are discussed in terms of a correlation between the electric field gradient and cation–oxygen bond length in metal oxides. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Dichlorocarbene Addition to

In contrast to the terminal phosphinidene complex PhPW(CO)(5) (2), which adds to [5]metacyclophane (1) in a 1,4-fashion, dichlorocarbene preferentially adds in a 1,2-fashion to the formal "anti-Bredt" type double bond of the aromatic ring of 1 to afford the norcaradiene 11b, which immediately rearranges to the bridged cycloheptatriene 12b and further by a [1,5] sigmatropic chlorine migration to the isomeric 13b as the first observable product. More slowly, the latter isomerizes via a dissociative mechanism to give 15b. A computational study supports the notion that the [1,5] chlorine migration in the rearrangement 12b --> 13b, for which an activation barrier of 70.2 kJ mol(-)(1) was calculated, is essentially concerted with minor charge separation. In contrast, the analogous [1,5] chlorine migration in the flat model compound 7,7-dichlorocycloheptatriene (12a) displays features of a dissociative pathway.     

Statistics of the turbulent/non-turbulent interface in a spatially developing mixing layer

The thin interface separating the inner turbulent region from the outer irrotational fluid is analysed in a direct numerical simulation of a spatially developing turbulent mixing layer. A vorticity threshold is defined to detect the interface separating the turbulent from the non-turbulent regions of the flow, and to calculate statistics conditioned on the distance from this interface. The conditional statistics for velocity are in remarkable agreement with the results for other free shear flows available in the literature, such as turbulent jets and wakes. In addition, an analysis of the passive scalar field in the vicinity of the interface is presented. It is shown that the scalar has a jump at the interface, even stronger than that observed for velocity. The strong jump for the scalar has been observed before in the case of high Schmidt number (Sc). In the present study, such a strong jump is observed for a scalar with Sc ≈ 1. Conditional statistics of kinetic energy and scalar dissipation are presented. While the kinetic energy dissipation has its maximum far from the interface, the scalar dissipation is characterised by a strong peak very close to the interface. Finally, it is shown that the geometric features of the interfaces correlate with relatively large scale structures as visualised by low-pressure isosurfaces.