Design and development of a two‐dimensional system based on hydrophilic and reversed‐phase liquid chromatography with on‐line sample treatment for the simultaneous separation of excreted xenobiotics and endogenous metabolites in urine

In the present work we describe a two‐dimensional liquid chromatographic system (2D‐LC) with detection by mass spectrometry (MS) for the simultaneous separation of endogenous metabolites of clinical interest and excreted xenobiotics deriving from exposure to toxic compounds. The 2D‐LC system involves two orthogonal chromatographic modes, hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) to separate polar endogenous metabolites and reversed‐phase (RP) chromatography to separate excreted xenobiotics of low and intermediate polarity. Additionally, the present proposal has the novelty of incorporating an on‐line sample treatment based on the use of restricted access materials (RAMs), which permits the direct injection of urine samples into the system. The work is focused on the instrumental coupling, studying all possible options and attempting to circumvent the problems of solvent incompatibility between the RAM device and the two chromatographic columns, HILIC and RP. The instrumental configuration developed, RAM‐HILIC‐RPLC‐MS/MS, allows the simultaneous assessment of urinary metabolites of clinical interest and excreted compounds derived from exposure to toxic agents with minimal sample manipulation. Thus, it may be of interest in areas such as occupational and environmental toxicology in order to explore the possible relationship between the two types of compounds. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Structural and magnetic properties of Ni/Pt multilayers

In this work, the variation of the magnetic moments of the Ni/Pt multilayers are studied using the linearized augmented plane waves (LAPW) method in the framework of the density functional theory (DFT) implemented in the version of WIEN2K program. The systems have been modeled by seven layers slab separated in z direction by a vacuum region of four substrate layers. We present the results of the dependence of the magnetic properties with respect to the thickness variation of the different multilayers. The modeling of these systems finds an important empirical support. Experiment and theory show the same trends for the magnetic moments: hybridization effects between Ni and Pt are mostly localized at the interface.     

Indexing text using the Ziv–Lempel trie

Let a text of u characters over an alphabet of size σ be compressible to n phrases by the LZ78 algorithm. We show how to build a data structure based on the Ziv–Lempel trie, called the LZ-index, that takes 4nlog₂n(1+o(1)) bits of space (that is, 4 times the entropy of the text for ergodic sources) and reports the R occurrences of a pattern of length m in worst case time O(m³logσ+(m+R)logn). We present a practical implementation of the LZ-index, which is faster than current alternatives when we take into consideration the time to report the positions or text contexts of the occurrences found.     

Practical algorithms for transposition-invariant string-matching

We consider the problems of (1) longest common subsequence (LCS) of two given strings in the case where the first may be shifted by some constant (that is, transposed) to match the second, and (2) transposition-invariant text searching using indel distance. These problems have applications in music comparison and retrieval. We introduce two novel techniques to solve these problems efficiently. The first is based on the branch and bound method, the second on bit-parallelism. Our branch and bound algorithm computes the longest common transposition-invariant subsequence (LCTS) in time O((m²+loglogσ)logσ) in the best case and O((m²+logσ)σ) in the worst case, where m and σ, respectively, are the length of the strings and the size of the alphabet. On the other hand, we show that the same problem can be solved by using bit-parallelism and thus obtain a speedup of O(w/logm) over the classical algorithms, where the computer word has w bits. The advantage of this latter algorithm over the present bit-parallel ones is that it allows the use of more complex distances, including general integer weights. Since our branch and bound method is very flexible, it can be further improved by combining it with other efficient algorithms such as our novel bit-parallel algorithm. We experiment on several combination possibilities and discuss which are the best settings for each of those combinations. Our algorithms are easily extended to other musically relevant cases, such as δ-matching and polyphony (where there are several parallel texts to be considered). We also show how our bit-parallel algorithm is adapted to text searching and illustrate its effectiveness in complex cases where the only known competing method is the use of brute force.     

The derivatives of equilibrium states

We find some estimates for the derivatives of equilibrium states of subshifts of finite type. We prove the differentiability (with respect to the potential) of integrals of certain discontinuous functions for the equilibrium state of a potential.research supported by CNPq, Brazil     

Practical aspects associated with location planning for maternal and perinatal assistance in Brazil

A study has been carried out aimed at reducing perinatal mortality in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro through a better distribution of health care facilities. The algorithmic aspects are detailed elsewhere and here the emphasis is on practical issues and difficulties encountered. A 3-level hierarchical model was developed. Both uncapacitated and capacitated versions are briefly described together with some results based on actual data. The project brought to light many contradictions between OR theory and practice in developing countries and, unfortunately, the models developed were not implemented by the municipality health authorities. Possible reasons for this outcome are analysed.     

Measurement of surface topography by RGB Shadow-Moiré with direct phase demodulation

In this paper we present the application of a direct demodulation method for the measurement of surface topography by means of Shadow-Moiré. In our set-up, we use three LEDs (with green, red and blue peak wavelengths) to illuminate the grating. Due to the different position of these light sources, a polychromatic Shadow-Moiré fringe pattern is produced, which can be described as the superposition of three monochromatic (red, green and blue) fringe patterns. Taking the image of this polychromatic fringe pattern with a RGB CCD camera, we get a monochromatic fringe pattern stored at each RGB channel of the CCD. The direct demodulation algorithm employed uses these fringe patterns to calculate the wrapped phase map. After unwrapping the phase map using a standard multi-grid technique, we implemented an automatic procedure to detect the area of interest of the phase map by removing low modulation zones and to calculate the absolute value of the phase. In this way it is possible to determine the topography of a surface with a single RGB snapshot maintaining a simple experimental set-up, which is an important feature, especially for the study of dynamic phenomena such as deformations. We present the experimental results obtained after measuring different objects with both smooth and rough surface textures.     

Polarization transforming properties of Dove prisms

We analyze the polarization changes introduced by a rotated Dove prism on the linearly polarized light, using the Jones calculus and the exact ray trace analysis. The state of polarization changes from the linear to a mildly elliptical one when a plane wave front passes through a rotated Dove prism: its semi-major axis is nearly parallel to the input plane of polarization, for any angle of prism rotation. The interferogram contrast remains high for all shearing angles in spite of polarization changes when the Dove prism is incorporated into a rotational shearing interferometer. These results are confirmed experimentally.     

3‐(3‐Oxo‐1,3‐dihydroisobenzofuran‐1‐ylidene)pentane‐2,4‐dione

In the title compound, C₁₃H₁₀O₄, prepared by the condensation reaction between phthalic anhydride and pentane‐2,4‐dione, one of the acetyl groups in the pentane‐2,4‐dione fragment is almost coplanar with the isobenzofuran ring system, while the other group is twisted out of this plane by almost 80°. The corresponding C—C and C—O distances in the two acetyl units are consistent with dipolar delocalization into the coplanar unit only. There is no supramolecular aggregation of the molecules, but a number of rather short intermolecular contacts of C—H...O, O...O and O...C types occur.     

Infrared detection of a planet next to a bright star

Humans have always dreamt about the possibility of existence of planets in solar systems other than our own. After flying by, dropping probes, and even landing devices on most planets within our own solar system, the search for extra-solar planet is included in every proposal to either build a larger and better earth-, space-, or moon-based telescope, or observatory facility. The preliminary analysis seems to indicate that wavelength band from 25 μm to 30 μm is most promising in solving this problem. A number of IR technological challenges are to be overcome before the actual detection system can even be considered in a detailed design. The significant technical challenges of finding a planet will be described. Then details are given on the feasibility of detecting a planet with an instrument concept designed specifically for this purpose, a space-based, rotating rotationally shearing interferometer.