Zinc-Silver, Zinc-Palladium, and Zinc-Gold as Bimetallic Systems for Carbon Tetrachloride Dechlorination in Water

Doping of zinc with silver, palladium, and gold was found to increase reactivity towards carbon tetrachloride in water. Commercial zinc dust, cryochemically prepared zinc metal particles (SMAD nanoparticles), and zinc dust pressed into pellets (mechanically activated zinc) were employed. Reduction products detected were methane, ethylene, acetylene, and other hydrocarbons along with products of partial dechlorination such as chloroform, methylene chloride, and methyl chloride. Dichloroethylenes (DCEs) and long-term reactions traces of trichloroethylene (TCE) were also detected. The use of zinc dust doped with palladium, gold, and silver resulted in 4-10 fold increases in carbon tetrachloride degradation rate and conversion into methane. Up to 30% of carbon tetrachloride was converted into methane by the Zn dust / 2 mol % Ag bimetallic system after the first six hours of reaction. Doping of activated forms of zinc, both cryoparticle and pellets, caused a further increase in methane formation and decrease in the concentration of methylene chloride. The data show that bimetallic enhancement with Pd, Ag, Au, as well as cryo and mechanical activation of zinc, enhances the metal surface reactivity and changes the priority of reaction pathways such that fully reduced products are favored. The “non-catalytic” gold metal was especially effective and this suggests that electron transfer, not catalytic hydrogenation, is rate determining

The optical identifcation of events with poorly defined locations: The case of the Fermi GBM GRB140801A

We report the early discovery of the optical afterglow of gamma-ray burst (GRB) 140801A in the 137 deg$^2$ 3-$\sigma$ error-box of the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM). MASTER is the only observatory that automatically react to all Fermi alerts. GRB 140801A is one of the few GRBs whose optical counterpart was discovered solely from its GBM localization. The optical afterglow of GRB 140801A was found by MASTER Global Robotic Net 53 sec after receiving the alert, making it the fastest optical detection of a GRB from a GBM error-box. Spectroscopy obtained with the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias and the 6-m BTA of SAO RAS reveals a redshift of $z=1.32$. We performed optical and near-infrared photometry of GRB 140801A using different telescopes with apertures ranging from 0.4-m to 10.4-m. GRB 140801A is a typical burst in many ways. The rest-frame bolometric isotropic energy release and peak energy of the burst is $E_\mathrm{iso} = 5.54_{-0.24}^{+0.26} \times 10^{52}$ erg and $E_\mathrm{p, rest}\simeq280$ keV, respectively, which is consistent with the Amati relation. The absence of a jet break in the optical light curve provides a lower limit on the half-opening angle of the jet $\theta=6.1$ deg. The observed $E_\mathrm{peak}$ is consistent with the limit derived from the Ghirlanda relation. The joint Fermi GBM and Konus-Wind analysis shows that GRB 140801A could belong to the class of intermediate duration. The rapid detection of the optical counterpart of GRB 140801A is especially important regarding the upcoming experiments with large coordinate error-box areas.Comment: in press MNRAS, 201

Application of innovative methods for bacteriuria diagnostics of urinary tract infections

317 urine samples were tested by the analyzer ALIFAX HB&L LIGHT (Alifax, Italy), using a laser light scattering technology. Urine samples were obtained from children aged from one to 16 years with different pathologies. 281 sample showed a negative result (88.6%) three hours after inoculation, 36 samples positive (11.4%), of which 19 samples were correlated with the results of the traditional culture method (inoculation on blood agar for Eisenberg method). Bacteriuria definition it is crucial for the diagnostics of urinary tract infections in a short period of time (3 hours), especially for material obtained during surgical procedures and outpatients.Протестировано 317 образцов мочи от детей в возрасте от года до 16 лет с различной патологией при применении анализатора ALIFAX HB&L LIGHT (Alifax, Италия), использующего технологию лазерного светорассеивания. Через три часа после посева 281 проба показала отрицательный результат (88,6%), 36 образцов — положительный (11,4%), из них 19 образцов коррелировали с результатами традиционного культурального метода (посева на кровяной агар по методу Айзенберга). Для диагностики инфекций мочевыводящих путей определение бактериурии в более короткие сроки (3 часа) является принципиально важным, особенно при получении материала во время оперативных вмешательств и на амбулаторном приеме

Assessing interpolation methods for accuracy of design groundwater levels for civil projects

This research compared natural neighbor interpolation with other interpolation methods commonly implemented in ArcGIS. It evaluated the relative performance of interpolation methods for various spatial data distributions, including line transects. It characterized locations which are associated with large prediction errors. To assess the relative performance of interpolation methods, a validation procedure was used consisting of 75% training data and 25% test data. Statistical error measures were used to measure the predictive performance of the interpolation methods, and the spatial distribution of errors was used to characterize areas where interpolation methods performed poorly. Results showed that Topo to Raster, natural neighbor, ordinary kriging, and empirical Bayesian kriging methods consistently outperformed other interpolation methods for a variety of spatial distributions of the data. However, natural neighbor interpolation was unsuitable for linear transects. In general, the accuracy of most of the interpolation methods increased with narrow spatial data distributions. Spatial distribution of large prediction errors was predominantly similar, regardless of the interpolation method used, and was related to changes in physical characteristics

Organic Solvent Extraction of Proteins and Peptides from Serum as an Effective Sample Preparation for Detection and Identification of Biomarkers by Mass Spectrometry

A method to extract peptides and low molecular weight proteins from serum under denaturing conditions using acetonitrile containing 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid has been developed. The extraction procedure precipitates large, abundant proteins to simplify subsequent mass spectral analysis. This sample preparation method provides an efficient way to extract serum peptides, enabling them to be compared and identified using different mass spectrometry approaches. Surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry analysis of mouse blood serum samples prepared by this method allowed detection of two markers which were significantly reduced in mice with B cell lymphoma tumor. One of these markers has been identified as apolipoprotein A-II

Synthetic Circular RNA Functions as a miR-21 Sponge to Suppress Gastric Carcinoma Cell Proliferation

MicroRNA (miR) sponges containing miR binding sequences constitute a potentially powerful molecular therapeutic strategy. Recently, naturally occurring circular RNAs (circRNAs) were shown to function as efficient miR sponges in cancer cells. We hypothesized that synthetic circRNA sponges could achieve therapeutic loss-of-function targeted against specific miRs. Linear RNA molecules containing miR-21 binding sites were transcribed in vitro; after dephosphorylation and phosphorylation, circularization was achieved using 5′-3′ end-ligation by T4 RNA ligase 1. circRNA stability was assessed using RNase R and fetal bovine serum. Competitive inhibition of miR-21 activity by a synthetic circRNA sponge was assessed using luciferase reporter, cell proliferation, and cell apoptosis assays in three gastric cancer cell lines. circRNA effects on downstream proteins were also delineated by Tandem Mass Tag (TMT) labeling (data available via ProteomeXchange identifier PRIDE: PXD008584), followed by western blotting. We conclude that artificial circRNA sponges resistant to nuclease digestion can be synthesized using simple enzymatic ligation steps. These sponges inhibit cancer cell proliferation and suppress the activity of miR-21 on downstream protein targets, including the cancer protein DAXX. In summary, synthetic circRNA sponges represent a simple, effective, convenient strategy for achieving targeted loss of miR function in vitro, with potential future therapeutic application in human patients. Keywords: synthetic circular RNA, microRNA sponge, microRNA loss-of-function, gastric carcinoma, molecular therap