Interaction of aluminium hydrolytic species with biomolecules

In this contribution the formation of bioinorganic assemblies between the basic globular protein lysozyme and aqueous aluminium species including Al 13 -mer, Al 30 -mer and colloidal aluminium hydroxide have been explored and comparison made to previous interaction studies performed with bovine serum albumin (BSA). Specific charge-stabilised bioinorganic assemblies involving aluminium species and lysozyme were observed to form in contrast to the gel like structures formed on interaction of BSA with aluminium species. As demonstrated by infrared spectroscopy (structural assignment, 2D correlation spectroscopy), interactions mostly involve acidic surface groups of the proteins (Asp, Glu), with strong complexation and deprotonation in the case of BSA interacting with Al 13 and Al 30 and through hydrogen bonding for lysozyme interacting with the same species and aluminium hydroxide particles interacting with both biomolecules

Geothermal studies - Yellowstone National Park /test site 11/, Wyoming

Summary report of diamond drilling in thermal areas of Yellowstone National Park, and method for determining heat flow in thermal area

Modeling planar degenerate wetting and anchoring in nematic liquid crystals

We propose a simple surface potential favoring the planar degenerate anchoring of nematic liquid crystals, i.e., the tendency of the molecules to align parallel to one another along any direction parallel to the surface. We show that, at lowest order in the tensorial Landau-de Gennes order-parameter, fourth-order terms must be included. We analyze the anchoring and wetting properties of this surface potential. In the nematic phase, we find the desired degenerate planar anchoring, with positive scalar order-parameter and some surface biaxiality. In the isotropic phase, we find, in agreement with experiments, that the wetting layer may exhibit a uniaxial ordering with negative scalar order-parameter. For large enough anchoring strength, this negative ordering transits towards the planar degenerate state