Cathodic stripping voltammetry of pyridine-2-thiol and some related compounds

The cathodic stripping voltammetric behaviour of pyridine-2-thiol and some related heterocyclic thiols has been studied at a static mercury drop electrode. The influence of substituents on the adsorption of these compounds on the mercury electrode, and the nature of the different thiolates responsible for the subsequent stripping signals have been investigated. Differential-pulse cathodic stripping voltammetry was used to establish linear calibration ranges for the compounds studied. The use of a pre-concentration time of 240 s in open circuit allowed a detection limit of 8.0 × 10–9M to be attained for pyridine-2-thiol

Amperometric separation-free immunosensor for real-time environmental monitoring

Immunoanalytical techniques have found widespread use due to the characteristics of specificity and wide applicability for many analytes, from large polymer antigens, to simple haptens, and even single atoms. Electrochemical sensors offer benefits of technical simplicity, speed and convenience via direct transduction to electronic equipment. Together, these two systems offer the possibility of a convenient, ubiquitous assay technique with high selectivity. However, they are still not widely used, mainly due to the complexity of the associated immunoassay methodologies. A separation-free immunoanalytical technique is described here, which has allowed for the analysis of atrazine in real time and in both quasi-equilibrium and stirred batch configurations. It illustrated that determinations as low as 0.13 muM (28 ppb) could be made using equilibrium incubation with an analytical range of 0.1-10 muM. Measurements could be made between 1 and 10 mM within several minutes using a real-time, stirred batch method. This system offers the potential for fast, simple, cost-effective biosensors for the analysis of many substances of environmental, biomedical and pharmaceutical concern. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

The energy and stability of D-term strings

Cosmic strings derived from string theory, supergravity or any theory of choice should be stable if we hope to observe them. In this paper we consider D-term strings in D=4, N=1 supergravity with a constant Fayet-Iliopoulos term. We show that the positive deficit angle supersymmetric D-term string is non-perturbatively stable by using standard Witten-Nester techniques to prove a positive energy theorem. Particular attention is paid to the negative deficit angle D-term string, which is known to violate the dominant energy condition. Within the class of string solutions we consider, this violation implies that the negative deficit angle D-term string must have a naked pathology and therefore the positive energy theorem we prove does not apply to it. As an interesting aside, we show that the Witten-Nester charge calculates the total gravitational energy of the D-term string without the need for a cut-off, which may not have been expected.Comment: 18 pages. v2: minor changes and references adde

Flow-Injection Analysis of Hydrogen Peroxide Using a Horseradish Peroxidase-Modified Electrode Detection System

A flow-injection analysis (FIA) system utilizing a horseradish peroxidase-modified amperometric electrode is described. The enzyme was immobilized through adsorption onto a glassy carbon electrode and the system is used to determine hydrogen peroxide at submicromolar levels

Liver, horseradish and bananas: a diet of enzymes for voltammetry

In this paper we will report on recent work that we have carried out involving enzymes such as glutamate dehydrogenase (from liver), peroxidase (from horseradish) and tyrosinase (from banana)

Sensors based on polymer modified electrodes

This paper will review the recent results that we have obtained using novel ruthenium-containing polymers, and on the further studies on the incorporation of proteins into polymeric matrices

Differential metabolism of deoxyribonucleosides by leukaemic T cells of immature and mature phenotype

Experimental evidence has indicated that T lymphoblasts are more sensitive to deoxynucleoside toxicity than are B lymphoblasts. These data have led to the use of purine enzyme inhibitors as selective chemotherapeutic drugs in the treatment of T cell malignancies ranging from T cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia to cutaneous T cell lymphomas. We have compared the toxicities of 2′-deoxyadenosine, 2′-deoxyguanosine, and thymidine for T cell lines derived from patients with T cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia with those for mature T cell lines derived from patients with cutaneous T cell leukaemia/lymphoma. We have found that both deoxynucleosides are far less toxic to the mature T cell lies than to T lymphoblasts and that the mature cells accumulate much lower amounts of dATP and dGTP when exposed to deoxyadenosine and deoxyguanosine, respectively. Similar studies performed on peripheral blood cells from patients with T cell leukaemias of mature phenotype and on peripheral blood T cells demonstrate similar low amounts of deoxynucleotide accumulation. Measurements of the activities of several purine metabolizing enzymes that participate in deoxynucleoside phosphorylation or degradation do not reveal differences which would explain the toxicity of deoxynucleosides for immature, as compared to mature, T cells. We conclude that deoxynucleoside metabolism in leukaemic T cells varies with their degree of differentiation. These observations may be relevant to the design of chemotherapeutic regimes for T cell malignancies.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72479/1/j.1365-2141.1985.tb04067.x.pd

Analysis of Residual Stresses in Laser-Shock-Peened and Shot-Peened Marine Steel Welds

Laser peening is now the preferred method of surface treatment in many applications. The magnitude and depth of the compressive residual stress induced by laser peening can be influenced strongly by the number of peen layers (the number of laser hits at each point) and by processing conditions including the use of a protective ablative layer. In this study, residual stresses have been characterized in laser and shot-peened marine butt welds with a particular focus at the fatigue crack initiation location at the weld toe. X-ray diffraction, synchrotron X-ray diffraction, incremental center-hole drilling, and the contour method were used for determination of residual stress. Results showed that the use of ablative tape increased the surface compressive stress, and the depth of compressive stress increased with an increase in number of peening layers. A key result is that variation of residual stress profile across laser peen spots was seen, and the residual stress magnitude varies between the center and edges of the spots

First-order flow equations for extremal and non-extremal black holes

We derive a general form of first-order flow equations for extremal and non-extremal, static, spherically symmetric black holes in theories with massless scalars and vectors coupled to gravity. By rewriting the action as a sum of squares a la Bogomol'nyi, we identify the function governing the first-order gradient flow, the `generalised superpotential', which reduces to the `fake superpotential' for non-supersymmetric extremal black holes and to the central charge for supersymmetric black holes. For theories whose scalar manifold is a symmetric space after a timelike dimensional reduction, we present the condition for the existence of a generalised superpotential. We provide examples to illustrate the formalism in four and five spacetime dimensions.Comment: 27 pages, v2: small changes, referencing and misprints corrected, v3: text updated and a reference added to match the JHEP versio

Moving towards adaptive search in digital libraries

Search applications have become very popular over the last two decades, one of the main drivers being the advent of the Web. Nevertheless, searching on the Web is very different to searching on smaller, often more structured collections such as digital libraries, local Web sites, and intranets. One way of helping the searcher locating the right information for a specific information need in such a collection is by providing well-structured domain knowledge to assist query modification and navigation. There are two main challenges which we will both address in this chapter: acquiring the domain knowledge and adapting it automatically to the specific interests of the user community. We will outline how in digital libraries a domain model can automatically be acquired using search engine query logs and how it can be continuously updated using methods resembling ant colony behaviour. © 2011 Springer-Verlag