50,633 research outputs found
Complete gradient-LC-ESI system on a chip for protein analysis
This paper presents the first fully integrated gradient-elution liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization (LC-ESI) system on a chip. This chip integrates a pair of high-pressure gradient pumps, a sample injection pump, a passive mixer, a packed separation column, and an ESI nozzle. We also present the successful on-chip separation of protein digests by reverse phase (RP)-LC coupled with on-line mass spectrometer (MS) analysis
Experimental investigation of piloted flameholders
Four configurations of piloted flameholders were tested. The range of flame stabilization, flame propagation, pressure oscillation during ignition, and pressure drop of the configurations were determined. Some tests showed a very strong effect of inlet flow velocity profile and flameholder geometry on flame stabilization. These tests led to the following conclusions. (1) The use of a piloted flameholder in the turbofan augmentor may minimize the peak pressure rise during ignition. At the present experimental conditions, delta P/P asterisk over 2 is less than 10 percent; therefore, the use of a piloted flameholder is a good method to realize soft ignition. (2) The geometry of the piloted flameholder and the amount of fuel injected into the flameholder have a strong effect on the pressure oscillation during ignition of the fuel-air mixture in the secondary zone. (3) Compared with the V-gutter flameholder with holes in its wall, the V-gutter flameholder without holes not only has advantages such as simple structure and good rigidity but offers a wide combustion stability limit and a high capability of igniting the fuel-air mixture of the secondary zone
An Ultra-fast DOA Estimator with Circular Array Interferometer Using Lookup Table Method
The time-consuming phase ambiguity resolution makes the uniform circular array (UCA) interferometer not suitable for real-time direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation. This paper introduces the lookup table (LUT) method to solve this problem. The key of the method is that we look up the ambiguity numbers instead of the eventual DOA from the table, and then the DOA is obtained by relatively small amount of calculation. This makes it possible that we are able to shrink the table size while maintain the DOA estimation accuracy. The table addresses cover all possible measured phase differences (PDs), which enables the method to be free of spatial scanning. Moreover, without adding frequency index to the lookup table, the estimator can realize wideband application. As an example, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) based DOA estimator with the estimation time of 180 ns is presented, accompanied by the measured results. This method possesses the advantages of ultra-high speed, high accuracy and low memory usage
Role of (p)ppGpp in Viability and Biofilm Formation of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae S8.
Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae is a Gram-negative bacterium and the cause of porcine pleuropneumonia. When the bacterium encounters nutritional starvation, the relA-dependent (p)ppGpp-mediated stringent response is activated. The modified nucleotides guanosine 5'-diphosphate 3'-diphosphate (ppGpp) and guanosine 5'-triphosphate 3'-diphosphate (pppGpp) are known to be signaling molecules in other prokaryotes. Here, to investigate the role of (p)ppGpp in A. pleuropneumoniae, we created a mutant A. pleuropneumoniae strain, S8ΔrelA, which lacks the (p)ppGpp-synthesizing enzyme RelA, and investigated its phenotype in vitro. S8ΔrelA did not survive after stationary phase (starvation condition) and grew exclusively as non-extended cells. Compared to the wild-type (WT) strain, the S8ΔrelA mutant had an increased ability to form a biofilm. Transcriptional profiles of early stationary phase cultures revealed that a total of 405 bacterial genes were differentially expressed (including 380 up-regulated and 25 down-regulated genes) in S8ΔrelA as compared with the WT strain. Most of the up-regulated genes are involved in ribosomal structure and biogenesis, amino acid transport and metabolism, translation cell wall/membrane/envelope biogenesis. The data indicate that (p)ppGpp coordinates the growth, viability, morphology, biofilm formation and metabolic ability of A. pleuropneumoniae in starvation conditions. Furthermore, S8ΔrelA could not use certain sugars nor produce urease which has been associated with the virulence of A. pleuropneumoniae, suggesting that (p)ppGpp may directly or indirectly affect the pathogenesis of A. pleuropneumoniae during the infection process. In summary, (p)ppGpp signaling represents an essential component of the regulatory network governing stress adaptation and virulence in A. pleuropneumoniae
Sequential Adaptive Detection for In-Situ Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM)
We develop new efficient online algorithms for detecting transient sparse
signals in TEM video sequences, by adopting the recently developed framework
for sequential detection jointly with online convex optimization [1]. We cast
the problem as detecting an unknown sparse mean shift of Gaussian observations,
and develop adaptive CUSUM and adaptive SSRS procedures, which are based on
likelihood ratio statistics with post-change mean vector being online maximum
likelihood estimators with . We demonstrate the meritorious performance
of our algorithms for TEM imaging using real data
Mechanically-Induced Transport Switching Effect in Graphene-based Nanojunctions
We report a theoretical study suggesting a novel type of electronic switching
effect, driven by the geometrical reconstruction of nanoscale graphene-based
junctions. We considered junction struc- tures which have alternative
metastable configurations transformed by rotations of local carbon dimers. The
use of external mechanical strain allows a control of the energy barrier
heights of the potential profiles and also changes the reaction character from
endothermic to exothermic or vice-versa. The reshaping of the atomic details of
the junction encode binary electronic ON or OFF states, with ON/OFF
transmission ratio that can reach up to 10^4-10^5. Our results suggest the
possibility to design modern logical switching devices or mechanophore sensors,
monitored by mechanical strain and structural rearrangements.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
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