Integrated lectin affinity microfluidic chip for glycoform separation

Lectin affinity chromatography was miniaturized into a microfluidic format, which results in improvement of performance, as compared to the conventional method. A lectin affinity monolith column was prepared in the microchannel of a microfluidic chip. The porous monolith was fabricated by UV-initiated polymerization of ethylene dimethacrylate (EDMA) and glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) in the presence of porogeneities, followed by immobilization of pisum sativum agglutinin (PSA) on the monolith matrix. Using electroosmosis as the driven force, lectin affinity chromatographies of three kinds of glycoprotein, turkey ovalbumin (TO), chicken ovalbumin (CO), and ovomucoid (OM), were carried out on the microfluidic system. All the glycoproteins were successfully separated into several fractions with different affinities toward the immobilized PSA. The integrated system reduces the time required for the lectin affinity chromatography reaction to approximately 3%, thus, the overall analysis time from 4 h to 400 s. Only 300 pg of glycoprotein is required for the whole separation process. Moreover, troublesome operations for lectin affinity chromatography are simplified.     

The effect of mixing on reactor performance: an application of perturbation technique

The effect of local mixing on the performance of a reactor system is derived by the perturbation technique. It is found that the sign of the inner product of the adjoint vector λ and the acceleration vector ? is the only indicator as to whether or not local mixing at a certain point of a reaction path is desirable. A complex reaction system with competing side reactions of different order is treated as an example. The possibility of applying the results in this work to the selection of the optimal type of reactor is also discussed.     

Conformations of gas-phase lysozyme ions produced from two different solution conformations

Near pH 2.0, lysozyme in water is in its native conformation, and in water/methanol (2/8) it adopts a helical denatured conformation (Kamatari et al. Protein Sci. 1998, 7, 681-688). Hydrogen/deuterium (H/D) exchange of lysozyme in solution confirms that it is partially unfolded at pH 2.0 in water/methanol (v/v = 2/8). With electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry (MS), lysozyme in water produces ions with charges +7 to +12, with the greatest intensity at +10, whereas lysozyme in water/methanol (2/8) produces ions with charges +6 to +12 with the greatest intensity at +7. Thus, lysozyme is an exception to the rule that a protein denatured in solution forms higher charge states than the same protein in its folded native conformations in solution. Because the same charge states are produced from these two solution conformations, a direct comparison of the properties of the gas-phase ions produced from two very different solution conformations is possible. The conformations of lysozyme ions in the gas phase were studied using cross section measurements and gas-phase H/D exchange. Similar cross sections and H/D exchange levels were observed for same-charge states of lysozyme ions formed from the native and helical denatured conformations in solution. Cross sections show that the ions have compact structures. Thus, disulfide-intact gaseous lysozyme ions generated from the denatured state in water/methanol (2/8) refold into compact structures in the gas phase on a time scale of milliseconds or less.     

Comparison of ultraviolet femtosecond and nanosecond laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry analysis in glass, monazite, and zircon

We compared the analytical performance of ultraviolet femtosecond and nanosecond laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS). The benefit of ultrafast lasers was evaluated regarding thermal-induced chemical fractionation, that is otherwise well known to limit LA-ICPMS. Both lasers had a Gaussian beam energy profile and were tested using the same ablation system and ICPMS analyzer. Resulting crater morphologies and analytical signals showed more straightforward femtosecond laser ablation processes, with minimal thermal effects. Despite a less stable energy output, the ultrafast laser yielded elemental (Pb/U, Pb/Th) and Pb isotopic ratios that were more precise, repeatable, and accurate, even when compared to the best analytical conditions for the nanosecond laser. Measurements on NIST glasses, monazites, and zircon also showed that femtosecond LA-ICPMS calibration was less matrix-matched dependent and therefore more versatile.     

Chip-based analysis of protein-protein interactions by fluorescence detection and on-chip immunoprecipitation combined with microLC-MS/MS analysis

A new chip-based method to identify protein-protein interactions was developed using the guanine nucleotide exchange factor GRF2 and two interacting proteins, Ras and calmodulin, as model proteins. A generic immobilization strategy for FLAG-tagged bait proteins on a protein-repellent streptavidin chip surface was implemented by presentation of an oriented anti-FLAG antibody. A flow cell device, integrating different chip surfaces, was developed, and the interaction of immobilized GRF2 with the two analytes was verified by fluorescence assays. On-chip tryptic digest assays were then performed on the capture surface and analyzed by microLC-MS/MS. The interaction of GRF2 with calmodulin and Ras was demonstrated, and the lower limit of detection was determined. We also implemented an on-chip immunoprecipitation assay to identify GRF2-binding partners from complex protein mixtures. Cells overexpressing FLAG-GRF2 were lysed and then incubated with the anti-FLAG chip. In addition to detecting GRF2, we also identified calmodulin, demonstrating that this technique can successfully identify endogenous levels of proteins, bound to recombinant bait proteins. This chip-based method has the advantage that no subsequent gel separations of protein complexes prior to LC-MS analysis are required and is therefore amenable to miniaturized high-throughput determination of protein-protein interactions.     

Distributed Control for 3D Metamorphosis

In this paper, we define Proteo as a class of three-dimensional (3D) metamorphic robotic system capable of approximating arbitrary 3D shapes by utilizing repeated modules. Each Proteo module contains embedded sensors, actuators and a controller, and each resides in a 3D grid space. A module can move itself to one of its open neighbor sites under certain motion constraints. Distributed control for the self-reconfiguration of such robots is an interesting and challenging problem. We present a class of distributed control algorithms for the reconfiguration of Proteo robots based on the goal-ordering mechanism. Performance results are shown for experiments of these algorithms in a simulation environment, and the properties of these algorithms are analyzed.     

用于机组优化组合的改进单亲遗传算法

为了有效地解决火电厂机组优化组合问题,作提出了一种改进的单亲遗传算法。该算法使用实数编码,不使用在两条染色体之间操作的交叉算子,所有遗传操作全部在一条染色体上进行,简化了遗传操作过程,提高了计算效率,且不要求初始群体中的个体具有多样性,也不存在“早熟”收敛现象。与传统的机组优化组合方法相比,该方法能方便地处理机组优化组合问题的复杂约束条。计算实例验证了这种算法的有效性。     

受限域FAQ中文问答系统研究

在受限域中采用常问问题(FAQ)实现业务咨询系统是一种较好的问答模式,提出了一种受限域FAQ问答系统模型,借助于本体论的思想,构建了领域知识库,利用KDML语言定义和描述了领域本体及本体之间的关系,并实现了领域知识库"领域知网"与常识库"知网"的融合.在此基础上,提出了一种问句相似度的计算方法,该方法借助领域问句所具有的特点,结合问句中的词法关系、句法依存关系及领域概念关系,实现问句相似度计算.并以相似度计算为基础,从侯选问题集中检索相关问句,提取问题答案.云南旅游FAQ问答原型系统测试结果表明该方法可行,有较好的效果.     

Daonity – Grid security from two levels of virtualization

The service oriented architecture of grid computing has been thoughtfully engineered to achieve a service level virtualization: not only should a grid be a virtual machine (also known as a virtual organization, VO) of unbounded computational power and storage capacity, but also should the virtual machine be serviceable in all circumstances independent from serviceability of any of its component. At present, a grid VO as a result of service level virtualization only is more or less confined to participants from scientific computing communities, i.e., can have a limited scale. It is widely agreed that for a grid to pool resources of truly unbounded scale, commercial enterprises and in particular server-abundant financial institutions, should also “go for the grid,” i.e., open up their servers for being used by grid VO constructions. We believed that it is today's inadequate strength of the grid security practice that is the major hurdle to prevent commercial organizations from serving and participating the grid.This article presents the work of Daonity which is our attempt to strengthening grid security. We identify that a security service which we name behavior conformity be desirable for grid computing. Behavior conformity for grid computing is an assurance that ad hoc related principals (users, platforms or instruments) forming a grid VO must each act in conformity with the rules for the VO constitution. We apply trusted computing technologies to achieve two levels of virtualization: resource virtualization and platform virtualization. The former is about behavior conformity in a grid VO and the latter, that in an operating system. With these two levels of virtualization working together it is possible to build a grid of truly unbounded scale by VO including servers from commercial organizations.     

无线传感器网络S-MAC协议的分析与改进

无线传感器网络是一项新兴的技术,能广泛应用于环境监测、智能空间、医疗系统和机器人开发等领域,媒体接入控制协议(MAC)是保证该网络高效运行的关键协议之一.分析一种经典的MAC协议:S-MAC协议,对该协议存在的问题进行了探讨并提出一些改进的措施.