Emerging use of isotope ratio mass spectrometry as a tool for discrimination of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine by synthetic route

Drug profiling, or the ability to link batches of illicit drugs to a common source or synthetic route, has long been a goal of law enforcement agencies. Research in the past decade has explored drug profiling with isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS). This type of research can be limited by the use of substances seized by police, of which the provenance is unknown. Fortunately, however, some studies in recent years have been carried out on drugs synthesized in-house and therefore of known history. In this study, 18 MDMA samples were synthesized in-house from aliquots of the same precursor by three common reductive amination routes and analyzed for 13C, 15N, and 2H isotope abundance using IRMS. For these three preparative methods, results indicate that 2H isotope abundance data is necessary for discrimination by synthetic route. Furthermore, hierarchical cluster analysis using 2H data on its own or combined with 13C and/or 15N provides a statistical means for accurate discrimination by synthetic route.     

基于CompactRIO的状态监控平台

以适中的价格开发通用监控系统解决方案,特别是机器监控、结构健康监控应用等纵向市场常见的应用,对于这些应用,提供模块化的传感器和信号类型是至关重要的。     

Dynamic manipulation of nanomechanical resonators in the high-amplitude regime and non-volatile mechanical memory operation

The ability to control mechanical motion with optical forces has made it possible to cool mechanical resonators to their quantum ground states. The same techniques can also be used to amplify rather than reduce the mechanical motion of such systems. Here, we study nanomechanical resonators that are slightly buckled and therefore have two stable configurations, denoted 'buckled up' and 'buckled down', when they are at rest. The motion of these resonators can be described by a double-well potential with a large central energy barrier between the two stable configurations. We demonstrate the high-amplitude operation of a buckled resonator coupled to an optical cavity by using a highly efficient process to generate enough phonons in the resonator to overcome the energy barrier in the double-well potential. This allows us to observe the first evidence for nanomechanical slow-down and a zero-frequency singularity predicted by theorists. We also demonstrate a non-volatile mechanical memory element in which bits are written and reset by using optomechanical backaction to direct the relaxation of a resonator in the high-amplitude regime to a specific stable configuration.     

Bestimmung von purinhaltigen Verbindungen und Purinbasen in Lebensmitteln

Zusammenfassung In handelsüblichen rohen Lebensmitteln wird der Gesamtpuringehalt Bowie der Gehalt der jeweiligen Einzelkomponenten DNS, RNS, Nucleotide, Nucleoside und freie Purinbasen ermittelt. Der Gesamtpuringehalt wird nach Säurehydrolyse der Lebensmittel enzymatisch als Harnsäure bestimmt. Für die Bestimmung des Nucleinsduregehalts wird eine Methode gewählt, welche die direkte Analyse der Nucleinsäurezusammensetzung ermöglicht. Die Anteile der in Nucleinsäuren gebundenen Purine und der Anteil der Purine aus. Nucleosiden, Nucleosiden und Purinbasen am Gesamtpuringehalt variieren sehr stark. Besonders nucleinsäurereich sind die Innereien von Kalb, Schwein und Rind. Der Purinanteil aus Nucleotiden, Nucleosiden und Basen am Gesamtpuringehalt ist in diesen Proben gering. Demgegenüber übertrifft in Hering und Forelle der genannte Anteil deutlich den aus DNS- und RNS-Purinen. Das gleiche gilt für Muskelgewebe von Reh, Rind and Schwein. In Erbsen und Bohnen liegt der niedrigste Gesamtpuringehalt der untersuchten Proben vor.

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Determination of purine compounds and purine bases in food

Summary The total purine content and the content of RNA, DNA, nucleotides, nucleosides and free purine bases has been determined in commercial raw food. After hydrolysing food samples with acid, the total purine content is enzymatically determined as uric acid. For the determination of the nucleic acid content, a method is chosen that allows for the analysis of the composition of nucleic acids. The amount of purine bound in nucleic acids and of purine bound in nucleotides, nucleosides and free bases is very different. The content of nucleic acids is especially high in the innards of veal, pork and beef. In these samples the quantity of purine bound in nucleotides, nucleosides and bases is very small. In trout and herring, however, more purine is bound in RNA and DNA. The same is true of roe, pork and beef muscle. Peas and beans have the lowest total purine content of all the samples examined.

     

Kinematic motor learning

This paper focuses on adaptive motor control in the kinematic domain. Several motor-learning strategies from the literature are adopted to kinematic problems: ‘feedback-error learning’, ‘distal supervised learning’, and ‘direct inverse modelling’ (DIM). One of these learning strategies, DIM, is significantly enhanced by combining it with abstract recurrent neural networks. Moreover, a newly developed learning strategy (‘learning by averaging’) is presented in detail. The performance of these learning strategies is compared with different learning tasks on two simulated robot setups (a robot-camera-head and a planar arm). The results indicate a general superiority of DIM if combined with abstract recurrent neural networks. Learning by averaging shows consistent success if the motor task is constrained by special requirements.     

Investigation on 3-dimensional carbon foams/LiFePO4 composites as function of the annealing time under inert atmosphere

The morphological and electrochemical investigation of 3-dimensional (3D) carbon foams coated with olivine structured lithium iron phosphate as function of the annealing time under nitrogen atmosphere is reported. The LiFePO₄ as cathode material for lithium ion batteries was prepared by a Pechini-assisted sol-gel process. The coating has been successfully performed on commercially available 3D-carbon foams by soaking in aqueous solution containing lithium, iron salts and phosphates at 70 °C for 2-4 h. After drying-out, the composites were annealed at 600 °C for different times ranging from 0.4 to 10 h under nitrogen. The formation of the olivine-like structured LiFePO₄ was confirmed by X-ray diffraction analysis performed on the powder prepared under similar conditions. The surface investigation of the prepared composites showed the formation of a homogeneous coating by LiFePO₄ on the foams. The cyclic voltammetry curves of the composites show an enhancement of electrode reaction reversibility by increasing the annealing time. The electrochemical measurements on the composites showed good performances delivering a discharge specific capacity of 85 mAh g⁻¹ at a discharging rate of C/25 at room temperature after annealing for 0.4 h and 105 mAh g⁻¹ after annealing for 5 h.     

Laterally chromatically dispersed, spectrally encoded interferometer

We present a single-shot line sensor based on spectral interferometry. Light of a broadband laser source is chromatically dispersed by a grating and focused onto a line on the surface such that each focal point on this line is formed by another wavelength. The entire height profile is obtained by applying a phase evaluation algorithm to the registered interference signal, followed by a model-based approach. The sensor concept is finally verified by experimental results.