1,721,138 research outputs found
Characterization of extremely hydrophobic immunostimulatory lipoidal peptides by matrix assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry
No full textSynthetic lipoidal peptides based on viral protein sequences have been prepared. These peptides contain an N-palmitoyl group at the N-terminal residue, which is a modified cysteine, containing a S-[2,3-bis(acyloxy)-(2-R,S)-propyl] moiety. When this residue (Pam(3)Cys) is at the N-terminus of a synthetic peptide, it acts as potent immunoadjuvant to enhance both IgM and IgG antibody responses to the attached peptide. Conventional analytical procedures (e.g., Edman degradation and amino acid analysis) are either not applicable due to the N-terminal modification, or do not provide confirmation of the intact structure, Chromatographic analysis is also hindered by the tendency of these lipoidal Pam(3)Cys peptides to form large aggregates, and in some cases to be permanently adsorbed on reversed phase columns. We have applied several mass spectrometric techniques, including fast atom bombardment (FAB), electrospray ionization (ESI) and matrix assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) to characterize the intact structures of a number of different Pam(3)Cys synthetic peptides. The MALDI-MS has been found to be the most sensitive for the analysis ai the structure of Pam(3)Cys peptides
Dynamic Hopfield-like network using a holographic lenslet array and a photorefractive crystal
No full textDigital Optical Computing with Parallel Analog-to-Digital Converters as Basic Computing Elements
No full text
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Internal soil moisture response to rainfall-induced slope failures and debris discharge
No full text[[abstract]]Predictions of rainfall-induced fast-moving mass flow and/or debris flows require better knowledge of the mechanism controlling the debris discharge of slopes in debris source areas. A series of rainfall tests on 0.32 m-deep, 0.7 m-high, 1.35 m-wide sandy slopes resting on a bi-linear impermeable rigid base was performed. Soil moisture content and solid discharge measurements were performed to gain insights into the rainfall-induced retrogressive slope failure. The solid (or debris) discharge is a result of the wash-out of the fluidized slope toe by the interflow along the soil-bedrock interface. Characteristics of the failure process for the slopes are represented by mass wasting curves or 'solid discharge (Q(s)) vs. time (t)' curves which are functions of the rainfall intensity and/or the cumulative rainfall. The mass wasting curves have inflection points representing transitions from minor toe failures into remarkable retrogressive failures. The first inflection point of the soil moisture (omega) vs. t curve measured at the soil-bedrock interface signaling the arrival of the descending 'wet front', may serve as a precursor for predicting the onset of an abrupt solid discharge induced by shallow slope failures. The time of peak water content measured at the soil-bedrock interface may approximate the time of 5% total solid volume discharge. Up to the time of 5% of total slope volume discharge, a fully saturated state (S(r) 100%) was never observed at the 0.2 m-below-surface zone; however, it was observed along the soil-bedrock interface at near-toe zone of the slope, regardless of the intensity of rainfall investigated. Retrogressive failures were essentially associated with nonuniformly distributed water content in the slope. For both the 0.2 m-below-surface zone and the soil-bedrock interface, a more uniform distribution of S(r) along the full height of the slope was found for slopes subjected to high rainfall intensities of 47 and 65 mm/h than that for the slope subjected to a low rainfall intensity of 23 mm/h. At the inflection point of the Q(s) vs. t curve and 5% of total solid volume discharge, values of S(r) at a certain distance from the toe for the soil-bedrock interface were higher than those measured at the same distance from the toe for the 0.2 m-below-surface zone, indicating the effect of infiltration-induced interflow along the soil-bedrock interface and its effects on the fluidization of the slope toe and the retrogressive failure of the slope. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.[[note]]SC
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