Protein immobilization on surfaces is of great importance in numerous applications in biology and biophysics. The key for the success of all these applications relies on the immobilization technique employed to attach the protein to the corresponding surface. Protein immobilization can be based on covalent or noncovalent interaction of the molecule with the surface. Noncovalent interactions include hydrophobic interactions, hydrogen bonding, van der Waals forces, electrostatic forces, or physical adsorption. However, since these interactions are weak, the molecules can get denatured or dislodged, thus causing loss of signal. They also result in random attachment of the protein to the surface. Site-specific covalent attachment of proteins onto surfaces, on the other hand, leads to molecules being arranged in a definite, orderly fashion and uses spacers and linkers to help minimize steric hindrances between the protein surface. This work reviews in detail some of the methods most commonly used as well as the latest developments for the site-specific covalent attachment of protein to solid surfaces.

We report laboratory studies of the role played by multiple-electron capture (MEC) in solar wind induced cometary X-ray emission. Collisions of Ne{sup 10+} with He, Ne, Ar, CO, and CO{sub 2} have been investigated by means of the traditional singles X-ray spectroscopy in addition to the triple-coincidence measurements of X-rays, scattered projectile, and target recoil ions for the atomic targets. The coincidence measurements enable the reduction of the singles X-ray spectra into partial spectra originating in single-electron capture (SEC) and MEC collisions. The measurements provide unequivocal evidence for a significant role played by MEC, and strongly suggest that models based solely on SEC are bound to yield erroneous conclusions on the solar wind composition and velocities and on cometary atmospheres. The experimental relative importance of MEC collisions is compared with molecular classical-over-the-barrier model (MCBM), classical trajectory Monte Carlo (CTMC), and multi-channel Landau-Zener (MCLZ), calculations which can qualitatively reproduce the experimental trends.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), currently under construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is a stadium-sized facility containing a 192-beam, 1.8 Megajoule, 500-Terawatt, ultra-violet laser system together with a 10-meter diameter target chamber with room for nearly 100 experimental diagnostics. When completed, NIF will be the world's largest and most energetic laser experimental system, providing an international center to study inertial confinement fusion and physics of matter at extreme densities and pressures. The NIF is operated by the Integrated Computer Control System (ICCS), which is a layered architecture of over 700 lower-level front-end processors attached to nearly 60,000 control points and coordinated by higher-level supervisory subsystems in the main control room. A shot automation framework has been developed and deployed during the past year to orchestrate and automate shots performed at the NIF using the ICCS. The Shot Automation framework is designed to automate 4-8 hour shot sequences, that includes deriving shot goals from an experiment definition, set up of the laser and diagnostics, automatic alignment of laser beams, and a countdown to charge and fire the lasers. These sequences consist of set of preparatory verification shots, leading to amplified system shots followed by post-shot analysis and archiving. The …

Article about Austin's social elite with an attached list of the city's top 500 social stars.

We present results testing the hypothesis that there is a different reaction pathway for the electrochemical reduction of PC versus EC-based electrolytes at graphite electrodes with LiPF6 as the salt in common. We examined the reduction products formed using ex-situ Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in attenuated total reflection (ATR) geometry. The results show the pathway for reduction of PC leads nearly entirely to lithium carbonate as the solid product (and presumably ethylene gas as the co-product) while EC follows a path producing a mixture of organic and inorganic compounds. Possible explanations for the difference in reaction pathway are discussed.

The effects of tritium on the fracture toughness properties of Type 304L and Type 21-6-9 stainless steel weldments were measured. Weldments were tritium-charged-and-aged and then tested in order to measure the effect of the increasing decay helium content on toughness. The results were compared to uncharged and hydrogen-charged samples. For unexposed weldments having 8-12 volume percent retained delta ferrite, fracture toughness was higher than base metal toughness. At higher levels of weld ferrite, the fracture toughness decreased to values below that of the base metal. Hydrogen-charged and tritium-charged weldments had lower toughness values than similarly charged base metals and toughness decreased further with increasing weld ferrite content. The effect of decay helium content was inconclusive because of tritium off-gassing losses during handling, storage and testing. Fracture modes were dominated by the dimpled rupture process in unexposed weldments. In hydrogen and tritium-exposed weldments, the fracture modes depended on the weld ferrite content. At high ferrite contents, hydrogen-induced transgranular fracture of the weld ferrite phase was observed.

A procedure and software have been developed to transform the area distribution of the residual surface heights available from the measurement with the Micromap interferometric microscope into a two-dimensional (2D) power spectral density (PSD) distribution of the surface height. The procedure incorporates correction of one of the spectral distortions of the PSD measurement. The distortion appears as a shape difference between the tangential and sagittal PSD spectra deduced from the 2D PSD distribution for an isotropic surface. A detailed investigation of the origin of the anisotropy was performed, and a mathematical model was developed and used to correct the distortion. The correction employs a modulation transfer function (MTF) of the detector deduced analytically based on an experimentally confirmed assumption about the origin of the anisotropy due to the asymmetry of the read-out process of the instrument's CCD camera. The correction function has only one free parameter, the effective width of the gate-shaped apparatus function which is the same for both directions. The value of the parameter, equal to 1.35 pixels, was found while measuring the 2D PSD distribution of the instrument self-noise, independent of spatial frequency. The effectiveness of the developed procedure is demonstrated with a number of PSD measurements …

We develop and present high order mixed finite element discretizations of the time dependent electromagnetic diffusion equations for solving eddy current problems on 3D unstructured grids. The discretizations are based on high order H(grad), H(curl) and H(div) conforming finite element spaces combined with an implicit and unconditionally stable generalized Crank-Nicholson time differencing method. We develop three separate electromagnetic diffusion formulations, namely the E (electric field), H (magnetic field) and the A-{phi} (potential) formulations. For each formulation, we also provide a consistent procedure for computing the secondary variables F (current flux density) and B (magnetic flux density), as these fields are required for the computation of electromagnetic force and heating terms. We verify the error convergence properties of each formulation via a series of numerical experiments on canonical problems with known analytic solutions. The key result is that the different formulations are equally accurate, even for the secondary variables J and B, and hence the choice of which formulation to use depends mostly upon relevance of the Natural and Essential boundary conditions to the problem of interest. In addition, we highlight issues with numerical verification of finite element methods which can lead to false conclusions on the accuracy of the methods.

The compression of a laser pulse by amplification of an ultra short pulse beam which seeds the stimulated Raman scatter of the first beam has been long been discussed in the context of solid and gas media. We investigate the possibility of using intersecting beams in a plasma to compress nanosecond pulses to picosecond duration by scattering from driven electron waves. Recent theoretical studies have shown the possibility of efficient compression with large amplitude, non-linear Langmuir waves driven either by SRS [1] or non-resonantly [2]. We describe experiments in which a plasma suitable for pulse compression is created, and amplification of an ultra short pulse beam is demonstrated.

The purpose of the workshop is to review recent experiments on the laser plasma interactions of multiple laser beams, and encourage interaction and collaboration on future experiments in this exciting emerging area. The format is a series of nine, 10 minute talks followed by a 5 minute question period covering the major topics of (1) scattering and transfer of power by multiple beams in ICF experiments; (2) basic studies of KEEN wave physics especially as facilitated by multi-beam interaction; and (3) compression of laser pulses by multi-beam interactions.

Experiments on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) have employed the first four beams to measure propagation and laser backscattering losses in large ignition-size plasmas. Gas-filled targets between 2 mm and 7 mm length have been heated from one side by overlapping the focal spots of the four beams from one quad operated at 351 nm (3{omega}) with a total intensity of 2 x 10{sup 15}W cm{sup -2}. The targets were filled with 1 atm of CO{sub 2} producing of up to 7 mm long homogeneously heated plasmas with densities of n{sub e} = 5 x 10{sup 20} cm{sup -3} and temperatures of T{sub e} = 2 keV. The high energy in a NIF quad of beams of 16kJ, illuminating the target from one direction, creates unique conditions for the study of laser plasma interactions at scale lengths not previously accessible. The propagation through the large-scale plasma was measured with a gated x-ray imager that was filtered for 3.5 keV x rays. These data indicate that the beams interact with the full length of this ignition-scale plasma during the last {approx}1 ns of the experiment when applying full laser beam smoothing consisting of phase plates, smoothing by spectral dispersion and polarization …

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The working group has identified the parameters of an afterburner based on the design of a future linear collider. The new design brings the center of mass energy of the collider from 1 to 2 TeV. The afterburner is located in the final focus section of the collider, operates at a gradient of {approx}4 GeV/m, and is only about 125 m long. Very important issues remain to be addressed, and include the physics and design of the positron side of the afterburner, as well as of the final focus system. Present plasma wakefield accelerator experiments have reached a level of maturity and of relevance to the afterburner, that make it timely to involve the high energy physics and accelerator community in the afterburner design process. The main result of this working group is the first integration of the designs of a future linear collider and an afterburner.

At the Advanced Light Source (ALS) of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), we are proposing the construction of CIRCE (Coherent InfraRed Center), a ring-based photon source completely optimized for the generation of coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) in the terahertz frequency range [1]. CIRCE exploits the full complement of the CSR-production mechanisms presently available for obtaining top performance, including a photon flux exceeding by more than nine orders of magnitude that of existing ''conventional'' broadband terahertz sources.

A method combining features of front-tracking methods and fixed-domain methods is presented to model dendritic solidification of pure materials. To explicitly track the interface growth and shape of the solidifying crystals, a fronttracking approach based on the level set method is implemented. To easily model the heat and momentum transport, a fixed-domain method is implemented assuming a diffused freezing front where the liquid fraction is defined in terms of the level set function. The fixed-domain approach, by avoiding the explicit application of essential boundary conditions on the freezing front, leads to an energy conserving methodology that is not sensitive to the mesh size. To compute the freezing front morphology, an extended Stefan condition is considered. Applications to several classical Stefan problems and two- and three-dimensional crystal growth of pure materials in an undercooled melt including the effects of melt flow are considered. The computed results agree very well with available analytical solutions as well as with results obtained using front-tracking techniques and the phase-field method.

A thermomechanical study of the effects of mold topography on the solidification of Aluminum alloys at early times is provided. The various coupling mechanisms between the solid-shell and mold deformation and heat transfer at the mold/solid-shell interface during the early stages of Aluminum solidification on molds with uneven topographies are investigated. The air-gap nucleation time, the stress evolution and the solid-shell growth pattern are examined for different mold topographies to illustrate the potential control of Aluminum cast surface morphologies during the early stages of solidification using proper design of mold topographies. The unstable shell growth pattern in the early solidification stages results mainly from the unevenness of the heat flux between the solid-shell and the mold surface. This heat flux is determined by the size of the air-gaps formed between the solidifying shell and mold surface or from the value of the contact pressure. Simulation results show that a sinusoidal mold surface with a smaller wavelength leads to nucleation of air-gaps at earlier times. In addition, the unevenness in the solid-shell growth pattern decreases faster for a smaller wavelength. Such studies can be used to tune mold surfaces for the control of cast surface morphologies.

The consistency of different instruments and methods for measuring two-dimensional (2D) power spectral density (PSD) distributions are investigated. The instruments are an interferometric microscope, an atomic force microscope (AFM) and the X-ray Reflectivity and Scattering experimental facility, all available at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The measurements were performed with a gold-coated mirror with a highly polished stainless steel substrate. It was shown that these three techniques provide essentially consistent results. For the stainless steel mirror, an envelope over all measured PSD distributions can be described with an inverse power-law PSD function. It is also shown that the measurements can be corrected for the specific spatial frequency dependent systematic errors of the instruments. The AFM and the X-ray scattering measurements were used to determine the modulation transfer function of the interferometric microscope. The corresponding correction procedure is discussed in detail. Lower frequency investigation of the 2D PSD distribution was also performed with a long trace profiler and a ZYGO GPI interferometer. These measurements are in some contradiction, suggesting that the reliability of the measurements has to be confirmed with additional investigation. Based on the crosscheck of the performance of all used methods, we discuss the ways for improving the 2D PSD …

A Dalitz plot analysis of approximately 12,500 D{sup 0} events reconstructed in the hadronic decay D{sup 0} {yields} {bar K}{sup 0} K{sup +}K{sup -} is presented. This analysis is based on a data sample of 91.5 fb{sup -1} collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e{sup +}e{sup -} storage rings at SLAC running at center-of-mass energies on and 40 MeV below the {Upsilon}(4S) resonance. The events are selected from e{sup +}e{sup -} {yields} c{bar c} annihilations using the decay D*{sup +} {yields} D{sup 0}{pi}{sup +}. The following ratio of branching fractions has been obtained: BR = {Lambda}(D{sup 0} {yields} {bar K}{sup 0}K{sup +}K{sup -})/{Lambda}(D{sup 0} {yields} {bar K}{sup 0}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}) = (15.8 {+-} 0.1(stat.) {+-} 0.5 (syst.)) x 10{sup -2}. Estimates of fractions and phases for resonant and non-resonant contributions to the Dalitz plot are also presented. The a{sub 0}(980) {yields} {bar K}K projection has been extracted with little background. A search for Cp asymmetries on the Dalitz plot has been performed.

This paper describes the technical approach for converting a Caterpillar 3406 natural gas spark ignited engine into HCCI mode. The paper describes all stages of the process, starting with a preliminary analysis that determined that the engine can be operated by preheating the intake air with a heat exchanger that recovers energy from the exhaust gases. This heat exchanger plays a dual role, since it is also used for starting the engine. For start-up, the heat exchanger is preheated with a natural gas burner. The engine is therefore started in HCCI mode, avoiding the need to handle the potentially difficult transition from SI or diesel mode to HCCI. The fueling system was modified by replacing the natural gas carburetor with a liquid petroleum gas (LPG) carburetor. This modification sets an upper limit for the equivalence ratio at {phi} {approx} 0.4, which is ideal for HCCI operation and guarantees that the engine will not fail due to knock. Equivalence ratio can be reduced below 0.4 for low load operation with an electronic control valve. Intake boosting has been a challenge, as commercially available turbochargers are not a good match for the engine, due to the low HCCI exhaust temperature. Commercial introduction …

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Ground-Based Nuclear Explosion Monitoring Research and Engineering (GNEM R&E) Program has made significant progress enhancing the process of deriving seismic calibrations and performing scientific integration with automation tools. We present an overview of our software automation and scientific data management efforts and discuss frameworks to address the problematic issues of very large datasets and varied formats utilized during seismic calibration research. The software and scientific automation initiatives directly support the rapid collection of raw and contextual seismic data used in research, provide efficient interfaces for researchers to measure/analyze data, and provide a framework for research dataset integration. The automation also improves the researchers ability to assemble quality controlled research products for delivery into the NNSA Knowledge Base (KB). The software and scientific automation tasks provide the robust foundation upon which synergistic and efficient development of, GNEM R&E Program, seismic calibration research may be built. The task of constructing many seismic calibration products is labor intensive and complex, hence expensive. However, aspects of calibration product construction are susceptible to automation and future economies. We are applying software and scientific automation to problems within two distinct phases or ''tiers'' of the seismic calibration process. The first …

The authors present evidence for the b {yields} d penguin-dominated decays B{sup +} {yields} {bar K}{sup 0}K{sup +} and B{sup 0} {yields} K{sup 0}{bar K}{sup 0} with significances of 3.5 and 4.5 standard deviations, respectively. The results are based on a sample of 227 million {Upsilon}(4S) {yields} B{bar B} decays collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e{sup +}e{sup -} collider at SLAC. We measure the branching fractions {Beta}(B{sup +} {yields} {bar K}{sup 0}K{sup +}) = (1.5 {+-} 0.5 {+-} 0.1) x 10{sup -6} (< 2.4 x 10{sup -6}) and {Beta}(B{sup 0} {yields} K{sup 0}{bar K}{sup 0}) = (1.19{sub -0.35}{sup +0.40} {+-} 0.13) x 10{sup -6}, where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively, and the upper limit on the branching fraction for {bar K}{sup 0}K{sup +} is at the 90% confidence level. They also present improved measurements of the charge-averaged branching fraction {Beta}(B{sup +} {yields} K{sup 0}{pi}{sup +}) = (26.0 {+-} 1.3 {+-} 1.0) x 10{sup -6} and CP-violating charge asymmetry {Alpha}{sub CP} (K{sup 0}{pi}{sup +}) = -0.09 {+-} 0.05 {+-} 0.01, where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively.

Measurements on the prototype silicon sensors for use with an electromagnetic calorimeter with tungsten absorber are reported. The prototype sensors are based on a hexagonal geometry that optimally utilizes the space available on 6 inch silicon wafers. The sensors are segmented into approximately 750 5mm hexagonal pixels, which are connected to a bump-bonding array located at the center of the sensors. We report on those properties of the sensors that are important for linear collider applications including depletion voltage, stray capacitance and series resistance.

High transverse momentum single (non-photonic) electrons are shown to be sensitive to the stopping power of both bottom, b, and charm, c, quarks in AA collisions. We apply the DGLV theory of radiative energy loss to predict c and b quark jet quenching and compare the FONLL and PYTHIA heavy flavor fragmentation and decay schemes. We show that single electrons in the p{sub T} = 5-10 GeV range are dominated by the decay of b quarks rather than the more strongly quenched c quarks in Au+Au collisions at {radical}s = 200 AGeV. The smaller b quark energy loss, even for extreme opacities with gluon rapidity densities up to 3500, is predicted to limit the nuclear modification factor, R{sub AA}, of single electrons to the range R{sub AA} {approx} 0.5-0.6, in contrast to previous predictions of R{sub AA} {le} 0.2-0.3 based on taking only c quark jet fragmentation into account.

We describe a scanning probe instrument which integrates ion beams with the imaging and alignment function of a piezo-resistive scanning probe in high vacuum. The beam passes through several apertures and is finally collimated by a hole in the cantilever of the scanning probe. The ion beam spot size is limited by the size of the last aperture. Highly charged ions are used to show hits of single ions in resist, and we discuss the issues for implantation of single ions.