Validation of an immunoassay method for the determination of traces of carbaryl in vegetable and fruit extracts by liquid chromatography with photodiode array and mass spectrometric detection

A competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method for carbaryl quantitation in crop extracts was validated by liquid chromatography (LC) with diode array detection (DAD). For this purpose, six crops (banana, carrot, green bean, orange, peach and potato) were chosen for recovery and reproducibility studies. The general sample preparation included extraction with methanol followed by liquid-liquid partitioning and clean-up on Celite-charcoal adsorbent column of the vegetable extracts. ELISA samples consisted of a diluted LC extract in assay phosphate buffer (pH 7.5). The potential effect of methanol in these samples was evaluated. It was observed that a maximum content of 10% methanol present in the assay buffer could be tolerated without expressive losses in the ELISA performance. Under these conditions, a IC50 similar to 1.48 mu g l(-1) was obtained. A minimum matrix effect with a 1:50 dilution of the methanolic extracts in assay buffer was noticed, except for green bean samples that inhibited completely the assay. For the vegetable extracts, the ELISA sensitivities varied from 3.9 to 5.7 mu g l(-1), and good recoveries (82-96%) with R.S.D.s ranging from 5.7 to 12.1% were found. An excellent correlation between the LC-DAD and ELISA techniques was obtained. The confirmation of the carbaryl in less concentrated samples was achieved by LC-mass spectrometry interfaced with atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation. The [M + H](+)= 202 and [M + H-57](+)=145 ions, equivalent to the protonated molecular and l-naphthol ions, respectively, were used to carbaryl identification in these samples. (C) 1998 Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.

Flow-through cell based on an array of gold microelectrodes obtained from modified integrated circuit chips

The construction of a flow-through cell incorporating an array of gold microelectrodes is described and its application to flow injection analysis with amperometric detection is presented, Simple modification of almost any conventional integrated circuit chip, used as an inexpensive source of pre-assembled gold micro-wires, leads to the rapid and successful preparation of arrays of 8-48 elements, the polymeric encapsulation material from the top face of the chip is removed by abrasion until the gold micro-mires (used to interconnect the silicon circuit to the external contact pins of the chip) are disrupted and their transversal (elliptical) sections become exposed. Once polished, the flat and smooth top surface of the gold microelectrode-array chip (MEAC) is provided with a spacer and fitted under pressure against an acrylic block with the reference and auxiliary electrodes, to form the electrochemical (thin-layer) flow cell, while the contact pins are plugged into a standard IC socket, This design ensures autonomous electric contact with each electrode and allows fast dismantling for polishing or substitution, the performance of flow cells with MEACs was investigated utilizing the technique of reverse pulse amperometry without oxygen removal, A method was established for the determination of the copper concentration in sugar cane spirit, regulated by law for beverages, Samples from industrial producers and small-scale (alembic) brewers were compared, With a 24 MEAC, a detection limit of 30 mu g I-l of copper (4.7 x 10(-7) mol l(-1) of Cu-II for 100 mu l injections) was calculated, Routine operation was established at a frequency of 60-90 determinations per hour, Intercomparison with atomic absorption spectrometric determinations resulted in excellent agreement.

Determination of rice herbicides, their transformation products and clofibric acid using on-line solid-phase extraction followed by liquid chromatography with diode array and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometric detection

A simultaneous method for the trace determination of acidic, neutral herbicides and their transformation products in estuarine waters has been developed through an on-line solid-phase extraction method followed by liquid chromatography with diode array and mass spectrometric detection. An atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) interface was used in the negative ionization mode after optimization of the main APCI parameters. Limits of detection ranged from 0.1 to 0.02 ng/ml for 50 mi of acidified estuarine waters preconcentrated into polymeric precolumns and using time-scheduled selected ion monitoring mode. Two degradation products of the acidic herbicides (4-chloro-2-methylphenol and 2,4-dichlorophenol) did not show good signal response using APCI-MS at the concentration studied due to the higher fragmentor voltage needed for their determination For molinate and the major degradation product of propanil, 3,4-dichloroaniline, positive ion mode was needed for APCI-MS detection. The proposed method was applied to the determination of herbicides in drainage waters from rice fields of the Delta del Ebro (Spain). During the S-month monitoring of the herbicides, 8-hydroxybentazone and 4-chloro-2-methylphenoxyacetic acid were successively found in those samples. (C) 2000 Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.

Dinuclear Azide-Bridged Copper(II) Complex as Building Block for the Assembly of a 2D-Supramolecular Array

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Controlled growth of anodic aluminium oxide films with hexagonal array of nanometer-sized pores filled with textured copper nanowires

Anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) films exhibiting a homogeneous morphology of parallel pores perpendicular to the surface were prepared in a two-step anodization process and filled with copper by electrochemical deposition. The optimum growth conditions for the formation of freestanding AAO films with hexagonal compact array of cylindrical pores were studied by field emission scanning electron microscopy and small angle X-ray scattering. The results show well-defined periodic structures with uniform pores size distribution for films with pore diameters between 40 and 70 nm prepared using different voltages and temperatures during the second anodization step. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis of AAO films filled with copper show the formation of nanowires with high structural order, exhibiting a preferential crystalline orientation along the (2 2 0) axis and only small fraction of copper oxides. The best results for textured Cu nanowires were obtained at a reduction potential of -300 mV. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Some remarks on the conformal group

It is shown that the local isomorphism between the conformal group of Minkowski spacetime and the group SO(4,2) makes sense only if one eliminates from SO(4,2) one of the Sitter boosts contained in it. © 1992.

Higher spin symmetries and w∞ algebra in the conformal affine Toda model

As recently shown the conformal affine Toda models can be obtained via hamiltonian reduction from a two-loop Kac-Moody algebra. In this paper we propose a systematic procedure to analyze the higher spin symmetries of the conformal affine Toda models. The method is based on an explicit construction of infinite towers of extended conformal symmetry generators. Two fundamental building blocks of this construction are special spin-one and -two primary fields characterizing the conformal structure of these models. The connection to the algebra of area preserving diffeomorphisms on a two-manifold (w∞ algebra) is established.

On non-linear W-infinity symmetry of generalized Liouville and conformal Toda models

Invariance under non-linear Ŵ∞ algebra is shown for the two-boson Liouville type of model and its algebraic generalizations, the extended conformal Toda models. The realization of the corresponding generators in terms of two boson currents within KP hierarchy is presented.

Connection between the affine and conformal affine Toda models and their Hirota solution

It is shown that the affine Toda models (AT) constitute a gauge fixed version of the conformal affine Toda model (CAT). This result enables one to map every solution of the AT models into an infinite number of solutions of the corresponding CAT models, each one associated to a point of the orbit of the conformal group. The Hirota τ-functions are introduced and soliton solutions for the AT and CAT models associated to SL̂ (r+1) and SP̂ (r) are constructed.

Solitons, τ-functions and hamiltonian reduction for non-Abelian conformal affine Toda theories

We consider the Hamiltonian reduction of the two-loop Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model (WZNW) based on an untwisted affine Kac-Moody algebra script Ĝ. The resulting reduced models, called Generalized Non-Abelian Conformal Affine Toda (G-CAT), are conformally invariant and a wide class of them possesses soliton solutions; these models constitute non-Abelian generalizations of the conformal affine Toda models. Their general solution is constructed by the Leznov-Saveliev method. Moreover, the dressing transformations leading to the solutions in the orbit of the vacuum are considered in detail, as well as the τ-functions, which are defined for any integrable highest weight representation of script Ĝ, irrespectively of its particular realization. When the conformal symmetry is spontaneously broken, the G-CAT model becomes a generalized affine Toda model, whose soliton solutions are constructed. Their masses are obtained exploring the spontaneous breakdown of the conformal symmetry, and their relation to the fundamental particle masses is discussed. We also introduce what we call the two-loop Virasoro algebra, describing extended symmetries of the two-loop WZNW models.

Conformal compensators and manifest type IIB S-duality

Using the conformal compensator superfields of N = 2 D = 4 supergravity, the Type IIB S-duality transformations are expressed as a linear rotation which mixes the compensator and matter superfields. The classical superspace action for D = 4 compactifications of Type IIB supergravity is manifestly invariant under this transformation. Furthermore, the introduction of conformal compensators allows a Fradkin-Tseytlin term to be added to the manifestly SL(2,Z)-covariant sigma model action of Townsend and Cederwall. © 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.

Conformal field theory for the superstring in a Ramond-Ramond plane wave background

A quantizable worldsheet action is constructed for the superstring in a super-symmetric plane wave background with Ramond-Ramond flux. The action is manifestly invariant under all isometries of the background and is an exact worldsheet conformal field theory. © SISSA/ISAS 2002.

Integrability and conformal symmetry in higher dimensions: A model with exact hopfion solutions

We use ideas on integrability in higher dimensions to define Lorentz invariant field theories with an infinite number of local conserved currents. The models considered have a two-dimensional target space. Requiring the existence of lagrangean and the stability of static solutions singles out a class of models which have an additional conformal symmetry. That is used to explain the existence of an ansatz leading to solutions with non-trivial Hopf charges. © SISSA/ISAS 2002.

One loop conformal invariance of the superstring in an AdS5 × S5 background

It is proven that the pure spinor superstring in an AdS5 × S5 background remains conformally invariant at one loop level in the sigma model perturbation theory. © SISSA/ISAS 2003.

Higher grading conformal affine Toda theory and (generalized) sine-Gordon/massive Thirring duality

Some properties of the higher grading integrable generalizations of the conformal affine Toda systems are studied. The fields associated to the non-zero grade generators are Dirac spinors. The effective action is written in terms of the Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten (WZNW) action associated to an affine Lie algebra, and an off-critical theory is obtained as the result of the spontaneous breakdown of the conformal symmetry. Moreover, the off-critical theory presents a remarkable equivalence between the Noether and topological currents of the model. Related to the off-critical model we define a real and local lagrangian provided some reality conditions are imposed on the fields of the model. This real action model is expected to describe the soliton sector of the original model, and turns out to be the master action from which we uncover the weak-strong phases described by (generalized) massive Thirring and sine-Gordon type models, respectively. The case of any (untwisted) affine Lie algebra furnished with the principal gradation is studied in some detail. The example of s^l(n) (n = 2, 3) is presented explicitly. © SISSA/ISAS 2003.