Fluorite-related phases Ln3MO7, Ln = Rare-earth,Y or Sc, M = Nb,Sb or Ta. III. Structure of the non-stoichiometric Y3TaO7 phase

The orthorhombic fluorite-related superstructure phase Y₃TaO₇ is non-stoichiometric; the Y₂O₃ content may be varied from 75.0 to about 72.5 mole% without incurring structural changes. For overall Y₂O₃ contents from 72.0 to 70.5 mole%, the crystal symmetry changes from C222₁ to Cmmm, and the c axis becomes halved. The structure of the low-Y₂O₃ material has been determined from powder X-ray diffraction intensities supplemented by single crystal electron-optical data. The relationship of this structure to that of stoichiometric Y₃TaO₇ is discussed.     

Characterization of the Reaction of Chloroacetaldehyde with Single and Double Stranded DNA

Chloroacetaldehyde reacts with viral M13mp18 single and double stranded DNA to form the highly fluorescent adducts, etheno-AMP and etheno-CMP.

Absorbance and fluorescence spectroscopy can be used to monitor and characterize these reactions. Both single and double stranded DNA showed increases in the absorbance following reaction with the aldehyde. The fluorescence also increased in these two groups and continued to rise with increasing time of incubation until a point of saturation was reached. The fluorescence of the double stranded moiety was considerably enhanced following reaction with the aldehyde while that of the single stranded population was not, making this method appropriate for the separation of small quantities of the two populations of DNA.     

Twist-Bend Nematic Glasses: The Synthesis and Characterisation of Pyrene-based Nonsymmetric Dimers

A selection of pyrene-based liquid crystal dimers have been prepared, containing either methylene-ether or diether linked spacers of varying length and parity. All the diether linked materials, CBOnO.Py (n=5, 6, 11, 12), exhibit conventional nematic and smectic A phases, with the exception of CBO11O.Py which is exclusively nematic. The methylene-ether linked dimer, CBnO.Py, with an even-membered spacer (n=5) was solely nematogenic, but odd-members (n=6, 8, 10) exhibited both nematic and twist-bend nematic phases. Replacement of the cyanobiphenyl fragment by cyanoterphenyl giving CT6O.Py, gave elevated melting and nematic-isotropic transition temperatures, and SmA and SmC_A phases were observed on cooling the nematic phase. Intermolecular face-to-face associations of the pyrene moieties drive glass formation, and all these materials have a glass transition temperature at or above room temperature. The stability of the glassy twist-bend nematic phase allowed for its study using AFM, and the helical pitch length, P_TB, was measured as 6.3 and 6.7 nm for CB6O.Py and CB8O.Py, respectively. These values are comparable to the shortest pitch of a twist-bend nematic phase measured to date.     

Enhancing energy harvesting by coupling monostable oscillators

The performance of a ring of linearly coupled, monostable nonlinear oscillators is optimized towards its goal of acting as energy harvester – through piezoelectric transduction – of mesoscopic fluctuations, which are modeled as Ornstein-Uhlenbeck noises. For a single oscillator, the maximum output voltage and overall efficiency are attained for a soft piecewise-linear potential (providing a weak attractive constant force) but they are still fairly large for a harmonic potential. When several harmonic springs are linearly and bidirectionally coupled to form a ring, it is found that counter-phase coupling can largely improve the performance while in-phase coupling worsens it. Moreover, it turns out that few (two or three) coupled units perform better than more.     

A Pilot Survey of Vocal Health in Young Singers

The objective of this study was to determine the incidence of vocal problems in young choir singers and to correlate vocal problems with demographic and behavioral information. A questionnaire addressing vocal habits and hygiene was offered to 571 young choir singers, up to 25 years of age, who sing at least weekly; 129 (22.6%) responded. More than one-half of the respondents had experienced vocal difficulty, particularly older adolescents. Detrimental behaviors and circumstances surveyed were not reflective of the incidence of vocal difficulty, except for morning hoarseness, chronic fatigue, insomnia, and female gender after puberty. Voice care professionals should be aware that self-reported voice difficulties are common among young choral singers, especially postpubescent girls, and children with symptoms consistent with reflux (morning hoarseness) and emotional stress (insomnia). Laryngologists should communicate with choral conductors and singing teachers to enhance early identification and treatment of children with voice complaints, and to develop choral educational strategies that help decrease their incidence.     

Validity and Reliability of the Reflux Symptom Index (RSI)

Laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) is present in up to 50% of patients with voice disorders. Currently, there is no validated instrument that documents symptom severity in LPR. We developed the reflux symptom index (RSI), a self-administered nine-item outcomes instrument for LPR. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the RSI. For validity assessment, 25 patients with LPR were evaluated prospectively before and six months after b.i.d. treatment with proton pump inhibitors (PPI). Each patient completed the RSI as well as the 30-item voice handicap index (VHI). For reliability assessment, the study patients were given the RSI on two separate occasions before the initiation of treatment. Normative RSI data were derived from 25 age-matched and gender-matched controls taken from an existing database of asymptomatic individuals without any evidence of LPR. The mean RSI (+/- standard deviation) of patients with LPR improved from 21.2 (+/- 10.7) to 12.8 (+/- 10.0), and the mean VHI improved from 52.2 (+/- 24.7) to 41.5 (+/- 25.0) after 6 months of therapy (p = 0.001 and 0.065, respectively). Of the three VHI subscales (emotional, physical, functional), only the functional subscale improved significantly (p = 0.037). Patients who experienced a five point or better improvement in RSI were 11 times more likely to experience a five-point improvement in VHI (95% confidence interval = 1.7, 76.8). For reliability assessment, the first and second pretreatment RSIs were 19.9 (+/- 11.1) and 20.9 (+/- 9.6), respectively (correlation coefficient = 0.81, p < 0.001). The single-item correlation coefficients ranged from 0.41 to 0.91 (p < 0.05 for all items). The mean pretreatment RSI in patients with LPR was significantly higher than controls (21.2 versus 11.6; p < 0.001). The mean RSI of patients with LPR after 6 months of PPI therapy approached that of asymptomatic controls (p > 0.05). The RSI is easily administered, highly reproducible, and exhibits excellent construct and criterion-based validity.     

Application of the single comparator method to instrumental photon activation analysis

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - Instrumental photon activation analysis (IPAA) is nondestructive and multi-elemental analysis method like instrumental neutron activation...     

Phase transitions in K3AlF6

Phase transitions in the elpasolite-type K₃AlF₆ complex fluoride were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry, electron diffraction and X-ray powder diffraction. Three phase transitions were identified with critical temperatures , and . The α-K₃AlF₆ phase is stable below T₁ and crystallizes in a monoclinic unit cell with a=18.8588(2)Å, b=34.0278(2)Å, c=18.9231(1)Å, β=90.453(1)° (a=2a_c−c_c, b=4b_c, c=a_c+2c_c; a_c, b_c, c_c—the basic lattice vectors of the face-centered cubic elpasolite structure) and space group I2/a or Ia. The intermediate β phase exists only in very narrow temperature interval between T₁ and T₂. The γ polymorph is stable in the T₂<T<T₃ temperature range and has an orthorhombic unit cell with a=36.1229(6)Å, b=17.1114(3)Å, c=12.0502(3)Å (a=3a_c−3c_c, b=2b_c, c=a_c+c_c) at 250 °C and space group Fddd. Above T₃ the cubic δ polymorph forms with a_c=8.5786(4)Å at 400 °C and space group . The similarity between the K₃AlF₆ and K₃MoO₃F₃ compounds is discussed.