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Stability Test (stability + test)
Selected AbstractsSynthesis of Aliphatic (S)-,-Hydroxycarboxylic Amides using a One-Pot Bienzymatic Cascade of Immobilised Oxynitrilase and Nitrile HydrataseADVANCED SYNTHESIS & CATALYSIS (PREVIOUSLY: JOURNAL FUER PRAKTISCHE CHEMIE), Issue 3 2009Sander van Pelt Abstract A one-pot bienzymatic cascade combining a hydroxynitrile lyase (Manihot esculenta, E.C. 4.1.2.10) and a nitrile hydratase (Nitriliruptor alkaliphilus, E.C. 4.2.1.84) for the synthesis of enantiopure aliphatic ,-hydroxycarboxylic amides from aldehydes is described. Both enzymes were immobilised as cross-linked enzyme aggregates (CLEAs). Stability tests show that the nitrile hydratase CLEAs are sensitive to water-immiscible organic solvents as well as to aldehydes and hydrogen cyanide (HCN), but are remarkably stable and show useful activity in acidic aqueous environments of pH,4,5. The cascade reactions are consequently carried out by using a portionwise feed of HCN and moderate concentrations of aldehyde in acidic aqueous buffer to suppress the uncatalysed hydrocyanation background reaction. After optimisation, this method was used to synthesise five different kinds of aliphatic ,-hydroxycarboxylic amides from the corresponding aldehydes with good yields and with enantiomeric purities comparable to those obtained for the ,-hydroxynitriles in the microaqueous hydrocyanation using hydroxynitrile lyase and an excess of HCN. [source] Benzdiynes revisited: ab initio and density functional theoryJOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 9 2001Sundaram Arulmozhiraja Abstract Ab initio and density functional theory (DFT) studies were performed on three isomers of tetradehydrobenzene (benzdiynes). Four different density functionals (BPW91, BLYP, B3LYP, and B1LYP) and two higher levels of theory [QCISD and CCSD(T)] incorporating basis sets up to Dunning's correlation-consistent polarized valence triple-, (cc-pVTZ) were utilized for this purpose. Stability tests showed that more stable solutions were available for 1,4-benzdiyne with unrestricted than with restricted DFT, while solutions obtained with later descriptions of 1,3-benzdiyne and 1,2,3,5-tetradehydrobenzene were stable. UB3LYP provided better geometry for 1,4-benzdiyne. Unlike in an earlier study, the energy difference between 1,2,3,5-tetradehydrobenzene and 1,4-benzdiyne calculated with the B3LYP functional coincided well with that calculated at CCSD(T): 13.07 and 14.32 kcal/mol at the B3LYP/cc-pVTZ and CCSD(T)/cc-pVTZ levels, respectively. 1,2,3,5-Tetradehydrobenzene was 8 kcal/mol more stable than 1,3-benzdiyne at the CCSD(T)/cc-pVTZ level. The heats of formation of benzdiynes were obtained by using the G2, CBS-Q, and CBS-QB3 methodologies. The heats of formation calculated for 1,3-benzdiyne and 1,2,3,5-tetradehydrobenzene were 208.6 and 197.9 kcal/mol, respectively, at the CBS-QB3 level of theory. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Comput Chem 22: 923,930, 2001 [source] Antibacterial factors in skin mucus of rabbitfishesJOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY, Issue 6 2001Y. Nagashima Aqueous extracts from the skin mucus of two species of rabbitfishes Siganus fuscescens and S. guttatus showed antibacterial activity against gram-negative bacteria. Stability tests and chromatographic analyses suggested that the S. fuscescens antibacterial factor is an acidic glycoprotein with a molecular mass of 400 kDa. [source] Analysis of the Stability and Degradation Products of TriptolideJOURNAL OF PHARMACY AND PHARMACOLOGY: AN INTERNATI ONAL JOURNAL OF PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2000YAN PING MAO Triptolide is the major active ingredient of the Chinese herbal remedy Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F. (TwHF). As triptolide content is used to estimate the potency of preparations of TwHF, assessment of its stability is warranted. The accelerated stability of triptolide was investigated in 5% ethanol solution in a light-protected environment at pH 6.9, within a temperature range of 60,90°C. The observed degradation rate followed first-order kinetics. The degradation rate constant (K25°C) obtained by trending line analysis of Arrhenius plots of triptolide was 1.4125 times 10,4 h,1. The times to degrade 10% (t1/10) and 50% (t1/2) at 25°C were 31 and 204 days, respectively. Stability tests of triptolide in different solvents and different pH conditions (pH 4,10) in a light-protected environment at room temperature demonstrated that basic medium and a hydrophilic solvent were the major factors that accelerated the degradation of triptolide. Triptolide exhibited the fastest degradation rate at pH 10 and the slowest rate at pH 6. In a solvent comparison, triptolide was found to be very stable in chloroform. The stability of triptolide in organic polar solvents tested at both 100% and 90% concentration was greater in ethanol than in methanol than in dimethylsulphoxide. Stability was also greater in a mixture of solvent: pH 6 buffer (9:1) than in 100% solvent alone. An exception was ethyl acetate, which is less polar than the other solvents tested, but permitted more rapid degradation of triptolide. Two of the degradation products of triptolide were isolated and identified by HPLC and mass spectroscopy as triptriolide and triptonide. This suggested that the decomposition of triptolide occurred at the C12 and C13 epoxy group and the C14 hydroxyl. The opening of the C12 and C13 epoxy is an irreversible reaction, but the reaction occurring on the C14 hydroxyl is reversible. These results show that the major degradation pathway of triptolide involves decomposition of the C12 and C13 epoxy group. Since this reaction is very slow at 4°C at pH 6, stability is enhanced under these conditions. [source] Determination of diisopropylfluorophosphate in rat plasma and brain tissue by headspace solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography/mass spectrometryRAPID COMMUNICATIONS IN MASS SPECTROMETRY, Issue 19 2008Meng Xu A simple, sensitive and rapid method for the determination of diisopropylfluorophosphate (DFP) in rat plasma and brain tissue using headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) is presented. A 65,µm polydimethylsiloxane/divinylbenzene (PDMS/DVB) fiber was selected for sampling. The main parameters affecting the SPME process such as extraction and desorption temperature, extraction and desorption time, salt addition, and fiber preheating time were optimized in each matrix to enhance the extraction efficiency of the method. The lower limits of quantitation for DFP in plasma and brain tissue were 1,ng/mL and 3,ng/g, respectively. The method showed good linearity over the range from 1,100,ng/mL in plasma and 3,300,ng/g in brain tissue with correlation coefficient (R2) values higher than 0.995. The precision and accuracy for intra-day and inter-day were less than 10%. The relative recoveries in plasma and brain for DFP were greater than 50%. Stability tests including autosampler and freeze and thaw were also investigated. This validated method was successfully applied to study the neurobehavioral effects of low-level organophosphate exposures. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] A Kharitonov-like theorem for robust stability independent of delay of interval quasipolynomialsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ROBUST AND NONLINEAR CONTROL, Issue 6 2010Onur Toker Abstract In this paper, a Kharitonov-like theorem is proved for testing robust stability independent of delay of interval quasipolynomials, p(s)+,eqk(s), where p and qk's are interval polynomials with uncertain coefficients. It is shown that the robust stability test of the quasipolynomial basically reduces to the stability test of a set of Kharitonov-like vertex quasipolynomials, where stability is interpreted as stability independent of delay. As discovered in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234), the well-known vertex-type robust stability result reported in (IMA J. Math. Contr. Info. 1988; 5:117,123) (See also (IEEE Trans. Circ. Syst. 1990; 37(7):969,972; Proc. 34th IEEE Conf. Decision Contr., New Orleans, LA, December 1995; 392,394) does contain a flaw. An alternative approach is proposed in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234), and both frequency sweeping and vertex type robust stability tests are developed for quasipolynomials with polytopic coefficient uncertainties. Under a specific assumption, it is shown in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234) that robust stability independent of delay of an interval quasipolynomial can be reduced to stability independent of delay of a set of Kharitonov-like vertex quasipolynomials. In this paper, we show that the assumption made in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234) is redundant, and the Kharitonov-like result reported in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234) is true without any additional assumption, and can be applied to all quasipolynomials. The key idea used in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234) was the equivalence of Hurwitz stability and , -o -stability for interval polynomials with constant term never equal to zero. This simple observation implies that the well-known Kharitonov theorem for Hurwitz stability can be applied for , -o -stability, provided that the constant term of the interval polynomial never vanishes. However, this line of approach is based on a specific assumption, which we call the CNF-assumption. In this paper, we follow a different approach: First, robust , -o -stability problem is studied in a more general framework, including the cases where degree drop is allowed, and the constant term as well as other higher-orders terms can vanish. Then, generalized Kharitonov-like theorems are proved for , -o -stability, and inspired by the techniques used in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234), it is shown that robust stability independent of delay of an interval quasipolynomial can be reduced to stability independent of delay of a set of Kharitonov-like vertex quasipolynomials, even if the assumption adopted in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234) is not satisfied. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] A test for stability robustness of linear time-varying systems utilizing the linear time-invariant ,-gap metricINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ROBUST AND NONLINEAR CONTROL, Issue 9 2009Wynita M. Griggs Abstract A stability robustness test is developed for internally stable, nominal, linear time-invariant (LTI) feedback systems subject to structured, linear time-varying uncertainty. There exists (in the literature) a necessary and sufficient structured small gain condition that determines robust stability in such cases. In this paper, the structured small gain theorem is utilized to formulate a (sufficient) stability robustness condition in a scaled LTI ,-gap metric framework. The scaled LTI ,-gap metric stability condition is shown to be computable via linear matrix inequality techniques, similar to the structured small gain condition. Apart from a comparison with a generalized robust stability margin as the final part of the stability test, however, the solution algorithm implemented to test the scaled LTI ,-gap metric stability robustness condition is shown to be independent of knowledge about the controller transfer function (as opposed to the LMI feasibility problem associated with the scaled small gain condition which is dependent on knowledge about the controller). Thus, given a nominal plant and a structured uncertainty set, the stability robustness condition presented in this paper provides a single constraint on a controller (in terms of a large enough generalized robust stability margin) that (sufficiently) guarantees to stabilize all plants in the uncertainty set. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] A new absolute stability test for systems with state-dependent perturbationsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ROBUST AND NONLINEAR CONTROL, Issue 14 2002M. C. de Oliveira Abstract In this paper, a new test for the absolute stability of nonlinear systems with state-dependent nonlinearities is developed. Scalar nonlinearities are assumed to lie in sectors. Using a Lur'e function as a Lyapunov function, a linear matrix inequalities (LMI) stability condition is derived. The new condition lets one go from a pure integral (Persidskii) to a pure quadratic Lyapunov function in an unified framework. Several results available in the literature are generated as particular cases of the new test. An example shows that the proposed condition can be much less conservative than available diagonal stability and passivity based methods, as the circle and Popov criteria. Tests for infinite as well as finite nonlinearity sectors can be easily generated, since the parameters of the nonlinearity sectors appear in the LMI condition in a very convenient way. This feature can also provide optimization of the absolute stability sector through convex programming techniques. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The Contribution of Foot Problems to Mobility Impairment and Falls in Community-Dwelling Older PeopleJOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 12 2001Hylton B. Menz B Pod (Hons) OBJECTIVES: To investigate the relationship between foot problems, balance, and functional ability in community-dwelling older people and to determine whether older people with a history of multiple falls exhibit greater foot impairment than those who have not fallen or who have fallen once only. DESIGN: A cross-sectional, retrospective study. SETTING: Falls and Balance Laboratory, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred thirty-five community-dwelling men and women age 75 to 93 (mean age ± standard deviation, 79.8 ± 4.1). MEASURES: Foot problem score; postural sway; coordinated stability; stair ascent and descent; an alternate stepping test; timed 6-meter walk; and tests of vision, sensation, strength, and reaction time. RESULTS: Eighty-seven percent of the sample had at least one foot problem. Women had a significantly higher foot problem score than did men. The foot problem score was significantly associated with performance on the coordinated stability test, stair ascent and descent, alternate stepping test, and timed 6-meter walk. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the foot problem score was a significant independent predictor of performance in the coordinated stability test, stair ascent and descent, and the alternate stepping test. Subjects with a history of multiple falls had a significantly higher foot problem score than did those who had not fallen or who had fallen once only, but the prevalence of individual foot conditions or the presence of foot pain did not differ between these groups. CONCLUSIONS: Foot problems are common in older people and are associated with impaired balance and performance in functional tests. Furthermore, older people with a history of multiple falls have greater foot impairment than non- or once-only fallers. These findings provide further evidence that foot problems are a falls risk factor and suggest that the cumulative effect of multiple foot problems is more important in increasing falls risk than the presence or absence of individual foot conditions. [source] Properties of High-Oleic Palm Oils Derived by Fractional CrystallizationJOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE, Issue 3 2008M.R. Ramli ABSTRACT:, High-oleic palm oil (HOPO) with an oleic acid content of 59.0% and an iodine value (IV) of 78.2 was crystallized in a 200-kg De Smet crystallizer with a predetermined cooling program and appropriate agitation. The slurry was then fractionated by means of dry fractionation at 4, 8, 10, 12, and 15 °C. The oil and the fractionated products were subjected to physical and chemical analyses, including fatty acid composition, triacylglycerol and diacylglycerol composition, solid fat content, cloud point, slip melting point, and cold stability test. Fractionation at 15 °C resulted in the highest olein yield but with minimal oleic acid content. Due to the enhanced unsaturation of the oil, fractionation at relatively lower crystallization temperature showed a considerable effect on fatty acid composition as well as triacylglycerol and diacylglycerol composition of liquid fractions compared to higher crystallization temperature. The olein and stearin fractionated at 4 °C had the best cold stability at 0 °C and sharper melting profile, respectively. [source] Changes in surface roughness and colour stability of soft denture lining materials caused by denture cleansersJOURNAL OF ORAL REHABILITATION, Issue 2 2003C. Jin summary, Soft denture lining materials were immersed into solutions of denture cleansers for 8 h at room temperature, and immersed into distilled water for the remainder of the 24-h period at 37 °C. Surface roughness of the soft denture lining materials was measured by contact type surface roughness instrument. For the colour stability test, soft denture lining materials were immersed in the denture cleansers as described above for 180 days. Finally, the colour changes of each material were quantitatively measured by a photometrical instrument to obtain the colour differences between newly processed specimen and immersed specimens (P < 0·01). An autopolymerizing silicone material, Evatouch, exhibited severe changes in surface roughness by all denture cleanser, and the generic material GC Denture Relining showed the minimal changes. Severe colour changes were also observed with some liner and cleanser combinations (P < 0·01). Except for Evatouth, the four silicone soft liners were more stable in surface roughness and in colour change than the two acrylic soft liners. One autopolymerizing silicone (GC denture relining) and one heat curing silicone (Molloplast B) demonstrated the best stability. [source] Fabrication of poly(ethylene glycol)-based hydrogels entrapping enzyme-immobilized silica nanoparticlesPOLYMERS FOR ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES, Issue 7 2010Eunji Jang Abstract In this study, we immobilized enzymes by combining covalent surface immobilization and hydrogel entrapment. A model enzyme, glucose oxidase (GOX), was first covalently immobilized on the surface of silica nanoparticles (SNPs) via 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), and the resultant SNP-immobilized enzyme was physically entrapped within photopolymerized hydrogels prepared from two different molecular weights (MWs) (575 and 8000,Da) of poly(ethylene glycol)(PEG). The hydrogel entrapment resulted in a decrease in reaction rate and an increase in apparent Km of SNP-immobilized GOX, but these negative effects could be minimized by using hydrogel with a higher MW PEG, which provides higher water content and larger mesh size. The catalytic rate of the PEG 8000 hydrogel was about ten times faster than that of the PEG 575 hydrogel because of enhanced mass transfer. Long-term stability test demonstrated that SNP-immobilized GOX entrapped within hydrogel maintained more than 60% of its initial activity after a week, whereas non-entrapped SNP-immobilized GOX and entrapped GOX without SNP immobilization maintained less than 20% of their initial activity. Incorporation of SNPs into hydrogel enhanced the mechanical strength of the hydrogel six-fold relative to bare hydrogels. Finally, a hydrogel microarray entrapping SNP-immobilized GOX was fabricated using photolithography and successfully used for quantitative glucose detection. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Production, purification and characterisation of a novel halostable xylanase from Bacillus sp.ANNALS OF APPLIED BIOLOGY, Issue 2 2010NTU-0 Bacillus sp. NTU-06 was used to produce xylanase, which is an important industrial enzyme used in the pulp and paper industry. The enzyme was purified by fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC) and had a molecular mass of 24 kDa. The enzyme was active over a concentration range of 0,20% sodium chloride in culture broth, although its activity was optimal in 5% sodium chloride. A salinity stability test showed that 43% of the enzyme activity was retained after 4 h in 20% sodium chloride. Xylanase activity was maximal at pH 8.0 and 40°C. The enzyme was somewhat thermostable, retaining 20% of the original activity after incubation at 70°C for 4 h. The xylanase had Km and Vmax values of 3.45 mg mL,1 and 387.3 µmol min,1mg,1, respectively. The deduced internal amino acid sequence of Bacillus sp. NTU-06 xylanase resembled the sequence of beta-1,4-endoxylanase, which is a member of glycoside hydrolase family 11. Some of the novel characteristics that make this enzyme potentially effective in xylan biodegradation are discussed. [source] Modeling And Robust Pi Control Of A Fluidized Bed Combustor For Sewage SludgeASIAN JOURNAL OF CONTROL, Issue 4 2002Yingmin Jia ABSTRACT Based on experimental data, a fluidized bed combustor is modeled as an interval system. Severe model uncertainty and large time delays lead to the main difficulties in solving the control problem. The design uses the stability test of closed-loop systems as the main guideline for developing a robust PI controller. In particular, a new formula to compute the maximal magnitude of an edge rational function at a fixed frequency is derived, which provides a way to deal with time delay by transforming it into multiplicative uncertainty. Both the theoretical and the experimental results show that the designed PI controller can satisfy the desired performance requirements. [source] A Kharitonov-like theorem for robust stability independent of delay of interval quasipolynomialsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ROBUST AND NONLINEAR CONTROL, Issue 6 2010Onur Toker Abstract In this paper, a Kharitonov-like theorem is proved for testing robust stability independent of delay of interval quasipolynomials, p(s)+,eqk(s), where p and qk's are interval polynomials with uncertain coefficients. It is shown that the robust stability test of the quasipolynomial basically reduces to the stability test of a set of Kharitonov-like vertex quasipolynomials, where stability is interpreted as stability independent of delay. As discovered in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234), the well-known vertex-type robust stability result reported in (IMA J. Math. Contr. Info. 1988; 5:117,123) (See also (IEEE Trans. Circ. Syst. 1990; 37(7):969,972; Proc. 34th IEEE Conf. Decision Contr., New Orleans, LA, December 1995; 392,394) does contain a flaw. An alternative approach is proposed in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234), and both frequency sweeping and vertex type robust stability tests are developed for quasipolynomials with polytopic coefficient uncertainties. Under a specific assumption, it is shown in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234) that robust stability independent of delay of an interval quasipolynomial can be reduced to stability independent of delay of a set of Kharitonov-like vertex quasipolynomials. In this paper, we show that the assumption made in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234) is redundant, and the Kharitonov-like result reported in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234) is true without any additional assumption, and can be applied to all quasipolynomials. The key idea used in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234) was the equivalence of Hurwitz stability and , -o -stability for interval polynomials with constant term never equal to zero. This simple observation implies that the well-known Kharitonov theorem for Hurwitz stability can be applied for , -o -stability, provided that the constant term of the interval polynomial never vanishes. However, this line of approach is based on a specific assumption, which we call the CNF-assumption. In this paper, we follow a different approach: First, robust , -o -stability problem is studied in a more general framework, including the cases where degree drop is allowed, and the constant term as well as other higher-orders terms can vanish. Then, generalized Kharitonov-like theorems are proved for , -o -stability, and inspired by the techniques used in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234), it is shown that robust stability independent of delay of an interval quasipolynomial can be reduced to stability independent of delay of a set of Kharitonov-like vertex quasipolynomials, even if the assumption adopted in (IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 2008; 53:1219,1234) is not satisfied. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Timing structural change: a conditional probabilistic approachJOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMETRICS, Issue 2 2006David N. DeJong We propose a strategy for assessing structural stability in time-series frameworks when potential change dates are unknown. Existing stability tests are effective in detecting structural change, but procedures for identifying timing are imprecise, especially in assessing the stability of variance parameters. We present a likelihood-based procedure for assigning conditional probabilities to the occurrence of structural breaks at alternative dates. The procedure is effective in improving the precision with which inferences regarding timing can be made. We illustrate parametric and non-parametric implementations of the procedure through Monte Carlo experiments, and an assessment of the volatility reduction in the growth rate of US GDP. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Synthesis and characterization of chemically bonded stationary phases on hydride surfaces by hydrosilation of alkynes and dienesJOURNAL OF SEPARATION SCIENCE, JSS, Issue 18 2005Joseph J. Pesek Abstract A hydrosilation reaction was used to bind four compounds with one or more alkyne groups or two alkene functionalities. The diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform, the 29Si cross-polarization magic-angle spinning (CP-MAS) NMR, and the 13C CP-MAS NMR spectra were used to characterize the various bonded materials. The bonded phase density was determined from carbon elemental analysis. The two ten-carbon hydrophobic stationary phases were characterized chromatographically and static stability tests were run in acidic and basic solutions. [source] The monolithic multicell: a tool for testing material components in dye-sensitized solar cellsPROGRESS IN PHOTOVOLTAICS: RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS, Issue 2 2007Henrik Pettersson Abstract A multicell is presented as a tool for testing material components in encapsulated dye-sensitized solar cells. The multicell is based on a four-layer monolithic cell structure and an industrial process technology. Each multicell plate includes 24 individual well-encapsulated cells. A sulfur lamp corrected to the solar spectrum has been used to characterize the cells. Efficiencies up to 6·8% at a light-intensity of 1000,W/msu2 (up to 7·5% at 250,W/m2) have been obtained with an electrolyte solution based on ,-butyrolactone. Additionally, a promising long-term stability at cell efficiencies close to 5% at 1000,W/m2 has been obtained with an electrolyte based on glutaronitrile. The reproducibility of the cell performance before and after exposure to accelerated testing has been high. This means that the multicell can be used as an efficient tool for comparative performance and stability tests. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] New interdigital design for large area dye solar modules using a lead-free glass frit sealingPROGRESS IN PHOTOVOLTAICS: RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS, Issue 8 2006R. Sastrawan Abstract A new interdigital design for large area dye solar modules is developed for an area of 30×30,cm2. This design requires fewer holes in the glass substrate for electrolyte filling, than the conventional strip design. A complete manufacturing process of this module,ranging from screen printed layers to semi-automated colouring and electrolyte filling,in a laboratory-scale baseline is illustrated. As primary sealing method, a durable glass frit sealing is used. It is shown, that the lead (Pb) content present in many glass frit powders contaminates the catalytic platinum electrode during the sintering process, resulting in a lowering of the fill factor. A screen printable lead-free glass frit paste is developed, which solves this problem. Long term stability tests are presented on 2·5,cm2 dye solar cells, which have been completely sealed with glass frit. In consecutively performed accelerated ageing tests under 85°C in the dark (about 1400,h) and continuous illumination with visible light (1 sun, about 1700,h), a 2·5,cm2 dye solar cell with an electrolyte based on propylmethylimidazolium iodide showed an overall degradation of less than 5% in conversion efficiency. In a subsequently performed thermal cycling test (,40°C to +85°C, 50 cycles) a 2·5,cm2 dye solar cell with the same electrolyte composition also showed only a slight degradation of less than 5% in conversion efficiency. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] New method for the simultaneous estimation of intrinsic hepatic clearance and protein binding by matrix inhibitionBIOPHARMACEUTICS AND DRUG DISPOSITION, Issue 1 2008Takahide Uchimura Abstract The purpose of this study was to develop a method for estimating the hepatic clearance (CLh) without using a protein binding test. This method allows the simultaneous evaluation of the intrinsic hepatic clearance (CLint) with a correction for microsomal binding, and the free fraction in the serum (fu). It uses the decrease in metabolic velocity achieved by decreasing the free fraction of a compound in the incubation mixture (fuinc) by the addition of serum, and by changing the microsomal protein concentration. This method is denoted as the ,matrix inhibition method', because it uses the inhibition of the metabolic velocity by the incubation matrix. The metabolic rates of eight compounds (diazepam, imipramine, warfarin, and compounds A,E) were evaluated under several incubation conditions using rat serum and microsomes. The correlation of CLint evaluated using the method and using equilibrium dialysis after the CLint was corrected for microsomal binding was r,=,0.968. The correlation of fu,·,CLint was r,=,0.996. Although the method required a high enough fu and fumicrosomes difference among the reaction conditions for each compound, it could evaluate CLint and fu simultaneously and easily by adding additional reaction conditions to the metabolic stability tests performed in ADME screening. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||