Filaments are ubiquitous structures in molecular clouds and play an important role in the mass assembly of stars. We present results of dynamical stability analyses for filaments in the infrared dark ...cloud G14.225−0.506, where a delayed onset of massive star formation was reported in the two hubs at the convergence of multiple filaments of parsec length. Full-synthesis imaging is performed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array to map the emission in two hub-filament systems with a spatial resolution of ∼0.034 pc. Kinematics are derived from a sophisticated spectral fitting algorithm that accounts for line blending, large optical depth, and multiple velocity components. We identify five velocity coherent filaments and derive their velocity gradients with principal component analysis. The mass accretion rates along the filaments are up to and are significant enough to affect the hub dynamics within one freefall time (∼105 yr). The filaments are in equilibrium with virial parameter vir ∼ 1.2. We compare vir measured in the filaments, filaments, 870 m dense clumps, and 3 mm dense cores. The decreasing trend in vir with decreasing spatial scales persists, suggesting an increasingly important role of gravity at small scales. Meanwhile, vir also decreases with decreasing nonthermal motions. In combination with the absence of high-mass protostars and massive cores, our results are consistent with the global hierarchical collapse scenario.
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•Fast generation of W/O and O/W emulsions with low-reagent consumption.•Images show the initial formation of the emulsion by cavitation bubbles.•Emulsion droplet diameter is ...independent of ultrasound power.•Emulsions with different HLB values were formed in continuous flow.•Submicron polymeric particles with low dispersity were synthesized from miniemulsions.
The use of ultrasound to generate mini-emulsions (50 nm to 1 μm in diameter) and nanoemulsions (mean droplet diameter < 200 nm) is of great relevance in drug delivery, particle synthesis and cosmetic and food industries. Therefore, it is desirable to develop new strategies to obtain new formulations faster and with less reagent consumption. Here, we present a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based microfluidic device that generates oil-in-water or water-in-oil mini-emulsions in continuous flow employing ultrasound as the driving force. A Langevin piezoelectric attached to the same glass slide as the microdevice provides enough power to create mini-emulsions in a single cycle and without reagents pre-homogenization. By introducing independently four different fluids into the microfluidic platform, it is possible to gradually modify the composition of oil, water and two different surfactants, to determine the most favorable formulation for minimizing droplet diameter and polydispersity, employing less than 500 µL of reagents. It was found that cavitation bubbles are the most important mechanism underlying emulsions formation in the microchannels and that degassing of the aqueous phase before its introduction to the device can be an important factor for reduction of droplet polydispersity. This idea is demonstrated by synthetizing solid polymeric particles with a narrow size distribution starting from a mini-emulsion produced by the device.
Sub-nanoliter droplets produced in microfluidic devices have gained an enormous importance for performing all kinds of biochemical assays. One of the main reasons is that the amounts of reagents ...employed can be reduced in approximately five orders of magnitude compared to conventional microplate assays. In this chapter, we describe how to carry out the design, fabrication, and operation of a microfluidic device that allows performing enzyme kinetics and enzyme inhibition assays in droplets. This procedure can be used effectively to screen a small size library of compounds. Then, we describe how to use this droplet microfluidic setup to screen for potential inhibitor compounds eluted from a coupled high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system that separates crude natural extracts.
A new species of oak gall wasp, Andricus coombesi Pujade-Villar & Prez-Torres n. sp. from Mexico, known only from its asexual generation that induces galls on acorns of Quercus grahamii Benth., ...(section Lobatae) is described. Its presence causes the complete disappearance of the acorn. Diagnosis, distribution and biological data of the new species are given. Andricus coombesi Pujade-Villar & Prez-Torres n. sp. represents the first gall wasp species mentioned from this host.
Formation of stars is now believed to be tightly linked to the dynamical evolution of interstellar filaments in which they form. In this paper we analyze the density structure and kinematics of a ...small network of infrared dark filaments, SDC13, observed in both dust continuum and molecular line emission with the IRAM 30 m telescope. These observations reveal the presence of 18 compact sources amongst which the two most massive, MM1 and MM2, are located at the intersection point of the parsec-long filaments. The dense gas velocity and velocity dispersion observed along these filaments show smooth, strongly correlated, gradients. We discuss the origin of the SDC13 velocity field in the context of filament longitudinal collapse. We show that the collapse timescale of the SDC13 filaments (from 1 Myr to 4 Myr depending on the model parameters) is consistent with the presence of Class I sources in them, and argue that, on top of bringing more material to the centre of the system, collapse could generate additional kinematic support against local fragmentation, helping the formation of starless super-Jeans cores.
•Label-free optical sensor to distinguish biochemical substances and cell suspensions.
We present a novel and low-cost optical sensor to obtain at the same time, fast and label-free optical ...information such as reflectivity, refractive index and extinction coefficient of biochemical samples. The sensor measures in around one minute optical internal reflectivity as a function of the angle of incidence at the interface between a glass prism covered by a gold nanofilm (≈20 nm) in contact with a liquid sample (≈10 µL). The nanofilm is thin enough that a large fraction of the incident light transmits through it at angles of incidence below the critical angle set by the prism and sample refractive indices (≈ 61°), but thick enough to present a Surface Plasmon Resonance dip for angles of incidence beyond that critical angle. The calculated sensitivity of SPR to the surface refractive index is 168.35 deg/RIU. We demonstrate that when a sample contains live bacteria (E. coli) the whole reflectivity curve including the SPR region is clearly affected, and to adjust a theoretical model to the experimental curves, it is necessary to assume a complex refractive index of the nanofilm appreciably different than that of gold. The optical curve of the sensor provides more information than a conventional SPR measurements offering a more complete strategy for the analysis of biochemical substances and bacterial cell suspensions.
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Water-in-oil microdroplets in microfluidics are well-defined individual picoliter reaction compartments and, as such, have great potential for quantitative high-throughput biological screening. This, ...however, depends upon contents of the droplets not leaking out into the oil phase. To assess the mechanism of possible leaking, the retention of various fluorescein derivatives from droplets formed in mineral oil and stored for hours in a reservoir on chip was studied. Leaking into the oil phase was observed and was shown to be dependent on the nature of the compounds and on the concentration of the silicone-based polymeric surfactant Abil EM 90 used. In experiments in which droplets filled with fluorescein were mixed with droplets filled with only buffer, the rate of efflux from filled droplets to empty droplets was dependent on the number of neighboring droplets of different composition. Buffer droplets with five fluorescein-containing neighbors took up the fluorophore 4.5 times faster than buffer droplets without fluorescein neighbors. The addition of bovine serum albumin (BSA) substantially reduced leaking. A formulation with 5% BSA reduces leaking of the fluorophore from 45% to 3%. Inclusion of BSA enabled experiments to be carried out over periods up to 18 h, without substantial leaking (<5%). We demonstrate the utility of this additive by following the enzymatic activity of alkaline phosphatase expressed by Escherichia coli cells. The ability to reliably compartmentalize genotype (cell) and phenotype (reaction product) is the basis for using microdroplets in directed evolution studies, and the approaches described herein provide a test system for assessing emulsion formulations for such purposes.
A microfluidic device capable of storing picoliter droplets containing single bacteria at constant volumes has been fabricated in PDMS. Once captured in droplets that remain static in the device, ...bacteria express both a red fluorescent protein (mRFP1) and the enzyme, alkaline phosphatase (AP), from a biscistronic construct. By measuring the fluorescence intensity of both the mRFP1 inside the cells and a fluorescent product formed as a result of the enzymatic activity outside the cells, gene expression and enzymatic activity can be simultaneously and continuously monitored. By collecting data from many individual cells, the distribution of activities in a cell is quantified and the difference in activity between two AP mutants is measured.
We describe the development of an enzyme assay inside picoliter microdroplets. The enzyme alkaline phosphatase is expressed in Escherichia coli cells and presented in the periplasm. Droplets act as ...discrete reactors which retain and localize any reaction product. The catalytic turnover of the substrate is measured in individual droplets by monitoring the fluorescence at several time points within the device and exhibits kinetic behavior similar to that observed in bulk solution. Studies on wild type and a mutant enzyme successfully demonstrated the feasibility of using microfluidic droplets to provide time-resolved kinetic measurements.
Abstract
We present the first data release of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope Plane Survey (JPS), the JPS Public Release 1. JPS is an 850-μm continuum survey of six fields in the northern inner ...Galactic plane in a longitude range of ℓ = 7°–63°, made with the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array 2. This first data release consists of emission maps of the six JPS regions with an average pixel-to-pixel noise of 7.19 mJy beam−1, when smoothed over the beam, and a compact source catalogue containing 7813 sources. The 95 per cent completeness limits of the catalogue are estimated at 0.04 Jy beam−1 and 0.3 Jy for the peak and integrated flux densities, respectively. The emission contained in the compact source catalogue is 42 ± 5 per cent of the total and, apart from the large-scale (greater than 8 arcmin) emission, there is excellent correspondence with features in the 500-μm Herschel maps. We find that, with two-dimensional matching, 98 ± 2 per cent of sources within the fields centred at ℓ = 20°, 30°, 40° and 50° are associated with molecular clouds, with 91 ± 3 per cent of the ℓ = 30° and 40° sources associated with dense molecular clumps. Matching the JPS catalogue to Herschel 70-μm sources, we find that 38 ± 1 per cent of sources show evidence of ongoing star formation. The JPS Public Release 1 images and catalogue will be a valuable resource for studies of star formation in the Galaxy and the role of environment and spiral arms in the star formation process.
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