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The structure and function of biological macromolecules change due to intermolecular deuterium bond formation or deuterium substitution with environmental D2O. In this study, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) was used to detect interaction sites between D2O and ssDNA and their action mechanisms. SERS peaks of ssDNA changed with increasing D2O proportions, and the site of action mainly involved A and G bases, whose number strengthened the interaction between sequences and D2O and hence the SERS peak intensities. Fixing the number of A and G bases prevented changes in their positions from significantly altering the map. We also identified the interaction between ssDNA sequences that easily formed a G-quadruplex structure and D2O. The amplitude of the SERS peak intensity change reflected the ssDNA structural stability and number of active sites. These findings are highly significant for exploring genetic exchanges and mutations and could be used to determine the stability and structural changes of biological macromolecules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nucleic acids with G-quadruplex (G4) structures play an important role in physiological function, analysis and detection, clinical diagnosis and treatment, and new drug research and development. Aptamers obtained using systematic evolution of ligands via exponential enrichment (SELEX) screening technology do not always have the best affinity or binding specificity to ligands. Therefore, the establishment of a structure-oriented experimental method is of great significance. To study the potential of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) in aptamer optimization, marine biotoxin gonyautoxin (GTX)1/4 and its G4 aptamer obtained using SELEX were selected. The binding site and the induced fit of the aptamer to GTX1/4 were confirmed using SERS combined with two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy. The intensity of interaction between GTX1/4 and G4 was also quantified by measuring the relative intensity of SERS bands corresponding to intramolecular hydrogen bonds. Furthermore, the interaction between GTX1/4 and optimized aptamers was analyzed. The order of intensity change in the characteristic bands of G4 aptamers was consistent with the order of affinity calculated using microscale thermophoresis and molecular dynamics simulations. SERS provides a rapid, sensitive, and economical post-SELEX optimization of aptamers. It is also a reference for future research on other nucleic acid sequences containing G4 structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In iterative reconstruction algorithms, it is very important to calculate the weighting factor quickly and accurately, which directly affects the reconstruction efficiency and accuracy of computed tomography images. In this paper, a new calculation method for accurate length weighting factor is developed. Firstly, the ray equation is determined according to the coordinates of the source and the ray's projection. Second, the intersections of the ray and the equidistant parallel planes along three coordinate axes are calculated, and the points intersecting with the reconstructed object are put into a set. Finally, when the X‐axis coordinates of all points in the set are different, the points are arranged according to their X‐axis coordinates; when the X‐axis coordinates of all points are same, the points are arranged according to their Y‐axis coordinates. The sorted point set is the intersections that the ray traverses the reconstructed object in sequence. The index and weighting factor of all voxels that the ray passes through can be determined by the sorted point set. Compared with the classical Siddon's method, it avoids the step of describing the intersections with parameters, and its calculation speed is increased by nearly 20%. The numerical simulations and real data reconstruction experiments are conducted to validate the proposed calculation method of exact length weighting factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many applications of circular cone-beam computed tomography (CT), it is common that the reconstructed specimens are plate-like. In this paper, a novel method is presented to reconstruct plate-like specimens in a super-short scan, thus reducing imaging time and increasing practical CT system throughput. The algorithm of the proposed method is an improved backprojection-filtration (BPF) algorithm using an integral operator with a fixed integral interval. The results of numerical simulation and real data reconstructions show that the proposed method is a good choice for reconstructions of plate-like specimens, because not only can it yield images with a quality comparable to those obtained with existing algorithms, but it can also reduce imaging time and increase CT system throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

.In this note, some results concerning Abel ergodicity of quasi-pseudo-resolvents are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper deals with some mathematical models of a class of chemical ions exchange reactions which take place in the process of transport of ground water in aquifer. These models can be described by the system of four strongly coupled reaction-diffusion equations. The existence, uniqueness and boundedness of the global solutions for this kind of models axe proved by using the classical analysis and methods, such as semigroup theorey, upper -lower solutions method and energy integral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, two kinds of initial boundary value problems for Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation are considered. Some prior estimates are derived by Galerkin methods. The existence, uniqueness and regularities of the generalized global solutions and the classical global solutions for the equation are proved. Morever, the asymptotic behavior of these solutions are considered under some conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In computed tomography (CT) image reconstruction, the iterative algorithms have many advantages that the analytic algorithms don't have. However, the calculation of system matrix is time-consuming, which affects their application in real-time CT image reconstruction. In this paper, a fast system matrix calculation method is proposed on the basis of that the distance between the voxel and the adjacent rays reflects the contribution of the voxel to the ray projections. Firstly, every voxel is projected at a projection angle, and then the weighting factor is determined according to the distance between the voxel's projection and the adjacent ray projection on the detector. Finally, the ray equations and weighting factors corresponding to every voxel at all projection angles are obtained. The calculation amount of the proposed method are greatly improved compared with the current grid traversal (GT) method, and it has good parallel computing performance. In the simulation experiment, the Shepp-Logan head phantom is reconstructed by using the proposed system matrix calculation method and algebraic reconstruction technique (ART). Compared with GT method, its cost is reduced by nearly 30 %, and its acceleration ratio is four times that of the GT method. The experimental results show that it is a fast and effective method to calculate the system matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]