Previous paleoenvironmental studies reported the dD values of a mixture of coeluting alkenones. Here, we present a semi-preparative normal-phase high-performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (NP-HPLC–MS) method for purifying long chain (C37 and C38) unsaturated methyl and ethyl ketones (alkenones) on the basis of chain length and degree of unsaturation. The method was applied to puri...

The performance of a gas chromatography-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometry system (GC-C-IRMS) with respect to the dependence of delta(13)C values on the amount of sample is presented. Particular attention is paid to the localization of the amount-dependent isotopic fractionation within the system. Injection experiments with varying amounts of gases (CO(2), n-hexane, and toluene) reveale...

Deuterium oxide dilution space (DOS) determination is one of the most accurate methods for in vivo estimation of ruminant body composition. However, the time-consuming vacuum sublimation of blood preceding infrared spectroscopy analysis, which is traditionally used to determine deuterium oxide (DO) concentration, limits its current use. The use of isotope-ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) to deter...

There is a growing need for novel vaccine adjuvants that can provide safe and potent T-helper type 1 (Th1) activity. RNA-like immune response modifiers (IRMs) are candidate T-cell adjuvants that skew acquired immune responses towards a Th1 phenotype. We set out to delineate the essential signaling pathways by which the RNA-like IRMs, resiquimod (R-848) and polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid (poly ...

This paper introduces a study aiming to measure the Flow state (Csikszentmihalyi 1996) of children playing with the MIRORImprovisation prototype, an Interactive Reflexive Musical System (IRMS) implemented in the framework of the EU-ICT Project MIROR-Music Interaction Relaying On Reflexion. The IRMS have been defined as Flow machine, thanks to their ability to imitate the style of the human play...

A newly developed isotope ratio laser spectrometer for CO2 analyses has been tested during a tracer experiment at the Ketzin pilot site (northern Germany) for CO2 storage. For the experiment, 500 tons of CO2 from a natural CO2 reservoir was injected in supercritical state into the reservoir. The carbon stable isotope value (δ(13)C) of injected CO2 was significantly different from background val...

In a preliminary study, paired indoor and outdoor air sampling was conducted at three locations around the city of Lancaster, UK to examine the influence of combustion sources on air quality by measuring particulate concentrations, particulate magnetic properties and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). With one exception (an indoor suburban air sample), outdoor air samples had higher total suspen...