A new method for quantifying Cu in nuclear debris samples.

Quantifying Cu in post-detonation nuclear debris samples can provide important diagnostic information regarding the structural materials used within a nuclear device. However, this task is challenging due to the weak gamma emissions associated with the decay of Cu, its short half-life (12.701 h), and the presence of interfering fission product radioisotopes.

Chemical separation and measurement of platinum activation products.

A method has been developed to purify and measure platinum radioisotopes in the presence of fission products and environmental constituents. The method uses a combination of cation exchange and anion exchange chromatography and selective precipitation steps to remove other radioisotopes from the sample. The addition of stable platinum carrier allows for a gravimetric determination of the chemical yield of the procedure.

Automated genomic context analysis and experimental validation platform for discovery of prokaryote transcriptional regulator functions.

Background: The clustering of genes in a pathway and the co-location of functionally related genes is widely recognized in prokaryotes. We used these characteristics to predict the metabolic involvement for a Transcriptional Regulator (TR) of unknown function, identified and confirmed its biological activity.

Results: A software tool that identifies the genes encoded within a defined genomic neighborhood for the subject TR and its homologs was developed.