Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance was used to investigate the ion exchange behavior of polypyrrole (PPy) films doped with multicharged sulfated β‐cyclodextrin (βCD) or 4‐sulfonic calix[6]arene (C6S) immersed in 0.1 M KNO3, Ca(NO3)2 and Mn(NO3)2. The PPy films showed mixed ion exchange behavior in KNO3 and Ca(NO3)2 solutions, but the ion exchange behavior was more cationic in Mn(NO3)2. In all cases, ion pair formation was observed between cations from the electrolyte and the negatively charged sulfonate groups of the dopant anions. It was also observed that the PPy films became more swollen in Mn(NO3)2 solution than in the other electrolytes.

Magnetic quartz crystal microbalance is a new instrument that allows determination of magneto-acoustic parameters of thin magnetic films. The analysis in this paper is based on simple Butterworth-van-Dyke oscillator model. To demonstrate the use of the new instrument, CuNi magnetic alloy has been electroplated on a gold electrode of a quartz crystal microbalance substrate. The magneto-acoustic admittance and magneto-acoustic capacitance of the alloy film were measured in the static magnetic field between 0 and 10.00 kG, at room temperature.

Background: Orofacial clefts (OFCs) are common congenital disabilities that can occur as isolated non-syndromic events or as part of Mendelian syndromes. OFC risk factors vary due to differences in regional environmental exposures, genetic variants, and ethnicities. In recent years, significant progress has been made in understanding OFCs, due to advances in sequencing and genotyping technologies. Despite these advances, very little is known about the genetic interplay in the Malagasy population. Methods: Here, we performed high-resolution whole-exome sequencing (WES) on non-syndromic cleft lip with or without palate (nCL/P) trios in the Malagasy population (78 individuals from 26 families (trios)). To integrate the impact of genetic ancestry admixture, we computed both global and local ancestries. Results: Participants demonstrated a high percentage of both African and Asian admixture. We identified damaging variants in primary cilium-mediated pathway genes WNT5B (one family), GPC4 (one family), co-occurrence in MSX1 (five families), WDR11 (one family), and tubulin stabilizer SEPTIN9 (one family). Furthermore, we identified an autosomal homozygous damaging variant in PHGDH (one family) gene that may impact metabiotic activity. Lastly, all variants were predicted to reside on local Asian genetic ancestry admixed alleles. Conclusion: Our results from examining the Malagasy genome provide limited support for the hypothesis that germline variants in primary cilia may be risk factors for nCL/P, and outline the importance of integrating local ancestry components better to understand the multi-ethnic impact on nCL/P.

A new technique for using quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) in magnetic field is described. This technique takes advantage of the sensitive nature of QCM to load changes. The idea is to perturb the oscillations of a QCM with deposited magnetic materials by applying magnetic field. A new instrument called magnetic QCM (MQCM) has been constructed to explore this technique. Past MQCM investigations have shown that QCM frequency and phase responds to magnetic nano-dispersions in elastic non-magnetic matrix and also to alternating layers of ferromagnetic and diamagnetic materials. We have found that this type of alternating multilayer structure on QCM is very sensitive to weak magnetic fields.