Ammonia was synthesized from its elements at atmospheric pressure in a solid state proton (H+)-conducting cell-reactor. Hydrogen was flowing over the anode and was converted into protons that were transported through the solid electrolyte and reached the cathode (palladium) over which nitrogen was passing. At 570 degreesC and atmospheric pressure, greater than 78 percent of the electrochemically supplied hydrogen was converted into ammonia. The thermodynamic requirement for a high-pressure process is eliminated.

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry (MS) has developed over the past decade into a versatile tool for the analysis of nucleic acids and especially as a reliable genotyping platform. This chapter summarizes its use in the context of the most widely used MALDI-TOF MS genomics platform, the Sequenom MassARRAY system. MassARRAY genotyping is based upon region-specific PCR followed by allele-specific single base primer extension reactions which are then desalted, dispensed onto a silica array preloaded with matrix, and the genotyping products are resolved on the basis of mass using MALDI-TOF MS. The platform is versatile in that it can resolve multiplexed reactions (40+ separate loci per reaction), acquires and interprets data quickly, gives a quantitative output which reflects the amount of product generated for each allele within an assay for multiplexed reactions, and is highly sensitive. These characteristics coupled with integrated software for sequence annotation, assay design, data interpretation, and data storage have lead to its wide adoption and use for multiple nucleic acid analysis applications in both the realm of genomics research and molecular diagnostics.

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We conducted a large-scale association study to identify genes that influence nonfamilial breast cancer risk using a collection of German cases and matched controls and >25,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms located within 16,000 genes. One of the candidate loci identified was located on chromosome 19p13.2 [odds ratio (OR) ‫؍‬ 1.5, P ‫؍‬ 0.001]. The effect was substantially stronger in the subset of cases with reported family history of breast cancer (OR ‫؍‬ 3.4, P ‫؍‬ 0.001). The finding was subsequently replicated in two independent collections (combined OR ‫؍‬ 1.4, P < 0.001) and was also associated with predisposition to prostate cancer in an independent sample set of prostate cancer cases and matched controls (OR ‫؍‬ 1.4, P ‫؍‬ 0.002). High-density single nucleotide polymorphism mapping showed that the extent of association spans 20 kb and includes the intercellular adhesion molecule genes ICAM1, ICAM4, and ICAM5. Although genetic variants in ICAM5 showed the strongest association with disease status, ICAM1 is expressed at highest levels in normal and tumor breast tissue. A variant in ICAM5 was also associated with disease progression and prognosis. Because ICAMs are suitable targets for antibodies and small molecules, these findings may not only provide diagnostic and prognostic markers but also new therapeutic opportunities in breast and prostate cancer.

Genome-wide association studies using large numbers of bi-allelic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been proposed as a potentially powerful method for identifying genes involved in common diseases. To assemble a SNP collection appropriate for large-scale association, we designed assays for 226,099 publicly available SNPs located primarily within known and predicted gene regions. Allele frequencies were estimated in a sample of 92 CEPH Caucasians using chip-based MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry with pooled DNA. Of the 204,200 designed assays that were functional, 125,799 SNPs were determined to be polymorphic (minor allele frequency >0.02), of which 101,729 map uniquely to the human genome. Many of the commonly available RefSNP annotations were predictive of polymorphic status and could be used to improve the selection of SNPs from the public domain for genetic research. The set of uniquely mapping, polymorphic SNPs is located within 10 kb of 66% of known and predicted genes annotated in LocusLink, which could prove useful for large-scale disease association studies.[Supplemental material is available online at www.genome.org. The following individuals kindly provided reagents, samples, or unpublished information as indicated in the paper: E. Lai, and O. Osamu.]Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are the most abundant genetic variations in the human genome. They occur, on average, once every 300 base pairs of sequence with a minor allele frequency (MAF) greater than 1% (Kruglyak and Nickerson 2001;Stephens et al. 2001;Reich et al. 2003). The high abundance of SNPs and the availability of increasingly high-throughput and cost effective methods of measuring them encourage their use in many kinds of human genetic studies (Marnellos 2003). SNPs are of particular value in whole-genome association studies for identifying the genes involved in complex trait variation (Lander 1996;Risch and Merikangas 1996). The expected number of SNPs required for successful population-based association studies depends on the distribution of linkage disequilibrium (LD) across the genome in the populations of interest. The lengths of genomic segments in strong LD varies tremendously throughout the genome, ranging from less than 1 kilobase pairs (kb) to over 500 kb, with most blocks estimated to be less than 20 kb in Caucasian populations (Daly et al. 2001;Reich et al. 2001;Dawson et al. 2002;Gabriel et al. 2002;Clark et al. 2003). The international haplotype mapping (HapMap) project was initiated to characterize the patterns of LD throughout the human genome to help identify the most informative set of SNP markers for LD mapping (Gibbs et al. 2003).To explore the potential of large-scale association studies, we set out to develop a suitable collection of approximately 100,000 SNPs. With the HapMap project far from completion, the SNPs could not be selected on the basis of LD patterns. Since a collection of 100,000 SNPs would be far too few to provide dense coverage throughout the genome, we primarily focused on SNPs located with...

The present work aims at investigating the catalytic decomposition of N 2 O over CuO-CeO 2 single or mixed oxides prepared by different synthesis routes, i.e., impregnation, precipitation and exotemplating. To gain insight into the particular role of CeO 2 as well as of CuO-CeO 2 interactions, three different types of materials are prepared and tested for N 2 O decomposition both in the absence and presence of excess O 2 : (i) bare CeO 2 prepared by precipitation and exotemplating, (ii) CuO/CeO 2 oxides synthesized by impregnation of CeO 2 samples prepared in (i) with CuO and iii) single stage synthesized CuO-CeO 2 mixed oxides employing the coprecipitation and exotemplating methods. The corresponding commercial samples were also examined for comparison purposes. All materials were characterized by N 2 adsorption at -196 °C, X-ray diffraction (XRD), H 2 temperature-programmed reduction (H 2 -TPR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), micro-Raman spectroscopy (micro-Raman) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results demonstrated the key role of preparation procedure on the direct catalytic decomposition of N 2 O. Among the bare CeO 2 samples, the best performance was obtained with the samples prepared by the precipitation method, followed by exotemplating, while commercial CeO 2 showed the lowest performance. All bare oxides demonstrated low N 2 O conversion, never exceeding 40% at 600 °C. Amongst the CuO-CeO 2 oxides, the optimum performance was observed for those prepared by co-precipitation, which achieved complete N 2 O conversion at 550 ºC. In the presence of excess oxygen in the feed stream, a slight degradation is observed, with the sequence of deN 2 O performance to remain unchanged. The superiority of Cu-Ce mixed oxides prepared by precipitation compared to all other materials can be mainly ascribed to their excellent redox properties, linked to Ce 4+ /Ce 3+ and Cu 2+ /Cu + redox pairs. A redox mechanism for N 2 O catalytic decomposition is proposed involving N 2 O adsorption on Cu + sites and their regeneration through Cu-ceria interactions. and mobile emissions is nowadays a challenging environmental issue.Several after-treatment techniques have been developed for N 2 O abatement, including thermal decomposition 6 , non-selective catalytic reduction 4 , selective catalytic reduction 7,8 and direct catalytic decomposition 9-12 . Among these, direct catalytic decomposition of N 2 O (deN 2 O) is the most promising method, due to its high efficiency and low energy requirements. The decomposition of N 2 O has been studied on various catalytic systems, such as transition and noble metal catalysts, perovskites, hexaluminates, spinels, zeolites, etc 4,9,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] . In spite of the excellent catalytic performance of noble metals (NMs)-based catalysts, their high cost and sensitivity to oxygen poisoning limit their practical applications 9 . Therefore, the development of NMs-free catalysts of low cost and adequate de-N 2 O performance is of crucial importance from both practical ...

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